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Jordan
Never has a girl made me feel so many things all at once, spilling from my chest and coating my world in all the words I want to say. I grip the pen around my neck, wanting to fold myself in until I’m a black and oozing puddle of ink. I’m a complete idiot for saying what I did. Annie dumped me. She cheated on me. Not once. Multiple times.
Round and round Annie goes, but she always ends up back at me. I always stand still, waiting to catch her, waiting to get her back, but this time someone else passed by my door. She paused on the threshold, and I told her to go away because I am expecting someone else.
“You’re such an asshole,” I mutter to myself as I turn the corner and almost bump noses with Annie. She’s without Boy-Toy, and her eyes are narrowed at me. Evan was right—her words were perfect. I like her. I’m drawn to her. But not enough to forget about Annie.
“Who’s the girl, Jordie?” she asks in a tone that would be suitable if she wasn’t already here with someone whose name I know but refuse to use. Before I open my mouth, my body does the first smart thing it’s done all day. I step to the side, around Annie, and walk away.
“She’s using you!” Annie yells after me.
The music hits me hard as I enter the club and almost all the tables are empty. Bodies pack the dance floor while Lemming Garden plays their signature radio song. I lean against the wall next to the spot I wrote the note to Annie. I’m not your problem anymore... I so desperately want to absorb that phrase into the blackness of my soul and use it as a light to guide me out of this mess.
A body leans against the wall next to me, and her sugary smell wraps me up. My head lolls to the side. I glance at Evan, who studies the band with a fascination I envy. She feels the song about lost love somewhere deep inside her, and I am overcome with needing a glimpse behind the bars in her eyes.
“I didn’t mean to make you feel rejected, Evan.” I lean down to her ear, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the band. “I think you’re pretty amazing, but I still love—”
“Shhh,” she says, her eyes flicking from me to the band. “Love’s a terrible word. You should know that. It’s the emptiest word in existence. Don’t say it.”
My jaw drops, and I say the word in my head. I sound out the letters, I construct the word, attempting to figure out what she means while she sways to the song. She holds the water bottle in one hand while the one closest to me hangs at her side, her fingers twitching to the beat of the song. I can’t stop my own hand from reaching for her. I run my index finger from her wrist to the tip of her pinky, and she turns to me. Her gaze dissolves the room around us.
“You’re really throwing out mixed signals, you know that? Are we friends now, or am I just a bet?” She tries to joke, but I hear the undercurrent of seriousness. Make up your mind, Jordan, her eyes say. I don’t believe the word love is empty, but I can tell she definitely does.
“Evan you were never just a bet. I’m sorry if I made you think that.” I scratch my neck. That really makes me sound like a jerk. Maybe I shouldn’t have told her. But not telling her would have made me feel like a jerk. I’m not sure which is worse.
She crosses her arms and keeps watching the band. I keep watching her, keep wanting to figure out what she’s about. After a few seconds, she smiles.
“You are a definitely a poet.” She bumps my arm with her shoulder as the song shifts to a bouncier tune.
“Why do you say that?”
“You live in parallel universes. You move in and out of yourself, you’re shifting constantly. Sometimes you’re here. Sometimes you’re somewhere I wish I could be, too. Sometimes you’re somewhere I don’t think anyone else is allowed to go...” She leans closer, making everything swirl through me at once. “You’re doing it right now.”
“Am I?” I lie, but I know what’s she’s talking about. My focus zooms in and out from concept to fine detail in seconds, sometimes simultaneously. Evan puts her fingertips on my chest and spreads her hand out until her palm is flat over my heart.
“There’s a lot that goes on in here. And while I’d like to be angry with you that you made me into a bet, at least you didn’t lie about it.”
She pushes me playfully but doesn’t drop her hand from my chest.
“I am nothing if not honest.”
She tilts her head to the side; something worrisome bounces across her features, but she holds my gaze, studying me unlike anyone ever has. Almost like she’s dissecting me.
“Something about you is familiar to me. That probably sounds crazy.”
“Other than our names?” I am still not ready to let down the teasing facade, partly because I don’t want her to move her hand, and partly because I’m afraid that when she does, she’ll see what I hide behind it. "I think that's called fate."
Evan scoffs. "Fate is for suckers."
"You really believe that, don't you?" I feel the seriousness creeping into the space between us.
"I do."
"So what is this, then?" I put my hand over hers and press it harder into my chest.
“Something about you interests me. Makes me curious. You’ve lost something that you’re trying to get back,” she says, and I suck in all the air I can handle.
“Yeah, my heart.” I laugh, but Evan’s gaze falls along with her hand. She tightens her grip around her water bottle and steps away. I catch her wrist, and she stops but doesn’t turn to face me as I guide her back to me.
“Did I hit your sore spot?” I pull her until she’s leaning against the wall again. “Who was he?”
Her eyes go blank. “No one.”
“Right.” I’m not sure where this coldness came from, but she shouldn’t be allowed to pry into my life and then give me the silent treatment.
This time I see it clearly. All those bars on her eyes are not meant to keep things inside but to keep other people out.
“I’ve never been in love,” she says, gazing at the band.
“That’s too bad,” I reply.
"What's that mean?"
I shrug. The music of Lemming Garden pounds through me, and through her silence I hear the drawn out lyrics of the male lead singer, Steve. The words are sucked through my chest and into her eyes.
Let's pretend for the night,
that it’s perfect and true.
We know it’ll end,
Baby, just for tonight
let’s see this thing through...
The words aren’t genius, they follow no pattern, they were written to sell music. But the lyrics seep into me, and I want to re-write them. Re-write them better. Truer.
With Evan.
“I bet I can make you fall in love,” I say as the music stops for a dramatic effect halfway through the song, and Evan’s eyes pop.
“What?”
It takes me a second to re-group from the sound of my voice and the silence of the room around me. I clear my throat, aware I can’t take it back now.
“I bet I can make you fall in love with me.”
“In one night?” She breathes it out disbelieving, so I have to double down on my promise.
“Yup. One night. We have nothing to lose. You said yourself I’m a poet, so from what I hear, poets are really good at love.”
“Why?”
Her untrusting expression settles her features for almost an entire song. I think of the words I wrote outside the door to the club. Run your fingers over the rough surface of my heart.
My fingers. Her heart. Not the other way around like I originally intended.
“Because this whole thing is weird, and I think we owe it to ourselves to see it through. Because we are here together for a reason, and I don’t know what that reason is. Because my buddy made a bet with me, and I say we change the bet so it’s good for both of us. Because it could be fun, and we both win.” I slide my fingers down her arm and link our fingers together.
“How do you figure?” She tilts her chin to her chest so I lift our hands between us. My skin tingles with her touch, and the depth of my attraction to her pulses through me.
"Because I know you feel it when we touch," I say, squeezing her hand. “Because I need to get over Annie, and because you’ve never been in love. Because you seem to be harboring some serious pain in your heart, and I’d like to show you that the word doesn’t have to be empty.”
“I’m not going to have sex with you, if that’s what your bet was about,” Evan says abruptly with a straight face, and I laugh so loud she jumps.
“I’ll be a perfect gentleman. The bet never existed. Rick never defined what he meant by hooking up, and you kissed me, so I already consider it done. Plus, sex has nothing to do with love.”
The way her cheeks go red proves she is as experienced with guys as she says—not at all. “Yes, it does.”
I slide my fingertips along her jaw. “Nah, that’s what guys who want sex say to get sex. Sex is about attraction, not love. You can feel a sexual attraction with people you don’t love, and you can love people you are not attracted to. That’s how I see it, anyway. It might surprise you to know I’ve only ever had sex with one person. So my theory is just that. A theory.”
"But I am attracted to you..." Her voice is hushed, drowned out by the music, but my body hears her. Her cheeks burn red hot.
I hold out my hand to her. "Complete gentleman," I say, as she stares at my open palm. "Plus, we aren't experimenting in attraction, we are redefining the word love. That means we can define it any way we want to."
Evan’s jaw moves like she speaking, but there’s no sound, or air for that matter. After a long painful while, she puts her hand in mine, and I feel like I’ve already accomplished half the battle.
“So, what do you say, Evan Jordans? Will you fall in love with me tonight?”
She frowns to cover her smile, but like the morning sun, it’s brightness is just below the surface and, no matter what, it has to rise.
“Do I have to say it? Like, do I have to use the word?”
She makes a face that says she really does hate the word ‘love’ so I grab the pen from around my neck.
“Only if you feel it.” I take her wrist in my hand, and I slide her sleeve up like I did before.
This is insane, but after everything I’ve been through, I need to do something insane. Something completely different. Entirely asinine.
I need to fall in love with a stranger.
The lingering taste of Evan’s lips and how she shoved Annie aside to kiss me is exactly the kind of insane I need.