My last girlfriend, Talia, was unfailingly kind. She said hi to everyone, gave her time and energy to helping others. She was dependable, too, like me I guess. That’s why it was such a shock when she stood me up. We were supposed to meet for brunch after finals in junior year. She was going to meet Amy and my mom, officially. She just never showed, which was embarrassing enough. What was worse was that when she finally responded to my texts, it was to tell me she wanted to see other people.
So maybe I’m just overly sensitive to the whole experience. But somehow, even that rejection can’t quite compare to being stood up by Corrine. I waited in that room for an hour and a half. I texted her, called, but never got an answer.
I throw myself on the couch, loosening my tie and flicking through television channels. Amy won’t be back until at least midnight. But she said she’d probably go out with friends after and I plan to be in my room with the door closed by the time she gets home.
I pick up my phone, my finger hovering over Corrine’s contact information, when it starts to ring. Like I’ve conjured her from thin air. Too bad I didn’t have that power an hour ago.
Instead of Corrine’s face showing up on my screen, it’s a picture of her hand, splayed out on her bed. She wouldn’t let me take a picture of her face to put in my phone. She won’t let me take any pictures of her. At all. Because she says it would be too hard to explain why I have photos of my boss on my phone if anyone ever saw them. So, I took a picture of her hand and her painted red nails because they reminded me of her red lipstick and her red glasses and because I’m a pathetic loser.
“Hi,” she says quietly.
“Hi.”
“Can you let me in?”
I frown at the phone screen. “Where are you?”
“Outside your house.”
I stand. “Oh.” I make my way to the door slowly, mostly out of spite.
“Hi,” I say again as I open the door, still holding the phone to my ear.
“I went to the restaurant,” she says, hugging her stomach.
I end the call. “Did you go to the right restaurant?”
She kicks a hole into the welcome mat. “People from work were there. Richard was there.”
“So you stood me up?”
“Wesley,” she sighs.
I pull the door open farther. “Come in.”
She follows me into the living room, toeing off her heels and laying her coat over the back of the couch. She sits right on the edge of the couch, like she can make a quicker getaway that way. “Richard spotted me the second I walked in the door. I panicked. I didn’t want him to see us there together.”
“You could have lied,” I say.
“No.” She picks at her fingernail but her voice is firm. “It was too risky. The whole idea was too risky.”
“You could have just told them you were meeting someone.” I try to keep my voice level and calm. She was right to be nervous but I was still the one left sitting in that room alone.
“They’d wonder why I was in a private room. I didn’t know what to say.”
“You could have said exactly: I have a date. In a private room. With a guy who gives me multiple orgasms.”
She glares at me. I’m being childish, I know. I shake out my hands.
“I understand why you didn’t come but you could have at least answered one of my texts.”
She says nothing, leaving us in infuriating, empty silence.
“Or any of my calls.”
Still nothing.
“So that’s all you have to say?” I take a deep breath when I hear the anger in my voice. I sound too much like my father right now and I hate it.
“I’m sorry.” She puts her hand on my knee. “I’m sorry, Wesley.” That’s the problem. I know she is. It makes it so much harder to be mad at her. She leans forward, puts her other hand on my chest.
“Wes,” she whispers. She leans forward and kisses my throat. I close my eyes and swallow against the bolt of electricity that her touch sends straight to my dick. She starts to unbutton my shirt and I put my hand over hers.
“I think we need to talk about this.” I shift away from her.
“What else do you want me to say?” Anger coats her voice. “I said I was sorry.”
“I’d prefer if you didn’t try to fuck this problem away,” I say quietly. The fact that she’d just throw sex at me like that will solve any of this makes me feel small and insignificant and dirtier than I expect. “Don’t think I don’t notice every time we have heavy conversations. You’d rather be...intimate than talk to me.” I stumble over my words. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining, I just...”
I stand, trying to put some distance between us. “It was just...a shitty thing you did. You might not know what it feels like to be stood up. But I do,” I say, hitting my chest a little too hard. “Has anyone stood you up before, Corrine?”
She opens her mouth. Closes it. Repeat.
“Well, I have. I’ve waited for someone to show, worried if they’re okay, hoping there was just some misunderstanding, wondering if they’re laughing at me.” I look away, too ashamed to meet her eyes. “And it’s embarrassing and it hurts. You embarrassed me. You made me feel like some dirty secret.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and she lifts her chin in that way she has—so that even though she’s shorter than me she still seems like she’s looking down at me.
“I don’t think I should have to apologize because I care about my career. And yours. I’m trying very hard to keep both of us employed.”
I expect the hurt to hit me like a punch to the gut but really, it’s more like a burn that I can’t feel at first. Expectation, numbness, then the throbbing.
So this is what it feels like to know you’re not good enough.
It feels like complete shit.
It feels like your heart breaking. Like the hurt, the realization comes over me slowly, creeping up my spine. It hurts this much for a reason. Because I love her. Even though she hurt me and I’m fucking pissed at her, I get it. I hate that she’s hurting, too, and it’s because I love her that I want to take it away. I want to take her in my arms and run my fingers through her hair, tell her everything will be okay. Do everything I can to make it true. But she’s closed to me right now. And besides, she’s the reason I feel this way at all.
“I think that we should table this for now. We can talk more on Monday,” Corrine says, gathering her coat.
I laugh but none of this is funny. Only I would realize I was in love with someone because she stood me up. “Fine. I’ll make sure to put it in the agenda for the Monday meeting.”
She stops at the door, turning to face me. But whatever I think she’s going to say, she doesn’t. Her jaw hardens and her lips purse and she’s gone before she’s actually left.
Amy and Jeremy sway to the hip-hop pumping through the speakers. Emily smiles at me over the rim of her glass. Maybe it’s the warm and sunny weather that’s blanketed Boston or the fact that the Sox are playing like kings this season but the city seems energetic, fresh, and it’s rubbed off on everyone.
“Thanks for organizing this,” I yell across the circle to Emily. The email invitation for a happy hour event that rolled into my inbox on Sunday afternoon was exactly what I needed. Something to be excited about that wasn’t Corrine.
Emily nods in time with the music.
I lean closer, unsure if she heard me. “And thanks for letting me invite non-work people.”
I’d been feeling guilt for lying to Jeremy the other day. So I invited him and Amy as an apology they maybe didn’t know was necessary. It hasn’t been nearly as awkward as I thought it might be, mixing my old-friend group with new people. Probably, I haven’t given Jeremy enough credit. He can make friends with anyone.
She waves my words away. “Of course! The more the merrier. Too bad Corrine couldn’t come, though,” Emily yells, leaning into the middle of the circle to address me directly.
I take a sip of beer. I didn’t realize how addicted to Corrine I’d become until we went a whole weekend without speaking. Other than a few work-related emails she sent on Sunday night, we’ve had zero contact. She was stone-faced through a client meeting this morning and stayed closed up in her office all day.
“She’s pretty busy, I think.”
I turn back to my sister and Jeremy but I can still feel Emily’s gaze on the side of my face. She’s been doing this since we arrived, staring at me in a way that sends alarm bells down my spine.
I feel my phone signal a message in my pocket but I ignore it while Abila and Marisol regale us with their tales of woe from Accounting. I have a beer but it’s mostly for show. It feels strange to drink in front of colleagues. Abila is in the middle of a rant about invoicing when Emily slams her drink onto the high-top table beside us.
“Holy fucking shit,” Emily yells.
Abila scowls at the interruption but her expression quickly morphs into one of shock. “Oh. Oh my god.”
Amy, Jeremy, and I turn, following their gazes, and I nearly drop my beer bottle. Holding her stark-white coat folded over her arm, Corrine leans against the bar as the bartender passes a tumbler of clear liquid across the dark wood. We watch in silence as she comes toward us, stopping a few feet shy of joining the group. “Hello.”
I bite my cheek to hide my smile. I think if anyone saw it they’d know that my feelings for this woman go far beyond professional respect.
Emily recovers first. “You made it!”
She reaches for her, grabbing Corrine and pulling her into the circle, reminding her of the others’ names, and introducing her to Jeremy. Amy and Corrine share a secret, awkward smile as they shake hands.
The group starts chatting but I can’t stop staring at her. She smiles slightly as Abila continues her story, a little more subdued and with way less swearing than before. Emily grins the entire time and Corrine listens intently, her eyes flicking to mine once, again, and again.
I’m supposed to be spending time with my sister and my friend. But now I feel like a compass needle, constantly having to move my gaze away from her true north. I shift my weight and look everywhere except at her but it feels like every time I let my guard down, blink, she’s there.
I pull my phone from my pocket and find the text message from earlier. It’s from Corrine.
Are you still at the bar?
I reply, Not that I’m not happy to see you but...what are you doing here?
I hit send and a few moments later she reaches into her coat pocket, turning her body slightly away from Emily. Her lips purse as she types.
Just wanted to see you...
I bite the inside of my cheek, hard enough to make it sore, but I can’t stop my eyes from searching out her profile. A blush crawls up her cheeks and I’m arrogant enough to think it’s because she can feel me looking at her. I think I know what she’s doing: this is how Corrine says sorry.
Maybe it’s the way the low light of the bar makes her mysterious and sexy or the way she went so far outside her comfort zone for me. Maybe it’s just because I love her and I’ll forgive the people I love almost anything.
But I forgive her.
My chest feels a little lighter because of it. If she wanted to make it up to me I appreciate the gesture but this isn’t what I want. Because even though we’re here, together, we’re not here together. I can’t throw my arm around her. I can’t kiss her cheek or tease her for gracing us with her presence. And I realize, every time I’m shown an opportunity where I can’t do those things, I want them more and more.
She doesn’t take more than one or two sips of her drink. She never puts down her coat. But even she can’t stop her body from swaying to the music or smiling at Jer’s jokes. When I dance I look like I’m cutting all the wrong shapes but for once that doesn’t matter to me because all I really want is to sidle up behind her and match the motion of our bodies to the beat of the music. I want to buy her next drink. I want to hold her hand when we walk out of here together.
But we can’t be a real couple in public.
Can we go home now? I text.
She pulls her phone from her pocket, continuing to nod at Abila as she types in her password. She fights a smile hard. Her mouth flattens as she turns to Emily.
“Everything okay?” Emily asks. She looks to me. Back to Corrine.
“Mmhmmm.” Corrine is casual and quiet. “Just a small emergency back at the office.” She turns to me. “Maybe you can give me a hand?”
“Sure,” I say quickly.
Amy clears her throat in an incredibly obvious way. I flip my hair out of my eyes, trying to seem a bit more chill than I feel. Emily smirks and I scratch my jaw, avoiding Corrine’s eyes.
“You okay to get home?” I ask Amy.
She frowns. “I thought we were hanging out.”
Shit. “We will. At the launch on Friday. I just...”
Amy rolls her eyes. “Fine. But you’re staying the whole night on Friday.”
Wrapping her in a hug, I squeeze enough to make her whack me in the back. “Can’t...breathe,” she croaks.
“You’re the best sister,” I whisper.
“I’ll take care of her.” Jer grins.
“You mean, I’ll take care of you,” she retorts.
Jer hugs me and we say some more goodbyes before I follow Corrine out of the bar. We walk in comfortable silence back to the office building.
Corrine hands me her keys. “You drive.”
She waits at the passenger door, scrolling through her phone, reminding me of the first time I saw her when I didn’t know I was seeing her for the first time.
We get into the car and I adjust the seat and roll down the windows to let in the smell of coming rain. The streets are dark and quiet. By the time I pull into the parking garage beneath her building, her hand has found a home on my thigh and could this be what a relationship with Corrine would be like? Driving home from after-work drinks with friends. Her letting me drive and me not having to adjust the seat.
Her body warms my left side as she sags into me on the way up to her apartment and I pull her closer, dropping my head into her hair and smelling coconuts. I hand Corrine the keys and she unlocks the door. Toeing off her shoes. Turning to me with the door open, she says, “Coming?”