Left Drowning Read online

  “You’re close now, aren’t you?” he says, moving a little faster, pressing a little harder. I can’t talk, but I let myself fall into his words and his touch. “I’ve been wondering how you would sound like this,” he purrs. “From the moment I met you, I’ve wanted to hear this. And you sound incredible … You feel incredible … Come, Blythe, come… .”

  My body tenses, and then I am still for a bit while the sensation climbs to incredible heights. “Oh God …”

  I half open my eyes as I feel Chris take his cheek from mine so that he is watching me. My vision is blurry, but I know he is staring right into my eyes. “Baby,” he whispers. “Look at me. You’re so, so close … It’s like I’ve been waiting forever… . ”

  I hold his look as he keeps working his hand against me. I groan and shake into his hold as my orgasm starts to hit. I have never come like this. My pleasure with him is more complete, more layered, more overwhelming than anything that I could give myself. I find that I am saying his name over and over as each wave engulfs me deeper in the beautiful abyss he has created. When it becomes impossible to see, I let my eyes close as he keeps his hand against me, making me shudder again and again.

  Then his tongue is against mine, and his arms wrap around my lower back. He kisses me intensely and presses his chest against mine. I can feel how hard he is, and as dizzy and out of it as I am, part of me wonders what is going to happen next and whether or not I’ll know what to do.

  But I don’t need to figure that out because Chris is too busy kissing me and only eventually slowing down until he gives me a final, light kiss and then nestles into the crook of my neck. I can feel him shaking his head back and forth, just slightly. “You are amazing.” He moves his hands to my waist and then slips my underwear back up. “You’re just … You’re everything.”

  His words are perfect, but the tone in his voice is not right. Wistful. Apologetic.

  I’m still catching my breath, but now I’m waiting for the ball to drop.

  “I … I should go.” He pauses and slips his fingers into my hair, cradling the back of my head as he kisses me again quickly. “I need to go.”

  “Wait, what?” I am so lost now. “No. No, you don’t have to go.”

  “Yeah. I do,” he says gently. “I want you too much.”

  This I understand because I want him so completely right now that it terrifies me. “So stay.”

  It seems to take forever for him to answer, and his hands are still playing with my hair, his lips still darting against mine every few seconds. “I can’t.” He steps back and takes my hand to move me out of the way of the door. “I’d give anything to stay, but I can’t. You’re stunning, Blythe.” He gives me an almost-sad smile. “But I just can’t stay. It’s too much.”

  And before I can figure out what the fuck that means, he is gone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Judging the Distance

  I adjust the pillow behind my back and look at Eric, who is sitting on the extra bed in my room. “How long have we been at this studying nonsense?”

  He yawns and rubs his head, smoothing down the buzz cut that is just starting to grow out. His head is fuzzy and soft, which I know because I’ve developed a fondness for rubbing it as though it’s some sort of genie lamp. Every time that I do this, he yells out, “Three wishes!” I always respond with something like, “Triple D breast implants, a basket of mini alpacas, and a spray can of whipped cream!”

  This exchange is less traumatizing for both of us than what I should answer: I wish for parents who are alive, for a brother who doesn’t hate me, and for Chris to rip off my clothes and ravish me on a regular basis.

  So, yeah. I go for the amusing wishes instead.

  “So,” Eric says, grimacing. “Do you think we’re ready for this test? I hate essay exams.”

  “Multiple choice would be worse. I never can pick just one answer. I always want to write in the margin, ‘I pick B, but depending on the approach you use to think about the character, D can be correct, too. ‘ You know?”

  “Exactly!”

  I smile at him. We have become regular study partners for the class we share, and every Saturday for the past month we have met up in my room or the student union in an attempt to stay on top of its demanding assignments. He is warm and easy to hang out with, and fortunately does not look so much like Chris that I can’t bear to be around him. But anytime that I see his last name written on anything, my stomach knots up.

  The truth is, I have no idea where I stand with Christopher Shepherd. The last time I was alone with him was the night he bolted from my room.

  I guess it isn’t that surprising. After our first encounter in his room, which was just kissing and minor groping, Chris made himself pretty scarce. Once he’d finger fucked-me up against the door of my room, he became almost invisible.

  Christ, if I’d fucked him, he probably would’ve just vaporized.

  Although it seems like he has.

  The only guy I do see all the time, besides Eric, is Sabin. He is constantly texting me to check in and hounding me to go to parties with him, despite the fact that I almost always turn him down. Instead, we meet for coffee at least twice a week, and I listen as he rambles on about girls (lots and lots of girls), and acting, and spouts general silliness. I adore him.

  I’m also seeing lots of Estelle. She recently coaxed me into a pedicure so extreme that I was scared my soles might bleed when I went running. She’d also dragged me to a salon to have my unmanageable hair cut and highlighted. Although I initially resisted her attack makeover, I admit that I feel better about how I look now. My hair now has bright blond streaks running through it, and the curls fall more softly thanks to the good cut. I am starting to look like my former self.

  I stare at Eric.

  “Why are you smiling at me?” he asks, smiling back at me.

  I shrug and then look off to the side. It is stupid.

  “What is it?” he prods softly.

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  But my inner voice is loud. You have friends. You have friends again.

  The door to my room flies open, slamming into the doorstop. Estelle steps inside, her knee-high boots tracking snow and water onto the tattered wood floor. “What a stupid fucking bitch! My roommate can just go to hell and fuck the devil for all I care.” She storms across the room and sits down in the desk chair. Her hair is damp and glistening, and despite her diatribe, she looks angelic.

  “I see it’s snowing out,” Eric says calmly.

  “Yes. It is.” Estelle crosses her legs and removes the cashmere scarf from around her neck. She is fuming.

  “Damn it,” I say. “I wanted to run later. I hadn’t even noticed the snow.” I lean forward and glare out the window at the wet snow that is falling. The streets have just been fully cleared from the last snowfall yesterday, and now this. The indoor track is fine, and it’s probably safer when I run during the dark early morning hours, but I much prefer running outdoors. The track is smooth and predictable, but I do not like running in circles. Plus, there are other people there. I prefer solitary running, and when I’m at the college gym, there are other students around to see my slow, ungainly style. My new, expensive sneakers, however, will probably last longer without being subjected to the wet, snowy streets.

  “How far do you run these days, anyway?” Estelle asks.

  “Oh.” I think for a minute. Two playlists isn’t really a definitive answer. “I don’t know, actually. Probably a few miles. Maybe more.”

  Estelle tosses up her hands. “I wish my roommate were a runner. Maybe then she’d be too busy to bitch endlessly about my laundry pile. She’s an obsessive-compulsive neat freak.”

  “You are a slob,” Eric says.

  “Shut up. And she wants to turn on the lights and roll up the shades at ungodly early hours, and she gets bullshit that I might want to sleep past six fucking o’clock in the morning. She barrels around the room intentionally making loud noises until
it’s impossible for me to sleep even with pillows on my head. I hate her. Why did I get stuck with such a stupid loser?”

  “You didn’t choose to live with her?” I ask.

  “Hell no. I know, I know, you’re wondering why I didn’t put in for a particular roommate like everyone else. Girls don’t like me. Which is fine. I don’t like other girls much either. Except for you. You, I like.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You’re not a moronic bitch.”

  “I don’t think you’re a moronic bitch either.”

  “Good. So the final straw was this morning. Is it unreasonable not to want to wake up to Michael fucking Bublé? It is not! So while she waltzed around the room humming to herself, I did some humming to myself, too.”

  Eric slams his book shut. “Estelle, you did not!”

  “What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  Estelle examines her perfectly manicured red nails. “I whipped out my biggest vibrator and turned it up to high.”

  “Oh my God.” I am not sure what else to say.

  “She was not happy, let me assure you. And frankly, I wasn’t all that thrilled with the results, either. Have you ever tried to masturbate while singing ‘It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas’ at the top of your lungs? It’s not easy. Plus, I’m not in the stockings-and-tinsel mood yet. It’s only November, and I refuse to deal with Christmas until after Thanksgiving.”

  “Of course she was pissed off.” Eric is blushing, and his sigh echoes throughout the room. “You’re not supposed to—”

  “Blythe? What do you think?” Estelle crosses her arms.

  “I think that I don’t want to listen to Michael Bublé’s music, but that thinking about him while I masturbate is something to consider. He’s not bad looking. That said, I might choose a different method to retaliate against a roommate. One that doesn’t, you know, involve a high-speed vibrator.”

  Estelle taps her foot for a minute and then smirks. “So no anal beads either?”

  Oh God. “Probably not,” I advise.

  Eric has turned nearly purple.

  “What am I gonna do?” Estelle clomps from the desk chair over to my futon and throws herself down, resting her head on my legs. “I hate that abominable wench.”

  “Move in with me,” I blurt out.

  She rolls over to look up at me. “What?”

  “You could move in with me. I have this double to myself. There’s no reason that you should be so unhappy.” What am I doing? Why can’t I stop talking?

  “Really? Really?”

  “That’s awesome of you,” Eric says.

  “Yes! Yes! I accept your freaking amazing offer! Let’s do it now! Let’s move me!”

  “Now? Like, right now?”

  “No time like the present to make positive changes, right? Right?” Estelle is already on her phone. “You’re rockin’ my world right now, B.”

  ***

  It doesn’t take long for Estelle to orchestrate things. It seems like only an hour passes before we’ve loaded most of her things into a pickup truck. The plan is for Eric and me to head back to my dorm room while she stays behind to clean up. The pickup’s wheels skid dangerously as we come to a stop sign.

  “Of all the days to move, Estelle has to choose this sloppy one. She couldn’t have waited a few days for this weather to clear up?” Eric’s cheeks are slightly rosy from the chill, and he turns up the heat.

  “Estelle wouldn’t be moving for another six months then,” I point out. “You know how it is here. Matthews College is a bag of frozen peas in the giant Wisconsin freezer.”

  “True.” Eric checks for traffic and then crosses the intersection. “Thanks for helping us move her stuff out of her dorm room. You didn’t have to. You’re doing plenty already by letting her move in.”

  “No problem. It’s a good thing you have this truck, considering that she lives on the far end of campus. Lugging this shit by hand would’ve sucked.”

  “Actually, this is Chris’s truck. It may be old as dirt, but it runs great. The rest of us have newer cars, but he said that he wanted to go with something used. Something that has stood the test of time, which he thinks bodes well for the future or something.” Eric pats the dashboard. “At least Sabin put in a killer sound system.”

  “Wait, so all of you have cars?”

  “I know. It seems a little excessive, huh?” Eric turns on the wipers. “Chris insisted.”

  “Chris insisted? Wouldn’t that be up to your dad?”

  “Theoretically. I guess we think of Chris as the head of the household.” We turn a corner and hear a box in the back slide across the truck bed.

  “Your father must love that.”

  “Chris is just much better at handling things. He researched safety and performance and then informed us what we were getting.” Eric points ahead. “Hey, is this part of your regular running route? I saw you here one morning.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Show me your route and we’ll map it out. See how far you’re going.”

  “Why? So I can tell everyone that I run a whopping one and a half miles? Besides, everyone is waiting for us so they can help unload Estelle’s stuff.”

  “They can wait a few more minutes. C’mon. You should know. And now I want to know.”

  “Okay, well, I usually come out of campus there.” I motion to the now snow-topped iron gate by one of the dorms. “And then I go all the way down Stanton Street toward the river and head left.”

  I watch as Eric resets the odometer to zero. ”Here we go!”

  “So Chris is an interesting guy, huh? What with making car assignments and whatnot.” I brace my elbow against the window frame and lean my head into my hand.

  Eric glances my way briefly, clearly trying to hide a smile. “Smooth. Is there something going on between you two?”

  I clear my throat. “No.”

  “Oh,” he says, shifting gears. “We all thought maybe—”

  “Nope,” I say, cutting him off. I think about seeing Chris half naked, and the way he pinned me up against the door and made me come in what was by far the most erotic moment of my life. “No, we’re just friends. Friendly. He’s … I don’t know… . He’s helped me feel better. But that’s it.”

  “We were hoping it was something more.”

  I blink a few times and watch the snow. “Maybe I was, too.”

  “Sorry,” Eric says. “So much for Chris settling down.”

  “He gets around a lot?”

  Eric laughs. “Not like Sabin, but he has a past. He’s not one for long-term girlfriends, although I keep hoping. If he’d just slow down a bit… . But Chris is always racing to get to the next thing. The next class, the next project, the next step after graduation, all that sort of stuff.”

  “Ha! I’m stuck in the past; he’s stuck in the future. End of story. What about you?”

  “Maybe I’m a here-and-now kind of guy; I have no idea.”

  “Well, you seem to like Zach a lot. He’s the here and now. Plus, he’s wicked cute.”

  “He is wicked cute, isn’t he?” Eric pauses. “Wicked. Are you from Boston?”

  “Not right in Boston, but about a half hour out.” I wiggle into the seat. The truck may have a few miles on it, but it’s comfortable as hell. “You moved around a lot, right?”

  “We’re products of about seven different states, I think. I’ve lost count, but we lived all over New England, and spent some time in the Midwest. We may even have been near Boston when I was a baby. Not sure. Spent a summer in Texas when I was little. I remember parts of that.”

  “So where do you feel like you’re from?”

  “Nowhere. We’re from nowhere.”

  “You can’t be from nowhere. Where did you live before you came to college? Where does your dad live now? Oh, turn left here.”

  “Truthfully, Blythe.” Eric turns by the river. “Our father is not a good guy. We don’t see him, and we don’t talk about hi
m. Wherever he lives is certainly not our home. It’s easier like this.”

  I stare at Eric as he drives, realizing that Sabin told me something similar—although with Sabin, I’d assumed he was being dramatic. I reach out my hand and touch his arm. “I’m sorry.”

  He nods. “Me, too. But I’ve got Estelle, Sabin, and Chris. And I have Zach, who I’m crazy about and who tolerates my insane family.”

  “Make a right onto Hoover Ave., and then bear left and head back to campus up Webber Road. We’ll have to double-park outside Reber Hall.”

  We ride without talking for a bit. The drive is peaceful, the hum of the motor and the bounce of the truck comforting. Finally Eric speaks. “We don’t even go home for Thanksgiving. We never go home.”

  I draw a terrible cartoon of a turkey on the wet window. “Neither am I this year.”

  “Good,” Eric says. “Then we get you for the holiday. There’s nothing better than a dorm Thanksgiving. We’ll have a good time.”

  “Okay,” I agree. “That’s very nice of you.”

  I continue to direct Eric where to drive until we come to a stop outside my dorm. I almost wish that he would keep driving. Anywhere.

  Eric looks toward the steering wheel. “So how far do you think you run?”

  “No clue. I mean, I’m slow as shit, but I just run like an idiot until I can’t anymore. And I always end up walking part of it, too much of it, even though I hate myself for it. Oh God, is it shorter than I thought? I’m terrible at judging distance.” I squeeze my eyes shut. “Tell me, tell me. I can take it.”

  “Five point three miles.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  He laughs. “Five. Point. Three. Miles. That’s pretty damn good.”

  “Oh my God, seriously?” I am shocked. And giddy. I had no idea. “It’s not like it’s a marathon, but still… . That’s not bad, huh?”