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She stepped back with a weary glance, making me pause and give her an irritated look.

“You were fucking baiting me with food?” I demanded.

She scrunched her face and raised her shoulders, guilty. “Maybe,” she said like a
scared child, backing further away until she was almost to the door. “But they will
have finger foods at the art studio.”

I exhaled again, flexing my hands into and out of fists. “You fucking owe me.” I pointed
at her.

She smiled, sneaking out the door and rushing down the hall. “I know!” she called.

“And we better not spend the whole time painting happy fucking trees and shit like
that PBS guy!”

“I hope you know that I suck at painting,” I told Nova as we approached the building
that this shingdig was apparently happening at.

She giggled. “You and me both.”

The room was already filled when we got there, so we had to sit in the back row, which
was just fine with me. A server immediately showed up behind us, handing us four aprons
and a wine list. I rolled my eyes.

“Please,” Kayla whispered next to me, knowing exactly what I was thinking.

Fucking wine!

I handed the list to Nova, letting her decide; I didn’t like wine anyway, so I might
as well put her in charge.

“Mmm, champagne,” she said like it was the best night ever.

Fucking A.

“Two glasses of champagne it is,” I ordered in my most pleasant voice.

“Oh, God,” Kayla murmured for my ears only.

“What?” I asked her, acting genuinely confused but adding the sarcastic grin that
she knew very well. “It sounds delicious!”

She snorted, shaking her head before leaning into Miles on her other side to look
at the wine list with him. How did she expect me to react? She knew this wasn’t my
scene.

Miles, Kayla and Nova started to put on their aprons while they waited for the woman
to return with our drinks. I didn’t move … no fucking way was I wearing a damn apron—being
here was pathetic enough. I could feel the place sucking the testosterone from my
balls.

Kayla didn’t even bother saying anything about it. She knew damn well that I’d create
a scene on that one, and Nova, well, Nova was too shy with me to ask or even notice.

Nova and I were talking about I don’t know what when the instructor clapped us to
attention. My body froze, my heartbeat sky rocketed, and the world around me stopped
as I slowly and apprehensively glanced up. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I
couldn’t do anything as her eyes caught with mine. As her voice faded to silence,
the whole room turned to face the person she couldn’t look away from.

She looked exactly how I remembered, pictured, and dreamt about. It was like no time
had passed. My heart was wearing through my chest at the sight of her. Every emotion,
every breath, every little feeling that I felt for Amelia was alive and showing just
as it did that weekend and every day since.

I swallowed, feeling my throat dry up, and that’s when it started—the panic. I couldn’t
be there. I couldn’t be there with her. I couldn’t pretend that nothing ever happened
between us. I couldn’t pretend that she wasn’t the only girl that ever made me feel,
made me want more, made me … love.

I stood, my eyes finding the door.
Don’t be a pussy. Don’t be a pussy.

“Merrick!” I could barely hear Kayla say from beside me, but I didn’t budge or even
glance in her direction. My legs were already moving, taking long strides towards
the exit.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before Kayla was running from the building, as well, and
my strides quickly turned into a jog, running, escaping … getting away as far as I
could.

I didn’t remember how I got there, but it felt like only seconds later that I was
opening the door to my apartment, slamming it shut behind me before flinging open
the fridge to grab a beer from it. I paced my living room as I twisted the cap from
the bottle and took a long swig, emptying half of it into my mouth.

“All right, talk,” Kayla said from behind me.

I stopped in my tracks and turned, wondering when she got there. I didn’t remember
hearing the door open or shut.

She was panting with a confused, exhausted look on her face. I looked past her, making
sure no one was with her. She had no clue what was going on because she’d never met
Amelia. She didn’t know what she looked like or how her voice sounded. Not like me.
She was away at her friend’s wedding the weekend Amelia and I met. She only knew of
her, nothing more than that.

I knocked back the rest of the beer in my hand before placing it on the coffee table.
“That was her,” I said, hating the pussy-whipped tone in my voice.

Her expression didn’t waver. After seeing my reaction and the way everything went
down at the studio, she’d probably already figured it out anyway. There was only one
person that would ever make me react the way that I did. There was only one person
that affected me the way Amelia did. I guess there wasn’t much to figure out … at
least for someone that knew me.

She didn’t speak. She had no response. She just waited for me to continue.

“I couldn’t stay.” I began to pace again. “I couldn’t sit there and pay attention
or try and have fun with her at the front of the room.” I put my hands on my hips,
still looking at the ground. “I couldn’t breathe.”

There were a few minutes of silence before Kayla spoke.

“You need to talk to her.”

I shook my head. “No,” I responded, but mostly to myself. “No … I can’t.” I looked
up at her. “She left. She didn’t feel it like I did.” I covered my face with my hands.
“I can’t hear her say it.”

After I woke up that day with the bed empty beside me, I called her. When she wouldn’t
answer my calls or texts, I contemplating searching for her. I knew she raced, I knew
she only lived a few blocks from me. If I really wanted to, I could find her, and
I did—I wanted to find her. I wanted to ask her every question running through my
brain; I wanted to ask her why, but I didn’t. I was too hurt. Too broken. There was
a reason she left. There was a reason she didn’t contact me. There was a reason that
she apparently wanted nothing to do with me. There was reason that I was too much
of a pussy to find out.

The truth was hard to grasp.

I could feel the space between Kayla and I close, but I didn’t look up.

“She felt it,” she said softly, making me open my eyes, noticing her now standing
right in front of me, only a foot or two between us.

I looked at her, confused. She had no clue what Amelia felt that weekend. She wasn’t
there. She didn’t see what went down or how she acted towards me. It was only Amelia
and I that weekend. There was no one but us around after the bar.

She picked up on my confusion, explaining herself further. “I saw how she looked at
you tonight. The pain. The emotion.” She sighed. “She felt it, Merrick.”

I stared at her blankly. I was so fucking lost that I didn’t even know what to think.

“I don’t know what happened, Merrick, but there’s more. I could see it. She feels
the same way, but something happened. I think there’s more to her that you don’t know
and that’s why you need to talk to her.”

I tilted my hand back, staring at the ceiling, trying to find clarity for a minute
before looking back at Kayla. “How? I can’t just waltz back into the studio and demand
to talk to her.”

“Find a way, Merrick. You love her, and I don’t doubt that she loves you. Find a way.”

I paced my living room for the remainder of the night, tossing back beer after beer
after beer. I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t think of a way to talk to her. When
it came down to it, I knew very little about Amelia. I only knew the obvious things,
really: she lived in New York, she raced dirt bikes, and she worked at an art studio,
but that was it. We didn’t talk about our lives much that weekend. We didn’t really
talk about anything important at all, we just hung out, enjoying our time together
doing absolutely nothing. We walked around Chinatown, ate here and there, and … made
love. I sighed at the last part, putting my head in hands. That was the worst to remember.
It tore through my heart and drained my body. It took everything that made me and
scraped me down to nothing, because when Amelia and I made love, I felt everything.

It was after ten in the morning when I woke up on the couch, empty beer in hand. I
looked around, but couldn’t lift my head much—it was pounding. I was hungover as fuck.
I rested my head back down into the ancient throw pillow on the couch. My mind was
as empty as my beer. I was a 28-year-old pussy, staring at the ceiling thinking and
feeling nothing. I was drained, I felt like shit, and once again, I was depressed,
worthless, and done. I didn’t want to get up. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted
to rot. Right there. On my couch.

Seeing her killed me all over again. I had no more clarity than I did the night before,
than the week before. I wasn’t any closer than I was before I passed out. If anything,
I was further away. Seeing her put me back in the shit hole she left me in. I was
done. Finished. I didn’t have the energy to get back up this time. Amelia got me for
the last time.

I looked over to the refrigerator, scrunching my forehead at the pain movement caused,
but something on the counter caught my eye, making me forget about the pain, causing
me to sit up then stand. I rushed to the kitchen, not believing what I was seeing.
I slowed as I got closer, examining it, trying to make sure that this was really happening,
that I was seeing it correctly.

There was a cactus sitting in the middle of the counter. All by itself … a fucking
cactus. I picked it up, searching anxiously for a note or something, but there was
nothing, just a small cactus in an orange pot. My breathing accelerated as I turned
and glanced around my apartment.

Was she here?

With the cactus still in hand, I practically ran to my room, somewhere in the back
of my mind hoping that she was in there. Finding nothing but a torn apart bed from
the previous night, I checked the bathroom, but there was still nothing—everything
was just how I left it. Failing at finding any signs of Amelia, I walked back out
to the living room, continuing to the door this time. It was locked. I unlocked it
and opened it up, checking to see if there was a note or something on the outside
of it, but still … nothing.

I scratched my head with my free hand, my hangover surprisingly nowhere to be found.
Adrenaline was pushing through my veins more than I had ever felt it. No race, no
caffeine, nothing could provide me with a rush like the one humming through me at
that moment. No one could make me feel intenseness like this … only Amelia. And she
cared. Kayla was fucking right … she cared. What we had was like a cactus. No matter
what happened, no matter how much time it spent alone for no one to care for it, it
would survive. We would survive.