Trade Me (18 page)

I tamp it down.

She stands. “Hi.” She’s trying for nonchalance. “I thought I’d give you a ride home.”

There’s nothing to say to that, but… “Thanks.”

I follow her to the car, slide into the passenger seat. She doesn’t say anything. At every light, she glances at me. When she catches me looking her way, she turns away swiftly. Every time. Finally, I make myself look out the window.

Liquor store. Cat food store. Group of college students, standing on the corner and smoking. The car is quiet; it’s late enough that there’s almost no other noise.

“My father always says,” Tina finally says into that silence, “that if you owe someone an apology, you should do something nice for them. I’m pretty sure I owe you an apology.”

I want to look at her, but somehow, I feel that’s a bad idea—that doing so will prevent her from saying whatever she’s going to say.

“There was a guy first semester of my sophomore year,” she finally says. “We had two classes together. We used to study.”

On the street to my right, I see three students stumble by.

“The day before our first finals, we were joking around. Playing. I liked him a lot. And we were touching, sitting close. He just put his arms around me, and then…things went on from there. We had sex, and I liked it.” Her face is utterly straight. “For one day, I thought I could have everything. That I might be able to do all the things I have to do, and still have someone.”

There’s another long silence and I count businesses again. Chinese food, wine bar, locksmith.

“After our first final together,” she says, “he asked if I wanted to grab a beer. He was already at the bar when I got there, sitting with some friends. And he introduced one of them to me as his girlfriend. That’s how I found out.”

I exhale sharply. “That’s fucked up.”

“I’m not saying you would do that,” she says. “But you have to understand—it hurt. It hurt a lot. I still had four finals left. I just wanted to curl up and disappear, and I couldn’t. I didn’t have time to care then, and I really don’t have it now. I can’t let myself get hurt.”

My hands twitch on my lap, and for the first time, I look over at her. Even though the street is mostly deserted, she’s going slowly, as if she’s still afraid to do more. “I understand,” I say. “I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

“Yeah?” She glances my way dubiously, and when she sees me watching her, quickly turns back to the street. “Tell me, Blake. What are the chances that you’ll stay here? That we can kiss now and not break up later?”

The truth is, I’m only here until I get a grip on my problem. My dad needs me. The instant I’m capable of walking away, I will.

I shake my head.

“Exactly,” she says. “That’s what I would put our chances at. Approximately zero. I freaked out on you. But I had a good reason.”

She turns onto the street where I’m staying. She doesn’t say anything and I don’t either. She pulls up in front of the house, and finally I turn to her. She’s not looking at me; she’s staring down. Her hands tangle on the black leather wrapping the wheel. Her hair is loose around her face, obscuring her from my sight.

I open the door and step out into the night. Her head is bowed; she doesn’t look at me as I walk around to her side of the car and open her door. She turns, looking up at me.

She’s told me why she
can’t
kiss me; she hasn’t said why she did it in the first place. She doesn’t have to. I can see it in the way her eyes refuse to leave mine. I can see it in the way her lips press together, and then slowly, her tongue darts out, wetting them. I can see it in the darkness of her eyes.

Hell, I tasted it on her the other day.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I get it. Hell, I’m terrified for you.”

I can hear her breath in the silence of the night. She looks down and then away. Her hand clenches, and then she undoes the seatbelt. She stands, even though that puts her right next to me. I can feel the heat of her, so close I could touch her.

I don’t.

There’s never anything like real stars around here. Just a few of the brightest constellations and the lights of planes overhead. Still, she tilts her head up, looking into the night sky.

“I don’t know why anyone thinks that looking at the stars is so romantic,” she says. “Have they ever read Greek mythology? It’s all the same story—God sees mortal, God desires mortal, mortal suffers gruesome fate and is rewarded with an eternity of pain in the cosmos.” She shrugs.

“You could always make up your own stories.”

But she’s already shaking her head. “No. Those stories are written in the stars already, Blake. They’re written in stardust millions of years old. I don’t think I get to change them.”

“Then I’m thankful for light pollution,” I say.

She makes a little noise, something close to a laugh, and it sets off a cascade of desire in me.

You’d think I would be spoiled after a lifetime of getting anything I’ve ever wanted. Maybe I am. But I’ve spent a year wanting, a year yearning for something that deep down, I’m afraid I’m never going to get. This new, frustrating level of want is right up my alley.

And at least wanting Tina won’t kill me.

“You’re a lot more decent than I thought you would be,” she says.

I want to hold her right now, to put my arms around her and tell her it will be all right. But I can’t even tell myself that.

And so instead, I run my thumb down her cheek. I know I shouldn’t touch her. I know I shouldn’t think this. I know that I shouldn’t let my hand rest on her lips.

But I do.

“Good night, Tina,” I say. “Don’t look at the stars.”

“I won’t,” she says. “They don’t mean anything anyway.”

TINA

Blake looks tired when he slips into the seat next to me in the theater seating for our class. The little things bring me to that conclusion. After a few weeks of our trade, his usual attire—business slacks and a button-down shirt—no longer look so crisp. The cuffs aren’t perfectly ironed. His hair lies flatter against his head, and he doesn’t smile at me in that same cocky way. Instead, he slouches in the seat next to me.

If this attraction were just a matter of social programming, those small changes would break down the desire that I feel. Now that he’s not sending off those same power signals, I shouldn’t want him so much.

Instead, the moment feels intimate, like I’ve caught him off his guard. Like we’re both off guard, floundering, reaching for each other.

I glance over at him. “Hi, Blake.”

His eyes meet mine. God, I can’t stop thinking about kissing him. About his hands on my body, about the heat that sparked up between us. It’s been two days since I kissed him, two days during which I’ve tried to draw the line back to where it was before I crossed it. Two days in which I’ve tried to pretend that
this—
whatever
this
is—is not happening.

“Tina.” He takes out a pen, some paper.

No matter what I told him, no matter what I said, I know I’m in trouble.

I need to build a wall between us, a wall that shields me from hope. Right now, my fantasies are whispering. What if I just…let it happen? What if the stars are wrong? What if it doesn’t end?

Every little girl dreams of a prince to take her away from the drudgery of life, someone who will sweep her off her feet and take care of her. It’s something that comes from that first swell of Disney music that we hear as children. And the truth is, Blake would be such a prince. He’s sweet. He’s caring. He looks at me like there’s nobody else in the world. And he kisses like…

But, I remind myself, that’s all it is: cultural programming. It’s the effect of too many animated movies watched at too young an age. It isn’t real.

In fiction, the story ends when Prince Charming whisks Cinderella away to his castle.

But there’s a reason why the poor girl who wins herself a prince is usually an orphan. Because if she wasn’t…

“Darling,” Charming would say in the scene after the end, “you know I love you, doll. But we have to talk about your parents. I’m thinking I should buy them a cottage, maybe something high up in the mountains, yeah? Don’t worry. You can always call. You can even visit them when I’m busy with my affairs of state.”

Even with Cinderella’s essentially family-less status, the story always ends before the painful, embarrassing scenes that come a few years in.

“Darling, I never meant to fall in love with Snow White. I swear it. But she was raised in a castle as a princess, you know? She gets me in a way you never will.”

Blake interrupts my reverie with a note.

There’s something you should know,
he writes.
You do mean something to me.

I crumple the paper and turn my attention back to my notebook. At least I try to. But no matter how much I stare at the professor, I can scarcely pay attention to what he’s saying.

There’s a reason the hero is always called Prince Charming in all the stories. It’s not just an interchangeable name. It’s the same damned knight on a white horse, looking for a girl who’s grateful to be rescued. Once he’s managed the deed—and once she’s forgotten what she has to be grateful about, and started to realize that this is the rest of her life—there’s nothing left but regret. Snow White will have decades to remember that at least the seven dwarves said “thank you,” goddammit. And then there was that nice woodcutter boy who worshipped her. He never would have looked down on her, not once.

My life means something to me. I’ve been on this track for years. I’m not about to mess it all up just because a man is good at kissing.

Beside me, Blake lets out a sigh.

I don’t look in his direction. I can’t. I’m afraid he’ll break me down. If I meet his eyes, I’ll remember that I like him, and once I remember that…

God. If it’s like this between us when we’re
not
together, how much more will it hurt if I let it happen?

He starts to write again.

I’m trying to block out my awareness of him. Really. I’m trying. I’m trying not to wonder. I’m trying to ignore that tight coil of nervous anticipation that is building. I’m telling myself that whatever he says, whatever he thinks, it’s not going to change my mind. There’s nothing he can offer me in the long term—just a chance to feel ashamed of who I am and where I come from.

I have to hold onto that. I have to hold onto myself or I’ll lose everything.

Still, I read the second note when he slides it over.

I’ve been Blake fucking Reynolds since I was two years old. I’ve never had a chance to be anyone else. I don’t know if you understand why I find you so fucking hot. It’s because you know who you are, where you’re going. You have a plan and nobody will distract you from it.

I feel like I’m disappearing.

When you kissed me, I felt like I existed—me, not the kid who’s been on this same path since birth.

Me.

I know it will never mean the same thing to you. I know you want to forget it. But I’m going to remember that long after you’ve forgotten that I exist.

My stomach tightens. There’s a rawness, a nakedness to this, one that sweeps through my attempts to push him away.

I get out another piece of paper. Up in front, the professor talks. I can pretend that it doesn’t matter. I
can.

But I don’t. Instead, I write back.

I’m scared I’ll tell myself lies. I’m scared I’ll—
fall in love with you, I want to write. But that’s too big, too scary to even put down in words, even in the hypothetical. Instead, I settle for
get attached to you. I’m scared I’ll pin my hopes on you and I don’t have so many hopes that I can afford to lose one.

My hand is shaking as I pass this back. Truth is, it’s too late already for that. And I already know what he’s going to say:
Don’t be scared, baby. I would never hurt you.

But I don’t want to be comforted. I’m shaking, trying to figure out how to explain that my fear makes me safe. That I don’t want to get rid of it. Without fear, I am too comfortable. Without fear, I make mistakes. I have to be careful.

But he doesn’t say what I expect.

Instead, he writes:
Is there anything I can do to make you feel safe?

My throat closes. It matters that he doesn’t tell me that my feelings are stupid, that they need to be shoved aside. My emotions are a tangling, irrational mess—but they’re still mine, and my fear mixes with confusion, respect, and appreciation.

For a moment, I imagine it. I think of that future where I can kiss Blake and not fear. I imagine my heart unshielded, open and ready to be crushed. I imagine the kind of person who could put herself out like that.

I imagine reaching over and taking his hand, saying to him, “There is something you can do, and you just did it.” My fingers inch to the edge of the desk. My palm tingles. One motion, and…

Xingjuan,
be careful.

The words are like a slap. I flatten my hand against the desk, quashing that impulse. I concentrate on my breath—each inhale crystal clear, filling my lungs and then spilling out once more—until I don’t want anymore.