How can two people fall in love in three brief meetings? It’s impossible. At least to me.
My cellphone rings. Listlessly, I glance at the flashing name.
ALEX.
No. I’m not getting that.
At least he cares enough to call, my inner conscience tells me. But he obviously doesn’t care enough about me to tell me he was getting engaged.
Fury ripples through me again.
Damn him. Damn him to hell.
The phone rings off. And then it starts up again – that stupid ringtone I have chosen.
ALEX.
In a fit of anger, I grab it and depress the OFF button on the side. There – the phone is now officially off. If I weren’t in such a cash-challenged state, I’d hurl it against the wall.
I don’t know how long I must have lain on my bed, disheveled and miserable. Deanna has gone to art class, so there is no one to answer the door when the doorbell suddenly rings.
Persistently. Insistently.
When I don’t answer, a thumping starts up on the door, as if the person on the other side is trying to batter it down.
“Liz, I know you’re in there. Let me in. I need to talk to you.”
It’s ALEX.
Great. The last person in the world I want to see.
“Liz, please! Just talk to me.”
I rouse myself from the bed. Go away, I will him.
The thumping stops. There’s silence. A lump congeals in my throat. Has he gone away?
(I don’t really want him to go away.)
Then:
“Liz.” His tone is simultaneously conciliatory and desperate. “I know you’re in there, and you can hear me. So please listen up.”
I listen despite myself. I crouch at my bedroom door. I’m listening.
“The engagement. It wasn’t my idea. It never was.”
A cramp threatens to come into my legs, but I daren’t move just in case he hears me. I’m not ready to let him know I’m in here, though he probably does.
“It’s some crazy complicated political shit and my father put me into it.” He takes a deep breath. “He’s probably not fully to blame, and my mother has a huge part of it. Like I said, it’s complicated and I won’t bore you right now with the details. But I never wanted any part of it. I don’t want to marry Tatiana, Liz. I never did. She’s nothing to me. Nothing.”
The cramp comes full on in my toes. I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out. But I’m still listening. I’m desperately wanting everything he’s telling me to be true. He’s here, isn’t he? At my doorstep. At least he cares enough to tell me himself.
That’s got to count for something, right?
“I’m going to need to do something for myself.” He pauses. “I know you’re going to think it’s childish and f**ked-up and irresponsible.”
Yes, I probably will. But I’m piqued anyway.
He goes on, “I’m going to be taking an extended trip. An anthropological trip to . . . well, some place far away. And I’d like you to come with me.”
The silence that weighs in the apartment is deafening.
“Liz?”
No, seriously, I need time to digest this.
This is huge.
“I know you think I’m running away, Liz, but I want you to come with me. Please. I’m going to have to work this out . . . work out what I really want in my life. And I would really, really want you to come along because . . . ”
Shakily, I get to my feet.
I pad to the front door in my bare feet. I can feel him tensing behind it.
“Liz?” He’s hopeful.
I open the door.
I must have looked a fright, with my tear-streaked face and my unruly hair. Oh yes, I had cried. I had shed tears over this man, and he’s standing before me – his hair disheveled and looking like he’s just tumbled out of bed himself, and he’s glorious and spectacularly beautiful. He wears a leather jacket over a tight T-shirt and jeans, and he resembles a bad biker boy from the other side of town. And he’s so carelessly marvelous that the flesh between my legs turns into a puddle and I’m a blabbering idiot again.
He takes a step towards me and he’s very, very close. Close enough for me to imbibe his musky scent.
“Liz,” he implores, his eyes bright and fevered, “would you come with me?”
I swallow. This is huge. And grossly unfair. He can’t expect an answer straightway. This is a monumental decision and I would really need some time to think about it. I have responsibilities, damn it, even if he doesn’t!
“You’re running away.” I state the obvious.
“No. I’m leaving to work things out. Please.” He holds out his hand to me. In his eyes, there’s despair and . . . hope. “For once in your life, don’t overanalyze things. Just follow your gut.”
Go with the wind. I have never been that sort of woman . . . until I met him. And now, I’m like a papyrus sheaf on the windswept delta of the Nile.
He wants me.
He wants me enough to ask me to go with him, and not Tatiana.
Go with your gut.
“Yes,” I find myself saying. And it’s true. Tears come into my eyes. I do really want to abandon caution and go with this beautiful, unpredictable, mercurial man. I may never get the chance to again.
Oh help me.
“Yes,” I say again.
Yes. Goodbye to my college credits. Goodbye to my job. I can always come back to them anyway. I think.
Yes.
What am I doing?
He smiles – a slow spreading grin that stretches his lips. Then he dips his head down and catches me hungrily on the lips.
“Let’s go, baby. You won’t regret it.”
I hope I’m not going to.
Oh God.