“Wait, a second! What are you doing?” I ask when I catch a glimpse of Simon’s work and see an outline of my face.

“Nothing.” He smiles and covers his work. I grab it out of his hand and run to the other side of the room.

“Hey! That’s private!” he yells, half joking.

“Yes! Exactly!” I yell back and laugh. “This is my face! That’s private, too!”

Simon gets off the bed and starts chasing me around the room. We make two circles around the room before he catches up to me, grabs his sketchpad from my hand and knocks me down on the bed. We burst out in laughter, which quickly morphs into kissing.

Simon’s tongue slides down my neck and pauses at my breasts. He then continues further down. He pulls up my shirt and kisses my belly button. Suddenly, everything becomes a blur. My shirt comes off. I unbutton his pants. He struggles in pulling off my jeans. He takes off my bra. I pull off his shirt. He caresses my breasts with his tongue. I run my tongue toward his belly button and tug at his boxer briefs.

“Hey, have you seen my…” Tristan barges into my room.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I scream. He freezes in the doorway. I grab something off the floor and try to cover myself up. It’s futile. It’s my bra and I’m not in the right frame of mind to put it on properly. None of the clasps make any sense. I grab a shirt instead and wrap it around my torso.

When I look up, Tristan’s still there.

“Tristan! What the hell?” I say. “Get the hell out!”

But Tristan just stands there like a frozen statue. I see Simon smile wryly. The expression on his face makes him look proud. And if not proud then definitely unfazed.

“Tristan! Tristan!” I try again.

This time, he seems to snap out of it. Simon looks at me and then at Tristan. Back to me.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers and leaves.

I enter some sort of state of shock. My ears buzz and my hands get cold. I can’t feel the ends of my fingertips at all.

“He wants you back,” Simon says and starts to kiss my shoulder. His lips feel cold and foreign. I push him away.

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

Simon shrugs.

“Your ex…he wants you back,” he says.

The words that come out of his mouth don’t make any sense to me. I shake my head, no. And then look at Simon more closely. He isn’t jealous or worried. Instead, he’s oozing confidence and nonchalance. Is it all an act? I wonder. Doesn’t seem like it.

Simon leans closer to me. I’m still grasping my shirt around my breasts in a failed effort to cover up. He touches my arm and tries to pull it away. I stop him. Without a word, he starts to kiss me again. Up my neck. Then my lips. I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to recapture our moment. Trying to bring us back to what we were doing before the interruption. But I can’t think straight. I can’t focus. I can’t let myself fall back into that world. The interruption is all I can think about.

“Wait, wait.” I pull away. “Stop. I can’t.”

“Oh c’mon. Don’t let him ruin this for us,” he whispers. His voice is intoxicating. His lips are so sexy. For a brief moment, I lose myself. But then pull away again.

“No, I can’t.” I shake my head. “You have to go.”

“What?” Simon can’t believe what I’m saying.

“I’m sorry,” I say and start getting dressed. “I have to study. And we shouldn’t be doing that anyway.”

“I can stay and study with you,” he says. I think about that for a moment. Perhaps we can just pretend that none of this happened. But then my thoughts drift to Tristan again. No, I can’t study right now. I need air. I need to get out of this room.

“No, I’m sorry.” I shake my head and usher Simon out of the room.

“I’ll call you later,” I say by the elevator. I lean up for a kiss, but Simon’s mad. He’s not saying anything, but I can tell. He turns his head away from me.

“Can I call you later?” I ask. A pang of fear rushes through me. What if he doesn’t want to see me again? What then?

“Whatever,” Simon shrugs and gets on the elevator.

* * *

“What the hell are you thinking?” I barge into Tristan’s room without knocking.

I hope to catch him doing something embarrassing and humiliating too, but he’s just sitting on his bed with a textbook open across his legs. He looks up at me as if I’m lost, as if he had completely forgotten what had just happened! Agh, he makes me so mad!

“What?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. “What’s going on?”

“What? What’s going on?” I catch myself repeating his words. “YOU. Barging in on ME.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about that okay.” Tristan shrugs. “I was just looking for my jacket. I thought that I’d left it in your room.”

I shake my head. “This is unbelievable.”

I walk out of his room and slam the door on my way out. I start pacing around the living room thinking of something to say. Looking for words that I can use to convey my anger at him. But nothing comes. I want to slam something. Break something. Hit something. Hit him. Tristan!

“Okay, listen.” Tristan comes out into the living room. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” I yell. I hate how my voice breaks a bit at the top.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to interrupt. It was really an accident.” Tristan shrugs.

All I can do is stare at him.

“Is he still here?” he whispers after I don’t respond.

“No, of course not! Why?” I ask.

Tristan shrugs again. Our eyes lock. He looks away. I hate how sexy he looks when he’s wrong. He has this tendency to look down at his feet and shift his weight a bit from side to side. I wait for him to drop his shoulders and let out a few sighs. He does. Why do I have to know all these things about him? I curse myself. I should find him and all of his perfect imperfections annoying and vomit-inducing, but I don’t. Instead, they make me want to...

I shake my head. No, I won’t go there. Not even in my thoughts. This is over.

“Can I ask you something?” Tristan asks after a few moments of silence. I shrug and look at the floor.

“Why did you get so mad? I mean, I know I surprised you. But…why did you get so mad, Alice?”

“I didn’t get mad,” I say too quickly. “You just wouldn’t leave the room. Why did you just stand there like a statue? I had to yell at you a couple of times before you left.”

Tristan takes a step closer to me. He tilts his head forward and his hair falls into his face. We’re so close that I can see the pores on his face. Mysteriously, none of them are black.

“I was in shock,” he whispers.

“Why?” I whisper. We’re so close that I can feel his breath on my lips.

“Because you’d moved on,” he says after a moment and looks away. He turns around and walks to the kitchen.

“What?” I ask in my normal voice. The words seem to echo around the room. Tristan stops in his tracks.

“What?” he asks.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. I feel like we’re dancing in circles and getting nowhere.

“I was in shock because you’d moved on,” he whispers. “That’s why I just stood there. I didn’t mean to interrupt, really. And when I saw you two, I felt like I’d been punched in the gut.”

I can’t understand what he’s saying. My ears are buzzing again.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “We broke up, Tristan. A long time ago.”

He shrugs.

“You broke up with me, remember? And now you’re sleeping with my peer review partner. Tea. Remember? So you’re surprised when you catch me in bed with Simon? Are you insane?”

He looks at me confused. “Wait, what? Sleeping with Tea? Who said anything about sleeping with Tea?”

“You two haven’t slept together?” I ask.

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not that’s not any of your business.”

“Wait, I don’t understand,” I say. “You’ve been dating for awhile now.”

He shrugs. “The timing hasn’t been right. We’re taking it slow. But it doesn’t matter now. Everything’s different now, right?”

I want to run up to him and pound him on his chest. What the hell do you mean? It doesn’t matter now. What doesn’t matter? Why doesn’t it matter. What’s different? But something’s holding me back. This isn’t my old Tristan. This person’s different. And our relationship’s different. Fragile, new, to say the least.

“I guess,” I finally say. It’s all I can say. He looks away disappointed. If you want things to be different then tell me. Tell me what you want. Tell me something, anything, of value, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. But I don’t.

“I just want to tell you,” Tristan says. I look up at him with hope. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is the moment when he really tells me how he feels about me.

“I just want to tell you that it won’t happen again.” He finishes the sentences and breaks my heart.