Eden
When I get back to my apartment at about midday, I still haven’t received a response from Maddox. I stand in the shower, letting the warm water wash away the anger and the pain from last night, and when I step out from it, dripping water onto the tiles, I glance at my phone: no notifications, no response.
I’m dressed, sitting on my couch, tossing my phone from hand to hand. The curtains and pulled shut and I set in semi-darkness. Why won’t he text back? Is he angry with me? Is he done with me? But I was right. It was makeup. And he knew, too. She made it up. Why else paint herself like that? Why else make a play for my sympathy? She made it up! It must’ve been her who set that screensaver. I don’t know how she knew I would be up there, but she did, and...
I check my phone again, and again there are no messages.
Finally, after around an hour of sitting and not doing much of anything except thinking and drinking water to try and fight the hangover, I call him. The ring of the phone is like a cawing bird in my ear, far too loud, far too urgent. I set it to loudspeaker and place the phone on my knee, looking down at it. It rings for two minutes, and nobody answers. I imagine Maddox sitting on the edge of his bed, looking down at my name and shaking his head.
“Had your chance,” I hear him say. “Had you chance, and you ruined it.”
I wait until around four o’clock to ring him again, and again he doesn’t answer.
He’s angry. He’s angry and he’s done with me. I should’ve known with a man like him, shouldn’t I? I should’ve known that he wouldn’t stick around for something like this. Too much drama for a man like him.
I go into the bedroom and slump down on the bed and close my eyes.
Maddox. Maddox, it was an argument. Relationships don’t end after arguments, you silly, cocky man! We can work through this!
But he doesn’t text back at all that day, and I know that he’s furious with me. Or, worse, he isn’t angry but just apathetic. He doesn’t care enough to text back. He doesn’t want the hassle. He found himself feeling something for me, but it’s gotten too real too fast. He’s not the type of man to stick around after this, is he?
Maddox Owens, outlaw, isn’t the type of man to endure this.
But then why text me? Why say you want to talk? Goddamn, Maddox, just call me! Just text me! I’m going crazy here!
***
Four days pass. Four days during which I text Maddox a grand total of nine times, and call him five times. Each time, he does not respond, and he does not answer. I see him in my mind clearly. I see him sitting at his desk, the same desk behind which we first fucked, looking down at his phone buzzing with my name. And I see him curse under his breath and turn away from the phone, his bright blue eyes full of pain. I see him chuck the phone across the room. But that’s wishful thinking because that would require some passion and I’m sure he’s repressed any feeling he had for me: pushed it down until there’s nothing left.
I spend most of my time absorbed in the code, inserting Maddox’s fixes and improving it based on his suggestions. On the fourth day, I submit the dissertation and my professor calls me into her office. She grins at me like I’m a prize.
“Excellent,” she says, her voice full of disbelief. “Just—excellent! How did you pull this off? A game, you said, and I thought to myself: a small little thing, a tiny little game with some text about gender theory. But you’ve made a full game, a full game whose characters are a picture of feminine diversity! You’ve given them dialogue, which if strung together would equal more words than the essays I’m receiving. Just—excellent!”
I know I should be glowing under the praise, but at the back of my mind, Maddox lurks. I leave the office and college feeling oddly numb. I’ve worked toward this moment for the past year, but now it’s come, all I want to do is be with Maddox to celebrate it. I want to fall into his arms, kiss, fuck, and then stay up late at night talking about coding. Because he did this for me. Not some coder friend. But him. Oh, the game would’ve been finished anyhow. But he made it better.
As I walk from my car to my apartment building, I imagine him pulling up beside me on his bike, grinning at me, cocky as ever. “Did you think I forgot about you, Red?”
And I’d smile back, climb on, and we’d ride somewhere private, somewhere safe, somewhere we could be alone. The sex would be glorious, and the talking, and the company would be just as amazing. I’d say, “I need to say sorry about the other—” And he’d cut me off with a kiss.
But that doesn’t happen because life doesn’t work like that. I go into my living room, anxious, annoyed, and angry, and sit down. Then I stand up. Then I sit down. I pull at the strands in my denim shorts, fiddle with my hair, and tug at the straps of my bra. The apartment feels tiny.
Finally, I get up and leave the apartment, march down the stairs, and get back into my car.
Fine, I think, swallowing. Swallowing nerves, swallowing pride. You won’t respond to me? Fine! Then I’ll come to you!
I start the car and screech away.