I need a break.
My parents asked me to move back home, “until you get things under control.” I said no. I was going to tough it out, get used to my new life the sooner, the better.
It’s not working.
“Geneva.” Marlon has propped himself against the kitchen counter where I’m trying to eat leftover pancakes. “How are you holding up?”
I avoid his eyes. “Okay.”
“You don’t have to be brave the whole time. When my sister’s husband died—”
“But I’m not your sister, and Julian wasn’t my husband.”
He opens his arms. They’re long and thick and strong. I hesitate only for a moment before I let him pull me in. I do that thing we do with people we know well: let truths sieve out even if they make us vulnerable. “My room’s just so empty.”
“You want to change up the rooms? Get a fresh start in a way?”
I wink. “You’re only saying that because you want mine.”
“Dammit, you caught me.” Marlon huffs a small laugh. “So close.”
“You can’t fool me, you smooth-talking lawyer wannabe.”
“Oh we’re hugging? Gimme,” I hear from behind, and feel Lenny’s fingers curl around my upper arm and nudge me around.
“Hey, man. I had her first.” Marlon play-fights for his rights.
“Dude, I need a Geneva-hug too. You want a ride to campus?” Lenny asks.
“No, I’m driving myself. Not sure what I’m doing after class, so...” They’re both quiet while I trail off.
“Drive her, Lenny,” Luka says from the door. He sounds like he knows how I’ll feel about his order and doesn’t give a shit.
I fulfill his expectation. “Back off, Luka. I do what I want.”
“Maybe he’s right, though. What you’ve been through is...”—Lenny shakes his head—“We don’t want anything to happen to you.”
I loosen his grip and narrow my eyes. “You know what? You guys live in the Dark Ages. Women are capable of thinking and acting on separate emotions at once, and believe it or not: I still remember how to drive.”
One after the other, the Fratters are plodding into the kitchen for a snack before heading off to class. They’re pouring themselves coffee and catching up on our conversation.
“Of course.” Lenny looks around for help. “That doesn’t mean you’re safe.”
“And he is?” I jut a finger at Luka who’s moved inside the kitchen, arms crossed over his white tee. The long hair is the only trait separating him from my boyfriend. Oh and his douchebag-ness. His morals. The steel in his eyes as he stares back.
“He’s been through a lot too, and he’s allowed to drive today?”
Fratter number seven sidles up slowly. It’s James this time, our second silver-tongued, sweet-talking law student. Even before he opens his mouth, I know he’ll agree with the guys.
“Just let us take care of you. If we feel better about you hitching a ride with Lenny, will you do it?” He blinks slowly, and I’m not sure if he does it to be endearing.
“It’s Thursday, Geneva. Our classes coincide, and we’re only a building apart. You hate me that much?” Lenny pouts his lip, and that, for sure, isn’t instinctive.
Thirty minutes later, I’m in Lenny’s car. I swing and find Luka climbing down the porch and swaggering toward his piece-of-crap car. He’s filming today, with an “old friend,” Ana, he told Connor. Polite kitchen convo, you know. “So who’re you doing today, bud?” It pisses me off to see Luka toss his phone on the seat and hop in.
I’m good during the day. As soon as the condolatory hugs are out of the way, classes are fine. I concentrate. I scribble in my notebook. It’s this, nighttime in my room, that sucks.
“Toss or keep?” Joy holds out Julian’s first suit. He wore it twice, max, because it wasn’t a good fit for him. Too wide shoulders despite the fact that the twins are broad. I remember Luka grimacing in his onceover.
“Dude, you’ll never get laid in that.”
“I am getting laid, big brother.”
Unimpressed, Luka’s eyes darted to me. “Well, once you branch out.”
“Asshole,” I mutter now.
“What?” Joy’s sky-blues blink at me.
“Oh nothing, just old stuff. Let’s put it in the donation heap.”
At bedtime, I feel better. All of Julian’s clothes are gone. His shoes, socks, underwear. A few items I left on top of Luka’s drawer before he came home from his late-night orgy somewhere. The rest, James drove to the Salvation Army.
It’s pretty in here now. Smells of a new room fragrance Joy bought me, Lavender Dreams. It’s supposed to be relaxing.
I need to paint in here, I think drowsily. I could exchange charcoal walls and purple doorframes for pink and cream.
I wake up to my own voice. Dazed, I throw myself around, arms open to snuggle against Julian. I want to hide from the vague darkness of my dream until I remember he’s not here.
The walls are thin in the Queen, and Luka has brought work/entertainment home with him. In rhythmic bangs and low grunts, he celebrates his dirty life while Julian is six feet under.
It’s three a.m., and I get up and pace the room. Return to bed. Get up.
Someone knocks on the door, and Connor enters at my come in. “Hey. Can’t you sleep?”
“Doesn’t he get enough during the day?” I rake my hands through my hair. It feels maimed, so I let go and thump back, heavy against the pillows. “How can anyone sleep when he does that?”
“I know. You want company?”
“No. Yeah. I don’t know.” My voice is sleep-broken.
Poet Boy sits down slowly, eyes on me as he steadies himself with a hand on the mattress. His gaze travels over our bed. “It can’t be easy in here for you.”
“Ha. Sucks,” I admit as much as I can without breaking down.
“What you need is someone next to you. It’s what you’re used to,” he says, and then he’s here, warm and clean-smelling, my friend—Julian’s friend. He pulls himself higher on the bed.
“Shoes off.” I let the relief of his presence seep in. “I have clean sheets.” We burned the ones Julian died on in the backyard.
Connor kicks his shoes off and tugs his shirt over his head.
“You don’t have to do that.” I stare at his chest. The fur there forms a different pattern than Julian’s.
“He slept without a shirt on, right?”
“Yeah...”
Connor isn’t Julian, but he knows how to hold someone when she’s tired and needs the sound of even breaths around her. He tucks my face against his throat. Poet Boy is alive.
I entwine our legs. His thighs are hard, like Julian’s, legs long, like Julian’s. We fit together. His pajamas pants are thin. I must have tugged on them, because Connor is quiet when he removes them and wedges a hairy thigh between mine. It’s conventions that cause the flutter of guilt in my stomach as he kisses my head.
“Better?” he asks, and I nod against him.
I’m relaxed. Connor is still here this morning, sprawled out on my bed, half under the sheets and half on top. I like what I see. The nudge of guilt reappears in my stomach, but that’s the good thing about studying what I study. I know I’m not hurting anyone when I lay back down in the crook of his arm and nuzzle a nipple. I don’t lick it.
All we did was sleep. I haven’t slept this well since Julian died, and it’s a biological fact that everything looks brighter after a good night’s sleep.
Connor stirs. He squeezes me and kisses the top of my head. “Whoa, never thought I’d get to wake up with the hottest girl in the Queen,” he says groggily.
“I have so many comebacks to that. Like, yay for being the hottest chick in this house when my only competition is the rat mom nesting in the attic.” I bite my lip, and he grins.
“You’re definitely hotter than a rat mom. Better boobs too.”
“Shut up.” I play-smack him, lips contracting against a smile.
I tug on my nightie, which is on the flimsy side. If we ever repeat our slumber party, I should wear more clothes. Connor is fine as he is though, in a pair of boxer briefs.
“Okay, note to self.” He holds an imaginary recorder to his mouth. “Geneva doesn’t like competing with rats.”
I’m strong.
I know how to channel shit from my heart and into my brain. It’s why Julian and I were the perfect match. Without words, he understood, because he was like me too.
We had our brand of love, not the Hallmark type, but the real kind, where feet are on the ground and brains straggle off. When one tapered into objective analysis of the past/present/future, the other sat back and watched.
I brought Julian into my doctoral statement. Together, the two of us memorized rituals of mourning, how they ever-so-slightly differ between western cultures, while other cultures vary immensely. At the funeral, I treated myself to the ritual of the wedding-funeral, which I needed more than I like to admit. Joy says understanding oneself is triumphing. I guess I triumph?
I treated myself to a man in my bed last night too. It was another need fulfilled. When I’m busy, when studies claim me and preparations for the field trip saturate my minutes, I can keep the grief at bay. But as Lenny drives me home from class, espresso eyes fleeting between the road and me, I dread the darkness and the night ahead.
“Geneva, are you okay?” Lenny breathes his words. It’s how he is. I haven’t really noticed before.
Smooth shifts between the sheets, day after day, year after year with Julian. I guess it’s what makes me notice others’ shifts now that he’s gone. There’s a fleeting sense of wrongness over that until my brain kicks in and suffocates indoctrinated customs.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
At the Queen, Luka’s cooking pasta. It’s not the from-scratch kind Julian made, but I’m hungry and there’s a lot of sauce with ground beef.
The long rectangular table that’s been in our dining room since day one is still draped with the white tablecloth from the funeral. My fault. The boys don’t notice such things, and it would only ever bother me. I scoop leftover crumbs off the surface.
Beers are put on the table. Haphazardly, three or four land in a cluster at one corner, then singles in front of each plate. Nathaniel follows up with paper towels and forks. He spaces them perfectly while Diego mutters something to him. I don’t hear it, but Nathaniel nods and finds my stare.
“Geneva, you’re over there. Sit.” He does this, shoots off orders even though he doesn’t have the power to back them up. It’s kind of charming.
“Where exactly?” I look in the general direction of his chin-jut. The few times we all ate together, Julian and I sat at the center on the long side facing the window. Now Nathaniel jerks his head toward the end of the table, but that’s Luka’s spot, so I shake my head. Where would that leave him, next to me? Nathaniel just nods, and it’s not a day to fight with your friends.
Every Fratter is home. I’d expect a few to be in late classes, maybe kissing girls somewhere else, but they slide into their chairs around me. James squeezes my shoulder, a lopsided smile on his face, before he takes his place to my left. Only the chair to my right is empty when Luka enters with a monster pot of steaming spaghetti.
“Here. Serve yourself.” He hunches down so I can reach inside, biceps ticking.
I do. It’d be courteous to ladle up his plate too. Since I don’t, Luka does it quickly himself before he deposits the pot in James’ arms.
We eat in silence. I do small swallows chased by beer so that I don’t have to choke up. The guys start chatting among themselves, respectfully low, I feel. It’s not how they usually are. These guys used to be loud. I’m not saying they were partiers. Once we all got to our graduate degrees, only a few kept up the undergrad lifestyle, and mostly during the weekend.
Usually, they ricochet off jokes with no regard to there being a woman in their midst. Because of Julian, I was one of the guys. Now, I’m a hurt girl they need to treat cautiously, and I don’t know what to think about that.
Luka remains silent.
“Good day at work?” I can’t help asking.
He straightens and looks up from his food. “Yeah, can’t complain. Got a lot done.” The asshole smirks.
“Good for you.” I say it calmly, but my chest growls at the depravity of what he gets “done.”
“How was class?” When he tips his head, a disheveled section of hair settles over his cheekbone. Luka’s mouth is Julian’s, surprise, surprise. With their pale complexion, its pink texture stands out gorgeously. His lower lip is fleshy, the contour stubbornly straight in the middle. But the upper lip was what I used to lose it over; I know why a heart is such a special symbol. It doesn’t actually look like a person’s blood pump. No, the top part, with the deep valley between two halves, looks like a twin mouth.
I force my gaze away. “It was okay. My professor moved on fast after his condolences, so we got into the meat of things pretty quickly.”
“That’s cool.” He takes a feral bite of bread. Tucks his stray section of hair behind an ear. Neither of us say anything until he’s done. Then he asks, “What’s going to happen with Kenya?”
There’s a small implosion in my stomach.
“Nothing. I can’t go now.” My lip starts to quiver. “I mean, I have to, but not now.”
“Luka, seriously?” James mutters. “She was doing all right. Here, babe.” He hands me another beer, and I grab it—take a swallow—risk a glance at Luka and find his eyes lustrous. Discreetly, he rubs them with an oversized fist.
“You’ll go later,” he says.
I don’t think I can do this in front of everyone. I’m not ready for a public meltdown, so I say, “Yeah, thanks for this,” lift my bowl, and take it to the kitchen. The low chatter in there quiets down.
“Geneva.” I dart my stare to the door, where Connor appears. He leans his cheek against the doorframe. “Come back. Please?”
“Can’t. Got research to do.” I gesture toward the stairs and the laptop waiting on my bed.
“It can wait. Can’t it?”
“I’ll be down again later, promise.” As I flutter my fingers in some breezy goodbye, Connor’s eyes don’t divert from me. He knows I’m retreating for the night.
It’s been another twenty-four hours since Julian died. Darkness falls outside with another night approaching. Fun times.
“You have to let yourself cry. You act like you’re a sap for having feelings, but get this: you lost your fiancé. You’d be a robot if you didn’t cry.” Joy’s voice is tinny on the phone as she yells in staccato. “It’s not healthy to hold back.”
“Stop it, Joy. To fall apart because someone checks out is a cultural crutch.” I’m on my bed, face coated with liquid salt. Julian would have loped a smile my way and asked me to take notes for him. My damn eyes. I can’t control them tonight. I grab the top sheet, dab, and let it soak in my cop-out.
“You know, it’s like wearing ankle cuffs attached to sandbags that are one hundred percent tradition and clichéd expectation, and next, you’re in a row boat and they toss you into the ocean. You’re sinking fast and deep into—”
“—cultural deepwater. Yeah, yeah, and oh my god, how did you get like this? I swear I was supposed to become a psychologist to fix you.”
I scoff. She’s so far off. I love her, but she loves her mumbo-psych-jumbo. “I’d never hire you.”
“Right, because why would you? You get me for free.”
I exhale and look around my room. It’s desolate. “You want to come over?”
“I’d love to, but I’m mentoring tonight and this guy’s failing class. Isn’t there a roommate you can hang out with?”
“Sure, no worries,” I say.
I hang up and stare around me. Chest of drawers, nightstands, glass veranda, the door ajar to the en suite. I examine the walls. They’re what they are, unchanging until I do something about them.
It’s raining outside, a rare phenomenon for a Valley spring. It keeps people indoors, and I don’t want anyone to fuss over me leaving. To be on the safe side, I take the backstairs and tiptoe out the old servants’ entrance. I groan, thinking I’ve forgotten the car key, but there it is, in my purse, thank goodness.
I hurry through the sheeting rain and into our black Mustang. The engine is loud, revving without my doing, and I veer past James’ and Nathaniel’s cars, over the already muddy lawn.
I curve out on the road and glance back to find the front door of the Queen open. A couple of Fratters are outside watching, Luka’s blond halo standing out behind them.
I ignore the buzzing of my cell for the first few minutes—I can’t drive and text anyway—but as I park outside Gray’s Paint, I feel bad for making them worry.
Luka: Where are you going?
None of your business, I think but text, Buying paint for my room. BRB
Luka: B safe.
Fuchsia Pink and Valspar Cream In My Coffee. These are Marie-Antoinette colors and not me, but I know what I need, drastic change everywhere. I also need to move forward at light speed if I’m to not shatter my career schedule. Sure, I feel like slate and charcoal, and probably will for a good while, but I want to feel pink and light. It’s why I pay the cashier for several cans of each color and dive back into the car.
The Mustang sinks under me, a slight rocking at my weight. It’s two years old, and Julian bought it right after the fall student loans hit our accounts that year. I remember our fight over it too.
“A brand new car straight off the factory line? What the hell?”
“Ah baby, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I didn’t take up a car loan, okay? And I added your name to the title too. I thought you’d be happy.”
“So it’s savings?”
“Uh-huh, and I’ve always wanted a Mustang. Now we have it.”
I shook my head, staring at my low-lidded boyfriend on the bed. Was this an Adderall moment? He sometimes bought the pills off fellow students in an effort to concentrate during cram time. That should have made him hyper, though.
“I don’t understand. We make decisions together, remember?” I said.
“I know.”
“How much was it?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four what?”
“Grand. What did you think? Hundred?” He smiled a lazy smile that would have been insolent on others. Coming from Julian, it melted girlfriend ice as he pulled me down to him and kissed the rest of my questions away.
I drive back to the Queen and head for the front door. The rain has stopped, so I walk slowly with my bags of painting gear. Someone lifts the flap of a curtain and peers out. It’s Luka. He turns, maybe planning to come out for me?
I’m on the second step when Nathaniel shows up instead. Smiling, he stretches for my bags. Mutters, “I’ll take that for you, babe,” and lets me pass so I can do what I want: head for the stairs.
“‘What’s with the ‘babe’ thing?”
“It suits you.” He follows me upstairs, shifts my bags into one hand, and opens the door to my room.
“James called me that too,” I say and wedge open the first can of pink. “You guys are weird.”
“You’re painting now?”
“Yeah.”
“O-okay. You want help?” His stare slides up a wall and meets the ceiling.
“No, thank you.” I tick out a tight smile. “I think I need to do this alone.”
The first strokes of pink over charcoal are painful. I feel like it’s early, like I’m erasing us even if I know that’s not the case. What we were/had/did is over. Julian and I belong in the past now. He’s a part of my history, forever imprinted on it. That’s the way it needs to be.
As the bright-bright fuchsia begins to invade my space, it cleanses my mind. At eleven, I’m done with the first layer. I’d like to start on the cream door- and window frames too, but I’m tired. Maybe this will be a good night.
I take a soda from the fancy mini-fridge Julian got us a year ago. Once I’ve downed it, I get ready in the bathroom. It has ancient white tiles and the same charcoal paint as our room. I should change it up in here too.
Julian’s toothbrush waits in a glass on the counter. Why is it still there? Jesus, he doesn’t need it anymore! I hurry up and swaddle it in toilet paper before stuffing it deep into the trash.
There’s a knock on the door, and my heart bounces. Maybe it’s Connor again. Damn it, I’m wearing another flimsy nightie. I’ll just tell him I’m fine, that he doesn’t need to worry about me. I throw on a robe before I open.
It’s Luka. A barefoot Luka in a white t-shirt and worn jeans. The V of his collar displays pale, smooth skin, and I detest him.
“Hey, Geneva.”
“What?”
He clears his throat, a small rumble in his chest. “I’m off to the club for a bit. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“Sure. You do what you want.”
“A few of the other guys are home, but call me if you need anything.” He even asks, “You have my number, right?” as if I haven’t had it for the last six years.
I try to sleep. The stench of paint doesn’t make it any easier. I have the fan on high and the A/C blasting, but I’m starting to see what a terrible idea it was to paint before going to bed.
Toss. Turn. Fuck!
I burrow my face into the pillow.
It’s after midnight when I take the stairs down to the kitchen. The house is quiet, but as soon as I start filling a bowl with cereal, light footfalls carry Lenny downstairs too.
“No sleep again?” he asks, blinking slowly.
“Got that right.”
“Your room smells like paint.”
I let out a chuckle, because yeah. “So bad. I’m this close to bringing my blankets to the library.”
“To the Beast?” Lenny juts his head toward the narrow sixties couch that’s visible through the archway. It came with the house, and I’ve been meaning to get rid of it since I moved in.
I swallow a mouthful of Diego’s Cap’n Crunch. “Or on the floor. I’ve got an extra comforter.”
“You can sleep in my bed.” He waggles his brows playfully, and I lift an eyebrow. “No, come on. I’m only messing with you. Or messing with you about the, you know”—he waggles his brows again—“not about the sleeping-in-my-bed thing.”
I stop chewing. Lenny does have a huge bed, and with his skinny frame, he can only be occupying so much of it himself.
“There’s plenty of room for a little babe in my king-size.”
I side-eye him.
“Seriously. And also plenty of room on my king-sized...” He does a hip-thrust.
“Don’t be a dick.” I can’t help finding it funny though; this is the first sign of a Fratter being himself around me.
“Well, more like I—”
“—have one. Yeah, yeah,” I complete his sentence while he snickers proudly. “Okay. But no monkey business, all right?”
“Never. I only monkey when the monkey wants to be monkeyed with. And when she does, my monkey will monkey the hell outta hers.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s what you learn in school these days?”
“Well, I am special, they say.” He flashes me a grin. “Ready?”
I start to shake my head, but then I turn it into a nod.
Lenny isn’t playful anymore once we’re in his room. He dims the lights, asking if I want them on or off, and I say that I want them on. I point toward our room... my room. Tell him I’m going back for my duvet and pillow. When I return, he’s drawn the curtains, and there’s a candle burning on his nightstand.
“Lenny, what are you doing?”
“What do you mean?” His attention joins mine on the candle, and he puckers his mouth, displeased. “It’s nothing. What do you take me for? I just want it to be relaxing and nice in here.” He ruffles through his black-blue model-boy hair and waves toward the bed. “Go ahead, jump in now. Be my guest.”
I smile. “As long as you don’t waggle your brow on me again.”
“Never.”
I want to say that he’s big on promises tonight, but that would sound flirty. I don’t know what’s going on with me, though. I’m feeling strangely lighthearted.
A cluster of pillows welcomes me when I lower myself to the mattress. They’re mismatched, and I have a feeling he pulled them out of closets and borrowed from other Fratters for the occasion. His room has a warm licorice scent to it. I inhale and burrow into the sheets.
“On or off?” He pulls on his shirt. Lifts. Drops it. Bares a taut six-pack in glimpses as he does.
“Off is fine. If you’re okay with that. It’s not like we’re gonna—”
“Okay, yeah, I get it.” He groans playfully.
He cat-crawls into bed now, tattoo tigers and dragons snaking in with him. Exotic and sure of himself with that always-playful undertone, the man is pretty delectable.
“Night, Lenny.” I turn my back to him.
“Night, babe.”
Babe.
I shut my eyes, smiling a little, and sooner than I thought, I drift asleep.
I’m not going to lie and say I don’t have nightmares. They’re cryptic and mysterious and play on the horrors of the last nine days. In the end, I gasp into an upright position, and Lenny’s arm shoots out.
“Shh. You’re okay. I’m here.”
I let out an awful, heart-killing sob, and he turns me around so fast I don’t have time to think until I’m in his arms and he’s squeezing me close.
“Was it about Julian?”
“He was dying in front of me.” I sound crazy, but when imaginary bones break inside you and intestines bloat and tear, it’s hard to sound rational.
“Okay” is all he says.
I snuggle against him, my face wet, rubbing into his neck for comfort. He nudges me closer, and my whole body agrees and melts to him. Lenny is different too, not like Julian, and maybe that’s what I need. Licorice and smooth skin, no hair grazing me from a different body that forms tenderly around me.
Lenny kisses my cheek. He finds the corner of my mouth and kisses there too. I need it when his hand cradles my face. I turn to him until my lips meet his and we kiss like lovers do. It’s slow, wet, salty, and I don’t pull away. I hiccough and he answers my need, caressing my face while his tongue strokes mine.
He tightens his hold. My body is awake, dancing a slow wave with him. My stomach wants him, and my abdomen heats, feeling how he gets hard and presses against me.
With two fingers, he brings a section of my hair away from my face so he can look at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” I try to control my breathing. Sorrow. Misplaced desire. I feel out of whack.
“Anything you want, babe.”
Anything.
“Anything and nothing. Whatever you need,” he adds.
I tuck my nose under his chin again, and he holds me until I stop shivering.