Page 20 of Only After We Met

Dean’s an idiot. You don’t have to be a genius to know how to use a little tact. I have no idea what it was you saw in him for so many years.

I’m glad to hear about the party. Have fun, Ginger. Go crazy. Throw on something you feel insanely sexy in, don’t think about anything, dance, and talk to any stranger you come across (even if obviously he won’t be as awesome as me). Be the girl you want to be. Dare.

I’m better now. I’m going to LA in a few days. I’ve got friends there. When you travel as much as I do, you end up with friends all over the world. I don’t talk to them every day, obviously. We have a different kind of friendship. Anyway, I’ll stay there awhile and see if I find work or something. Making it up as I go along has its benefits.

Before I leave, I’m going to see my mom. She’s coming to New York next week. I didn’t answer when you asked, but I haven’t seen her in more than a year. Not since last Christmas, when I got into it with my dad. It wigs me out just thinking about it. ButI also don’t know how to wriggle out of it. I feel like I’ve gotten into something, and there’s no turning back.

Keep me up to date on your next steps, Ginger. And have fun.

9

Ginger

All my clothes were on the bed. Dozens of garments I had tried and rejected, because none of them looked right on me. Or at least notinsanely sexy, to use Rhys’s term. And for once, I wanted to think that when I looked in the mirror. I wasn’t trying to impress anyone. I just wanted to see myself looking like that.

I scowled as I looked at my dresses and opened my closet again. I put on some tight black pants with zippers on the side and a see-through top that showed off the dark lace bra I bought a week before on an impulse as I passed by a lingerie shop. I liked it because I’d never treated myself to anything like that when I was with Dean. It was nice to do something for myself. I threw on a pair of boots too. Then I took a deep breath.

I didn’t look elegant, but I did lookinsanely sexy.

I smiled, trying to decide whether to pull my hair back or leave it down. I went for the second. Kate knocked at my door. I grabbed my bag and opened up.

She looked me up and down, smiling. “Man, you look amazing. Gorgeous!”

“Thanks. You too. Shall we?”

“Yeah. I parked right outside.”

I followed her, and she brought me up to date about all the people who were going to the late-night party. It was outside of town, at a house with a big yard that belonged to a former student. Kate kept her eyes on the road.

“How are things with that friend of yours?”

Lately we sat beside each other in all our classes, so she knew all about Rhys and his emails. She was a nice girl, the kind who always saw the glass as half-full, and she didn’t assume she knew who I was based on past experience. We both had made an effort to start from zero, as if we hadn’t already passed each other in the hallways at school dozens of times that year.

“Rhys? He’s good. He’s in New York right now.”

“That’s not what I mean, Ginger. I’m asking, are you really not planning on telling him you have feelings for him? You talk every day. That has to leave a mark.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like that.”

“What’s it like then?” she asked.

“Okay, I do feel something for him, but I can’t explain it. Our relationship is perfect like this, platonic, with our emails and each of us on a different side of the world. I don’t know. It’s nice. It’s one of the nicest things I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not about to screw it up, especially because there wouldn’t be any point.”

“Who knows? Maybe he would stop flitting around and move to London. He’ll have to do it one day, right? Hit the brakes, I mean?”

“You don’t know Rhys.” I smiled and sighed.

I was starting to understand him, from one email to the next. But I still had the feeling, after three months of daily contact, that I’d only seen the tip of the iceberg. I didn’t care though. I liked him. With problems or without, with love or without it. I couldn’t explain to anyone else what we had, how hungry I was to reconnect with him through email when nighttime came, our closeness, how easy it was to talk about everything, the important stuff and nonsense too. Even intimate things I wasn’t used to sharing. That meant Kate thought I was in love with him, and my sister did too. But they were wrong.

I was only in love with the young man I’d met in Paris. With a fleeting memory. Because that young man didn’t exist. He was just a tiny piece of Rhys. I repeated that to myself every day under the covers, remembering the feel of his fingertips on my wrist, looking for my pulse, his caresses. Those hours together had been special, and I had the feeling they’d never return, and that I’d better keep them tucked away in my memory, where I could cherish them, let them out from time to time, polish them, savor them. And I asked myself if he would ever do the same.

“It’s that house over there, with the lights in the garden.”

“Jesus, it’s huge. How many people are there?”

“More than I thought. Half the college maybe? There’s barely even anywhere to park.” Kate giggled.

I didn’t remember the last time I’d gone out, and I felt something funny in my stomach when we crossed through the doorway and greeted a few people we knew. The Killers were playing loud, and all over there were people dancing, laughing, drinking, acting stupid. I smiled without thinking.