Page 36 of Only After We Met

Subject: I’m fine

You’re an idiot. And yes, I’m fine. You honestly think I’m that impressionable? Ha. You’d have to do way better than that. But you’re right, it would be best to forget it, because it doesn’t matter anymore. I was just wondering…

Work sucks. Still. And Dad’s still happy. I was about to try and strangle myself today with the printer cable, but then I remembered it’s just a few more weeks till I’m free again. Or till I go back to the dorm. Same difference. You know, now that I’m about to start my last year of school, I’ve started asking myself if I’ll even be able to work every day. If I’m honest with you, I don’t want to think about it.

What about you? Is Sarah still with you?

From: Rhys Baker

To: Ginger Davies

Subject: RE: I’m fine

Ginger, I think you’re more impressionable than you imagine. But I said let’s forget it, and I’m going to try not to add anything else.

Did you ever wonder if you like what you’re doing? I’m going to tell you something I don’t think I ever have: I didn’t just study first-year psychology. I did the same with law. And political science. That’s right. The perfect son, you guessed it. Seriously, I wanted to like all that stuff, but it didn’t fulfill me. Classes felt like they would never end, and I wound up skipping most of them. The only good thing about college was the frat parties. (I know, I know—but my Dad was a brother and so was my grandfather. Anyway, the line ended with me.)

That’s where I met Logan, by the way—my friend I lived with in Los Angeles before Sarah got here. He did finish his law degree, and he has a small firm on the edge of town. Nothing fancy. Sometimes I look at him and think to myself that I could have had a life like that. But I don’t know. There’s something missing. Even now I don’t know what it is. I think I still need more time to understand myself. I hope, as always, you’ll be able to figure out what I mean here and see the logic in it.

What I’m trying to tell you, Ginger, is that you shouldn’t do anything that makes you unhappy. That sounds like one of those motivational phrases they print on T-shirts or coffee cups, but really, life’s too short not to take advantage of every second of it.

I’m not so sure what to do right now. I think I’ll stay here a few more months and then maybe go to San Francisco. No reason to stray too far.

17

Rhys

I closed my laptop and looked out the window for a few seconds. It was hot out. The sun had just risen. I thought about my life there in Los Angeles. But then Sarah moved behind me. She was lying in bed naked, curled up with a bundle of white sheets.

I smiled as I walked over. She was groggy.

“What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Answering an email. Who gets to shower first?”

“You,” she said quickly, closing her eyes.

I looked for some clean clothes to put on and walked into the bathroom. I turned on the cold water. That first burst of it made me shiver, but I stayed there, immobile, until I got used to it, and finally I started liking it. I heard someone say something once about how pain or an ice bath or vertigo woke a person up all at once, made them conscious of their skin, of the feeling of being alive. Because it was physical. Direct. Something that pulls them out of that comfort we instinctively seek.

When I came out, it smelled like freshly brewed coffee and Sarah was talking on the phone. I noticed the light coming in through thewindow, the effect of it, the way it curved slightly and resembled a small rainbow, reflecting off the kitchen table.

“What are you looking at?” Sarah hugged me from behind when she hung up.

“Nothing. Did they tell you if you’re filming today?”

She nodded and kissed me on the cheek before going to pour herself a cup of coffee. I waited until she was done to serve myself, and the two of us had breakfast in silence while the clock ticked away up on the wall.

They say the silences are how someone knows if the person in front of them is the right one. I think that’s a lie. Or that there’s more to it. A silence can be comfortable but empty. Or a silence can be tense, electrifying; it can even mean everything. Like the one I shared with Ginger more than six months ago in that attic, when I felt her pulse in her wrist against my fingers and we were looking at the full moon’s glow. I guess every instant is unique. That nothing can ever be repeated.

“I don’t feel like leaving,” she said.

“Did you get your tickets yet?”

“Yeah, last night. I used your computer.”

She looked away, suddenly uncomfortable.

“And…?” I arched my eyebrows.