Page 6 of Only After We Met
“It’s a long story.”
“Great. Your plane doesn’t leave till the morning, right?”
“Very funny.”
Rhys could tell I was struggling to jimmy the box where I kept everything pertaining to Dean, so he rested his forearms on the table and bent forward, making me feel closer to him. I noticed the almost invisible dusting of freckles around his nose. And his eyelashes. And the small imperfections in his skin. Those, too, were somehow attractive.
“Can I tell you a secret? I studied psychology.”
“Come on! I don’t believe you,” I responded.
“Why not?”
“Let’s see. You don’t look like a psychologist; you look like a rock guitarist. Or a movie star who’s trying to pass unnoticed. Or a melancholy writer who’s come to Paris looking for inspiration.”
“Okay, you caught me. I dropped out before my second year, but I still know how to listen.” He gave me a patient, good-boy smile. It made me laugh.
“You’re not an easy person to read. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“A lot. In a bad way.”
“I think it’s a good thing.”
“You must be the first.”
“Great. So, getting back to theDean Files…that’s what we’ll call it, okay? Where should I start? We’ve known each other forever. Since we were kids.”
“Interesting.” He took a sip from his bottle of beer.
“We went to private school in the center of town, and our parents are really close, so we also saw each other outside of class. Then we got older, went to another private school, started going out, and that probably explains why we decided to attend the same university, and…”
“So you’re like Siamese twins.”
“What? No! Of course not!”
“Can I ask you something then?”
“Sure. Shoot.”
As he stared at me, I noticed the blue points in his gray eyes, like brushstrokes of light in an ashen sky.
“This trip…all this nonsense about catching a plane without thinking…is this the first time you’ve ever done anything totally on your own? Without Dean, I mean.”
“Well…I…I mean, I do a lot of things on my own. I paint my nails. I go to the bookstore; I love doing that…” I sighed, defeated. “Fine. You got me. It’s the first time I’ve done anything without him. And I think that’s why I’m so scared and why I feel so lost. But I had to do it. It doesn’t even make sense.”
“It does though.”
His voice was hoarse. Sincere. I was grateful as I took another bite of my crepe, enjoying the melted cheese and sauteed mushrooms. He was distracted as he chewed, and his knee struck mine once in a while, moving to the rhythm of a song coming from a radio on the counter. Something in French. Slow, pretty, soft.
“Where’d you learn French?” I asked.
“I don’t speak French. I can get by. Same with German and Spanish. You live somewhere, you wind up picking it up. But don’t change the subject. We were talking about theDean Files, and you didn’t finish. Why’d you leave him?”
I stirred uncomfortably in my chair. “Let’s just say after five years together, Dean apparently wants some time for himself, to have new experiences in the year and a half we have left of school, before he settles down or whatever. Honestly, I feel cheated.”
“Cheated?”
“Yeah. Just think: it’s like if you buy a gorgeous sweater, bottle green or that mustard yellow everyone’s wearing this year…”