Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood

Being able to keep Vince fed, that had been happiness. And when I couldn’t, that’s when I’d begun to resent him, and the unfairness of what was being asked of me.

“I did go back, eventually. And Vince . . . he said he forgave me. But things soured anyway. He grew up and made choices that I simply can’t . . . We’ve been on and off through the years. His current behavior is completely unacceptable, but I hope you can see why me calling the police on him is not really a—”

Two things happened simultaneously: my voice broke, and Eli dragged me into his lap, between his thighs, his arms bands of steel around me. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I hated it a little, this weakness of mine, this inability to deal with my past and with my infinite guilt. But it was nice, having told someone. Taking this stinging pain inside me and putting it outside my body for a little. “You did what you could.” His hand caressed my hair, my back.

“You did enough.”

“Did I?” I pulled back and wiped my cheeks. “Because look at us.” He stared in confusion, his palm warm around my nape. “My story and yours had the same beginnings. Our siblings. The ice. Engineering. But the ending . . . You and Maya found each other, while Vince and I—it’s like one of those Finish the Picture worksheets. Except that yours became a beautiful painting and mine is a fucking—”

“Rue, no.” He shook his head energetically, like I shouldn’t even contemplate the idea. “Maya wanted to be found. Mending that relationship went both ways. This,” he said, angling his head toward the entrance of my apartment, “is not on you. Please, tell me you understand that.”

Maybe I did, at least rationally. But I wasn’t able to feel it in my stomach. I let out a soft, viscous laugh. “Do you think that maybe there’s another version of us, somewhere in another timeline? Where we’re not just a messed-up lump of scar tissue, and we’re whole enough to be capable of loving others the way they want to be loved?”

He stared at me for an endless moment, and a silly thought nestled into my mind. If I were able to love someone, I would choose you. In that timeline, I would want it to be you.

But then he said, “No, Rue.”

“Well, that’s depressing.”

“That’s not it.” He swallowed. Held my eyes with determination. “I just don’t think that we need another timeline to be able to do that.”

It knocked me wordless. My heart stopped so abruptly, I was afraid it wasn’t going to start anymore. “I’m done. You can leave now, if you want to,” I said evenly. I couldn’t believe he’d want otherwise—in my experience, staying was the exception, and leaving, the rule. I hated the thought of him being gone, but maybe it was for the best, to untangle us from this intimacy we’d sunk into.

“Can I?”

I nodded. “I promise I’m fine. I don’t need you to keep hugging me, or—”

“I’m not hugging you.”

“Yes, you—”

“No, here’s what’s happening.” He shifted us around until we were lying down, not unlike the way we’d fallen asleep earlier. Except that he was definitely hugging me, pulling me into his chest and holding me there. Whenever I breathed in, his clean scent filled my lungs. “I’m waiting for you to calm down. Once you’re not upset anymore, we can fool around again. Then I’ll go home. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. It sounded like a good, not overdramatic plan. And despite the night’s events, I was, above all, not overdramatic.

“Perfect. Just close your eyes and relax, okay? The sooner you relax, the sooner we can do something fun.”

“Like what?”

“We could fuck again—that worked well. Or maybe you can suck me off. I’ll think about it.”

I took a deep breath and willed myself to calm down. It was going to be good, moving back to the sex. Something I was familiar with. Something I could control.

But I relaxed a little too much, and ended up falling into an exhausted, dreamless sleep in under a minute. We did not fuck, and I did not suck him off, and he did not go home.

Instead, Eli’s arms stayed around me for the rest of the night.





29





EVEN IF YOU DON’T





RUE

Eli woke up at dawn, cursed softly, and gently disentangled from me.

I didn’t pretend to be dead to the world, but made the semiconscious choice to keep my eyes closed and drift back to sleep. The last thing I remembered was his weight dipping the edge of the mattress. He lingered, perhaps looking at me. Then he pushed a strand of hair behind my ear and leaned forward to gently kiss my forehead. Tired, comfortable, maybe even a little happy, I dozed off once again, lulled by the rustle of Eli pulling his clothes back on.

I didn’t wake up until several hours later, when I stumbled into the kitchen and pawed around for a mug and the coffee maker, then stopped in my tracks when I spotted the note, written on my latest unopened IRA envelope.

He’d circled my middle name on the address box (Chastity, the bane of my already plenty-baned existence), and placed three exclamation points on its right, which made my eyes roll and my lips curve. Underneath, he’d written:

Call me if you need me.

And then, right below, scribbled more hastily, as though he’d decided to add something when he was already halfway out of the door: