My Favorite Half-Night Stand by Christina Lauren

chapter thirteen

millie

I stare down at the phone until the screen goes dark with inactivity. My reflection gazes back: brow furrowed, lips turned down at the corners, expression a mixture of terrified, bewildered, and hurt. Reid’s email is the equivalent of an emotional grenade going off in my face.

It’s only six in the morning, I haven’t had coffee yet, and my head is reeling. I’m not even sure where to start.

Reid felt terrible after we had sex? Is there a way to read that and not be devastated? I’ll admit things were awkward between us, but I’d been home five minutes—back from spilling my guts to Ed and Alex—to find him at my door. I’d barely processed anything. I didn’t even know if he’d read my letter.

All I knew was that he wasn’t with her.

I wasn’t thinking as I pulled him through the door and down the hall. All I could do was feel—feel how right we were together, and an overwhelming relief that he was here, and that I didn’t want him to leave. Afterward, the question What are we doing, Mills? felt like being grilled all over again at my dissertation defense, and I honestly did not have an answer. I got weird and panicky, and he left. Even Emotional Mutant Millie is aware it’s my fault.

“You’re really terrible about sharing personal shit. You know that, right?”

“Why you gotta be such a secret?”

“Come on, Mills. We all know you keep your cards close.”

They’re not wrong; I’ve never been good at opening up.

I had just turned eleven when Mom sat Elly and me down over ice cream and told us she was sick. She went so fast after that. It felt like one day she was carefully explaining what the word cancer meant, and then she was plugged into every manner of tube and wire. The sharp smell of hospitals and antiseptic replaced the lingering scent of Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers that she would spray every morning.

Toward the end, Dad kept us carefully away. “Don’t worry your mother,” he would tell us. “Let’s not give her something else to think about.”

So we didn’t. We told her that everything was great at school. We told her we were happy, that we loved her, that we didn’t need anything. And I kept the things I really wanted to tell her tucked away for when she was better. I didn’t bother her with details of a fight with my friend Kiersten, or how Mr. Donohue was the meanest teacher at the entire school. I would tell her later.

But then she died, and I didn’t have anyone to tell any of those things to. Beyond the ache of missing her, I found that life still went on. My quieter truths weren’t bursting to get out of me; I was fine keeping them inside.

It became habit to sidestep and be the listener instead. I got very good at listening. In college, I read somewhere that if we let someone talk about themselves long enough, it sets off the same neurological signals of pleasure in the speaker’s brain as do food or money. I’d been unintentionally exploiting that for years by then.

Anyone who needed something more from me gave up, and the ones who stayed have been fine with letting me hang in the metaphorical back when conversations get too deep. I’m an expert at knowing when to change the subject or crack a joke.

How convenient this must have been for Dustin. I was an easy girlfriend because I never wanted to analyze anything. We rarely fought because neither of us was entirely invested. He was happy to keep the status quo, and he never asked me to move out of my comfort zone.

Reid, on the other hand, has always been onto me—and, just like my sister, he’s about had it. It’s a real testament to my emotional deformity that I am capable of exhausting even the best people.

I reread his message to Cat, and it hurts more than it should. To him, Catherine is another woman—not Millie. He’s talking about all of this with someone else, not me. I have no claim to Reid, no right to be upset that he wonders if someone else is a better fit. So why does it feel like the rug has been pulled from under my feet? He told a total stranger that he doesn’t think he knows me at all.

Can I blame him?

I think back on what has always been my favorite smile, the patient one that says he’s exasperated but charmed—and loves me anyway. I compare that to his expression last night when he left. The tired eyes and disappointment that etched his features, the frown that got deeper and deeper until it resembled something hard and unfamiliar.

Now he wants to meet her, and I don’t know how to be her with Reid.

I am so totally fucked.

Ed’s neighborhood is composed of row after row of little brown condos, each a carbon copy of the one next to it. Community bike racks sit on each corner; the same shrubs are planted in each yard. I’m sure it was intended to be aesthetically pleasing, but it’s a logistical nightmare. If I’m singing along to the radio, or not really paying attention, I find myself on a random street, wondering if I was supposed to turn at that tall, skinny tree, or the one before it.

Like now. I drive around the block twice before pulling up in front of his condo, where my engine ticks in the quiet. The drive from my place to his has done little to calm me. I sit in the car for a moment and wish I had a Time-Turner so I could tell Past Millie to not be a dumb-ass.

Glancing at my phone, I’m hit with another blow when I realize Reid hasn’t called or texted once since last night. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t answer; I’m not confident enough in my bullshitting skills at the moment to fake my way through any sort of normal conversation, even one done over text.

It’s almost noon, but Ed answers the door in his bathrobe, holding a game controller. I would usually give him some shit about this, but alas, I’m also in pajama pants and didn’t bother with a bra.

“You’re not the pizza guy,” he says around a bite of Pop-Tart.

I brush by him, heading deeper inside, where I can hear Alex shouting at the video game.

Instead of couches, Ed has a set of high-back reclining gamer chairs that sit opposite the largest, most expensive TV I have ever seen. Alex is sitting in one and pauses their FIFA match when he sees me. “Mills, you here to play?”

“I’m here to flail,” I say. “I’m busted, you guys. Reid wants to meet Catherine.”

“What, your message meltdown didn’t scare him off?” Alex is mocking me, but I can’t care.

“You guys were right. Emotions give him a total boner.” I toss him my phone and drop like a lump into a flimsy beanbag in the corner.

Ed steps up behind him, and they silently scan the latest message from Reid. I try not to watch them, to decode every one of Ed’s brow lifts and Alex’s muttered yikes. It’s hard not to feel naked as they peer down at the screen where my shortcomings are laid out so plainly.

Alex is the first to look up. “He sent this today?”

I chew on my fingernail. “Last night. While I was sleeping.”

“He wants to meet you—her,” Alex says. “Holy shit.”

Ed straightens, turning around to tug on his hair. “If I don’t say much it’s because I’m screaming inside.”

“Okay, this doesn’t have to be that big a deal.” Alex looks up at Ed, confused.

Sweet, breezy Alex.

But sweet, emotional Ed drops into a chair and wipes his palms on his robe-covered thighs. “It is a big deal, though, Alex, since these are our best friends, and one of them has been lying to another. Not to mention the tiny fact that both of us knew. We’re aiders and abettors.”

“Not helping.” I whimper and sink deeper into the cushion. The beads in Ed’s cheap beanbag choose this moment to shift underneath me, folding me in half and causing me to roll awkwardly to the floor. I land on my face with a groan. And remain there.

“Oh, that’s just sad.” Alex lasts about five seconds before bursting out laughing.

At least Ed takes pity on me. “Come on,” he says, and offers me a hand. “Let’s get you up.”

“Leave me,” I mumble from the floor. “This is where I belong.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little dramatic?” Ed bends one knee to kneel near me, and I squeeze my eyes closed as I get an eyeful of vague dickness up his robe.

“You mean, I’m being too dramatic about Reid having feelings for a version of me who doesn’t exist? Or am I being too dramatic about the reality that he thinks I’m emotionally barren? I mean, let’s not forget I basically catfished my best friend.” I push to sit up. “Who does that? I didn’t even really know what that was a few months ago. I thought it was just a show on MTV.”

Ed, thankfully, moves to drag a milk crate across the floor to use as a seat. “Please take this the way it’s intended, because you know that I love you, but what did you expect to happen?”

When I whimper instead of answering, Alex has no problem hopping in: “This. This is what happens. Secrets are cancerous.”

“Thanks, Alex.”

He shrugs. “Someone’s got to be straight with you, and who else would do it?. We’re your only friends.”

“I have other friends,” I say, indignant.

“Who?” Ed asks, quickly adding, “Baristas don’t count.”

“What, you want names?” I try to laugh but it comes out wheezy. “I have lots of names. Like, all my friends at work. And my sister.”

“A sister we’ve never met, and who you never talk about,” Ed reminds me.

I open my mouth to argue, but there’s nothing but dead air.

“And all these friends at work,” Alex says, “why not introduce us to some of them for dating purposes?”

Again, I want to argue, but can’t. I have acquaintances at work, people I talk to on the way to faculty meetings, or at lunch. I have casual friends like Avery—okay, maybe she’s more frenemy, but others—who I see at the gym, or might run into somewhere, but I’ve never been great with girlfriends. At some point, every female friendship I’ve had has turned south somewhere, and I never knew how to fix it because I’d never learned how to fight. I always thought a fight meant the end. I may be older and wiser now about these things, but I’m still terrible at confrontation.

“I’ve never had, like, deep friendships,” I say, and hate how I feel myself shrug defensively. “After my mom died, we just sort of . . . rallied. Dad’s motto was ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff. And it’s all small stuff.’ I guess to him, after Mom died, that saying was pretty accurate. Nothing felt big in comparison.” Realization unfolds as I let this all out. “If I made it through that, I can make it through anything, right? No sense making something bigger by dwelling on it.”

Ed struggles to hide his exasperation. “Sharing things doesn’t mean you’re dwelling.”

“I know, but—”

“It’s about us knowing who you are.” He holds up a hand to keep me from arguing. “Tell me five important things about Reid.”

This I can do. I give them both a knowing smile and Alex adds quickly, “Above the belt.”

“Okay,” I say. “One, he loves his work—like, genuinely loves doing research on optic neuritis in multiple sclerosis. See? I don’t know what any of that means, but I know that’s what Reid studies because he’s always so excited about it.”

Ed leans in like he’s going to start explaining all the science to me, but I hold up a hand to stop him.

“Two, he loves his parents to death, and even when he complains about his mom being crazy, he still loves being home second only to being in the lab.” I sit up, adjusting the beanbag beneath me. “He’s so proud of Rayme because she’s smart and beautiful and confident, but more than anything he’s secretly relieved that she’s taking on the family business so he doesn’t have to.”

“Good one,” Alex says.

“He wants to travel more,” I say. “And, um, he’s claustrophobic.”

“See?” Ed says. “Now if you asked me what five things I know about you, they’d mostly have to do with murder, belching, and Monopoly.”

I laugh, but it sounds like it’s coming from someone else’s body, because suddenly my brain is full of Reid.

He likes when I bite his neck, I think, and heat builds in my belly. He likes when I’m on top. He likes quiet afternoons watching tennis in the summer, likes his coffee extra hot. He doesn’t like strawberry pie, but loves cherry. His favorite band is the Pixies, although seeing Pink Floyd live is at the top of his bucket list. He didn’t think he liked brussels sprouts until I cooked them for him. He runs a six-minute mile, sleeps on his left side, usually forgets to eat breakfast. He loves my laugh, likes holding hands, hates when someone is looking at their phone while he’s talking.

I blink when Alex snaps in front of me. “Hello?”

“Sorry, what?”

“I asked what you want,” he says.

“Other than a Time-Turner or to be blackout drunk so that I don’t have to think about this anymore?”

He doesn’t even crack a smile.

Embarrassment feels like a tight band around my throat. “Okay, I don’t know what you’re asking.”

“With Reid,” Ed clarifies. “What do you want with Reid?”

The answer has been forming since I woke up this morning. I knew days ago that I didn’t want anyone else to have him, but that’s not exactly the same as wanting him for myself, is it?

Except in this case, it is.

But the idea of admitting this to Ed and Alex before I’ve said it to Reid feels . . . cowardly. “I’m figuring it out,” I tell them. “I just want to talk to him.”

Alex stands, tugging me up, and we make our way to Ed’s disaster of a kitchen. There are about six cereal bowls in the sink, brown bananas hanging from a banana hook and hovering above some wrinkly apples. The recycling is overflowing, and when Alex opens the fridge, the only things visible are a few six-packs of beer.

Before I can say anything, Ed is standing in front of me, frowning. “Don’t judge. I order takeout most nights.”

“I mean, if you ever manage to get a woman in here,” I begin, and then sweep my arm around the room, “she’ll be horrified.”

“My mom is coming to help me clean this week,” he says.

Alex smirks. “I don’t think that’s what she meant by ‘woman.’ ”

“Do you ever hear the words you’re saying?” I ask Ed, taking a beer when Alex hands it to me.

He sits at a barstool and takes down about a quarter of his beer. “Selma still hasn’t replied.”

Ugh, poor Ed. “Wait. You mean after like two weeks of amazing conversation, you asked her to meet, and she vanished?”

Ed nods, clearly bummed. “I’m getting some other matches, but . . .” He shrugs and lets out a long, rumbling burp. “Can we get back to fixing this mess you’ve created with Reid?”

“I’m definitely not helping you clean this kitchen,” I tell him, “so why not.”

“Maybe you should disappear like that,” Alex says. “Catherine, that is.”

I frown at him. “What? Just not reply?”

Ed stares at me and then shrugs again. “I mean, it’s effective. It’s not like I can go out and find her.” Pausing, he seems to hear the stalkery vibe to his words and adds, “Okay, not that I would try.”

My beer sits untouched in front of me, and I watch as tiny beads of condensation run down the sides of the bottle and form a puddle on the countertop. The idea of someone just disappearing on Reid—even if it’s me, and I’m still going to be here—makes me feel all twisty and protective. “I’d feel so bad, just pretending I don’t know everything. And what if someday we are together—”

“I knew it!” Ed interrupts, pointing at me and sloshing his beer. “I knew you wanted Reid!”

“Good sleuthing,” I tell him, dryly. “I mean, if we do manage to make a go of this, I can’t spend my whole life knowing this secret and keeping him in the dark.”

“She said ‘whole life,’ ” Alex says to Ed, with this soft, fond expression I’ve honestly never seen him make. “Like, marriage.”

“Slow down.” I hold up a hand, laughing. “Reid may never forgive me, but I don’t think I could keep this from him.”

“Normally I’d say yes,” Ed says, “own up and come clean. But you’ve learned your lesson here, Mills. What is telling him going to solve? He’ll be hurt and upset and . . .” He hesitates and my stomach drops to my kneecaps. “I mean, I’m not saying he’d never talk to you again, because this is Reid and he’s a good fucking guy, but . . .”

But?

But?

Ed trails off and my brain frantically tries to finish the sentence for him.

He’s a good fucking guy, but. . . this may be too much to forgive.

He’s a good fucking guy but. . . you’re too much work for him to bother trying to be romantically involved.

My heart follows possible Future Reid in each of these scenarios, and I want to scream. How many of the women I write about thought they were good people? How many mistakes does it take before you’re bad? Does it start with a little white lie, and slowly progress to fraud . . . and worse? Does it matter if you do the wrong thing for the right reason? Okay, obviously at first I was just being competitive, but then being Cat was almost more fun than being Millie, because I got to have something with Reid that I’ve never had with anyone before, and I fell in love with him.

The wind is knocked from my lungs as the word bounces around inside my head. Because now that it’s there, I don’t want to let it go.

Love.

Did I know this an hour ago? Yesterday? How long have I felt this and just left it totally unlabeled?

My existential crisis can’t be bothered with the fact that Ed and Alex are still in the room, and so it takes Ed shaking my shoulder to bring me out of it.

“Are you listening?” he says, hand waving in front of me but eyes lit like he’s just figured something out.

“Yeah,” I say, and attempt to blink myself back into focus. “You were saying . . .”

Ed frowns in a way that makes him look just like his mother did when she found a Fleshlight in his kitchen drawer and thought it was an actual flashlight. She spent five minutes trying to put batteries in before I realized what she was doing.

“I think a good compromise is you should tell him you’re leaving,” he says. “That Catherine is moving. Alex agrees.”

I glance to Alex, who gives me a noncommittal shrug. “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“But then I’ll be lying to cover up a lie,” I tell them both.

“Yes,” Ed says, pausing dramatically. “But you can still make this right. Get Catherine out of the picture and talk to him. Tell him how you feel and let him really see you. That’s what he wants, Millie. You read it yourself, he wants something to happen with you. Catherine is what’s making him second-guess that, and that’s you! Give him what he wants.”

I reach up to rub my temples. Can I give Reid what he wants? I don’t even have to think about it: I certainly don’t want to lose him.

“How would I do this?” I ask, almost wincing like I’m afraid to admit to myself that I’m considering it. “What would I say?”

Ed and Alex both lean forward; the three of us huddle together around the kitchen island.

“Tell him your grandfather died and he left you some giant house, and it says in the will that you have to live there and—”

“This isn’t Scooby-Doo, Ed,” Alex says, shaking his head. “Let’s keep it simple.”

“Right. Simple is better.” Straightening, Ed looks around the room, his eyes brightening when they land on his laptop bag. Once his computer is powered up in front of us, he turns it to face me.

Still unsure, I log into the site, and then Catherine’s account. The REPLY button practically pulses on the screen.

“Okay,” Ed says, and swallows nervously. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”