The Love Trap by Nicole French

10

2009

“We can’t stop fighting.”

I pushed my black and white polka-dotted glasses up my nose. Skylar was staring gloomily out the window of our apartment. Outside, the first real snow of the year was falling on the fire escape, and with her knees pulled up to her chest, perched on the sill in her preferred oversized lounge clothes, she looked more like a Dickensian child than a Harvard law student.

“You and Patrick?” I set my textbook down on the coffee table. These conversations were becoming as predictable as the moon’s cycles.

She turned with sad green eyes. “Yeah. He’s…he says it’s me. He says I invent reasons to be upset with him.”

I scowled. “Well, that’s textbook gaslighting if I ever heard it.”

“What’s gaslighting?”

“It’s…”

I tapped my lip with my pencil, trying to remember how my dad described it. It helped sometimes, having a father who was a shrink. He gave me a vocabulary for these things pretty early, although one of the most awkward conversations of my life was his version of the sex talk a month before I left for college. Well, that one was less about sex, which I already understood, and more about men. And some of the things that they could do to make women stay in terrible relationships. His greatest fear for me, he always said, was that I would settle for someone who would convince me I was worth anything less than the best. That I would stay when I didn’t have to.

As cringe-worthy as I’d found that conversation, that’s how I learned about gaslighting. Dad really was before his time in so many ways.

“It’s when someone tries to make you feel crazy,” I said. “Unstable, hysterical, etcetera. Like everything you think is all in your head.”

“Why’s it called gaslighting?” Skylar wondered.

“Hell if I know.”

But she had already pulled her phone out to check Wikipedia. “It says here it started with a play written in the forties called Gaslight. A husband convinces his wife she’s crazy by manipulating things in their house. Like turning down the gaslights.” She set her phone down. “I don’t think Patrick is doing that. He just gets frustrated with me. I guess I’m taking this long-distance thing harder than I have to.”

“Or he is and he’s projecting his fears and missteps onto you. Why else would he constantly be accusing you of cheating when you practically live like a nun?”

Skylar’s sharp look told me I had overstepped. We were growing closer, for sure, but I needed to back off.

“We just fight,” she said, rising from the windowsill and padding into the kitchen to make herself some tea. “Like strong-willed people sometimes do.”

“Sounds familiar.” I followed her in and took a seat on the other side of the L-shaped counter.

“You want?” She held up a box of green tea.

I nodded.

“So, you and Eric…”

“Like jackals.”

“Yeah, I noticed. You’re not exactly nice to him during study group.”

“I think it’s the perfectly cut hair,” I replied. “Or maybe the ironed shirts. I just want to, I don’t know, put a wrinkle in there somewhere. The guy is immovable.”

“Don’t you think maybe you’re just looking for a problem that’s not really there?” Skylar filled the kettle and set it on the stove.

“Now who’s gaslighting?”

Skylar chuckled. “I just mean, he seems to really like you.”

“Sky, we’ve been over this. Guys like Eric don’t ‘really like’ girls like me. They are fascinated by us. Until they aren’t. I’m an amusement, that’s all.”

But Skylar just rolled her eyes. “What’s the word for gaslighting yourself? Delusion?”

“Hey! I resent that.”

“Janey, this isn’t high school, and Eric isn’t like the suburban kids you went to school with. He’s from New York, like me. I promise you, he’s seen all types, even if he did grow up on the Upper East Side or wherever.”

I considered arguing that people were people, and bigotry existed as much in the city as out in the middle of nowhere. Growing up in New York didn’t tell me a thing about how prejudiced Eric was or wasn’t.

Skylar poured us both mugs of tea, but before I could say anything more, there was a knock on our door.

I frowned. “Are you expecting anyone?”

Skylar shook her head. “Maybe Rob down the hall wants to ‘borrow another cup of sugar.”’

I snickered. Our neighbor seemed to bake more than anyone I had ever met, if his constant excuses to stop by were any indication. “He can make all the midnight snacks he wants. He’s not getting your cookie or mine.”

The knock sounded again.

“All right, all right. Keep your pants on.” I slid off the stool and opened the door. “Rob, I’m telling you, all that sugar is bad for your—oh!”

Eric stood on our ladybug-covered welcome mat, looking magazine-perfect in a pair of jeans, Sorel boots, a thick wool coat, and just a touch of snow quickly melting into his tousled blond hair. He looked way more delicious than someone walking out of an L.L. Bean catalog had any right to look.

“Who’s Rob?” he asked with a frown. “And why would his pants be off?”

I narrowed my eyes. It had been almost two weeks since his little possessive spat with the dick pics, and I’d made it very clear that this couldn’t be anything more than a leisure activity for either of us. When he didn’t like that, I ended up ghosting him again. Or trying. I still couldn’t quite let him go. Especially at one in the morning. On a Saturday night. And, the following Wednesday. And, yeah, okay, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night too.

Did I say ghosting? Maybe more like haunting.

“Did—did I forget something? Were we hanging out?” I purposefully avoided the word “date,” like I usually did, since Eric and I rarely made it out of either of our apartments whenever we met up.

He cocked his head. “Hello to you too, pretty girl.”

As if on command, I flushed. The boy tended to do seriously dirty things to me whenever he used that particular phrase. Just two days ago he tied me to his double bed just to prove a point before he wore me out over the back of his couch. Talk about thinning the line between love and hate.

That curiously magnetic smile appeared, and just as quickly, my toes tingled. Dammit, how did he do that? His whole face completely transformed whenever he grinned.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to sound that curt.

One blond brow rose. “Why? Did you have other plans? With Rob, maybe?”

“I might have.” Right. You were “planning” to watch reruns of That Seventies Show and gossip with Skylar about the hot barista at Peet’s.

“Like what? Being rude and not inviting someone in? Hiding someone?” He poked his head over my shoulder and waved. “Hey, Skylar.”

I backed up as he pushed past me into the apartment.

Skylar just waved back awkwardly. “Hey, Eric. I’m, ah, just going to head back to my room to study some more.”

We waited until her door closed, and then I turned back to Eric, who was now watching me with irritatingly pleasant curiosity.

“Do you always just barge into people’s apartments like you own them?” I demanded.

His gaze seared over my otherwise unremarkable outfit of black leggings and a Joan Jett shirt. “When they don’t answer my texts, I do. Where have you been? After class yesterday you bolted.”

I scowled. “I don’t know. Living the normal life of a first-year law student? Class. The library. Trying not to kill myself with paper writing.”

Did his face whiten a little when I said the words “kill myself”? I blinked, and it was gone.

“Look, if you don’t want to hang out anymore, I get it,” he said, pacing around the couch. “But you came to my apartment Wednesday night, Jane. You came to me after you said you wanted to call it off. Again. And then you took off. Again. Did you really think I was just going to let you jerk me around?”

He unbuttoned his jacket, revealing a heather-gray sweater that hugged his trim body in all the right places. And lord, his legs looked impossibly long and scalable in those jeans. The fact of it should have been infuriating—how dare he make me enjoy his yuppie J. Crew aesthetic this much?—but instead I couldn’t stop ogling.

“You seemed to like me jerking you around on Thursday,” I said coyly, trying another tactic. Eric could be distracted with the right words, or so I was finding out. I could make this easier on us. Get it out of our systems and make an excuse about why we both needed to leave. Two birds, if you will.

His eyes closed, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to push me down to my knees like he had less than forty-eight hours ago. Ha! Victory me.

But then his eyes opened with a renewed, steely edge. “No. I…”

I sidled up to him and slyly slipped my hands around his ribs, toying with the bottom of his sweater. His skin was soft, and my fingers brushed the golden trail of hair that disappeared under his belt buckle.

“Come on, Petri,” I purred. “Be honest. You didn’t come here to talk. So let’s just get this over with, and give in to what we both want. Stop beating around the bush and pretend to be people we’re not.”

He stared up at the ceiling as I floated my lips over his tightened jaw. When I arrived at his mouth, I opened mine so he could suck on my tongue when I dipped it inside. I moaned. He groaned much louder before gently pushing me away.

I clicked my tongue, catching my breath. “You’re just making this harder on yourself. I’m right here. Easy pickings, dude.”

“Why?” he asked. “Why do you do that to yourself?”

“Do what?”

“Treat yourself like you’re nothing and ask me to do it too.”

Well, that definitely killed the mood. I stepped back and crossed my arms. “Just because I’m open about what I want sexually means I think I’m nothing? I definitely don’t think that. But apparently you do.”

Eric groaned again, but not in a good way. “That is not what I said, Jane.”

“You just did. You made the assumption and put that shit on me.”

“I made assumptions? What do you call what you were just doing, huh?”

“I don’t know, Petri, how about seduction?”

He rolled his eyes all over again. “Lefferts, if that was seduction, then I’m the fucking mayor of Boston.”

“If you’re looking for some sex kitten to wind her tail around your leg, you’re sniffing up the wrong pussy, my friend.”

“Jesus Christ,” Eric muttered.

“Hey, man, I’ve never pretended to be anything I’m not, so if you’re looking for a coquette, why don’t you hop on down to Cleo’s, or better yet, just wander around the T-stop and flirt with the undergrads. I’m sure you could find some jailbait seeking Prince Charming.”

My tone had gone from bitter to playful in less than a second. Suddenly, I found the idea of him doing that absolutely reprehensible.

Eric rubbed a hand irritably at the back of his neck. “Why do I do this?” he mumbled to himself.

I swallowed back the lump in my throat. The one that told me to apologize.

Eric opened his mouth a few times, like he wanted to say something else. Finally, he just shook his head. “For the record, I didn’t come over here for sex. You put that on me, if we’re talking about assumptions. I came over here because I wanted to see you. No innuendo. Just for the pleasure of your goddamn company, all right?”

Both of our mouths quirked. Neither of us missed the irony of that particular statement.

“Now,” Eric continued. “Tomorrow is your birthday, right?”

I blinked. That was definitely not what I was expecting. “Ah…yeah. Yeah, it is.”

Eric pulled a package from his coat pocket and tossed it onto the table. “You’re a pain in the ass, Lefferts. But this is for you.”

I stared at the package, unsure of what to say. No one aside from my parents had given me a birthday present in years—not since my tenth birthday party, after which my mother had told me I was officially too old for such celebrations. Honestly, I think it was more because she didn’t want to worry about little girls ruining her precious Ethan Allen couch anymore.

“I…thank you,” I said weakly. What new game was he playing here?

“One day, maybe you’ll tell me why you think everyone is out to get you,” Eric replied, shoving his arms back into his coat with unnecessary force. “But until then…happy fucking birthday, Jane.”

Then, abruptly, he turned and left. I listened to his footsteps echoing down the hall.

“Are you going to open it?”

I didn’t realize I had been staring at the door for probably a minute or more until Skylar’s voice stirred me. “Huh? Open what?”

My roommate pointed to the package Eric had left. I walked over and picked it up. Wrapped in nondescript brown paper, it was clearly a book. Attached was a note that simply read in Eric’s curt script:

Happy birthday, pretty girl. Meet me here tomorrow night to celebrate.

— Eric

I unwrapped the package, wondering what it was. Inside was a book, and the sight of it made me chuckle.

“What is it?” Skylar asked, coming to stand next to me curiously.

“Twenty-One Love Poems,” I said, looking at the plain white cover. “By Adrienne Rich.”

Skylar frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“She’s a…” I started to explain about the poet. About the irony that Eric even knew her at all. About the fact that he had been reading Leaflets when we first started…whatever this was, just a month or so ago. “Inside joke.”

I flipped the book open, and two pieces of paper fluttered to the table.

“Bookmarks?” I asked as Skylar picked them up.

“I don’t think so.” She handed them to me.

They were tickets for a concert. Some band I’d never heard of at Great Scott, my favorite venue in Boston. For tomorrow night.

“This…this seems like more than just a fling, Janey,” Skylar said. “Someone who just wants one thing doesn’t give you a book of love poems and concert tickets for your birthday.”

I looked back and forth between the two gifts, still unsure what to make of them—their presence or the obvious thought behind them.

“Will you go?” Skylar asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I will.”