“She’s totally cool,” Janice says. “She’ll keep whatever we say confidential.”
I shrug. “Well, why not? You can hear about our college mating habits in action. First things first.” I clasp my hands and turn to Janice. “Janice, before things go overboard, I wanted to ask your blessing about something.”
She leans in. “What do you need my blessing for?”
“I know you went home with Luke last term. It’s possible that we’ve started dating, and I didn’t want you to think I was trying to do it for some weird reason.”
Janice’s eyes widen, and she points at herself. “You think…I might still like Luke?”
I nod.
She puts a hand on her stomach and laughs.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“Sky, I went home with him once at the beginning of last term, and we cuddled together with our clothes on. Then I never spoke to him again.”
“Didn’t you say he was like, good in bed?”
“I said I heard that from someone else. Well, okay, I may or may not have felt his equipment pressed against me in bed when I woke up the next morning by accident. But we barely even kissed. It was a drunken thing.” She reaches out a hand and puts it on my shoulder. “But the fact that you’re concerned about this shows that you’re a true friend. And yes, you have my blessing.” She laughs again. “So that’s why you texted me last night? You had me worried.”
I twist up my face. “There’s more to it than that.”
“Well, what is there?”
I take another drink of hot coffee, and try to relax.
“Well, I’ve been quiet about the whole situation, but something about what I’m doing with Luke feels unreal. In the weeks after I broke up with Federico, I even wrote down in my journal, I just want to find a cool guy who I get along with great as a friend, and who I can grow with in some sort of sexual relationship before I graduate. Luke is definitely someone who I get along great with. Clearly he’s hot, and there’s an attraction between us. But can it really be as simple as me just proposing a sexual relationship to him in order to escalate things between us, like I did on Friday? It seems to me like there’s got to be some sort of catch to go along with getting into bed with a man like Luke, some kind of downside, even if I can’t see it at the current moment. I guess I wanted to ask you since I thought you had, ahem, experience with him.”
I think back to the night before, when Luke whispered in my ear what he wanted to do to me.
As soon as he said those words, I panicked.
I needed to get out of there and clear my head.
Professor Rose crosses her legs and leans back, almost like a therapist.
Janice twists up her face, seeming confused.
“So you’re weirded out,” Janice answers, “Because you got exactly what you want? A hot guy who wants to take care of you sexually and now you’re all worried?”
“It’s not supposed to be this easy!” I blurt out. “So you’re telling me it’s possible that the doorway to my sexual enlightenment has been staring me in the face for over a year in the form of Luke Rutledge? Luke is one of the hottest guys on campus. But he’s also a really good friend. What if, after we have sex, he turns into a totally different person and he’s all, okay great, now take the walk of shame. We’re not doing this again. And we shouldn’t be friends, either.”
Professor Rose strokes her eyebrow. “There’s a lot to unpack there.”
“Well unpack away. I’m all ears,” I say.
“You appear to be saying you don’t think things could possibly go well with this Luke guy because he could fulfill your desires. Which is not an uncommon thought-process for some people, by the way. Many women—and men, for that matter—don’t think they’re good enough to get what they want. Many simply settle for less because they believe they’re not worthy of having their desires fulfilled—so they self-sabotage themselves. It’s a catch twenty-two of low self-esteem. When a good thing appears in front of you, you believe you can’t have it because the boyfriend/friend/job is exactly what you’ve wished for and what you desire. A terrible unconscious mechanism, really. It prevents lots of people from fulfilling their potential.”
I swallow, and for some reason I have a flashback to the night before, when Luke took me by the hand and we danced to The Smiths album. It was so romantic, it went against everything I’d heard about him, such as how he is the type of man who only is into women as far as they can please him. He seemed so content just to dance with me, in the moment. It wasn’t like he was trying to coerce anything out of me, just enjoy me.
“I don’t think it’s that I’m not good enough for him, I guess I just thought…”
“You thought you were going to offend me by hooking up with him?” Janice says. “If that was really a factor, I’d say you’re inventing reasons not to get with the man of your dreams.”
“What if we don’t have good chemistry, though?” I say, and now I feel like I’m grasping at any excuse not to be with him. Maybe Professor Rose is right about the whole self-sabotage thing. Still, I keep going. “After I was interrupted not once but twice mid-blow job, I figured the universe was trying to give me one more chance to opt out.”
Both Rose and Janice’s eyes widen.
“Or,” Professor Rose says, “the universe could be testing you to see if you’ll actually go for what you want this time. You wrote in your freaking journal how this is what you wanted! And now that you’ve found it, you’re backing away.”
I sigh somberly. She’s right. I’m already in this crazy ‘relationship within a fake relationship’ situation. I might as well go for it all.
“There’s this really good quote, Sky. It goes, ‘how much sleep is lost fearing that which never comes to pass?’ If you like this guy, and he likes you…fuck it. That second phrase isn’t part of the quote, that’s just something I say.”
I grin. “I figured it was just the first part.”
“By the way, I saw him out at the bars last night,” Janice says. “He must have decided to go out when you bailed on him early. He was getting pretty drunk. Victoria—you know, Jennifer’s friend?—was definitely starting to make a move on him.”
“Seriously?” My chest tightens.
“I mean, he didn’t seem interested in her…but I just thought you should know.”
Knowing Victoria was flirting with Luke at the bar doesn’t surprise me, but it does make me feel like I’ve swallowed a brick and it’s stuck in my gut. After hearing Jennifer and Victoria talk shit a few weeks ago, and knowing that Jennifer is under the impression I’m dating him.
I swallow the last of my coffee and nod, resolved.
Professor Rose tries to read my expression. “So what do you really want, Skylar? And what’s stopping you from having it?”
12
Skylar
After Professor Rose and Janice leave College Grounds, I clutch my empty coffee cup and continue staring out on the cold, snowy street, thinking to myself.