Or maybe I hadn’t wanted to put the pieces together. After all, I’d said I wasn’t interested in dating again, and declared his questionnaire wouldn’t work.
I’d been so determined to be right—or perhaps determined to avoid being wrong—that I’d pushed my feelings aside. Avoided them. Denied them.
What else had I missed?
“This raises an important follow-up question. If I’m falling in love with him, does he feel the same about me?”
Erwin looked up this time, lifting his head and opening his eyes. He meowed, a distinct feline verbalization.
Had my cat just answered me?
I stared at him, open-mouthed. Maybe my habit of talking to Erwin had caused a mental break with reality. Or perhaps this was simply my brain assigning meaning to a coincidence.
Either way, I needed to know. Because I had a feeling the answer to my question was yes. Corban was falling in love with me just as surely as I was falling in love with him.
At least, it was possible. It had to be.
My usual response to a burning question or personal revelation was to do what I did best. Research. But this time, instead of sitting down at my laptop and searching for everything I could find on feelings of romantic love—how did one know?—I did something very un-Hazel-like.
I trusted my instincts.
This couldn’t wait. I didn’t need data or research to confirm what I felt—what I’d been stubbornly refusing to see. And my instincts were telling me, loud and clear, that what I needed to do now was tell him.
The prospect was scary and exhilarating—what if I was wrong and he didn’t feel the same?—and I almost talked myself out of it twice before I put on my shoes to leave. But what good would it do to wait? The last time I’d seen him, I’d made a mistake, and he’d walked away hurt. I didn’t want to let that linger any longer than necessary.
Energized by the combination of emotion and resolve, I gathered my things and drove straight to Corban’s apartment.
He lived in a large brick building about ten minutes from me. I went inside and took the stairs up to his floor.
My heart raced and my mouth felt dry. I didn’t know if I was excited, scared, or perhaps a combination of both. What was I going to say? What was he going to say once I’d said it? None of the speeches I’d attempted to rehearse on the drive over had felt right. Maybe I didn’t need to say anything other than the important parts. Just, Corban I’m here to tell you that I’m sorry for treating you like a lab rat and by the way, I think I’m falling in love with you.
That wouldn’t be so hard. Would it?
Feeling jittery and unable to stop smiling, I approached his door. I bit my bottom lip and knocked.
The door opened and a blond woman wearing nothing but a plaid button-down shirt—Corban’s shirt—and underwear answered.
My excited smile melted. It was Paisley Hayes.
His sister’s best friend and his high school crush. Answering his door. In nothing but his shirt and her underwear.
The pit of my stomach felt like it had dropped through the floor. I checked the apartment number. Had I gotten the wrong one?
“Can I help you?” Paisley asked.
“Sorry, I must have the wrong apartment.”
“Are you looking for Corban?”
“Yes.”
“You’re in the right place, but…” She paused and glanced over her shoulder. “He’s in the shower.”
The faint sound of running water carried through the apartment.
Why was Paisley in his apartment while he was showering? Given the way she was dressed, I had a good idea. But he couldn’t have. He wouldn’t.
Would he?
“Do you want me to let him know you stopped by?”
I didn’t miss the false sweetness in her voice, nor the way she eyed me like she’d just scored a victory.
“Sure.”
Paisley smiled. “Hailey, right? I’ll tell him.”
“No, it’s Hazel.”
But she’d already shut the door in my face.
I backed away, so stunned I could barely think. Had Corban slept with her? Had he been sleeping with her this whole time?
And did I have any right to be mad if he had been?
I felt like I might cry, or possibly vomit. My hands shook and I found myself on the ground floor, walking outside with no idea how I’d gotten there. All I could see was Paisley standing in his doorway, dressed in his shirt, her legs bare.
If this had happened to one of my friends, I knew my mind would have been able to walk through the evidence in a calm and logical manner. I’d have come up with a number of alternative explanations and encouraged her to reserve judgment until she was sure of the truth.
But the sharp sting of betrayal overrode my ability to think logically. All I knew was that I’d been wrong about him. I’d been wrong to think he might have shared my feelings.
Maybe he liked me as a friend. And he certainly seemed to have enjoyed sleeping with me. But we’d never gone beyond that. Never talked about the possibility of exploring what we had together. We weren’t dating. We weren’t exclusive.
So maybe Paisley Hayes answering the door in her underwear had just saved me from making a terrible mistake. He’d never have to know I had entertained the notion that I was in love with him, or that he might be in love with me.
I went home and did the only thing I could. I group texted my friends. I knew they’d be here for me. They always were.
But half an hour later, as we sat on my floor with martinis in hand, I didn’t cry. I didn’t let the tight ball of emotions loose. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t even find it in me to feel vindicated. This proved that Corban’s theory had a flaw. We’d done his questionnaire together, and although it had sparked a change in our relationship, it hadn’t made us fall in love.
Or at least, it hadn’t made him fall in love with me.
And for the first time since that afternoon when we’d gone through his questionnaire, I allowed myself to admit another truth. For perhaps the first time in my life, I’d wanted to be wrong. I’d wanted his accelerated intimacy theory to be right.
34
Corban
“Just remember you will find that one special love that you know is right but for some reason just doesn’t last.” ~ Marie Curie
Steam clouded the bathroom mirror. I raked the towel back and forth over my wet hair a few times, then wrapped it around my waist. My jaw was rough with stubble, thicker than I usually kept it, but I decided to leave it. I didn’t care if I looked scruffy.
I’d spent the morning at the climbing gym, trying to distract myself from Hazel. Again. Apparently that was just my life now. I spent a lot of time up on that wall trying to keep her out of my head.
It never worked very well.
Maybe I shouldn’t have snapped at her yesterday when she’d hit me with all that research. But what did she think, that I didn’t know something was wrong with me? That she could compile a meta-analysis and the answers would be somewhere in all the data?
The answers weren’t there. I’d already looked.
My childhood memories were filled with my parents’ attempts to fix me. To ensure I grew up normal, not the weird guy who memorized random facts and did math for fun. But I was the weird guy who memorized random facts and did math for fun. And even though I didn’t understand what part of that equation was broken, something was. My parents hadn’t been able to fix it. I hadn’t been able to fix it. And now Hazel wanted to try?