“I’m just saying, the minute we respond to Nathan, it’s on. We’ve engaged. And then we’ll have to see it through.”
“It’s already on, A. We’re already at the seeing-it-through part.”
The waitress has returned. “Is something wrong?” she asks, gesturing to the pizza.
“No,” Rhiannon tells her. “We just like to talk before we eat. It’s a syndrome.”
“Just checking. Jesus,” the waitress murmurs, walking away.
“We better eat,” Rhiannon says. We help ourselves to slices. We’re not really hungry, but it’s pizza, and the moment we start eating it, it’s guaranteed we’ll keep going at least two slices past where we should.
Rhiannon continues. “So, putting the considerable logistics aside, if you meet up with Poole, what do you think will happen?”
“The same thing as last time. He’ll want me to be his partner in this thing that we do. He’ll want to teach me how to abuse it.”
“And if you say no?”
“That’s the thing. I’m worried he will create a situation that won’t allow me to say no. Before, I would have been fine. I would have just disappeared.”
“But now?”
“You know exactly why I can’t now.”
She pushes her pizza around a little. “Okay. Let’s look at it a different way. What does he get from having you ‘partner’ with him?”
“Someone to talk to, I guess.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly?”
“I’m just trying to think this through, okay?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m just thinking—Poole has to be lonely. Like you were lonely. I think you’re right—he wants someone to talk to. He’s been looking for someone like him for a while. Then he found you. And lost you. Now he wants you back. So he won’t be alone.”
“But even if that’s true, how does it help? He still won’t take no for an answer.”
“It helps because it means you have leverage.”
“How?”
“Because he wants more from you than you want from him. That means you have the leverage. That’s how relationships work.”
“That’s cynical.”
“It isn’t. Because most of the time, the balance is always shifting, and the difference isn’t that significant. But in this case…you definitely have the upper hand.”
“But he’s willing to hurt people!”
“Don’t mistake evil for power. That’s a bad mistake we all make. Thinking that it takes more strength to break the rules of human decency than to follow them, and therefore if we follow them, we have to be the weaker ones. Bullshit. Yes, he’s scary. But the fact that he wants you to listen means he’s dying to talk to someone who understands what he’s talking about. It makes sense. We seek out the people who understand us. We are scared and suspicious of the people who understand us, but we also need them in our lives.”
“How do you figure out these things?”
“Bad relationships. Good relationships. Being with people who don’t understand you. Finding people who do.”
“Is that what happened with us? How can we understand each other when our lives are so different?”
“Because we want to see the world the same way, I think. I’m not sure. Honestly, I’ve never been sure.”
“I don’t understand how anything works. I don’t understand how you can randomly fall into my life one day and now here we are, in New York City, telling the truth in a way that I never, ever thought I’d tell the truth.”
“If I ever get a tattoo, that might have to be it: I don’t understand how anything works. I just have faith that it would be much worse to think you actually knew how anything worked.”
“He can’t give me any answers, can he?”
“I have no idea. But I’m pretty sure that he can’t give you many answers you can actually use.”
“But still…”
“But still, we’re going to have to find a way to deal with him. Because we owe that to Nathan, who never did anything to deserve getting caught up in all this.”
* * *
—
We eat more pizza. We don’t come up with a plan.
Arwyn is going to need to go home soon. And Rhiannon is going to need to go—
I’m not exactly sure where.
“Do you want to come back with me? To their apartment? I’m sure we can come up with a story….”
“And what if they wake up in the middle of the night and wonder who the girl sleeping on their floor is?”
“You wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor.”
“Stop. You know what I mean.” She looks out the window. “The roads actually look pretty clear. I should try.”
Now I actually feel the despair widening within me. “No. Please. Stay.”
“A. I’m going to have to go back home.”
“Then I have to go back with you.”
“Oh, great—do you want me to drive? I think there’s a word for driving someone somewhere else without them knowing about it. Kidnapping, I think?”
“What if I drive?”
“Arwyn is from New York City. Don’t think for a second they have a license.”
“I’m serious. I should come with you.”
RHIANNON
I don’t understand how I can be this far in, and still not know what I want.
I want to stay like this. In the city. The two of us.
It feels like a believable now.
But back in my regular life. With my friends. My family. Where we used to be—
I can’t imagine it. It doesn’t feel like a believable future.
Which feels like a cop-out. Because who wants to end up with a future that was always believable?
“We have time,” I tell A, because I want that to be both believable and true. “The only pressing thing right now is Nathan. We have to get back to Nathan. I vote for giving Poole some of what he wants, but not all of it. Tell him you’re considering meeting with him, but aren’t sure. Make him want it more. Then we wait for the opportunity for you to get down to Maryland in the same way that you made it to New York. Or we get everyone up here. Let’s just see how it plays out a little.”