“You’re mad at Kate?” he guesses.
“Wrong again.”
He frowns. “Did you talk about the multiverse?”
“We did.” I can’t keep my eyes off the jacket pocket where he keeps his phone. There must be a text from Kate, because he knew to find me in her room. I try to remember what exactly I said to her. That nothing had happened, but it might? And when she asked if I liked him, I didn’t say no. It’s not as horrifying as the love letter confession, but it’s not great either.
He retrieves a book called The Meaning of Life: An Overview of the Different Branches of Philosophy from his messenger bag and hands it to me. “I wanted to show you the campus, but I also thought this might be of interest to you, given our conversation about stumbling around in the dark.”
“Can I see your phone?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “No?”
“Did Kate send you a text?”
“Are we having the same conversation?”
The elevator halts, sending me stumbling sideways. Harrison reaches out to steady me, his hand on my hip. He removes it after a breath, and part of me wishes he hadn’t. I expect the elevator to start moving again, but it doesn’t. He jams his finger into the door-open button. Nothing happens.
“Is now a bad time to say I told you so?” He casts an amused look in my direction.
“Kate thinks I like you,” I blurt. Better to get it out of the way now, before it turns into this huge, awkward, unspoken thing.
His eyes spark. He crosses his arms and steps closer to me. “Why does she think that?”
I shrug.
“Is she right?” A smile plays at his lips.
“You could have told me I might run into her,” I huff.
The glint in his eyes dims and he steps away. “Hang on.” He holds up a finger and calls a nonemergency line for help, detailing our situation. SIM was wrong about at least one thing: We do get service in here. He hangs up. “Sounds like we’ve got some time to kill.”
“Peachy.” Peachy? Never in my entire life have I uttered the word peachy. There’s not enough oxygen in here. Harrison’s too close. His hair hangs in his face and I can smell his spicy shampoo.
“Why didn’t you tell me that your gorgeous ex-girlfriend lives two doors down and is conveniently in town on Christmas Day?” I ask again.
“Because I don’t like talking about it. I told you I’m bad with feelings.”
I bite my lips, unsure how to put words to the nagging feeling in my stomach. “Was bringing me here an excuse to see her again?”
“Are you kidding me right now? You think I wanted to know how much she doesn’t miss me? To see the bedsheets and imagine how they were rumpled by her new boyfriend?” He shakes his head and makes a disgusted sound. “You’re way off. Don’t forget that you wanted to go out tonight.”
“Were you using me to make her jealous? To prove that you’re over her?”
He narrows his eyes. “Listen to me now, because I’m only going to say this once. I had no idea Kate would be here tonight. We were out, with nothing to do, and you seemed mildly interested in philosophy and generally confused about life, so I figured I’d lend you this book and show you around campus. End of story.”
I search his eyes, surprised by how honest they appear. “Okay,” I say at last.
“Do you believe me?”
I nod, and he breathes a sigh of relief, stepping closer to me. I hold up both hands, maintaining the sliver of space between us. Bible width. That’s what they say at Clover’s church. I’m already feeling flustered and if he takes another step, there’s no telling how my traitorous body will react.
“How much longer until help gets here? What exactly did they say?” I ask.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Back up. Two steps,” I order. He rolls his eyes but obeys. I cross my arms, feigning a bravado I don’t feel. The corner of his lip twitches. He knows I’m bluffing. I know he knows.
“Why does Kate think you like me? And why are you bothered by the fact that we used to date?”
My skin prickles uncomfortably. For a guy who hates feelings, he’s certainly asking for a lot of mine.
“I’ll wait,” he says.
“How charitable.” I wasn’t jealous, although that’s clearly what he’s implying. No, I would have recognized that emotion. I wear jealousy like a perma-sunburn: hot, painful, and impossible to ignore. Kate isn’t Molly, or Ruby, or Ivy; she’s just some beautiful, genius girl who used to date a guy I barely know.
Not jealousy.
Then what?
He takes a step closer, so there’s hardly any space between us, making it supremely difficult to think.
“I don’t—I don’t know,” I stammer. The nearness of him is impossible to ignore.
“I think you do.”
He doesn’t know me as well as he thinks he does. I close my eyes against the sight of his lips and concentrate. When I thought the trip was about Kate, instead of about him doing something nice for me, I felt … disappointed. The word lands in my head with a deafening thud.
It’s so plain and obvious and baffling.
Mere hours after that picture of Molly and Fitz, why would I be disappointed about Harrison?
He rests a hand lightly on my waist. When I don’t object, he pulls me in. My brain is frozen. My body isn’t. I lean into him, too scared to make any other moves. His free hand tucks my hair behind my ear.
“You’re still in love with her,” I say.
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
“Don’t distract me with quotes from obscure philosophers.”
“Friedrich Nietzsche isn’t obscure.” Harrison pulls away in mock offense. I miss his body close to mine and pull him back.
He makes a sound low in his throat. “Don’t act possessive,” he admonishes with a smirk. “Besides, you’re still in love with Cabin Boy.” His eyes carry a challenge. He brushes my hair away from my face again, running his fingers through it.
“Yes. But—” But what? My thoughts are all mixed up as every ounce of focus narrows to the feel of his fingers in my hair. In another life, this decision would have been paralyzing. But now, even with all this chaos in my head, I don’t need Magic 8 to tell me what to do. Maybe because Harrison is impossible to resist. Or maybe because I’m calmed by the notion of infinity, of the fact that different versions of me are playing out different versions of this same scenario in every space and time imaginable.
Or maybe I finally know what I want.
Yes, I’m in love with Fitz. “… But I want to kiss you anyway.”
His lips crush against mine.
* * *
It’s fifteen more minutes before help arrives to pry the elevator doors open, and in those fifteen minutes, I don’t think about Fitz at all. But when Harrison and I spring apart, our lips swollen and our hair mussed, I do.
I close my eyes, and Fitz is inescapable. I open them and am disappointed when he doesn’t appear. I’m awash in a combo of guilt and lust and homesickness and fear and confusion and relief. They swirl together like the worst kind of emotion smoothie. I’ll chug until my stomach is sloshy and I can’t separate one thing from the next. I’ll drink until I’m sick.