“I’m not usually wrong,” Ellsbeth said.
“That’s true,” Rawlins murmured. He took her mug and placed it back on the bedside table and then slid into bed beside her. “But if you were Orpheus, you absolutely would have looked back because you would love Eurydice the way he does. That’s the whole tragedy. He loves her so deeply that when he stops hearing her footsteps, he doesn’t have a choice. He needs to make sure the woman he loves is still walking behind him.”
They were lying next to each other. Ellsbeth pressed herself onto her side, her face just inches away from his. His eyes were blue, but up close Ellsbeth realized his irises contained golden flecks. The sun coming through the window lightened his hair, and Ellsbeth could see the boyishness in his face. She wanted to run her finger across every one of his planes and surfaces, across his brow, down his cheek, over his lips. But instead, she just kept looking at him, willing herself to preserve that moment in her mind, of the two of them in bed, surrounded by papers and the motes of dust suspended and sparkling in the sunlight.
“No,” Ellsbeth said. “That’s the thing. If I were Orpheus, I would have trusted her.”
After lunch, Rawlins went backto his office to finish a few undergraduate essays he still had overdue, and Ellsbeth returned to her own apartment to do laundry and shower in her own space after two straight days at Rawlins’s house. She sang as the hot water came down and she washed her hair, almost embarrassed at the tactile pleasure of using her nails to scrub her scalp. She felt present in her body in a way she hadn’t since Bertie’s death; it was as if her life had been on tapedelay, her consciousness moving through the world half a second slower than the world had been moving. Now everything was immediate. Ellsbeth was acutely aware of the sensation of the spray of the shower hitting her, of the slick conditioner dripping down her back, of the steam filling the small bathroom and making the almond-y scent of her body wash hang in the air.
It had been only a few hours since she had last seen Rawlins, and she already wanted to be next to him again. She checked her phone as she was wrapping her hair in a towel:Reading through these essays and I’m almost embarrassed to say I miss you already. So let’s pretend I texted you to say something else. Like…did no one teach college students the difference between “effect” and “affect” and “elicit” and “illicit”?
Ellsbeth texted back:You elicit illicit thoughts in me. The effect is clear. I guess you just affectme.
God that turns me on. Good girl.
They were both pedantic, cerebral, self-isolating, ambitious, academic. They were both lonely. And they had somehow found each other.
The first time Ellsbeth had brought a hot beverage to Rawlins on campus, she had brought him two teas to choose between. In the months since, she had learned that he preferred coffee. And so Ellsbeth used her ID card to buzz herself in to the arcane mechanicals department building while balancing an Americano for him and jasmine tea for her.
Because it was winter break, the hallway was eerily underlit, shadowed strangely from the windows. She felt herself speed up as she got closer to his office, the light visible under his door an island on the well-worn carpeting. It was only the hot drinks in her hands that kept her from a full run.
She pushed the door open with her shoulder without knocking. He was looking down, red pen in hand, his hair mussed and sticking up at odd angles.
“Surprise,” she said. “Thought you might need an afternoon pick-me-up.” There was half a second where Ellsbeth worried she had overstepped, that he would be angry or annoyed that she had interrupted when he’d told her that he was going to be working, but thenthe pen dropped and he beamed up at her with such genuine delight that her fear drained away in an instant like water from a tub.
Ellsbeth kicked the door closed behind her. “How are the essays?”
“Awful. Thankfully I’m almost done. And desperate for a distraction.”
Ellsbeth perched at the edge of his desk and handed him his coffee. “Black, like you like it.” He took a long sip and Ellsbeth reached over to take a handful of black licorice from his dish.
“Have you even had to refill this once over the course of the semester?” Ellsbeth said. “Or does no one except me actually like this stuff?”
“You,” Rawlins said, “have very particular tastes. Luckily for me.” He took a piece of licorice and examined it in his hands. “Do you think the ritual still works?Licorice.”
“Mmmm, nope,” Ellsbeth said. “Unfortunately. But the good news is, I don’t think you need it.”
In another breath, Rawlins was kissing Ellsbeth while she was still sitting on his desk. In another breath, they were both standing, and they were kissing up against his bookshelf. Ellsbeth wrapped one leg around him and pulled him closer, then spun the two of them so that he was against the bookshelves. She took his wrists in her hands.
“What ifIcontrolled you?” she mused. He playfully struggled against her (admittedly weak) grip. “Have you ever wanted to be dominated?”
Rawlins ran his lips down her neck and across her collarbone. “Actually, no,” he said. “But I’d try anything with you.” They kept kissing, the taste of black licorice astringent and tannic on their tongues, and the world disappeared in a blur the way it always did when she was with Rawlins.
Until she heard a creak. Ellsbeth had been carrying two drinks, and she hadn’t locked the door to the office.
“I’m so sorry,” said a small, squeaking voice. “I’ll just…come back later.”
The adrenaline flooded Ellsbeth’s body. Her hairline became icy with cold sweat and her throat suddenly felt swollen. It was hard to breathe. Her vision spun and narrowed.
Mary-Abigail Pinkney was standing in the doorway, half covering her eyes with her hand. But there was no mistaking that she had seen exactly what Ellsbeth and Rawlins had been doing.
Rawlins
Rawlins’s mouth went dry with panic. He froze, searching for words, but before he could find any, Mary-Abigail was gone, pulling the door shut behind her. He considered chasing after the girl, but running her down might only make things worse.
He looked up at Ellsbeth standing by the bookshelf, just as frozen as he was. The look that passed between them was strangely one ofmourning.The brittle lock on their hermetically sealed secret was broken. The only question was how far the damage would spread.
“Fuck,” he muttered. “So, so stupid…” Then he saw the hurt look on Ellsbeth’s face, and amended, “I mean…not you. Me. I should have made sure the door was locked…”
