Page 57 of Use Me Up

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I smell her before I see her, and Calliope’s scent is wild and intense, and it calls to me in a way I can’t explain. I have always felt connected to her in a way that I’ve never felt connected to anyone else.

Maybe the connection doesn’t always feel good. Maybe sometimes, it feels like being tethered to the bright face of an explosion, but whatever the case, it’s always there. We’re always connected.

Callie leads the way into the dining room, and Joni is trailing behind her and Hannah is bringing up the rear.

Calliope stops there and looks at me and then looks at Andrew and then back to me.

I get up from the table. “Let’s go for a walk,” I say to her.

Andrew gets up. “You don’t just take my wife for a walk.”

Calliope is gaping at me. “You told her.” She points back at Hannah. “That’s who you told.”

“It wasn’t exactly like that,” I say.

“You two don’t get to do this.” Andrew wedges his way between us, facing Callie. “You don’t get to talk like no one else is here.”

Calliope focuses on him. “What did you think was going to happen if you told me this? You wanted this.”

“I can assure you, I did not,” says Andrew.

I’m five steps ahead of all of this, because I could tell that Andrew was telling Callie when I saw him getting out his phone, and I was pretty sure I could predict how Callie would react, and I had a feeling it would involve a tense showdown like this. Calliope doesn’t mean to turn everything into a performance. She has very big reactions, though, and she isn’t good at disguising them. And whenever she’s around, people want to look at her.

So, it seems like she’s doing it for an audience.

But no, she’d do it regardless. She just always seems to have an audience.

Me too, if it comes to that. People like to look at me, too.

She and I get this about each other.

One thing I can do is get this away from everyone else. I go past Andrew and I put an arm around Callie, and I murmur to her. “Let’s go, just you and me, okay?”

She looks up at me, nodding, grateful.

I look over my shoulder and locate Hannah. “Don’t worry about me. Don’t wait around just because you were my ride.”

Hannah gives me a frosty smile.

“I don’t mean it because…” Fuck. How is it that Hannah is becoming as difficult to communicate with as Calliope? Maybe all women are just confusing as fuck.

What am I supposed to say to Hannah?

Don’t be jealous?

It’s clear that whatever it is with Calliope and me is stronger and bigger and more complicated than the fragile thing I’ve started to build with Hannah. She’s not an idiot. She can tell that. And I know what it would require of me to really be in a relationship with Hannah.

I would have to center her.

I don’t think anyone besides Callie will ever be my center, however, so it’s all fucked.

What was I thinking?

Why did I come here?

What the fuck is wrong with me?