AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Elliot?” My mother leans over me and closes the laptop.
I scoot my chair from beneath the table and fold my arms across my chest. I knew I should have gone downstairs to the bar instead.
“Elliot,” she chides. “I thought this had stopped. You promised.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Something, son. I want you to say something.”
“Fine. The heart has reasons the mind knows not of.”
Her mouth hangs agape, so I add, “Pascal said that.”
“I don’t care to hear what some philosopher said, Elliot. I want logic. I want reason. I want to understand why this is—why this is still happening.”
“He was a physicist. An inventor.”
My mother looks at me with tired eyes. “I don’t care if he was God himself. I want you to explain why you’re still…why you’re still obsessed with this girl after all these years.”
“I’m not obsessed. I’m in love.”
“Oh Elliot, please.” She slides out a chair and sits down. “How many times have we been over this? You can’t love someone who doesn’t love you back.”
We met in college, in the lab, on the first day of my second semester. Emily liked me instantly. I hated her at first.
Maybe it was her perpetual good mood or the fact that she was indifferent to my petulance. I don’t know. Whatever it was, I did everything I could to avoid her. There was a part of me who understood what a girl like that had the power to do—the power to turn your life upside down.
And turn my life upside down she did. Our major required long hours and dedication, and the competition to win Emily’s affections was vast and wide, with the male to female ratio being 10:1.
This meant I had to be extra diligent in my pursuit.
And I was. I like a good challenge.
We started dating, though not seriously; Emily wasn’t as ambitious about the whole thing as I was. Still, it’s tough not to blur lines when you’re forced to work that close with someone every day. At least it was for her. I realize now that distance is my problem.
Emily thinks her security settings can stop me. I solved this problem last night by creating a fake profile, grabbing the headshot and bio of an old friend of a friend, and I sent her a friend request. With fifteen hundred friends, it’s doubtful she’ll check to see they’re already connected nor will she want to deny the request.
Speaking of requests, no one wanted me to marry her. She didn’t come from a great family. She didn’t look—or for that matter
, act—like a senator’s son’s wife. My family demanded that much.
But I didn’t care. The more my parents hated her, the fonder I became. She was smart, far smarter than me. She understood people in a way that I never could. That’s the thing, you see—I thought we could make it work. Emily never did.
When I’ve had all I could take of my mother, I forced myself to dress and go into the office. It wasn’t easy; the pain in my ribs is unbearable. But so is she.
I’ve refreshed Instalook at least a hundred times. It’s been four hours. Surely Emily has seen the friend request by now.
When she still hasn’t accepted by 2:00 p.m., I call it a day. I can’t be here when I feel so much uncertainty. No one questions my cutting out early. Not only because I’m the boss—after the attack, no one expected me to be in, anyway.
When I arrive back at the apartment, I realize that if I’d thought this day was mediocre before, I should remember things can always take a sharp turn for the worse.
There is new furniture. Furniture that I didn’t buy.
“What?” my mother asks, without batting an eye. “I couldn’t stand to see my son living like this. You live like a recluse, Elliot. You can’t have friends over if you don’t have furniture.”
“I don’t have friends.”
“Well,” she says eagerly, “That’s all about to change.”
