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Footsteps sound behind me and I crane my neck, looking back, as excitement leaps in my stomach. “Hi.”
Fucking hell. There are so many words in the English language, and beyond that, I can hold my own in both Latin and French, and yet all I can come up with is “Hi.”
Etta is standing in the three feet of space between the edge of the bookcase and the wall that separates this strange little alcove from the rest of the library. She’s backlit, as the shadows of the tall bookcase cast me in darkness, and slightly out of breath as she drops her bag on the floor at her feet. “Hi. Sorry, my class ran long.”
I stand up, so I’m not sitting while she stands, and look her up and down, before settling on her face. She’s flushed pink, like she ran all the way up here, and she’s gnawing nervously on her bottom lip.
“Oh, here.” She steps over her bag and slightly further into the alcove. “I brought your phone.”
She’s wearing a white turtleneck sweater with a black skirt and some kind of see-through tights today. I stare at her legs for half a second too long, while she fishes around in the pocket of her skirt.
Pulling out my phone, she hands it to me, and I inspect it. It’s not really the phone I care about, it’s the case, but everything looks okay. I tap the screen and notice that the battery is almost fully charged.
“Thanks,” I say, slipping the phone into my own pocket.
“No problem.”
There’s a pause that feels painfully long. I’m not sure why, but this feels ten times more awkward than any other interaction we’ve ever had—which doesn’t bode well for the plan that I’ve been ruminating on. Is she uncomfortable? Am I completely off base here?
“Did you read it?” I tease.
I assume she didn’t. Etta is too nice for that. She would assume it was an invasion of privacy or something. I don’t even know why I want her to have looked. Maybe because I would have looked without a second thought if given the same opportunity and I want her to be just a little morally gray, like me. Maybe because I want her to care. Maybe for the same reason I would take my prep school girlfriends to make out in the library where Etta was studying. Because as much as I don’t care about Rosaline, I want Etta to know that she might not want me, but other women do.
That’s fucked, I know.
“Yeah,” she says quietly.
I swear, I can hear a record scratch. “You did?”
“Yes. So, looks like congratulations are in Order?”
The words sound familiar. Practiced. Like she’s quoting something I don’t recognize. My delight turns to confusion, and I look down at the phone. The first text blinks up at me, words like engagement and ring popping out.Fuck.“Oh. No, that’s not—”
But surprisingly she waves a hand, cutting me off. “I get it,believe me.”
Right. I’ll bet she does.
She steps back and reaches for her bag again, and panic jolts through me. She’s going to leave. She’s going to leave, and there’s no reason we would have to talk to each other again. We’ve gone years without speaking, and it’s only through coincidence and, well, me chasing her down that we’ve spoken at all in the last week.
I can picture it, too. Etta will leave and I’ll end up marrying Rosaline fucking Hathaway because there’s no good reason not to and my mother will guilt me into it. She’ll say something about how Marcia died and she wants a full family again, and my father will threaten to cut off my inheritance and I’ll cave because there’s nothing objectively wrong with Rosaline. And Etta will marry Harrison Dane, and whoever ends up being the head of the council won’t ultimately matter because we’ll all end up there in a few years, anyway, when our parents retire. And I’ll fight with Etta on the council about shit I don’t care about, just like I fought with her in debate club and model UN and every other fucking after school activity, and go home and fuck my boring wife about it, just like I fucked my boring prep school girlfriends pretending they were her. And maybe we won’t literally kill anyone or get in fist fights at fundraisers, but people will still gossip about our feud and how the Montagues hate the Capulets—or the Danes, I guess, if that’s what she’s called. They’ll still talk about the curse, for generations on generations, until no one really knows what happened or why we all hate each other.
Or, I could stop her from leaving.
“Etta,” I say, having no idea what I’m going to say to keep her here.
But at the same moment, she spins back to me, her expression hard and determined. It’s the same look she used to get right before a debate final, or when I would tease her and she was trying not to cry: Heavy concentration.
“Roman,” she says, in a flat emotionless tone unlike anything I’ve heard from her in years. “I actually wanted to talk to you about what I saw on your phone. See…I was wondering. If you wanted…maybe if you didn’t want to go through with…you know. I was thinking that…”
I blink at her, trying to follow what the hell she’s trying to say.
Etta takes a deep breath. “I was thinking we should get married.”
I can’t breathe.
I stare at her, sure I must have imagined her words. It’s finally happened, my diet of cigarettes and protein shakes combined with booze and lack of sleep has caused me to hallucinate. This should be a wake-up call, probably. Inspiration alone can’t save me, I can’t literally sustain myself on Etta’s life-force. I’m going the way of Poe or Wilde, but without the ambiance to make it anything other than depressing.
The object of my obsession takes a deep breath and shakes her head, like she’s trying to clear it. “Roman?” she asks. “Did you hear me?”
