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“Sorry,” she whispers.
But she’s right. It could be fun.
George sets down his mug and runs his hands through his hair. He’d kill me if I told him this but he looks just like his dad the time he caught us making out in his car. We’d had to sit through a terribly awkward conversation about sexual safety and George had ended the conversation when his dad brought out a zucchini and a condom for proper prophylactic application practice.
“I hate to be a cock block. Or a clit block,” he says in an apologetic voice to Lulu. This actually might be worse than the time his dad caught us. “But it’s not up to me. This can’t continue. You need to choose. To be honest, I didn’t think it had gone this far. I thought maybe Jesse was in his feelings.”
“Thanks, George,” I mutter.
“What?!” he says, defensive. “You have a lot of feelings.”
I huff but don’t deny it.
He huffs back. “I came today to talk to you about that, but if things have gone this far, I’m sorry, Jess. You guys can’t continue to participate in the study if you’re engaging in a physical relationship together.” He does sound apologetic, too.
“I don’t want to speak for Jesse, but...” Lulu tucks her hair behind her ear. She looks anywhere but at me. She wants me to finish her sentence. To speak. She wants me to affirm the feelings that George labeled me with earlier. And the thing is, George isn’t wrong.
I love her.
Lulu finally looks at me and for the first time maybe ever, I wish she wouldn’t. I’m too ashamed, terrified she’ll see it on my face. That I’m selfish, the worst type of person.
That I’m scared.
Of what she’s about to say and the weight of it. Suddenly, the weight of everything, her stare, her feelings for me, my feelings for her, and what it all means; it’s too heavy. I could buckle beneath it, the same way my bone buckled when confronted with an unstoppable force and an immovable object. Because that’s what Lulu is, she’s unstoppable and I don’t know how moveable I am. Not anymore.
I watch her swallow, see the flush creep up her neck. “Jesse, I think we should leave the study,” she says but there’s that inflection at the end. She’s asking. She’s not sure anymore. Because of me.
“What about...” My voice is ragged, unrecognizable. I sound like I don’t belong here, in this place I’ve lived my whole life. “The money?” I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Money I haven’t thought about once since I first signed up.
And doesn’t that make me the biggest piece of shit.
That the first words out of my mouth aren’t about declaring my love for this woman. This unbelievable, brave, smart, funny, strange woman. It’s fleeting, just a random excuse that acts like a drop of acid in a bucket full of love for Lulu, but now it’s out there. Now it’s other things, more drops in that bucket; I haven’t told her that I was thinking of becoming a nurse and does that silence mean something? Because I can’t get my brain and my mouth to work in tandem. I love her but does she really feel the same? Or am I going to be alone again at the end of this, left for someone or somewhere else? This is happening faster than I thought it would.
Fast. Like a car crash.
I can’t explain that it’s not as simple as just leaving the study and being together. I don’t know why last night I thought it was. That was stupid, naive. It was the sway of the lights in the bar and the crush of people and the music so loud I could feel it in my throat. Last night I was dreaming, this morning is reality.
At the end of all of this, if things don’t work out not only will I lose her love, I’ll lose her friendship. I’ll be alone again.
“Jesse?”
“What about Lancaster?” I say. The words scratch my throat.
She blinks, not confused. Shocked, maybe? “I already recommended Audrey for the job.”
“But they could still offer it to you, right?”
Her eyes shine. “They could, I guess. But I wouldn’t go. I don’t even know if they’re going to. I don’t want them to, Jesse,” she says, like she’s trying to convince me.
“But if they did, you’d decline a job? For me?” In the span of a few words, my heart rate kicks up. I need to sit down, my leg throbbing with the beat of my pulse. I pull out a chair from under the kitchen table. The wooden legs screech against the linoleum floor. The table is as old as I am, the floor probably is, too. I don’t remember a time it wasn’t beneath my feet. This place is old and I am the old, broken thing that belongs here.
Lulu is like sunlight, fresh air, flower petals. She’s too new for this place, for me. She’s toogoodfor a guy who has a dead-end job, who’s broken, who’s nobody.
“You can’t do that,” I hear myself say. “You can’t let an opportunity like that go.”
“It’snotan opportunity,” she says, frustrated. “And I can let go of anything I want to, by the way.” The words are angry but she seems deflated. Her cheeks go bright red. “Especially,” she says quietly. “If you asked me to. If you asked me to, I would do that. It’smychoice to make.”
I say nothing, pressing my thumbnail into the skin beside my scar.
