The space beside him was empty. Closing his eyes again and exhaling deeply, he smacked his hand against the vacant space and rolled over on his back. He wasted only a few moments staring up at the ceiling in self pity, replaying last night's events over on the reel in his mind, before rising from the bed and gathering his clothes on the floor. He winced when he realized how tangibly familiar this scenario feltby himself, collecting cold yet sweaty clothes off a stranger's floor in the wee hours of the morning. The distinguishable difference this time, however, was that the girl was no stranger and he wished he was not alone.
He padded down the stairs to the living room, and would have been embarrassed to meet Erica sitting on the couch. He was naked from the waist up, clad only in a stark white sheet, but he felt so sedately numb that he could not care.
"Hi," the pretty girl greeted, smiling consolingly, as if she really understood the confusion and heartache surrounding his predicament. He smiled weakly in return, turned to his right and retreated into the downstairs bathroom.
When he emerged, as close to the term 'dressed' as one could be in wrinkled garments from the night before, he stood in awkward silence before the girl. He was used to uncomfortable morning afters with the woman he'd slept with. This, however, had had never anticipated. Erica sensed his vulnerability and distress.
"She, uh, just stepped out for a little while. You know...work or something," she offered. When Ross glanced down at his wrist watch, she knew she'd been beaten.
"Work at 7 on a Saturday?" he challenged. He shouldn't have, though. Whatever last night was about was between them. Erica was only trying to make him feel better. "Sorry," he immediately apologized. "Look, I'm just, uh, gonna go."
"Ross," she called out, his hand already on the front doorknob. Wow, she'd never called him by name before. Part of him thought she never even knew it. He turned to face her.
"Don't worry too much, okay? I mean, you know, about Rachel." It was a simple gestureone that would have perhaps fallen short in another situation, with another man, in another apartment, on another morning. This time, though...it made him smile.
"Thanks," he nodded.
And with that, he left Rachel's apartment for what could have been the last time.
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Ross sat on the front stoop of his building late in the afternoon with his laptop perched upon his knees. The wind ruffled his hair, fall's dying multicolored leaves blew unsystematically through the streets, and the far-off sounds of children playing before supper could be heard. He glanced up from the screen and it's daunting, blinking cursor, surveying his neighborhood.
It was nice, he considered, in an effortlessly charming sort of way. The buildings were old, to put it gently, burnt and discolored with the anguish of time, especially Manhattan time, when nothing seems to just stand still or stay evenwhere even the wind must have some undistinguishable color or force that sandpapers the aliveness from the corners of the brick buildings like a dog rubbing against a table's leg. The clotheslines running across the streets, some 10 stories upa network of lower middleclass memoirsreminded him, unsettlingly, of his mother's disheartened generation.
All in all, really, the scene could have only been completed by the smallest and subtlest of romantic gestureslike a 12-year-old paper boy cycling through on his daily schedule, or a displaced, whitewashed ice cream truck rolling through, attracting behind it a trail of excited children like a metal to a magnet.
Or a staggeringly beautiful girlearly twenties, at the mostappearing seemingly from nowhere with a heartbreaking look of puzzlement and distress painted across her face.
Ross would have been surprised if he had noticed her right away, but he stared at her for a good 10 secondsright through her, ratherbefore realizing the magnitude of the situation. It was like he couldn't quite place her face but was afraid to admit it, like one might do with a familiar-looking stranger they encounter in the grocery store. Finally, it registered with himhitting him full force, like a blow to the stomachand he felt himself unwinding, a bit.
"Uh...hi," he tendered, his voice low and soft.
"Hi," she smiled warmly, unknowingly melting his heart into a wilted puddle.
Silence.
"So, um, what are you...I mean, do you want to come upstairs?" he asked, pointing back over his shoulder to the front door of the building.
"Sure, yeah." She jumped at the offer, immediately propelling herself forward, like each moment standing on the sidewalk below him was physically excruciating and she was desperate to relieve the gut-wrenching pain.
Ross fumbled with the key both to the front door and, once upstairs, to his apartment like a nervous college student bringing a girlno, not just any girl, the head cheerleaderback to his room for the first time. Ironic, he thought, considering how disappointingly dissimilar this situation actually is from that one.
Once they actually entered the apartment, Ross threw the keys, just like every time before, on the counter to his right and proceeded into the living room. Just like almost every time before, he overreached the extension and the keys slid across the slick wood and landed on the floor. Rachel closed the door behind her and stood awkwardly in the foyer, unsure of whether or not she should follow him into the living room. That was, after all, an indicator of the point of no return; entering the heart of the apartment, that is. That was a commitmentno turning back after taking a seat beside him on that sofa. Therefore, she dawdled by the door.
She looked around the place. Though it had only been a little over a week since she'd last been there, it seemed worlds apart from the apartment she'd once known. It looked like a hurricane had hit itdishes piled high in the sink, magazines and junk mail littering the table, empty pizza boxes and Chinese take-out containers spread about the kitchen and living room.
"Wow, I love what you've done with the place," she tried to lighten the mood, stepping unsurely away from the front door and closer to the main room. As Ross cleared some text books and DVDs off the couch onto the coffee table to make a seat for himselfat this point, only for himselfhe couldn't help but smile.
"Yeah, I did it myself." He took a seat but turned to face her. To her surprise, he did not look surprised at the distance between them or her hesitancy. He did not look expectant. He just looked.
She noticed at that moment how disheveled he looked. His physical demeanor was almost unrecognizable, and his wardrobe was nothing like the fashionable, metrosexual ties and suits he normally darned. His eyes were darkeraggressive and hardand a rough five o'clock shadow shaded the lower half of his face. His hair was messy, his shirt unbuttoned and un-tucked, a wrinkled white undershirt visible underneath, and paint-stained khakis hanging loosely from his hips. He looked like a 19-year-old college boy around exam time, not an almost-27-year-old paleontologist. He felt her eyes studying himknew she was just now seeing the broken surrender in him. He could have easily thrown her a coldhearted, bitter stare that would have almost audibly said 'look at what you've done to me'...but he didn't.
"So why are you here?" he finally asked, biting the bullet. He could tell he had thrown her a bit off guard, but it wasn't his job to keep her on balance. Just look what she had done to him.
"I, um, felt bad," she admitted. She had taken the bait. She was delving in, too, refusing to beat around the bush. Her glance was still drawn down, though, and she still stood nervously and unsure.
"About what?" he almost spat. He hadn't intended for it to come out that harshly. At this, she looked up at him.
"About last weekend," she answered, her voice raising to meet his, painted with a confidence, now, that had been lacking before. This could easily turn into a yelling match. "About the way things..." She didn't want to say itwas afraid to. He wasn't.
"Ended?" he asked, coldly.
"No," she insisted, shaking her head. "No, not ended."
"Then what was it?" he demanded, standing up and placing his hands on his hips. "I mean, Jesus, Rachel, you fuck me when it's obvious you're about 1,000 miles away, you leave me hanging, then you're gone when I wake up! If that's not an ending, I don't know what is!"
"Hey, that is UNFAIR!" she yelled, pointing her finger accusingly had him. "You don't know the FIRST thing about what was going through my mind when"
"Then TELL me!" he plead, stepping away from the couch and towards her in the entrance hall. He stood directly in front of her, his face close to hers, his voice commanding. "Tell me what happened, because I don't have a clue, Rachel!"
She stared back at him with equal intensity, hers eyes searching his. It was obvious she was reckoning things out with herself. She'd debated over talking to him for almost a week, now, and it hadn't been fair to him. She'd all but disappeared from his life, which she knew must have been terrifying for him, as it was terrifying for her and she was the one doing it. Even an innuendothe faintest of indicationsto the end of this was scarring.
Finally, she took a breath and jumped.
"Ross, I'm leaving," she deadpanned, no emotion coloring her voice or her face, save a small tear threatening to well up in the corner of her eye.
"What?"
"I've been offered a job in California. I'm supposed to move out at the end of the week."
Silence. His face was stoicemotionless, as if he hadn't even heard her. Then came the reaction, seemingly unprovoked.
"Well then why didn't you fucking say something?" he demanded. She winced at the harshness of his words and tone.
"Ross, I didn't want to"
"Oh, didn't want to what? Hurt me? Well, I think it's a little too late for that, now, Rachel!"
"Come on, Ross! What was I supposed to say? I don't even know what this is! This thing between us, it's...it doesn't even make any sense, Ross!"
"Why does it have to make sense?" he challenged, turning back around the face her. "Just because it's not 'normal', or-or-or 'easy' DOESN'T mean it's not real! That it doesn't mean something!"
"Look, I KNOW it means something! Why do you think I was so afraid to say something?"
Ross went back over to the couch and sat down, leaning forward and burying his face in his hands. Rachel followed and stood before him, not wanting to sit for fear that their bodies might brush against one another and the unbearably fiery contact might break her.
"Ross..." She said his name softly and calmly, letting it roll off her tongue disguised as a statement and not the probing weight that it was.
No answer.
"Ross, please," she begged, her voice softening even more. "I didn't plan this..."
"No, but you want it," he finally spoke, lifting his head to face her, his words calm but accusing.
"What?"
"You want the job, don't you? I mean, that's why you're here. To say goodbye."
"Well, what do you want from me, Ross? Huh?" she demanded, crossing her arms defensively, raising her voice again. "I mean, what am I supposed to do? I've been waiting for this kind of opportunity for 5 years. Am I just supposed to throw it out the window because some guy I"
She cut herself off. She hadn't meant for it to come out that callously. It wasn't fair for her to oversimplify it this way. It wasn't fair to make him believe he was really just 'some guy'. It sure would be a lot easier if she could believe that, though. It was too late. He'd already caught it.
"Some guy, huh?" he asked, inaptly calm and accepting. He smirked. "Well, uh...alright, then," he shrugged, getting up from the couch, brushing past her, and heading for the door.
"Ross, wait," she pleaded, following him. Ignoring her, he placed his hand on the door, opening it and turning expectantly towards her, like a chauffer or a doorman. "What are you doing?" she asked, her tone earnest but weak.
"No," he bit back, the word flying from his mouth like a poisonous dart aimed right between her eyes. He slammed the door right back shut, thinking obviously thinking better of his initial, passive approach. "What are YOU doing?"
They were standing right beside one another, now, in front of the recently-slammed-shut door. His face was so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her cheek. His eyes narrowed in on her and he bit down fiercely, tightening his jaw.
"Ross, please stop making this so hard," she beseeched. She was practically whining, so close to tears.
"Why should I, huh? You certainly weren't concerned with making things easy on ME when you left me laying there alone in your bed that morning. You weren't worried about making things easy when you showed up here, obviously willing and ready to give me the brush-off with no questions asked. So WHY should I make this easy for you?" he implored.
She retreated a little, hoping to compose herself by getting some distance between them. She could smell his aftershave with how close he was, and that wasn't helping her poise. He didn't allowed this, however, stepping closer when she withdrew so that her back was literally against the wall. She felt trapped. Had the man not been Ross, she might have even felt endangered. Neither could deny the sexual undertones of this situationthe passion that backed it, the excitement and even the slight twinge of craze that tinted the heaving of both their chests. Their hands grazed one another at their sides.
"What do you want from me?" she finally asked, and it was the softest, calmest, smoothest whisper he'd ever heard. It was the verbal equivalent of a silk bed sheet.
"Nothing," he whispered back, his voice breathy and low like he was afraid the empty apartment might hear. He shook his head. "I don't want anything from you, Rachel. Just you." She squeezed her eyes closed and exhaled deeply, the intensity of the moment weighing her down. The tears that had been accumulating in the corners of her eyes finally fell, as tears invariably do, sliding down her cheek. With her eyes closed, she felt the pad of his thumb soft against her skin, wiping them away. She opened her eyes.
"Then ask me to stay."
There. She'd said it. What both of them knew had to happenwhat they'd both been waiting for, though neither would have ever admitted it. If he wanted her, he'd have to ask her to stay. He shook his head.
"I can't do that."
Nodding, Rachel closed her eyes once more. Reaching discreetly and effortlessly to her left, she palmed the cold, steel doorknob. She opened her eyes one final time, exhaled deeply, and stared unfalteringly up at him.
"Then I have to say goodbye."
She turned the knob, slid out from under him, and walked out without looking back.
Later that night, Ross sat on his couch with a roll of gauze and a bottle of Vodka, bandaging the broken hand he'd put through the wall after she'd left, and the broken heart she'd left in her wake.
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