"Come on, give me a kiss," she instructs me, her face hovering above mine, her hair tickling my nose.
I acquiesce, our lips meeting solidly, fleetingly, before she backs away.
"Hmm, I hope I have everything," she mutters, sifting through the bag slung over her shoulder.
"Paige, just relax. It's only school. They don't shoot you for forgetting a pen. And you get to come home when it's done."
"I know, but…" she has now removed said bag and has dumped it on our bed, on my legs more precisely, for a proper inspection. "I like to be prepared, y'know…"
"Oh, I know," I reply in exasperation, giving up on snatching any more minutes of sleep. "Do you know where you're going?" I ask her as she finally packs her stuff back up.
"Yeah, Dom's meeting me at the subway so we can go in together."
Dom. Together. Words I don't want to hear my girlfriend using in the same sentence.
"Right."
She gives me a quick unreadable glance. I can't work out if it's one of reassurance or challenge or irritation. Whichever way, I'm sure she registers my displeasure.
"Okay, well, I am off to become a fully qualified business graduate thank you. So wish me luck."
"You don't need it," I instinctually respond. It's meant as a compliment. Because that's the sort of faith I have in her. She wants this so badly, to get qualified, to get this great career going. And when she wants something like that badly enough, well, there isn't a doubt in my mind she can accomplish it.
But she's looking a little put out at what I said. "Hmph," she offers.
I have to get up and put my arms around her to reassure her I did not mean it badly. And then she's looking up at me with her big lovely smile, and I have to kiss her again even though it feels forced.
And she disappears in a flurry of last minute checks and rechecks and shouted instructions for me to remember and the door slams shut behind her and I sink back to the bed and feel instantly alone.
Freeze frame this moment. Because this is how Paige and I live right now. After the bust-up, which really never lasted long, there was the make-up, which went on for about the same length. Now we are in the lull. It's not such a bad place to be, I reckon. As long as we follow The Rules things grind on, regular as clockwork.
The sun comes up and I wake up. I do not think about her. Or her. I can think about Paige, of course. And usually spend a few minutes thinking about her just before she wakes up. She always looks her most beautiful then. Serene, yet vulnerable. And it reminds me of when we were first together, and how I couldn't believe my luck that I had finally got with this most amazing girl. This girl from such a very different life, who had once not deigned to give me the time of day. But thinking back to that time gets a little dangerous as it invariably leads me to thinking about….her. So then I get up and get ready for work.
While at work I must do work and try not to daydream. I must also try and avoid the seventeenth floor and being alone in very small windowless rooms.
Recreation time is spent doing things that involve directing our attention and concentration away from ourselves. We watch movies, we go shopping, we go to ill-conceived off-Broadway student productions. We paint the lounge, I try hanging some pictures, I catch my thumb with the hammer, she kisses it better. We go shopping.
We can talk about my work, but only in regards to the work I do. I can ask about her friends, but am not allowed to make sarcastic comments about them. I am not allowed to openly criticize the Meathead in any way either. We cannot and must not talk about her. Or her.
And at night we must kiss and we can snuggle. Occasionally there's some brief fumbling. It's never very successful. We haven't had sex in a while. But we don't talk about this either.
And that is how we have been trundling along up until this point. And today it all threatens to be disrupted by Paige's first day at Baruch College. But I know that I have to put my anxiety on simmer for the time being, as my alarm clock reminds me.
Work starts off at a frantic pace as one of the directors has put in a surprise visit, sending all my managers spiraling into a frenzy. It's a good distraction, as we hastily throw together some figures and print-outs and bullshit publication graphs that make us look like we know what we're doing. Actually, it makes me feel kinda good. Like maybe I do know what I'm doing. Like, maybe I am actually capable of carrying off this whole job, office, NYC hotshot thing. Hmmm…
But, inevitably, I let my guard down, I let myself get carried away with this feeling, and neglect to stick to The Rules. I am flying along the seventeenth floor, having bludgeoned a favour off Rowena. My boss is waiting for all his presentation handouts for Mr. Bigshot. I have them. I'd done them.
I look at my watch. Shit two minutes 'till showtime. I'm almost running along the corridor. My hands clutching the precious cargo. Gotta get these to him. Gotta make it. Boardroom C. Boardroom C, seventeenth floor. Danger not even registering.
"Alex," and there she is, sauntering beside me. How the hell does she do that? I'm practically sprinting and she's all unflustered and the essence of composure keeping pace with me. I glance down to check she's not on a travellator.
"Can you spare a minute?" she asks sweetly.
"Not really," I reply, eyes forward, legs marching. Focus on your mission Alex.
"Well, you certainly look busy. Is this all because of Mark?" How totally unsurprising that she's on first name terms with him. "Honestly, the fuss that's made every time that man waltzes in here, I swear he does it just to see how many nervous breakdowns he can induce. You know, last time …"
I've tuned her out as I can see the impatient figure of my own MD waiting outside the boardroom. My pace quickens yet again. But then she does this.
"Well, I can see you have more pressing things to attend to right now Alex. I'll see you later." She squeezes my elbow as she says this and it feels like a static shock to my wooly brain.
My boss comes forward, "Are these for the presentation?" he asks, instantly taking them from me and flipping one open.
"Yes, the fiction bestsellers is done on two parts-"
He interrupts, "Too bad we didn't have any warning about this visit. We could have at least attempted to cover summer trade paperback. Fucking Mark."
"Well, we've included East Coast sales, June July," I point out, showing him the relevant pages. "We've got speculative figures for August," again I'm thumbing through my own work, showing him what he should already know.
"Right," he replies, "I see." He's abrupt and blatantly an asshole, but he also says, "Thank you Alex," before taking them off me and going into his meeting.
I audibly exhale, literally feeling the weight unburdening itself from my shoulders. The relief makes me light-headed.
"Very impressive," comes a voice behind me.
Shit! She's still here.
I pause before turning back to her. "Hardly," I offer, starting to walk back the way I had come.
"Don't be so modest, Alex. And know how to take a compliment." She's smiling her half-smile at me, the one that always leads to trouble.
And as we pass a restroom she's got hold of my elbow again, but this time more forcefully and she's ushering me in.
Dammit, The Rules! This is totally and utterly breaking them.
I'm backed up against the counter and she's facing me with a determined, expectant expression on her face.
"Well?" she arches her eyebrow.
And somehow, I'm not even sure how, I find my mouth on hers, exploring its inside, inhaling her scent, tracing her back, her earlobe, her neck.
I can feel my hand wandering up the inside of her shirt, and then she takes it and tries to guide it somewhere lower.
And it's all just a dream, because it doesn't make any sense, so it has to be, because I have a girlfriend who I love and would never do this to….
"Shit! No, nononononono," I've pulled away and spun around and am busy berating myself out loud, wringing my hands that were milliseconds ago betraying me.
I can see her reflection in the bathroom mirror, looking startled, bemused. She does up her jacket, resigned to the premature end to this little skirmish.
She approaches and tries to put her hand on my shoulder.
"Alex," she begins.
"I can't. I can't do this. I can't do this to her."
"To who?"
"To my girlfriend! To Paige!" I blurt out desperately.
She pauses and something like a shadow crosses her face. "Paige? The girl from your high school. You're with her again?"
"What? Yes! I told you! She's here, with me, in New York. I mean, she was, she'll probably just leave now, when she finds out-"
"No, you didn't tell me. Alex," she steps forward and it's enough to shut me up. I realize that possibly I had omitted some vital information. "You told me you fucked her when you went back there. You never said she was here, living with you." Her voice sounds stung, her face becomes rigid. I've never heard her sound quite like that.
I swallow hard, still reeling, still tingling from what has just happened. "Does it make any difference?" I say eventually, returning her steely gaze.
We stare at each other briefly, before her muscles seem to relax again. She turns to leave, then leans in close, brushes my cheek with her fingertip. "Poor baby, you're really fucked up, aren't you?" She whispers, forcing me to clench my jaw and fix my eyes resolutely at the ground.
She wears a ghost of a smile as she backs away out the door.
I can feel the blood rushing to my face, I can feel every nerve ending within me aflame, all over my body, piercing my skin like a million little fireworks. I go into one of the stalls as my stomach starts to heave and lurch violently. But it's a false alarm. I can't even succeed in vomiting.
I bang the door with my fist, letting out some sort of primal growl. My tears race my slumping form to the ground.