Love Out of Order (Indigo Love Spectrum) (23 page)

“I can think of a few reasons,” Astoria said with a snort.

I ignored her and drained my cup before setting it on
the table next to me. We were standing next to the
makeshift bar. A card table piled high with liquor.

“Here they come,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, watching them approach me.

“Denise,” Cindy said. Her two cronies stood behind
her, smirking. All three were blonde, tall, and thin. They were low-rent versions of Sasha.

“What?” I snapped.

“I thought I’d say hi to you for Sasha,” Cindy said.
And with that, she dumped an entire cup of some sort of
spiked punch over my head. I saw red and it had nothing
to do with the punch.

I shrieked, pushing my dripping hair away from my
face.

“Oops. Did I get your sweater, honey? Don’t worry, I
saw plenty more on clearance at Macy’s where you got
that one from. Or wait, is that a Wal-Mart knock-off? I
wouldn’t know. I don’t go into such stores,” Cindy said,
tapping a perfectly oval, pink fingernail against her chin,
just below her frost pink lips. Her harpies thought that
was the most clever thing they’d ever heard, apparently.

I lurched for her. Astoria grabbed my arm.

“Denise, no,” she said. I could tell she was struggling
to restrain herself as well.

“You better learn where you belong before much
more gets ruined than a cheap sweater,” Cindy said.
“You tell Sasha she can go fuck herself!” I shouted.

“I think you want to choose your words a little more carefully,” Cindy said.

“What for?” I pushed Astoria off of me.

“Give it up. How long do you think you’ll last
anyway?” she asked with a glare.

At that moment, I looked up and saw John standing
at the edge of the circle that had formed around us.
Avoiding my eyes.

That hurt much more than anything Cindy had said.
I brushed away Astoria’s hand when she reached out for me again and stormed out of the house.

“Denise,” I heard John calling after me. Now he
could come to me. Outside. Where no one was looking.
I continued down the sidewalk, pretending I hadn’t heard
a thing.

“Denise!” Astoria too. I didn’t stop for them. But I did let them catch up to me. Big mistake.

“Denise, I’m sorry,” John said.

“Damn right you are,” Astoria said.

“Shut up, both of you,” I said, still walking and
staring straight ahead.

“You have to be freezing,” John said. I pushed away
his coat even though he was right. I had left my jacket
back at the party, and my sweater was drenched.

“She
humiliated
me, John. And you acted like you
didn’t even know who I was,” I seethed, still not looking,
s
till not stopping. I bit my lip so hard that it pulsed with
pain, but that did nothing to stop the tears.

“See? Told you about things like him,” Astoria said.

I finally stopped and whirled around to face them.
“You. With the I-told-you-so’s! That’s enough!” I shouted
at Astoria.

“But—”

“Enough, I said!”

“He’s the one—”

“Go!” I screamed.

Astoria stared at me, shockingly at a loss for words. She eventually found a few choices ones for both John
and I and then stormed off.

I turned to John.

“And you. How dare you?” I screamed at him.
He said nothing.

“You don’t have anything to say for yourself?”

“I’m waiting for you to finish. You finished?” he said.
“Go on. Explain yourself.”

“There’s nothing to explain. You ran out before I
could say anything at all. Do anything. Denise, you were
out of the door before I really knew what was happening.”

“Liar. I saw you standing there. Avoiding my eyes.”

“Denise, I was still trying to figure out what was
going on. I was outside. As soon as I came in, I asked somebody what was happening. And, like, five seconds
later, you’re running out of the door like you’re on fire,
dripping and apparently trying to freeze to death or
something. You really think I wouldn’t care that Cindy
did that to you? What, you really believe that?”

I
suddenly felt a little foolish. But I didn’t want to be
wrong. So I just stood there, staring at him angrily from
under a mop of punch-soaked hair, shivering. He sighed
and shook his head. He once again moved to put his coat
around my shoulders. This time, I didn’t try to stop him.
I let him hug me.

“So you gonna take me home?” I said.

I felt him nod against my cheek. “C’mon.”

He put his arm around me and walked me back to his
car. First, I wasn’t great at apologies because I was hor
rible at ever admitting I was wrong. And second, I wasn’t
sure I completely believed John. The hateful cynic in me
wanted to believe John wanted me to disappear at that
party. It wanted me to accept that I had no place in John
Archer’s life; that Cindy was right.

Back at my apartment, we still weren’t talking. He walked me to my room. I let him remove the ruined,
dripping sweater along with my T-shirt and bra, which
were in similarly shabby states. I watched him put every
thing in a plastic bag. I remained motionless, except for
involuntary shivering. He unbuckled my belt and
removed it. I glanced at him long enough to see that he
was avoiding my eyes just as I had been avoiding his. I
wondered what was going through his mind.

I stepped out of my punch-soaked jeans and he tossed
them into the bag as well. I wrapped my arms around
myself. John went over to my bed, grabbed a throw
blanket, and wrapped it around me. He pulled me to him.

I wanted to say something to him, but I didn’t know
how. He seemed to be having a similar problem. I heard
h
im take a deep breath as if he wanted to speak several times, but there was no other sound from him. I hugged
him closer to me, resting my head on his shoulder. I
closed my eyes. I just wanted John and I didn’t want any
thing to destroy that—us.

I took a deep breath, trying hard to keep the tears away;
trying to swallow them back inside of myself. But I felt it
coming. My throat was raw. My eyes burned. My breathing
was unsteady. I finally looked up at John. The look in his
eyes—sadness and pain and love all mixed together—made me want to cry even more. He gently wiped the tears away
from the corners of my eyes with his thumbs.

“You’re all sticky,” he said with a forced grin. I forced myself to laugh.

“C’mon.”

I followed John to the bathroom, my hand in his. He sat down on the edge of the tub and pulled me onto his
lap. He turned on the faucet with one hand. The other
was holding me. I rested my head on his shoulder. He
brushed his chin against the side of my face before kissing
my cheek.

“It’s warm,” he murmured in my ear. We stood
together. I let the blanket fall to the floor and stepped out
of my panties. John was not shy about observing. Finally,
some warmth spread over me.

I smiled as he turned the knob for the shower. “You
coming in?” I asked.

He had turned to leave the bathroom. His eyes
widened as he turned back to me. He seemed shocked I
was actually talking to him. I was kind of shocked myself.

“
Only if you want me to,” John said, but he was
already undressing.

“Of course I want you to,” I said, watching the last of
John’s clothing hit the floor. I stepped into the tub and he
followed. I wrapped my arms around him and let my head sink into his shoulder. His wet, warm hands moved down
from my shoulders. He kissed my lips and then my chin.
It was almost enough to make me forget why my hair was clumped uncomfortably against my neck—almost. At the
thought of that sticky hair, my back stiffened.

“What?” John whispered into my ear.

“Nothing,” I said. I wanted peace with John, no
matter how temporary it had to be.

“Your hair,” John said softly, as if reading my mind.
He lifted my head from his shoulder and tilted it back. I
smiled faintly. His fingers gently kneaded against my
scalp. He was pretty good for someone with practically
no hair. I sighed, relaxing into his soft yet strong hands.

“That feels good,” I murmured.

John murmured assent. He drew me closer to him.

“I never want anything to hurt you. I want to protect
you. You have to believe that. I don’t want to lose you
over anything stupid. I don’t want to lose you at all,”
John said.

I nodded, which was difficult with his hands still in
my hair. “John, I love you so much. It scares me. I’m wor
ried I won’t be able to do enough to keep you. They scare me because I think they’re right,” I murmured, loving the feel of his fingers against my scalp. He was distracting me
into telling too much of the truth.

“They’re wrong. They’re just bitter, stupid harpies.” John’s voice was hard, but his fingers were gentle, loving.

But I remained unsure. “Please, John, please . . .”

“Please what?” John whispered into my ear before
kissing it. Our bodies were pressed together. His fingers
were still tangled in my hair. His chest moved against
mine with each frantic breath he took.

“Please don’t tell me lies. I can’t stand to love you this
much and not know the truth,” I said with my eyes
closed. I felt his lips against my eyelids.

“I
am
telling the truth. I love you more than anything
in this world. And anyone who tries to take you away
from me will have to answer to me. That includes you.”

I could hear the grin in his voice. I laughed and
relaxed into his hands. I tried to push down all thoughts
of panic and fear and give myself over completely to him.

* * *

John and I couldn’t find our way to normal. Virtually
overnight, we had become the pariahs of the law school. And our law school is a small place. Claustrophobically
small. There was no escape from the hell of disapproving
glares of the nosy people who were apparently incapable
of minding their own business. Astoria had stopped
saying so many hateful things about John, but probably
only because everyone else was saying them for her. I
knew she still didn’t want us together, and she had that in
common with everyone. In the world.

T
hen Cindy and the other two started causing Lindie
to harass me even more. Lindie came to me one day,
furious that I hadn’t turned in my cite checks. I swore to
her I had turned them in right at the deadline. Little did
I know at the time that I had been sabotaged. And they weren’t nearly done with me at that. Shortly after the cite
check incident, Lindie came barreling down on me again
one Wednesday in January. It was unseasonably warm,
but I’ll always remember that Wednesday as the coldest day of the year; possibly of my life.

I knew it was all over when Lindie came down the
hall, screaming at me. She was waving papers and gestic
ulating wildly. She looked crazy, even for her. People
stopped to stare curiously at her as she hurtled herself
toward me. Lots of curious eyes darted around corners and snuck glances while pretending to pore over what
ever they were supposed to be reading.

“Office. Now.” That was all she could manage to get
out. I had no desire to argue with her after seeing the
expression on her face. I stepped into the journal office.
She was right on my heels and slammed the door behind
her. She then slammed those papers she had been waving
around down on the desk in front of her. She looked at me like they were supposed to mean something to me.