Nothing More (19 page)

I will not let things get messy.

No chance.

I
T'S BEEN TWO WEEKS
since I've heard from Dakota. She hasn't reached out to me once since she slipped out of my bed in the middle of the night, nor has she answered either of my calls or the two texts I've sent. Maybe I've overdone it, bothering her too much when she obviously doesn't want to talk, but I want to make sure she's okay. No matter how many times I try to remind myself that that's not my job anymore, my head just won't listen. Or maybe it's my heart, possibly both. I know Dakota well enough to know that when she needs her space, she will take it and no one can change that.

The unfamiliar part is that I'm not used to being the one she needs space from.

Since we decided to be friends I've seen Nora twice, but only spoken to her once. Friends without kissing. Friends don't kiss and friends definitely don't think about kissing.

I'm still working on that part. She hasn't started to come around less; she's just leaving earlier and I'm coming home later than I used to. I've been staying a little later at work to help Posey close. She's been picking up so many of Jane's shifts lately that I have a feeling she could use the help. She seems overwhelmed. I don't want to be too pushy and probe too much into her life, but I've always been pretty good at reading people. We have become something close to friends during our long shifts together, and she's been sharing more and more of her life with me while we scrub dishes and clean coffee grounds from every nook and cranny of Grind.

I'm enjoying the extra hours and her company. I'm lonely and soaking our conversations up like a sponge, like the details of her life somehow make me feel more involved in the wider world. She was born and raised here—a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, something millions of people in this city strive to imitate. Her family used to live in Queens, and when she was fifteen, her mom passed away and Lila and Posey moved to Brooklyn to live with their grandma.

It's nice having someone to talk to about random stuff. It's nice to hear about someone else's life and opinions and thoughts when I don't want to think about my own.

I don't want to think about Dakota, and I don't want to miss Nora. Am I a bad person for liking two people?

Really, though, I don't know if I like Nora or if I'm just attracted to her. I don't know enough about her to compare to my feelings for Nora . . .

I mean,
Dakota
.

Shit, I'm a mess.

Am I being too hard on myself by keeping my distance from both of them? I've loved Dakota for years; I know her inside and out. She's my family. In my heart of hearts, she owns half the real estate.

Nora is another story; she's wishy-washy and hot and cold, and undeniably sexy and flirtatious. I'm half-attracted, half-curious about her, and I keep having to remind myself that we killed our potential relationship before it ever had a chance to bloom into anything anyway, so I can't sit around moping over losing something that wasn't mine to begin with.

So it's been two weeks of avoidance of the women in question: picking up later shifts at work, joining more study groups, or staying home and watching cooking shows with Tessa. She's obsessed with them lately and they provide good background noise when I'm doing my schoolwork. I can pay just a little bit of attention to the shows, but I don't care enough to have to give my full attention to them—and I'm not convinced that Tessa does either.

One night during
Cupcake Wars
, my phone buzzes on the leather couch and Hardin's name lights up on my screen. Tessa's eyes follow the noise and flash at the sight of his name. Her eyes dart back to the screen and she pulls her pouty bottom lip between her teeth.

She's freaking miserable and I hate it. Hardin's miserable, and he deserves it, but I still hate it. I don't know what kind of mountain Hardin will have to move to earn her forgiveness, but I know damned well he would even
build
a mountain if he had to—a whole row of them with her face carved into them—before he would live his life without her.

That sort of desperation, that kind of burning, throbbing love—I haven't known it.

I have loved slow and deep with Dakota . . . it was—still is—a steady kind of love. We had our share of complications and fights, but nine times out of ten, it was her and me fighting against the world. It was me, sword drawn, cannon loaded, ready to charge at any enemy who crossed a line. Mostly the foe was her dad, the biggest, nastiest troll of all. I spent many a night rescuing my princess from the yellow-stained walls and worn
Cinderella
-printed curtains tacked over the windows of her house. I climbed the dirty, sun-damaged siding and opened the dust-covered window, and pulled her to the safety of warm chocolate chip cookies and the soft voice of my mother.

Times were rough at her house, and when Carter was gone, even the best cookies, the softest voices, and the tightest hugs couldn't comfort Dakota. We shared pain and pleasure, but the more I think about it and the more I compare it to the relationships I see around me and the ones I read about in my books, the more I realize that while Dakota and I were family, we were also nothing but kids.

Is someone even supposed to spend his whole life with the one who helps him grow? Or is that person simply a stop along the way to who he will become, their role ending when he learns what he needs to make it to the next stop? I once felt like Dakota was my entire journey and my destination, but I'm starting to feel like I was no more than a stop along the way for her.

Do I, Landon Gibson, Amateur Relationship Participant, even know what the hell I'm talking about?

I grab my phone as it goes to voicemail. I call Hardin right back and he answers on the first ring.

“Hey,” I say, looking at Tessa as she pulls the blanket up to her neck like it's protecting her from something.

“I'm about to book my flight. It's next month,” he says, loud enough for Tessa to hear. And with every word from Hardin's mouth, she visibly shudders.

She stands up and walks to her room without a word.

I whisper so she doesn't hear me: “I don't know if it's a good—”

“Why?” he interrupts. “What's going on, where's Tess?”

“She just went into her room after shaking like someone was screaming at her the moment she overheard your voice.” It's harsh to say it like that, I know, but it's honest.

Hardin makes a noise that pains me. “If she would just speak to me . . . I fucking hate this shit.”

I sigh. I know he hates it. So does she. So do I. But he did this to himself, to her, and it's not fair of me to push her toward him if she doesn't want to go.

“Try to give her the phone,” he demands.

“You know I can't do that.”

“
Fuck
, man.”

I can picture him running his fingers through his hair.

He hangs up the phone, and I don't call him back.

I wait a few minutes and knock on Tessa's door. She opens almost immediately and I take a step back into the hallway. I glance at the tabby cat picture and wonder again how I managed to never pay attention to these weird little pictures before.

“You okay?” I ask my friend.

She looks down at her feet, then back up at me. “Yeah.”

“You're a terrible liar,” I say.

She steps back into her room and leaves the door open, gesturing for me to come inside. She sits on the edge of her bed and I look around her room. It's spotless as usual, and she's done a little more decorating since I've last been in it. Her TV is no longer on the dresser; in its place are stacks of books, organized by author's last name. Three worn copies of
Pride and Prejudice
catch my eye.

Tessa lies back on her bed and stares up at the ceiling. “I really am okay with him coming to visit. He's your family and I won't keep you from seeing him.”

“You're my family, too,” I remind her. I sit on the opposite edge of her bed, near the blue upholstered headboard. The color matches her curtains and I can't see a single dust bunny in her windowsill.

“I'm just waiting and waiting, and I don't know how to stop . . .” Her voice is flat, detached.

“Waiting for what?”

“For him to stop being able to hurt me. Even hearing his voice . . .”

I pause to let her catch her breath, then say, “It will take a while, I assume.”

I wish I hated him, too, so I could tell her how terrible he is for her, that she's better off without him, but I can't. I can't and won't pretend that they both aren't better when they're together.

“Can I ask you something?” Tessa's voice is soft.

“Of course.” I prop my feet up on her bed and hope she doesn't notice how dirty my socks are on her white comforter.

“How did you get over Dakota? It makes me feel like shit that you were feeling this way and I barely comforted you. I was so consumed by my own problems that I never thought about you feeling the way I feel now. I'm sorry I'm such a shitty friend.”

I laugh softly. “You aren't a shitty friend. My situation was a lot different than yours.”

“That's so Landon to say that. I knew you would tell me I'm not a shitty friend,” She smiles and I can't remember the last time I saw her do this. “But really, how did you get over her? Does it still eat at you when you see her?”

That's a good question. How did I get over her?

I don't even know how to answer that question. I don't want to admit it, but I don't think I ever felt as low as Tessa does now. It hurt when Dakota broke up with me, especially the
way
she did it, but I didn't drown in my own misery. I held my head up and tried to stay as supportive of her as I could and kept going on with my life.

“It was so different for me. Dakota and I had barely seen each other in the last two years, so I wasn't always around her the way you were with Hardin. We never lived together, and I think I was used to feeling alone anyway.”

Tessa rolls over and rests her chin on her elbow. “You felt alone when you were dating?”

I nod. “She lived across the country, remember?”

Tessa nods. “Yes, but you still shouldn't have felt alone.”

I don't know what to say. I did feel alone, even when Dakota and I talked every day. I don't know what that says about me, or our relationship.

“Do you feel alone now?” Tessa asks, her gray eyes focused on me.

“Yeah,” I answer honestly.

She rolls back over and looks up at the ceiling again. “Me, too.”

M
Y CLASSES FELT SO LONG
today. Well, they've felt like that all week. I couldn't focus after everything that went down with Dakota. And then with Hardin calling to tell me that he's coming just next weekend . . .

Next weekend . . .

That doesn't give me much time to get Tessa used to the idea of him being here, in her space.

When he called back that night, I didn't answer. It was the first time Tessa and I had really connected in a while and we were too busy wallowing in our aloneness. It was sad, but
nice
, too, to be there with her.

And miracle of miracles, instead of calling back several times in a row, Hardin actually left me a voicemail. Fairly amazing, really. But thinking back on it, I remembered that he claimed he had to come because he has an appointment in the city that he “can't miss.”

He
has
to be applying for jobs here—why else would he have an “unmovable” appointment here in New York? It has to be for a job . . .

Or he's tired of being away from Tessa. He can't stay away from her long; he must need his fix.

When I reach my building, a loud delivery truck is idling in the middle of the street. The deli below gets deliveries at all times of the night. Voices and the heavy sound of doors closing, opening, closing again drove me nuts at first because I was so used to the stillness and silence of the suburbs in Washington State, in the Scott “castle” on top of the hill. I still remember how big that house looked to me as we pulled up in my mom's station wagon. We had chosen the cheap way to travel, driving cross-country, despite Ken's many attempts to buy us airline tickets and have our stuff shipped. Looking back, I think my mom had too much pride to let him believe she was around for anything other than her love for him.

I remember the first time I heard her laugh in front of him. It was a new laugh—the kind that changed her face and her voice. The corners of her eyes drew up, and the joy that emerged from her throat seemed to come from deep inside her and filled the room with light and fresh air. I felt like she was a different, happier version of the mom I knew and loved.

Of course, when I talk to her now, she always mentions something about me that's worrying her. Case in point: my sleeping habits since I moved to the city. She keeps asking when I'm going to find a doctor to look into it, but I'm not ready to do most of the practical parts of living in a new city. Seeing a doctor and getting a new driver's license are things that can wait. Besides, I don't want to drive in this city, and as far as I'm concerned, the real problem I have right now is those 3 a.m. garbage
trucks.

So instead of a doctor's visit, I got my white noise machine. It helped me tremendously. Tessa likes the noise, but she said she grew up next to a railroad track and missed the sound of the trains during the night. Lately, we both seem to be reaching for anything that reminds us of home. My sense in New York is that your home is truly your castle, or if not a castle, at least the cubbyhole in the city you can control. Apparently, for both Tessa and me, controlling the sounds we hear helps us feel in control in general, just in different ways.