Wait for Me (22 page)

“Hola!”

“Hey babe, this a bad time?”

“No, not at all. I'm just in the park having a fleeting picnic… starting work soon.”

“Cool. I was just calling to invite you over for dinner tomorrow night – one of David's colleagues is coming too.”

“Erm,” I muttered, puzzled.

“Come on Sophie, what've you got to lose? It's been a month now and it'll do you good to encounter some normal guys,” he laughed. “And anyway, he's the hallmark of all the things you like.”

“Oh yeah? And what might they be?”

“Well, he's insightful, loves music, sensitive, intelligent, and he has a decent body.”

“Can't argue with a decent body.”

“Great. See you at our place then, eight-thirty?”

“Okay, bye honey, say hi to David.”

“See ya.”

I closed the call and the music resurfaced, with the pressing and evocative notes

of that heart-breaking ending. Lost in the melody, I vaguely watched a shadow grow longer across the grass. I turned to look at the silhouette that merged with it. The song reached its crescendo, in sync with the race of my deafening heartbeat. I quickly put my shoes and sweater back on and jumped to my feet.

“Don't be afraid,” said Adam, raising his hands.

I gave a scornful laugh. “I'm not.”

Thrown into a maelstrom of emotion, I stormed away before he could say another word. I camouflaged myself in the endless tide of pedestrians that filled the sidewalks of the city, grateful that these people always had somewhere to be. I didn't know whether he was following me and I didn't want to know. However, with a red man at the first crossing, I found him beside me. Without thinking, I rushed to try the other crossing but that was red too. I waited for the green light. Despite the change, Adam remained on my heels. After a good fifty yards in my shadow, I stopped.

“Do you have something to say?” I asked, looking him straight in the eye. “I have to get to work and I'd really rather not be followed.”

“Can we get a coffee?” he asked.

“No, Adam, just tell me what you want to say.” I waited.

“I don't know what I want to say,” was his response.

Dumbfounded, I shook my head with an incredulous laugh. “In that case, you can probably imagine what my next line is going to be, so goodbye.” I decidedly resumed my march.

I wanted to tell him, before the whole world, to go to hell – tell him what I thought of him and his absurd concept of sex. His sudden presence had stirred a surge of hate. What did he take me for? Some stupid little girl? Did he really believe that he could seduce me with guilt and desperation?

“What?” I asked through gritted teeth at the next crossing.

“I want to keep seeing you,” he said.

“Yeah, right.” The light turned green and I crossed the street.

“I mean it.”

“Say it like it really is – you want to keep fucking me. I'm sorry but the hardware store is closed… indefinitely.” I dodged a woman in heels and shifted to the side, leaving him a few steps behind.

“Sophie, I never lied to you,” he said, catching up.

“Sure you didn't.”

“I've always been honest.”

I froze on the sidewalk and turned to him, leaving an inch between our faces. “How dare you even… are you really trying to put this onto me?”

“No, but from the beginning I've been telling you that I'm not looking for a love story.”

“Oh god, again with this! You know what, you're right, it's my fault. I was just deluding myself. It was my mistake and that's that. I don't want to see you any more, and besides, you're offering nothing that I can't get from a vibrator.”

Adam pulled me next to the wall.

“What do you even want from me? Go to your hookers, go to Alice Truman,
go to hell
, Adam.”

Unperturbed, he looked at me without saying a word. His communication skills were abysmal, like everything else between us.

“Let's reset,” he whispered. “I want to start over again.”

Without restraint, I pushed him away with both hands. “I don't want to fucking start over with a sociopathic sex fiend.”

“Sophie, I'm totally defenseless. I don't know what to do with you. You make me question everything. It was so intense and I got scared,” he said. “That's the reason why I went after Alice Truman. I needed to distract myself, but she means nothing to me,” and he ran his hands through his hair. “Sophie… I want to be with you.”

“Distract yourself?” I asked, baffled. “Distract yourself from what?”

“From you.”

“I'm sorry?” I croaked. “Can you even hear yourself?” I was completely bewildered. “I really don't know what to say. You're out of your mind.”

Adam leaned against the wall and took my hand.

“Sophie, listen to me.”

I broke out of his grip. “Don't touch me,” I snarled.

“Please, let me say something.”

I watched the forlorn expression on his face and closed my eyes. “How many times?” I asked.

“What?”

“How many times did you fuck that bitch?”

“A few.”

“‘A few'…what does that mean? The whole time we saw each other?” I asked.

He nodded and swallowed.

“And that morning?”

“Yeah,” he replied, with a deep sigh. “But that morning, waking up next to her, I told her it was—”

“She stayed at your apartment?” I asked, resisting my instinct to break his skull.

“It happens occasionally.”

Occasionally, I thought. When he had fucked her so much that it was too late eject her – I had to be in a cab at midnight and not a minute later.

“Adam,” I muttered, drained. “Knowing all of this only makes me hate you even more. I look at you and all I see is her and a thousand other women; women with whom you've shared more than you ever did with me. I was offered a few hours in some anonymous apartment.”

“You asked that I try, Sophie, and I did – in my own way, knowing my own limitations. I tried and I want to try again, even more so now.”

“Right, and I promised to give myself over to you under the condition that this was exclusive. You didn't deliver that. The deal is off.”

“You certainly held up your side.” He took a step towards me. “Each and every time. You're special Sophie, I've known from the day I met you. You've given so much and received nothing in return.”

“Exactly,” I said, exhausted by the conversation. “Nothing except meat… and sometimes lasagna.”

“But I can try again,” he said. “Please give me a chance, tell me what to do, I'm willing try anything—” he put his hand on the small of my back and pulled me into a hug. “You can have everything.”

Nothing made sense any more.

“You haven't said what I wanted to hear.”

I pulled away and stepped back. Suddenly, Adam's expression became stern and disdainful.

“But it's what I'm telling you – between the lines – it's what I'm telling you. Does it really have to be those exact, stupid three words?” he said, raising his voice. His sudden mood change irritated me even more. “Is it not enough that I'm standing here begging for forgiveness, telling you that I want to try again, that I need you, that you're the only person who's ever made me question the things I believe in, that the days when I don't see you are completely meaningless?” He stood over me. “Because for me I knew from the first kiss; I didn't need you or anybody else to tell me. I felt it every time I touched you – that you loved me.”

I slapped him in the face.

“You absolute narcissist. You knew how I felt and you could avoided this whole thing, so don't play out this whole melodramatic, victim narrative nonsense. It wasn't what you wanted and you had months to put an end to it. Adam, you're just an asshole who's suddenly discovered that sex with feelings is better than sex for its own sake.”

He shook his head.

“Adam, you're handsome, with more money than you can spend and you'll always have women. But whilst you know how to use your cock, your head is a whole different story.”

“Do you remember the book you were reading on New Year's Eve?” he asked suddenly.

“No? And what a weird fucking question,” I snapped. I hated it when he changed the subject or didn't answer questions. My temples were throbbing. I couldn't let the anger take over or I would lose control.

“The one on time travel,” he said. “If that main character asked me… if I had one chance… if I could change one thing about the past then there's no question about what it would be.”

I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “You really should see someone… you're… mentally ill.”

“I would go back, Sophie, to that night at New Year and I wouldn't run. I'd go back to that night and I'd never let you go. I'd never take you to that house, either,” he said. “I'd go back and I wouldn't be afraid of what I was feeling. There are so many things I can't change, but I'm here now, and I'm asking you for a second chance.”

I tightened my lips in a bitter expression and clenched my fists.

“If I need to say those stupid three words to convince you then I will, but Sophie, they're meaningless. They don't even begin to capture what I feel. I want to be with you. Do you believe me?”

“I don't know,” I answered, and relaxed my shoulders. “I really don't know. You humiliated me so much that I just don't trust you, and that's at the heart of everything.”

I had lowered my guard a little and he pressed on. “Trust me – I'm begging you – I'll never do anything to hurt you. Trust me. I know how much I'm asking of you.”

He took my face in his hands. “Please Sophie, trust me, it'll all be different this time.”

My cell phone rang. It was Sabrina.

“Where are you? It's almost three-thirty,” she asked anxiously.

“I'm coming. I'm just across the street. I'll be one minute.”

“Get a move on, it's total chaos here – there's some new vampire saga and we have thousands of orders.”

“I'll be right there, bye.”

“I have to go,” I said. “And the answer is no.”

“But I can see you? Even if it's just for a coffee?”

“No, give it a rest, I'm not interested. We have nothing in common.”

“Alright,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “I'll wait for you.”

Don't hold your breath, I thought.

“Bye,” I said, turning away. Without looking back, I crossed the street and slipped into the book store.

I didn't tell Sabrina about my meeting with Adam, just to avoid the usual scolding. Naturally, I spent the afternoon analyzing every word he had said and agonizing over whether to pardon him. By eight o'clock, we had boxed over twelve hundred books for shipping and, exhausted, we closed the store.

“By the way, I forgot to tell you – Steven called today to invite me over for dinner on Friday. He wants to introduce me to one of David's colleagues.”

“Ohh, let's hope he's cute.”

“Apparently he's insightful, sensitive and intelligent.”

She let out a laugh. “Yeah right, aren't they all? It'll be the usual performance.”

We crossed the street, chuckling. Suddenly, Sabrina stopped me by the arm. “Sophie, there's Adam,” she whispered with concern.

I looked up. He was exactly where I had left him five hours earlier, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets. Sabrina hailed a cab, which stopped instantly at our feet

“Get in Sophie, let's go home – just leave him there.”

“He's been there since three,” I muttered.

“What?” she gasped.

“Yeah, since three. I didn't tell you but he followed me here.”

“But… did you talk to him?”

I nodded.

She collapsed her shoulders, closed her eyes and exhaled so deeply that it may have left a hole in the ozone layer. “And from the look on your face, I'm heading home alone tonight aren't I?” she grumbled.

“No, wait a second.”

The cab left without us and I slowly approached Adam. A couple of feet away, he gave me a devastating smile.

“Are you stalking me now?”

“I told you I'd wait for you.”

I smiled. “Are you planning to stay here all night?”

“What else am I going to do? There's nowhere else I want to stay.”

“I'm going to ask you something.”

“Will you come home with me if I answer?”

I looked at him, speechless. Who was this guy? He was utterly out of his mind.

“Just answer, will you?”

“Alright.”

“If you hadn't seen me at my brother's today, you wouldn't have showed up, right? But then I also find it difficult to believe that seeing me for two seconds was enough to incite the tremendous wave of emotion that you demonstrated earlier.”

“You were at your mother's until the Friday of that week, and that same night you went home for a party. The next day, you went to the grocery store and spent the night at home alone. On that Sunday, you had lunch with your mother. Then you met Sabrina and Steph for a drink at the bar where Bob works – you spent the night talking to a girl. Monday, you went back to work and I took the subway with you every day, and the journey home too. I was observing from afar, that was enough. Then, today, I watched you get out of the cab with Miranda and I saw something in your eyes – something that gave me a glimmer of hope.”

I examined his wild beard, his matted hair and the clothes on his back.

“When did you stop going to work?”

“I'm not sure,” he closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. “I know I broke your heart Sophie, but if I didn't feel that there was some hint of a chance then I wouldn't have come forward. I would have kept out of sight.”