Collide

I shut down the computer and set it aside, then lay back on the pillows to think about this. I was deep in crush, the worst I’d had since sixth grade when I discovered boys for the first time. Worse than the secret love affair I’d had with John Cusack inside my head since the first time I saw Say Anything. My feelings for Johnny were a combination of both—he was someone I’d seen in movies, therefore, not “real,” yet he lived down the street. He drank coffee and wore striped scarves. He was accessible.

“Snap out of it, Emm,” I scolded myself, and thought about getting out of my warm bed and shivering my way to the shower. I couldn’t quite make myself.

I didn’t want to think about the three fugues I’d had the day before, but thinking of the hallucination I’d had featuring Johnny in all his bare-assed glory, I had to think about the fugues, too. Two minis and one slightly larger. None had lasted long, but it was the frequency that worried me.

I was thirty-one years old and had never lived on my own before these past few months. I’d never worked farther away from a job than I could walk, because I was either not legally allowed, or was too afraid, to drive long distances. I’d spent my life dealing with the repercussions of those few, fleeting moments on the playground, but now I’d finally had a taste of the independence all my friends had been granted.

I was terrified of losing it.

I knew I should call my family doctor, Dr. Gordon, and tell her what had happened. She’d known me since childhood. I’d trusted her with everything—my questions about my first period, my first forays into birth control. But I couldn’t trust her with this. She’d be obligated to report the possibility of a seizure, and what then? I’d be back to no-driving status, and I couldn’t have that. I just couldn’t.

I did, however, call my mom. Even though I’d only spoken to her the day before, and even though I’d been so happy to move out of her house, to stop needing her so much, she was still the first person I turned to. The phone rang and rang at my parents’ house, until finally the voice mail kicked in. I didn’t leave a message. My mom would panic if I did, and she’d probably just check the caller ID, anyway, note I called and call me back. I wondered where she was, though, before noon on a Sunday. She’d barely ever left the house on Sundays. I liked to sleep in. My mom liked to bake and garden and watch old movies on TV while my dad puttered in the garage.

I’d spent so many hours dreaming of days like this—waking in my own bed, my own house. Nobody around me. Just me, with no place to go and nobody to answer to. Nothing to do but my own laundry, using my own detergent, folding it or leaving it piled in the basket if that’s what I wanted to do. I’d dreamed of being an adult, living by myself, and now that I had it, I was suddenly, unbearably lonely.

The Morningstar Mocha would help with that. There I was part of a community. I had friends. I hadn’t made specific plans to meet Jen there, but I knew a quick text message would tell me if she were going to show or not. And if she didn’t, I could take my laptop and settle in with the bottomless cup of coffee or a pot of tea and a muffin. I could play around on Connex, or instant message friends who were also online.

Oh. And I could sorta-kinda-maybe-just-a-little-bit stalk Johnny Dellasandro.

A quick text to Jen settled the plans. We’d meet in half an hour, just enough time for me to shower and dress and walk to the coffee shop, including the time it was going to take me to shave my legs, pluck my brows and figure out what I was going to wear. Because yes, it was important.

“Hey, girl, hey!” Jen’s greeting made me laugh as she waved across the crowded Mocha. “I saved you a spot. What took you so long? Couldn’t find a place to park?”

“Oh, no, I walked.” My teeth were still chattering. January in Harrisburg isn’t quite the Arctic Circle, but it was cold enough to freeze a polar bear’s balls.

“What? Why? Oh, yeah. Snowplow?”

“I love that I can follow that conversation.” As if parking wasn’t enough of a hassle on my street, when the snowplow came through and covered the cars and people dug them out, leaving behind their empty spots, it could get ugly when someone took one. That wasn’t why I’d walked, though. I shrugged off my coat and hung it on the back of my chair as I tried to casually scan the room for sight of the delicious, delectable Dellasandro. “But no. I just felt like walking.”

“I’ve heard of taking a cold shower, but that’s a little overboard.”

I blew into my hands to warm them and slipped into my chair. “I need to work off some of this ass if I’m going to keep eating muffins for breakfast.”

“Girl.” Jen sighed. “I hear you.”

We commiserated in silence for a moment about the collective size of our butts, though frankly I thought Jen had a supercute figure and had nothing to worry about, and I knew she thought the same of me.

“Love the top,” she said after the moment had passed. Then she laughed and lowered her voice. “I bet he’d like it, too.”

“Who?”

“Don’t you even pretend you don’t know who I mean!”

I looked down at the shirt, a simple sweater of soft knit that buttoned all the way to a pretty scoop neck. “I like the way it makes my collarbones look. And it’s not all cleavagy, like I’m trying too hard.”

“No, not at all,” Jen agreed. “And that color is awesome on you.”

I beamed. “I love your earrings.”

Jen fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Are we finished being gay for each other? Because if not, I was going to say I think your necklace is pretty.”

“This?” I’d forgotten what, exactly, I was wearing on my throat. I wasn’t usually the sort to switch out jewelry. My job at the credit union meant I had to dress nicely for work every day, with a strict dress code, and I’d gotten tired of trying to coordinate every day. As I tugged the pendant so I could see it, the chain broke and slithered into my fingers. “Oops!”

“Oh, shit.” Jen grabbed at the pendant, catching it before it could fall onto the table. She handed it to me.

“Damn.” I studied it. Nothing special, really, just a small, swirled design. I’d picked it up on the bargain table at my favorite thrift store. I cupped it now, the metal curiously warm in my palm. “Ah, well.”

“Can you get it fixed?”

“Not worth it. I don’t even think it’s real gold.”

“Too bad,” Jen said brightly. “Otherwise, you could take it to one of those places that buys gold for cash! I got invited to some home party thing my mom’s neighbor’s having. It says they’ll take gold fillings … teeth attached!”

“Gross!” I put the necklace into my coat pocket.

Jen laughed and seemed about to say something else, but her chuckle caught and broke. She looked over my shoulder, eyes wide. I knew better than to turn around.

I didn’t have to. I knew it was him. I could feel him. I could smell him.

Oranges.

He eased past us. The hem of his long black coat brushed my arm, and I turned into a fifteen-year-old girl. The only reason I didn’t giggle out loud was because my throat had gone so dry I couldn’t make a peep. Jen didn’t say a word, either, just stared at me with raised brows until Johnny’d passed.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, leaning close. “You look like you’re going to pass out. You’re all pale!”

I didn’t feel like I was going to. I didn’t feel pale. I felt redhot and blushing. I swallowed the cotton on my tongue and shook my head, not daring to look over her shoulder to watch him place his order at the counter. “No. I’m okay.”

“You sure?” Jen put her hand over mine to squeeze. “Really, Emm, you look …”

Just then, he turned around and looked at me. I mean, really looked. Not a quick glance, eyes sliding past me like I didn’t exist. Not a double take, either, like the sight of me had frightened him. Johnny Dellasandro looked at me, and I was already half out of my chair before I realized I couldn’t just get up and go to him.

Jen glanced over her shoulder, but he’d already turned back to the counter to take the plate with the muffin on it from the counter girl. He wasn’t looking at me any longer, and I didn’t know how to tell her he had been. If he had been—it was easy in those few seconds to convince myself I’d imagined it.

“Emm?”

“He is so fucking beautiful.” My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded hoarse and harsh and full of longing.

“Yeah.” Jen’s brow furrowed and she glanced at him again.

He’d moved to a table toward the back and looked up at the sound of the bell over the door. Jen and I both looked, too. A woman about my age, maybe a year or two older, moved directly toward the back of the room without stopping even at the counter. From my place at the table it was easy to see her slide into the chair across from Johnny and to watch her lean forward so he could kiss her in greeting. My stomach dropped all the way down to the toes of the boots I’d spent twenty minutes agonizing over.

“Well, fuck,” I said miserably.

Jen looked back at me. “I don’t recognize her.”

“No. Me, neither.”

“She’s not a regular,” Jen continued, affronted. “Jesus, at least he could go with a regular!”