You Deserve Each Other

Nicholas isn’t laughing anymore when he storms through the door after work. I’m lounging on the couch in mismatched socked feet and a cherry sucker in my mouth, channel-flipping with glazed eyes. He’s sharp and ready for blows, while I’m about to nod off. I’ve got half a second to reach the number he’s dialed up to if I want to be any good in this fight we’re about to have.

Excellent. It’s been getting boring around here.

He strides over to stand between my feet, eyes flashing. His hair should look awful, but it’s raining outside so it’s doing this unfortunately sexy thing instead, falling across his forehead in damp, gleaming waves. I narrow my eyes and bite down hard on the candy. “What’s up?” I drawl.

“Give me your phone.”

I make a sound like Pah! “What? No.”

“You ruined mine, so it’s only fair that I get yours.”

“I didn’t ruin your phone, dum-dum. I have no idea how a bowl fell on it. Maybe you should stop putting bowls in your bed.”

He pats my pockets, which makes me giggle. “Where is it?”

I shove him off, but he just starts grabbing at the couch cushions. I’ve made myself a nice little nest of peanut butter chocolate bonbons, blankets, Kit Kat wrappers, a paper plate from the Toaster Strudel I ate for lunch, and two of Nicholas’s watches. I’ve been gradually removing their links to make the fit tighter but forgot to put them back in his room.

“All day!” he exclaims. “The phone rings but I can’t swipe on calls. My mom can’t reach me on my cell anymore, so who do you suppose she calls next?”

“Hold on, let me guess.”

He doesn’t let me guess. Rude. “The office! And not my personal extension, either, since I have my phone set to voicemail. She’s been calling the front desk nonstop over every goddamn thought that wanders into her head. Wasn’t so bad when I had a working cell phone, because I could send her to voicemail and text back my replies. Short and simple.

But no! Instead I get Ashley running in to interrupt me every five minutes, crying because she knows she’s not supposed to interrupt me for unimportant crap like this but my mom won’t give her a choice. ‘ Dr. Rose, your mother wants me to send her a PDF of your calendar so she can mark down what time you’re taking her shopping this Saturday.’ ‘Dr. Rose, your mother’s on the line again. She needs you to come by after work and tell your father he has to see a doctor about a cyst on his back.’ ‘Dr. Rose, your mother wants to know if you’ll have time on your lunch break to go find those walnuts you brought to her Christmas party in 2011. Her friend Joyce needs them ASAP. ’”

“Sounds like a busy day for Dr. Rose,” I snigger.

“I looked unprofessional in front of everyone! I could lose patients over this.”

“And yet you’re blowing up at me instead of, say, the person who’s been calling your office all day?” I pop a bonbon in my mouth and give him a look like Yeah, I make way more sense than you.

“I expect you to be the bigger person! You know Mom doesn’t understand. I tried to tell her she couldn’t call the front desk unless it was an emergency, but everything’s an emergency to my mother.”

He growls, messing up his hair. He’s wearing his navy blazer today and wow, the effect is quite something. His eyes are demon-black, and I’m not hating the whole day’s-worth-of-scruff thing he’s got going on. Nicholas has a very nice jaw; when it’s lightly shadowed like it is now, coupled with the slate-gray frames of his glasses, he reminds me of a tormented English literature professor who’s just hit rock bottom.

I am learning at this very moment in time that tormented English literature professor who’s just hit rock bottom is my specific type. He doesn’t even notice me checking him out because he’s busy hunting for my phone amid a sea of candy wrappers.

The inappropriate timing of my epiphany is classic Naomi Westfield. If Nicholas knew what I was thinking right now he’d get so frustrated with me that he’d probably get on an airplane and leave the country.

“Your first mistake was expecting me to be the bigger person,” I reply.

“Deborah gives you shit twenty-four-seven and you shower her with attention. It gets results! You know what doesn’t get results? Being understanding all the time and saying ‘Whatever you need, babe. Walk all over me! Forget I’m even here.’ Being the bigger person gives you permission to put my feelings second every time. I have to be understanding. I have to be patient, and keep my mouth shut while you coddle her. So I’m going to change tactics, because continuing to do what I’ve been doing while expecting different results is stupid. Debbie’s playbook works. Being a whiny pain in the ass works. Maybe I should start calling the front desk, too.”

Look at how well I’ve turned this around on him. Some of my best improv! I think all this fresh forest air and uninterrupted hours for plotting his ruination has beefed up my capacity for evil. I feel divine. Living in the wilderness is truly a form of self-care.

His mouth opens, ready for a retort, but he’s interrupted by a low buzz.

My phone’s on silent but I’ve just gotten a notification. We both glance at the mantel where my phone’s plugged into a charger. We both dive.

I’m swaddled in blankets, and the two beats it takes me to detangle are crucial. He’s at the mantel by the time I’m free, and his hand closes over the dark screen. A tiny green light flashes. An email? A text? It could be Print-Rite responding to my application, and the contents of my stomach pitch wildly when I lay out my track record. I’m one hundred percent on nos and zero percent on yesses. You’re promising, but you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time. You’re good, but not good enough.

If I’m a millimeter from hitting my goal, that makes it even worse when I fail. I’d rather hear You weren’t even close. We never considered you for a second. Anxiety kicks in and my brain fractures, thoughts splintering in a hundred directions. I’m drowning in midair and my body burns hot, a physical reaction I have to conceal. It’s a no. It’s always going to be a no.

The odds are not one in ten or fifty-fifty or any ratio I can latch on to optimistically. The odds are this: I’ve most certainly just been rejected by somebody. I can’t let Nicholas see a rejection email. I can’t let him count my failures and recite the number out loud. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to not get the thing you want; he’s one of those people who believe that if you work hard enough, you can have anything.

To him, I’m a thoughtless slacker who doesn’t have enough ambitions to start with, and when I do get an ambition under my skin, I lowball myself to take the sting out of the unavoidable letdown. Underachieving.

It’s a mortal sin for a Rose and the root of all my problems. I’m sure they whisper it behind my back.

What he doesn’t know is that I do try, and then hide my failures. It’s one of the reasons why I can’t completely hate him when he makes digs about my not going to college: He doesn’t know I ever tried getting in. He wasn’t there when I shredded the rejection letters, proof that my parents were right and I should have focused more on studying than passing notes in class.

This was before I steeled myself and changed my attitude with the only coping mechanism available. Who wants a degree, anyway? Not me. I’m glad I didn’t go. Look at all these suckers with student loans, in debt up to their eyeballs and no one’s even hiring.

“Give me that!” I scream, kicking him in the back of the knee.

He holds the phone out of my reach. I hate it when he does that, using his height advantage against me. “I’m going to borrow it until I can get a new one. It’s only fair.”

“Give it back!” I jump up, grabbing ineffectively. “That’s mine!”

His mouth purses, suspicious eyes calculating my flushed face and high-pitched voice. “Why are you so scared to let me see your phone?”

“I’m not scared.” He hears the lie, I’m sure of it. “Give it back.” I scrabble desperately, but it’s no use. He’s too tall and I’m trapped in some sort of Benjamin Button cycle—I feel myself getting shorter with every jump. “I mean it, Nicholas. I’m sorry your screen got cracked. I’ll get you a new phone. I’m sorry, okay? Just give it back.”

His expression turns downright lethal. This close up, I see my own terrified face imprinted on each of his pupils, two black mirrors. I see what he’s seeing, and I know what this looks like.

“You just get a message from someone?” His voice is silky. The tip of it is so sharp, it could nick your artery without pressing.

“No. Why would you say that? Give me my phone.” I hold out my palm expectantly and infuse as much authority into the command as possible.

“Now.”

His nostrils flare. “It’s him, isn’t it?”

“Who? What are you talking about?” I shake my head, snapping, “Hand it over! I’m serious. This is my personal property and keeping it from me is illegal.”

Nicholas’s gaze slides to my phone and his thumb moves, as if to tap the screen and bring my notifications to light. I freak out way more than the occasion calls for and next thing I know, I’m hanging off his back. My arms are around his neck, which gets me closer to my target, but he’s squirming to get me off. “Give it!” I shriek. “It’s mine!” I lose all sense of which words are coming out of my mouth and which ones are nonverbally exploding in my frantic brain. “Do what I say, or else!”

Nicholas backs up against a wall. He doesn’t do it softly, either. I yank his hair and he spins, falling backward onto the couch. It’s a move he shouldn’t have made, because I lock my arms and legs around him with an iron grip and he’s now a turtle on his back. I expend a burst of precious energy launching him off the couch, facedown on the floor, and revel in my moment of triumph before he starts fighting back.

“Get off!” He rolls us, but I’m scrappy and I’ve been storing up my energy all day with bonbons and Real Housewives. He’s stressed. His mother has called his office fifty times. I’ve got an edge on him.

I’m straddling him now and I’ve got my hands on his throat. “Give me my phone!”

He throws my phone at the armchair across the room. I consider diving for it but my elbow still hurts from where he squished me against the wall, so I pull his shirt up over his face like a fifth-grade bully and pinch his nipples. Nicholas shouts.

Eyes obscured, he fights for use of his arms and smacks his own glasses askew when I yank his shirt back down. “Lie still!” I command. “I deserve to win this.”

“You deserve tapeworms.” His face is red and he’s struggling more than he’d like to admit. I feel a rush of power to know that I’m actually a decent foe here.

“You bumped me into the wall on purpose.”

“I did not, you little goblin.” I bounce up and down, which makes him wince. “You’re not a goblin, actually. You’re a changeling. You’ve taken over the body of that nice girl I met.”

“Her name was Naomi, wasn’t it?” I say, tilting my head. “Too bad for her.”

“Yes. Too bad for us both.”

“You’ll never see her again.” I shift for better purchase on his squirming lap, and a jolt of surprise electrifies me when I discover he’s hard.

All the air punches from my lungs as I burst out laughing. “Oh my god, why?”

His cheekbones burn. “Your top is low and you’re writhing all over me.

What do you expect?”

I expect him to be single-minded in his quest to end me, is what I expect. I’m amazed by man’s ability to think about vengeance and penis contact at the same time. What I’ve been regarding as a savage WrestleMania showdown has been more like foreplay for Nicholas. I should have known. Men are trash.

The harder I laugh, the more I unintentionally rub on him, and the further into darkness his eyes slip. He’s incredibly turned on and absolutely furious about it. At this moment, I have more control over his body than he does. The delicious power trip goes straight to my head.

His hands shoot out and catch me in the ribs. I have approximately one second to wonder if he’s going to kiss me or kill me when he draws a wild card and starts tickling me. My hands are still around his throat, but when he tickles all my weak spots it’s like pressing an eject button. I flop over onto my side, flailing uncontrollably.

“Ahh, stop!” I gasp. “I’m very ticklish!”

“Are you? I couldn’t tell.” He’s getting back at me for making him horny and embarrassed.

I kick his shin and wriggle away, making a break for my phone. He seizes my ankle and pulls me back, but the smooth motion of gliding across the floor against my will is like an amusement park ride and instead of irritating me it just makes me laugh.

The laugh dies when Nicholas pins me. His hair’s hanging down on either side of my face, breath fanning over my lips. He holds very still, just watching, closer than he’s been to me in ages. My body remembers him and shivers.

His eyes are so black, I think I can see hell in them. For someone whose gaze has the power to compress souls into diamonds and diamonds into dust, I know he’d taste like spun sugar if I licked across his tongue. He’s the poster boy for high-fructose corn syrup and I want to take a bite out of him. Peel off his shiny wrapper. Count how many of my teeth marks I find beneath.

The air is mountaintop-thin. “You’re a demon,” I tell him.

“And you’ve been a ghost,” he breathes. I need the upper hand here, but I’m smaller than Nicholas. I use one of the only weapons at my disposal: surprise.

I reach between his legs and give him a firm, not unpleasant squeeze.

His eyes widen, and the involuntary reaction of pupil dilation is mesmerizing. In the time it takes him to blink, a galaxy of colors dances across his irises: jade and brown and every flavor of blue, from summer rain to the midnight flash of moonlight on ocean waves.

I’ve got him on his back before he can register what’s happened. “This is your downfall, right here,” I say tauntingly. I squeeze my thighs on either side of him and he bites his lip. “You’re supposed to be pissed off, not turned on.”

“I can be both. You’re not the boss of me.”

“I could get used to this Nicholas,” I say, toying with him. “You’re actually present.” Unlike the way he was the last few times we slept together, barely looking at me. He hates how excited he is right now and can’t figure out which emotion he wants to let lead the charge. For logical, practical Nicholas who must keep his head in every situation, lust is terrifying.

“I’m always present,” he bites out. “You’re the one who’s never present.”

I ignore him, stroking his cheek. The atmosphere quivers, stretched so tight I could tap thin air and hear the resounding thump of a bass drum.

“You feel alive,” I say. I lay my palm over his pounding heart. “Yes, very alive, like a real human man. I wouldn’t have known it, since you never touch me. Have you forgotten how?”

He cups a palm around the back of my neck and simply rests it there, reminding me he could change the score at any moment if he wished it.

“Tell me you’re sorry and I’ll let you find out.”

“Sorry for what?”

“Your half.” His chest rises and falls deeply. I recognize all the signs, but it’s as if they’re from another life, they’ve been lying dormant for so long. I keep finding myself wondering, When’s the last time I saw this Nicholas? because I’m forgetting that this Nicholas is new to me. He’s uncharted territory. I want to explore the parts that are a surprise and punish him for the reincarnated parts he’s trying to bring with him from his old life with the old Naomi. They don’t belong here.

“My half,” I repeat, sitting up straighter. I feel him beneath me and it’s been so long; anything we’ve done in the last few months doesn’t count.

The last time we had sex, the space between us was dead air, unbroken by any emotion whatsoever—not love, not attraction, not tension. Right now, two out of three ain’t bad. My body wants to trickle into liquid and spill forth all over him, but I venture to say, “Half of what?”

“Of what went wrong.”

I swallow. It feels like someone’s scratched my throat with talons. “We were never right to begin with.”

He arches a brow. “No?”

“No. Changeling Naomi is the same person as First Date Naomi, just with all the shiny new penny rubbed off. We got too used to the best version of each other, so neither of us ever got to relax and show our normal selves. We’ve been hiding.”

He stares up at me from the floor. He’s slack-jawed but his muscles are strung tight. When he finally speaks, what he says catches me off-guard.

“Who texted your phone?”

Before I can answer, he gently places a hand over my mouth. His skin is warm and smells like my conditioner. It’s been a long time since he’s slipped his fingers through my hair long enough for the scent to wear off on him. It’s been a lifetime since we’ve smelled or tasted like each other.

Been hungry for each other.

“Tell me, please?” His voice is velvety and compelling. Dangerous. “Be honest and you can have whatever you want.”

He lets his hand fall from my mouth. I’m reeling. I think he might be laying a trap. Either that or I’m paranoid after laying so many traps of my own. Traps are all I see now.

“No one texted me. Who would? The only ones who text me are you and Brandy, and Brandy’s busy with orientation at her new job.”

“Can I see your phone, then?”

I bristle. “No. It’s private.”

“Even from me? I’d let you see mine.”

I don’t believe that for a minute. “So? I wouldn’t ask to see yours. Your phone is none of my business.”

“I am your business.” He sits up, bringing our faces closer together. I slide off his lap immediately and insert a healthy amount of room between us. “Or I’m supposed to be.”

“You don’t trust me,” I say.

“You don’t trust me, either.”

We watch each other. We’ve been watching each other so long, whenever I shift my glance I see a faint shadow of his silhouette thrown over every surface, like one of those black-and-white optical image tricks that you continue to see imprinted on blank spaces even after looking away. The sky has grown dark without our awareness. Through the living room window I can see a dash of stars, so much brighter here than anywhere else in the world. We’re in our own bubble out here in the country.

This house is a place outside of time. It’s so easy to spin around each other and lose track of hours, days, weeks. How long have we been here?

It’s got to be years.

I strain to remember how I wound up sharing intimate space with this other human being. I think I remember a zing in my bloodstream, a click of magnets. Laughter. Hope. The beginnings are so sparkly, so effortless.

You can imagine the other person to be whoever you want. In all the gaps of your knowledge about them, you can paint in whatever qualities you like as placeholders. You can paint the other person into a dream impossible for them to live up to.

We met at a charity triathlon and struck up a conversation when he stumbled and I helped steady him. We met while volunteering at a homeless shelter. We met at a bank, depositing millions of dollars into our respective accounts. Braiding lanyards with at-risk youths.

He’s right, I don’t trust him.

He’s kneeling at the other end of the rope bridge, hacking away at my lifeline with his knife. It’s going to collapse before I can safely passage over. His eyes gleam as he watches me panic. He can’t wait to see me fall.

Nicholas rises to his feet and checks the window, surprise flitting across his face when he sees that it’s already dark outside. I think he’s realizing we’re in a place outside of time, too. He shrugs back into his coat.

“Are you going out?” I ask, shadowing him. “There’s a freeze warning tonight. With as heavy as it’s been raining, I should get ahead of this and go salt Mom and Dad’s driveway now.”

Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes is like trying to hold in a sneeze.

How could I have forgotten this particular habit of the golden son?

Anytime there’s a freeze warning out and there’s been precipitation, Nicholas goes over to his parents’ house and salts the driveway. When it snows, he shovels their driveway. They could easily hire someone for this task, but darling Nicky takes up the mantle because he’s Such A Good Son and craves their approval like it’s cocaine.

“We should do our driveway, too,” I say. By we, I mean him. It’s freaking cold out there and I’m in my daytime PJs.

“Our driveway won’t get as bad as theirs, since it’s not paved.” He slides his gloves on and flexes his fingers, admiring the quality of leather.

“I’ve got snow tires and four-wheel drive.”

“I’ve got …” My monster car flashes in my mind’s eye. I’m afraid to have another go at it, but my only other transportation is an ancient bicycle Leon left behind. “What if I want to go somewhere?”

He knows I’m fishing for him to say something wrong, or that maybe I’m hoping he’ll pass my impossible tests and say something right. Fire your shot and find out, Nicholas. “There’s a bag of salt in the shed.”

I follow him to the door. It feels like he’s always leaving right when I want him to stay. When I need him here and he leaves, I lose something every time, over and over. He takes it from me when he goes. Always going. He’s never going to belong to me. He’s never going to want to stay with me. I’m never going to be enough. Even when we’re not together and I’m away doing something else, it bothers me when that rigid sense of duty to his parents snaps its fingers and off he goes running. It’s easier if I decide I don’t want him around, because then at least he can’t disappoint me.

“Nicholas,” I say when he steps off the porch. Each blade of grass is an iceberg in miniature, crunching under his new work boots. I’m going to be the most honest I’ve ever been with either of us, out loud. Right now.

“I love you eighteen percent.”

It’s not a great number, but it’s been worse. Those glasses and the messy hair are unfairly handsome on him and he’s been more open with me. And more brutal. He killed a baby tree out of spite.

He stops in his tracks. Turns. “What did you just say?”

“That’s the percentage.” I clear my throat. “Eighteen.”

He’s so still, I think a strong wind might knock him over. “There’s no such thing as loving someone eighteen percent.”

“Yes, there is. I’ve done the math.”

“You can’t measure love.” His voice sharpens on the last word before twisting. There’s mockery running all through it now. “But if we’re going to play the numbers game, then I guess I would have to say that I tolerate you eighteen percent, Naomi.”

“So you don’t love me, then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He didn’t not say it. I cross my arms and wait for him to say something else. “Well?”

But he doesn’t reply. His expression is so stormy that my pulse skips, and he leaves without another word. I go inside, a little wobbly after our conversation. I’m wobbly all the time now, but it’s a step up from my fugue of before, half seeing and half listening to my surroundings. I pick up my phone, my heart a jackhammer in my chest. But it’s not a rejection for one of my applications. It’s a text from my mom, which is rare.

I notice we haven’t received our wedding invitation yet. Have you forgotten our address?

I compose a reply: I haven’t mailed them out. We’re not settled on a photo to include.

Gnawing on my cheek, I backspace all of it and type: They’re ready to go. We’ll send them out soon.

I backspace again. Then I delete the text without responding.