Page 49 of All Our Almosts

Embarrassment heats my face, but I know he can’t see it with his cheek pressed to mine. So I nod.

“Even… the end?”

I should feel humiliated, dragging the memory of his rejection into the spotlight like this. But under the pulsing lights, surrounded by strangers, three drinks deep and nearly a decade past, it almost doesn’t feel real. I shrug, playing it off like it’s no big deal. But Andy places a hand under my chin, tilting my face up until I’m looking into his eyes.

I read his lips as he asks: “Do you?”

He reads mine as I say: “I do.”

Andy takes a breath, and I think he’s going to reply—and say what, I have no idea—when someone dances into my back, shoving me forward onto him. He catches me around the waist, and I brace both hands on his chest to keep myself upright. I regain my balance fairly quickly, but even as I try to stand on my own again, Andy doesn’t loosen his hold. If anything, his hands wrap farther around my body, keeping me there against him.

I could try to step away, but I don’t. Instead I stay close, letting my arms slide slowly up over his shoulders and around his neck.

Suddenly I couldn’t tell you what song is playing. I couldn’t tell you the color of the walls or the number of people in the room or even what bar we’re even in. All I know is that my body is pressed against Andy’s and his hands are on my waist and we’re starting to move together, dancing to who knows what song in who knows what bar and he feels warm and solid against my chest. Then his hands begin to move, traveling up my back, over the sides of my body, and I don’t know what’s happening but I never want it to end.

The crowd hides us from view in this liminal pocket of closeness. His breath skims over my neck. My fingers wind into his hair. And this could be a thing friends do, right? Friends could dance together at a bar. But the way our bodies fit together feels like more, and I want it. I want it so badly as his thumb traces the edge of my hipbone and his body moves with mine.

I don’t know when I closed my eyes, but suddenly I want to see him. I want to read his face and know what he’s thinking and see if this means anything for him the way it does for me. But when I open my eyes, what I see over Andy’s shoulder makes my whole body tense. He feels the change in me, and turns to follow my gaze. Then he sees it too.

Elliot.

My ex is standing at the bar, maybe ten feet away. There’s a full beer in his hand and a scowl on his face. He’s been watching.

Andy pulls me tight against him again, asking, “Do you want to go? We can go right now.”

But Elliot is still staring. And after three years together, I suppose I owe him more than running away.

“I should talk to him.” I pull back from Andy, my hand lingering on his shoulder as his lingers on my hip. “Give us a minute?”

And he’s a good friend, so he nods and steps back, giving me the space I asked for even though there’s a tiny (medium-sized) part of me that wishes he wouldn’t.

Every step I take brings Elliot into sharper focus. His clothes look rumpled, and that’s unusual for him. He’s always been perfectly polished, especially in public. The bags under his eyes are deeper, and he’s white-knuckling the bar with his free hand. I stop about a foot away, as far as I can stay and expect to hear him over the music. Immediately, he barks, “You’re here with him?”

No greeting. So that’s how this is going to go.

“With Andy? Yes, we’re just—”

“I knew it, Sophie. I fucking knew it.” He points a finger at me in accusation. “You always said there was nothing going on between the two of you.”

“There wasn’t…” My voice is meek, pathetic, but I’m too stunned by his anger to do anything else.

“Oh really? Then what was that?”

“We were just dancing, but it’s—”

“You think I never noticed the way he is with you? He looks at you like he’s starving and you’re the fucking main course. And you were always finding some excuse to be around him. Whenever you needed something, you called him first. Never me. Always him. I spent so long trying to convince myself it was nothing just for you to go fuck him the minute we break up? Are you serious right now?”

He’s furious, and clearly drunk, and I’m wondering if maybe I should’ve taken Andy’s offer to leave when I had the chance.

“It’s… it’s not like that.”

“And now you’re gonna lie to my face. You really are a piece of work.” His face is red with emotion. “What does he have that I don’t, huh? The guy’s an idiot, he can barely hold a conversation.”

The words feel like a slap. I can take him criticizing me, because I’m used to it and I know what he means, but I can’t stand to hear him criticize Andy who he barely knows and doesn’t understand at all.

“Don’t talk about him like that,” I say, taking one step closer to him. “If you want to believe there was something going on between me and Andy while we were together then by all means, be my guest. But I’m not going to stand here and listen to you insult him when he had nothing to do with our breakup. We broke up because of you. You didn’t support my dreams, and you didn’t value my opinions, and I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life playing out some patriarchal fantasy with you.”

Elliot closes the distance between us, taking hold of my face in a plea. “Sophie, you don’t get it. I want you back. I’ll be better. We can go wherever you want. Please—I love you. Say you’ll come back to me.”