Bend Read online

  I resist the urge to be pedantic and explain to her a myth she’s already familiar with, because being condescending won’t solve anything. So instead I reply, “I think you do know what it means, Mia.”

  She blinks, her eyes shifting and glinting with thoughts and emotions that I can only guess at. Then she looks away. As our silence stretches, lying there beside her starts to strain me, almost feeling oppressive. It’s like there’s a cord winding itself around me and tugging me nearer to her, and the reasons I shouldn’t roll over and grab her and kiss her grow hazy.

  Shit. I squeeze my eyes shut, drawing air in through my nose. And then I push myself up so that I’m sitting with my arms draped over my bent knees. Moving my limbs helps, reassures me that I’m still in control of them.

  Mia gets up, too. Angles her body toward me and crisscrosses her legs. “So,” she asks, drawing the word out, “what do you want me to say?”

  I start yanking up the short blades of grass next to me. I hate that question. Why would I want her to just tell me what I want to hear? How’s that going to help?

  Maybe the only way out of this is to lay everything out. She brought this up for a reason. It’s been on her mind. It’s not going away.

  Fine, then.

  “You want honest?” I ask. “Then you start. Have you thought about having sex with me?”

  Her lips fall apart. She swallows visibly. I guess that surprised her?

  I can feel my pulse at my temples while I’m waiting for her to respond. It’s pounding and rushing, swooshing in my ears. I’m not an idiot, and Mia’s not an asshole. She wouldn’t have asked me if I was attracted to her only to tell me she’s not attracted to me. So yeah, I know her answer. But she clearly needs to say it out loud.

  And I want to hear it. It’s goddamned pathetic how badly I want to hear her say it.

  Her eyes stay fixed on me, calm and intent. She closes her mouth and tilts her head. Then, nodding slowly, she replies, “Yup.”

  With a thump, my heart drops into my stomach. I feel like the temperature shoots up twenty degrees. “For how long?”

  She lowers her eyes, shrugs. “A while.”

  “What’s ‘a while’? Days? Months? Years?” While you were still dating Fuckface? No, there’s no way she did. She was entirely, blindly in love with him. She was his.

  “Years, I suppose,” she confesses.

  There’s a vise on my lungs, squeezing and squeezing. Numbly, I’m shaking my head. “Why suddenly bring it up now?”

  “It was that article—”

  A sneer explodes from deep in my chest.

  “Seriously!” she insists, gesturing wildly.

  “You’re too fucking much. A moronic article on the Internet about a pointless study that was probably done on too small of a sample group to have any meaning at all, and you’re using it as an excuse to ruin our friendship?”

  Our eyes stay locked for a few seconds, and then she looks down and starts picking at her soft-pink nail polish. I push up my cap and wipe sweat off my forehead. This is so messed up I’d almost rather be draining an abscess. Or dealing with a gunshot wound.

  An earsplitting scream comes from the playground, and I twist to look behind me, squinting. Hard to tell from this distance, but I’m pretty sure I see a mom scooping her toddler up from the ground. The kid’s crying gets a little less hysterical; he’s okay.

  Turning back to Mia, I find that she’s uncrossed her legs, bent her knees, and wrapped her arms around them. Hugging herself.

  “I’m just...tired of it,” she says, so quietly I almost can’t understand her.

  My shoulders sag. Great. So this is going to be a therapy session for Mia now.

  Stop it. Don’t be an asswipe.

  “Tired of what?” I ask her. Nicely.

  She moves her arms up to the tops of her knees and rests her chin on them.

  She’s pretty flexible.

  Don’t go there, man. Just…stop.

  “Dating. Romance,” she replies. “Trying to find a boyfriend. I mean, forget finding someone to spend the rest of my life with. I can’t even find a guy I can stand to be around for more than five minutes.”

  “You’re being too picky,” I point out.

  She rolls her eyes. “Well, shouldn’t I be picky? Why should I settle? Forever is a long time, Jay.”

  “But you keep finding these stupid, nitpicky reasons the men you meet aren’t good enough.”

  “Such as?”

  It doesn’t take too much memory digging to come up with an answer. “One guy spelled definitely wrong in a text message. Another one dipped his fries in mustard instead of ketchup. Those are just two examples out of many.”

  She bites the inside of her cheek and actually looks kind of embarrassed. “If they irritate me right away, what’s the point in spending any more time with them?”

  “You won’t find a guy who’ll never annoy you. That person doesn’t exist, for anyone.” This advice feels on par with “brush your teeth to avoid cavities” or “don’t stick a fork in an electrical outlet.” So excruciatingly, dazzlingly obvious.

  “See, that’s why it’s not worth it,” is her response. “I’m only twenty-six. I have plenty of time to settle down, if I ever even decide that I want to. So why should I let anyone into my life who doesn’t make me a happier person? Why bother?”

  I throw my head back and look up at the sky, counting slowly to five. There’s a small cloud up there that kind of resembles a bird in flight. A bird with a long, needle-thin beak. A hummingbird?

  “If you don’t want to be in a relationship,” I say slowly, deliberately, like I’m explaining something to a child, “then don’t be. Why is this even a problem?”

  “Because.”

  That’s it. That’s all she says. I tilt my chin back down and widen my eyes at her. “Because why?”

  She hesitates so long I’m thinking she won’t go on, won’t explain. Then, while looking me straight in the eye, she says, “I like sex.”

  Aw, shit. Those words, they go straight to my groin. The real world slides away, and I’m observing myself in some sort of parallel dimension. I can see myself lunging toward her. Then she’s on her back in the grass, and I’m on top of her. I want inside her so badly it hurts. The wanting is blinding me. Blood rushes from my head to my dick, leaving me dizzy and out of breath.

  Sitting there with a semi, my pulse thrumming, and being thankful I’m not a running-tights kind of guy, I clear my throat. Mia is watching me, eyes big and unblinking, her sunglasses still sitting on top of her head.

  I like sex. What the hell am I supposed to say to that?

  “So…” I start, and my voice cracks. Fuck this. Goddamn her.

  Trying again, I say, “Friends with benefits. That’s your solution?”

  “Why not?” Her voice sounds more confident now. Like, while I was over here getting a hard-on from her saying three simple words, she was over there psyching herself up.

  “Because it’s a bad fucking idea. That’s why not.” I’m hitting every syllable hard, trying to hammer it into her brain. This isn’t my opinion. It’s a fact.

  She waves a hand. “We stay the same. Hang out. Do the same things. Except, when we want to get laid, we’re not limited to the risky option of sleeping with a stranger or the emotionally exhausting option of being in a relationship.”

  That pushes me over the edge. I start laughing, and to my own ears, it sounds nasty and mean.

  There are topics that are acceptable to bring up, and then there are topics that are absolutely taboo, even when you’re arguing and pissed off as hell. But I’m beyond giving a crap. She’s asking for this.

  “Fuckface really did a number on you, huh?” I ask, despite the inner voice begging, Don’t. Don’t do it. “I mean, I know you were heartbroken, but it’s been five years.”

  Her face falls, darkens, and she clenches her hands into fists. It feels like she’s quiet for a long time, just watching me with glassy eyes and
a wobbly chin.

  “Matt has nothing to do with this,” she says at last.

  “Sure he doesn’t,” I sneer, and I leave it at that even though I could say so much more. I could remind her of how just a few months ago we were discussing old acquaintances and, while I sat right next to her watching, she opened her Facebook app to look them up, and whose name was at the top of her recent searches? Yeah.

  And that’s just one piece of evidence out of a long list that tells me she’s still hung up on that asshole. She still thinks about him. Exactly what she thinks, I don’t know. Does she still love him? Does she still want him? Would she take him back? I wish I could say there’s no way she would. But I can’t.

  The thought pushes me over a hill, and I’m rolling down it, unable to stop. “Well, guess what?” I snap at her. “The answer is yes. Okay? Yes, I’ve thought about having sex with you.”

  I shouldn’t be so angry while I’m saying that. The thought is kind of absurd.

  I continue, “But I haven’t done anything about it, and I’m not going to. You know why?”

  She lets out a humorless chuckle, her voice sounding broken. “No, but I guess I’m about to find out?”

  “Because you’re important to me,” I say, jabbing a finger in her direction. “I value our friendship more than I want to get you naked.”

  Her expression softens, and her reply is low and earnest. “You’re important to me, too, Jay. You know that.”

  I give a nod. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed sand. “Yeah, but what good does that do us now? Where do we go from here? How do we get back to normal?”

  “I don’t know,” she admits. Her mouth is turned down at the corners. She looks as forlorn as I feel.

  Well, enough. I get to my feet and say, “See you around, I guess.”

  And then I leave her. Because I know that if I don’t, I won’t be able to stay mad at her.

  I need to hold on to this anger. It’s my last line of defense.

  Without it, I’m lost.

  Juggling grocery bags and the small pile of today’s mail, I dig into the front pocket of my purse for my keys. Why do I always put them away after parking my car? It’d be so much more convenient if I left them somewhere easier to reach. My violet scrub top has nice, big pockets that would hold the bulky key ring with room to spare.

  I manage to unlock and enter my apartment without dropping anything, and then I use my elbow to flip on the light switch. It’s not dark outside yet—one of the joys of being done with school and having a job with fixed hours is I actually get to leave home after sunrise and come home before sunset—but I keep my blinds closed while I’m away, so the room is pretty dim. It helps lower my energy bill.

  And the person who taught me that—without being asked, of course—is Jay. He’s useful like that. I might be one of few who rarely finds that facet of his personality annoying. When he starts lecturing, most people, it seems, see a smug know-it-all. But I know that he’s just trying to be helpful. Besides, I’ve always been attracted to smart guys. I find them energizing. Sexy.

  Hot as hell.

  I dump my stuff on the breakfast counter, exhaling heavily. My stomach is churning, burning like I’ve had too much coffee. Which I haven’t. The acidic discomfort has been there for three days, since Sunday at the park. When Jay walked away from me and left me feeling like he tied a string around my heart before he went, yanking on it with each step until it tore right out of my chest. Leaving me empty.

  Now it’s Wednesday, and I haven’t heard a word from him. I made up my mind that, with the way he took off, he’s the one who needs to make the next move. Me getting in touch with him first would be desperate. Undignified.

  Dignity seems more and more overrated with each day that goes by, though.

  I take off my white sneakers—ugly and boring shoes that keep my feet pain-free after a long day of running around at work—and put them away in the coat closet. Then I head to the bedroom to change into the yoga pants and loose-fitting tee I draped over the end of my bed this morning so they’d be ready to slip into as soon as I got home.

  Back in the kitchen, I turn the oven on to preheat and unbag my groceries: veggies for salad and a bottle of Riesling. I don’t normally indulge in the middle of the week, but early this afternoon I decided I needed to treat myself.

  Most days I see a variety of patients, but today one of the physicians, Dr. Castillo, was out of the office for an emergency C-section, and I ended up taking care of all his patients who didn’t want to reschedule their appointments. So in between handling my own patients, I spent a lot of time trying to make those women less unhappy that they weren’t seeing their doctor.

  So many people, when I first meet them, seem surprised when I tell them what I do—how, as an NP, my advanced degree actually makes my work duties closer to that of a physician than a regular nurse. And it’s kind of a crappy fact, but I definitely see more respect in people’s eyes when I explain that. Probably the only person who remains unimpressed is my dad.

  I open the bottle, grab a wineglass out of the cabinet, and pour it half full. If I’m going to get a nice buzz going, might as well get started. The oven beeps, so while I’m taking sips, I pull a small casserole dish of homemade lasagna out of the freezer. Leaving the tin foil on, I pop it in the oven and set the timer.

  My gaze catches on the photo I have attached to my fridge among the various magnets and Post-It notes—I like to use it as a bulletin board—and I squint at it, considering. It’s a picture of me and Grandma, which was taken when I was awkward and gangly in my early teens. We’re sitting on a big rock at Mile Rock Beach with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, our hair windswept, and there are white, foamy waves crashing on the beach behind us.

  It’s my favorite photo of us, and I know it’s my grandmother’s, too. Mine is only a copy. The original hangs framed in my parents’ living room. An idea for Grandma’s birthday gift plants itself in my mind. I’ll have to check on the Internet later how much it would cost and how long it would take to do, though.

  Lifting the glass to my lips again, I tip my head back and empty it before reaching for the bottle to get a refill.

  I value our friendship more than I want to get you naked.

  Jay was on fire Sunday, throwing punches left and right, but more than any of the other gut-wrenching things he said to me—even more so than that BS about me not being over Matt—that’s the sentence I can’t get out of my head. And it still makes me want to throw a toddler-like tantrum, stomping my foot and yelling, Why can’t we have both?

  Seriously. I don’t get it. What is he afraid of? He probably doesn’t even know the answer to that. Asking would be pointless; he’d just blow me off again.

  I could probably seduce him. But there’s that dignity issue to consider. And the worry that, after he started thinking with his brain again, he’d hate me. Besides, if our roles were reversed and it was him being that pushy, I’d feel like he was harassing me.

  Or maybe not. Maybe it would actually be a massive turn-on. Sexually aggressive Jay. I’m suddenly short of breath. Is that how he would behave if he changed his mind about the friends-with-benefits thing? He’s dated since I’ve known him, but I don’t remember ever seeing him touching a woman beyond the occasional hand-holding or arm over the shoulders.

  Probably he’s just not a PDA kind of guy. That’s okay. As long as he doesn’t keep his hands to himself in private.

  God. It can’t be healthy to want something this much.

  After downing one more gulp of wine, I grab a cutting board, my plastic bags of produce, and the chef’s knife from the caddy on the counter. My grandma bought me this really nice set of Wüsthof kitchen knives when I graduated college, saying they were must-haves for cooking and for “when the boys get a little too frisky.”

  Smiling at the memory, I get a bowl and start shredding lettuce. That done, I move on to the red bell pepper, my knife slicing through it like it’s butter.
>
  It’s too quiet in here. I should turn on some music. Just as I put down the knife, my cell phone rings. The ringtone is just like an old-fashioned phone, but it’s loud. A good thing, because from the muffled sound, it’s obvious the phone is still in my purse.

  Maybe it’s Jay. I scramble for my purse, which is still on the breakfast counter, and tear it open. Digging out my phone, I see a picture of my mom on the screen with the word “Mom” in big letters at the top. With a quick frown, I thumb the answer button.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say as cheerfully as I can muster, bringing the phone up to my ear.

  There’s a short pause at the other end. I do this on purpose, just to mess with her. She likes to start phone conversations with, “Hi, Mia, it’s your mom,” like I didn’t already know that from the Caller ID. So when I greet her by name, she momentarily doesn’t know what to say, and it’s pretty funny.

  Yeah, I’m that child.

  “Hi, monkey,” she finally says.

  I grimace at the nickname she gave me when I was little. My mom has been a trial attorney for thirty-five years. She can give as good as she gets.

  “What’s up?” I shuffle back into the kitchen and pick up the knife again.

  “How’re you doing?” she asks in that soft and concerned mom voice that reminds me of lying in bed, miserably sick with whatever seasonal illness was going around, and getting that warm and melty feeling every time she came in to check on me.

  Cradling the phone between my ear and shoulder, I start cutting up my cucumber, chopping as fast as I can. Because I like to pretend I’m a professional chef.

  “I’m fine.” That’s a lie, of course. But the reason I’m not fine is not something I want to discuss with my mother.

  She’s quiet for another couple of seconds before asking, “Did you talk to Paige? They found out the sex of the baby.”

  Why am I getting the feeling she’s stalling instead of telling me the real reason she’s calling? Tearing open the bag with my lone tomato, pulling it out, and lining it up with the knife, I say, “Yeah, I talked to her a few days ago. She sounded excited.”