Love Her Madly Page 8

  Raj was having another cigarette on the balcony. He nodded. “Looks like there’s a storm blowing in.” He gestured toward the airport, where heavy purple rain clouds darkened the horizon.

  “You’re telling me.” I picked up my wet socks and underwear and put them in a plastic bag to take back with me. “If I don’t tell Cyn about us, she’ll just figure it out anyway.”

  He closed the door and sat on a chair. He ran one hand back through his hair, uneasily. “You think she’ll be upset?”

  I detected some hopefulness in his tone that I didn’t like one bit. “I dunno, does she have any reason to be?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know, Glo.”

  He looked ill. I had just slept with him, and here he was, turning gray at the thought of upsetting Cyn.

  “Has she said anything to you?” I asked tightly.

  “You know how she is. She says all kinds of things. I don’t know what to think about it.”

  I felt my throat tighten. “What do you mean you don’t know what to think about it?”

  Perceptive enough to notice that I was struggling to contain an emotional explosion, he quickly embraced me. “I’m just saying she’s a strange girl, and I would hate to hurt her. Just like I would never want to hurt you.”

  I gently extricated myself from his grasp. I didn’t trust myself not to shove him away. “So has she said she has feelings for you?”

  He shrugged, straining to make the case for his indifference. “Does she? Who knows? Did she say anything to you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if she does, she didn’t tell me. But until today, neither did you . . . not with words, at least.” He took a deep breath. “Honestly, I’ve been confused as hell by you two. I can’t figure out what the hell either of you wants from me.”

  “Have you kissed her, too?” It occurred to me that I had only questioned him about sex.

  He looked down, and I had my answer. I couldn’t believe they had both kept it from me.

  “Glo, it was only once. It only happened once.” He reached out for me, sensing my fury. I stepped away.

  “When?”

  “About two weeks ago.” He spread his hands wide in front of him and stared at them as if they held the answers. “She stopped over here after work. We got high. Then we kissed. After a while, she said she had to go and she left. The next day when I saw her, we were all together, and she acted like it never happened. Like she forgot.”

  “And that left you heartbroken, so you came to me,” I said with surprising bitterness. “I’m your afterthought.”

  That really hurt him, I think. I saw him flinch. “That’s not what you are to me.”

  Outside, thunder cracked. I felt confused and ashamed and angry, and I wanted to get out of there so I could pull my thoughts together. “I have to go before it storms.”

  “Don’t go.”

  His eyes looked so sad and pathetic that I wanted to stay. I wanted to believe, but I couldn’t. “I have to go. I have to talk to Cyn. I don’t even know what I’m telling her.”

  He shook his head miserably. Thunder rumbled again, growing louder.

  Impulsively, I kissed his cheek, but when he tried to hold me, I wiggled away, close to tears. “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m sure you’ll find out how it goes.”

  “Be careful,” I heard him say as I flung myself out his door.

  It must have been adrenaline, because I somehow had the energy to run all the way back to our dorm, the bag of wet underwear swinging absurdly from my fist. A thunderhead towering above campus gave the twilight an operatically dark edge, but the fiery blitz of lightning bolts were what really got my knees pumping. Getting fried by lightning would have been a fitting way to conclude my short, sorry existence, but I still loved life enough to run in a half crouch. The rain clouds burst open just as I passed the student center, obscuring the dorms behind a veil of water. As I pitched myself blindly through the downpour, I looked up and saw our window glowing brightly. My stomach twisted.

  I opened the door, and she was sitting on her bed, a book open in front of her, the stereo tuned to a dance mix. She straightened when I entered, a concerned look on her face. Then, in slow motion, I saw her eyes trace down to Raj’s T-shirt, and the blood drained from her cheeks.

  I couldn’t face her yet. I walked directly into the bathroom, locked the door, and turned on the shower. I stayed in there for a long time, washing redundantly, my skin already prune-like from the drenching. When I couldn’t stall any longer, I pulled on my robe and stepped outside.

  The dance music was off. Cyn was looking out the window, crying silently.

  I sat on my bed and listened to her sniffle. I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “How was he?” Cyn demanded, her voice raspy and bitter. “Aren’t you going to share?”

  My cheeks began burning, but I still couldn’t speak.

  “I thought we told each other everything,” she snarled.

  “Yeah, so did I,” I snapped, with unexpected venom.

  She looked surprised, but then quickly rolled her eyes knowingly. “Okay, fine. But I didn’t sleep with him.”

  “And why didn’t you, if you wanted to?”

  “Because I knew what it would do to you, stupid!” she shouted. “I knew that you liked him, but I liked him, too. I just thought if neither one of us did anything, he would choose. And I guess I was right, because now he’s chosen you.”

  She started to shake with sobs. It was terrible to see her so distraught, but her tears didn’t extinguish the simmering ball of anger I’d been carrying since I’d left the Hubble. There was no reason for her to be crying. In the shower, I had painfully forced myself to rehash everything that had happened that afternoon. As much as I hated to face it, he clearly cared more about Cyn’s thoughts and feelings than mine. I was just the runner-up, and a fool.

  “I don’t think he has,” I said flatly. “I went over there, and it just happened. After the fact, he told me about you, and when I asked him what was going on, he said he was confused. He said we had him totally fucking confused.”

  Cyn’s crying had quieted, and she was studying me intently. She emitted a hard laugh, like a cough.

  “Confused. How convenient.”

  “Yeah,” I grunted. We were both silent for a moment. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, it’s kind of too late for that. If you had suspicions about how I felt, and you actually gave a shit, you wouldn’t have slept with him. Now you’ve trumped me by giving him your cherry, and I’m stuck on the outside because I cared more about your feelings than my own.”

  “I gave him my cherry?” I sneered. “Do you even hear yourself? You make it sound like I snared him in a sex trap just to one-up you, and if you know me at all, you know that’s bullshit. It just happened. If you would have told me how you felt, then I could almost understand you saying that, but you didn’t, so fuck off. I didn’t ask you to stay away from him, and I wouldn’t have. I figured things would just work out the way they were supposed to.”

  “So you think this is how things were supposed to work out? With you being happy and me being miserable?”

  “No. I don’t want you to be miserable. And just so you know, I’m not fucking happy. I just lost my virginity to a guy who is ‘really confused,’ and probably in love with my best friend. This situation couldn’t suck more.”

  I snatched some clothes out of my dresser and pulled them on as fast as I could. My mind was lurching about recklessly, and I knew I’d have to get out before I said something I couldn’t take back.

  She watched me put on my socks. “It does suck,” she said, sounding like her normal, equivocal self, “but I don’t want to give him up either.” She looked up, meeting my eye. “I like him more than I ever expected to like someone, and I know he has feelings
for me. You know it, too.”

  “We both like him,” I agreed, standing in the very spot on the carpet where, not so long ago, we had pledged to never let a guy come between us. “Neither one of us told the other one shit because we both knew it, and that’s why we’re now having this fight.”

  Cyn’s face had grown calm. “We’re having this fight because we didn’t want to have this fight. We’re both fucking cowards.”

  I got up and opened the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Out. I need air.” I was so exhausted, I just wanted to curl up under the stairs and cry myself to sleep.

  “It’s raining,” she protested.

  “I don’t mind.” I closed the door behind me.

  The rain was falling at a steady drizzle. I wandered through the quad, the cool drops soothing my simmering skin. A few students passed by carrying umbrellas, but they took no notice of me. I went to the cafeteria and bought a soda, though I would have preferred a few shots of something strong. I sat at a table in the empty room where once, long ago, orientation had taken place, and stared out at the wet parking lot.

  I must have fallen asleep. When I opened my eyes, the rain had stopped.

  The student convenience store was closed, so it had to be after one in the morning. I dragged myself back toward our room, unable to contain a moan when I saw the light still on inside. I was too exhausted for another confrontation.

  I climbed the steps, feeling like a prisoner on her way to the gallows. Inside, Cyn was half asleep on her bed. I was stunned to discover Raj sitting on our floor, staring at the television. When he saw me, he flipped it off. Cyn’s eyes fluttered, and she sat up.

  “Hey,” I muttered to both of them before flopping onto my bed. “Some day, huh?”

  Cyn shot me a limp smile and Raj just shook his head. As curious as I was to find out what they’d been discussing in my absence, I was too spent to care. They weren’t cuddling in her bed, which was a good sign. If they had been, I would have kicked Joan out of my old room that night and maybe left school the next day. I closed my eyes and collected what little energy I had left, steeling myself for whatever was coming.

  “I had an idea,” Cyn began, lifting a joint from her nightstand.

  I looked at Raj, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. Cyn lit the joint and looked to me for my response.

  I pushed myself up onto my elbows. “What’s your idea?”

  Cyn took a long drag and passed the joint down to Raj, who took a small toke and passed it to me. I took a drag and watched as Cyn languidly exhaled. “We share.”

  I took a Cyn-sized drag. Raj still wouldn’t look at me. He seemed to be holding his breath.

  “I don’t get it,” I said flatly.

  Cyn smiled and bowed her head knowingly. I passed the joint back to Raj, and when he finally looked at me, his face was awash with worry. I felt a strong desire to crawl into his arms, and that’s when I realized what Cyn was suggesting.

  “We share Raj?” I said, my voice rising precipitously.

  She nodded in a way that told me she expected just such a reaction, and that she was prepared to wait it out.

  The absurdity of it was astounding. “How? I don’t get it. Are we, like, sister wives in this scenario? Do we switch off days of the week?” My head felt foggy, and the many sensible arguments I wanted to make about the insanity of her proposition eluded me. My whole day spun before me; the long runs, the unexpected cherry loss, the drama, and to top it off, the damned joint. I focused my attention on Raj. “You recognize that this is crazy?”

  He sighed. He looked as shaken and worn-out as I felt. “We’ve been talking about it for a couple hours. I’m not trying to push any agenda here. It’s really up to you girls.”

  I looked at Cyn in bewilderment.

  “Glo, I can see you’re about to freak out, and I understand why. But please, just think about it. The three of us get along so great together, and all these feelings have been there all along; they were just below the surface before. Now they’re out. I personally don’t see why we can’t make the best of it. I mean, maybe it’s a gift.”

  I fell back onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. The room was so quiet, I could have imagined myself alone.

  “This is so fucked,” I moaned.

  “We have to deal with it,” Cyn said calmly.

  I raised my head to look at Raj, the cause of all this misery. “You honestly can’t choose between us?”

  He looked positively ill, and I felt sorry I’d said it. I glanced up at Cyn and noted that she registered my regret. Raj groaned and opened his hands wide, as he had done in his room earlier that day. “I won’t. Even if I were able to, which I can’t, picking either of you over the other would obviously destroy your friendship. We’d all be unhappy. I’d rather we just went back to being in the closet, all three of us.”

  “It would kill our friendship, wouldn’t it?” I asked Cyn.

  She shrugged casually, as if we were discussing the weather. “Could you stand to be around me if I was with him and you weren’t?”

  I shook my head.

  “I couldn’t either.” She smiled sadly.

  I picked up my pillow and threw it at Raj. “Why can’t you just be a eunuch?”

  He pulled the pillow onto his lap and shrugged. “Hardly any fun for Raj.”

  Cyn laughed. I wanted to, but hilarity was lost under a morass of other emotions.

  “I’m glad you freaks find this so funny,” I growled.

  “If you can’t laugh, you cry,” Cyn said.

  “Maybe we should,” I countered.

  She sighed. “Why? I mean, really. We’ve been happy for the last couple of months. Now, there’s maybe some sex. That’s just one element. Otherwise, nothing has really changed between any of us.”

  “What about jealousy? There’s no way—”

  “Jealousy is normal. We’re not. If we agree to this, we don’t have to be jealous. You know I love you. You know it’s not in me to want to take things from you. I’m really okay with sharing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t suggest it.”

  “And you’re okay with this, too, Raj?”

  “I really care about both of you. This has been the most confusing time of my life . . .”

  I glanced at Cyn. After “confusing” she raised her eyebrows at me ever so slightly. It almost made me crack up, but Raj continued to pour his heart out, so I held it together.

  “. . . If I somehow ruined the friendship of the two girls I care about most, I think I’d toss myself off the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I really do. I don’t know what will happen, and that’s really terrifying, but yeah, I’m up for it. Life is a grand experiment.”

  As I listened to his velvety voice, I threw myself into the future, attempting to explore in a millisecond all the possible outcomes of this scenario. They all seemed to lead to heartbreak or social suicide. But the alternative—refusal—appeared a total loss. They could both choose to cut me off right there, and I’d have traded the risk of future failure for immediate, certain devastation.

  “This is so insane,” I heard myself murmur.

  “Glo—” Cyn began.

  “I’m not saying no,” I interrupted. “I feel like I can’t say no. I’m too invested in both of you. You’re like love vampires.”

  Raj smiled and shook his head.

  “This isn’t a trap, babe,” Cyn said seriously. “This is just the best solution for a very unusual problem.”

  Raj reached out and put his hand on my damp, sock-covered foot. Like a saint in a holy image, his eyes expressed nothing but loving understanding. I wanted him enough to do anything. Even share him.

  “And if you fall out of love with one of us? What then?” I asked.

  “And if one of you falls out of love with me? Or you two eventually turn on each other?” He
shook his head. “Yeah, all these things could happen. We don’t get a guarantee that anything will work out in this world.”

  “I know that. I’m just scared.”

  “I’m scared, too,” Cyn echoed softly. “Raj is right; it’s a risk for all of us. But otherwise, we both give him up, which seems impossible, or we have one hell of a knife fight to determine a victor.”

  “I couldn’t stab a sister wife.”

  I looked up and met the gaze of my rival across the room. I watched her eyes gleam behind unspent tears. Against my wishes, I felt my own vision blur, and I knew I was giving in. She was the best friend I’d ever known, and the last thing I wanted to do was lose her. The tears escaped. I was too beat to do anything about it.

  “I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you,” I managed, my voice thickening against my will.

  She inhaled sharply. “Me neither.”

  Cyn climbed onto my bed and wrapped her arms around me.

  “We can’t tell other people about this. It’s too taboo. Even for this place.”

  Raj scoffed, his gaze fixed on the carpet. “Everybody thinks it already.”

  “Glo’s right. Let them think it, but we don’t confirm anything. We’re just what we’ve always been: very close friends.”

  Raj shook his head ruefully.

  “What’s wrong?” Cyn asked.

  He looked at us for a moment, serious and unsmiling, but then, as if something shifted in his mind, he laughed.

  “I can’t believe I can’t brag about this to all the dudes.” He sighed dramatically, hamming it up for our benefit.

  Cyn poked at him with her toe. “What ‘dudes’? Do you even know any dudes?”

  “I don’t, but I should.”

  “I propose one thing,” I said. “As a rule, we keep things as open and honest as possible. Secrets are bad for us.”

  “No secrets,” she agreed. Noticing my silently falling tears, she reached over and wiped them away.

  “No secrets,” Raj repeated, watching us both. “And if anybody gets scared, or feels left out, we should talk about it.”

  “Of course,” Cyn said.

  Raj whistled softly and ran his hands through his hair for about the millionth time that night. “Okay, cool. Multiple catastrophic disasters averted. I just have one question, and please don’t think I’m a dick. But just to clarify, we’re not all sleeping together. It’s just, like, a one-on-one thing?”