The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be)

I follow Parker up the stairs into my new life. She’s talking without any trouble the whole two flights, while I’m struggling to catch my breath. I guess it must be her swimming lungs. Or maybe I’ve been holding my breath so long, I don’t know what it’s like to breathe easily anymore.

“Laundry room is in the basement. Josh and D stay on the floor above us,” she’s saying as she leads me down a long narrow hallway. “Oh, and after this, remind one of us to show you our spot up on the roof.”

“Okay,” I manage to get out.

At the very end of the hall, she says, “Here we are, 2C. Home sweet home.”

Part of me also wonders if my racing heart is me not being used to stairs or my anxiety meds wearing off or if it might just have something to do with Josh and the rush of finally being able to hug him, touch him, in the daylight, in public, without fear of who might see us and what they might think or if I’m doing anything wrong or pretending it’s something it’s not.

She pushes the door open and holds her arm out, gesturing for me to walk in first. It’s a large, bright, open room. With windows on two walls. A well-worn formerly vibrant red couch sits in the middle. A small table with mismatched chairs in the corner. A tiny kitchen with old white appliances and a narrow bar that separates the space.

“I know it’s not much,” Parker says as I look around. “It’s small, and we share a bathroom, but it’s still way better than campus housing.”

“No, this is . . .” It’s neat and clean and nothing like home. As I take a step, the old hardwood floors creak under my feet. “I love it.”

“Your room’s this way,” she says, smiling as she leads me to a wooden door on the opposite side of the apartment. “My old roommate left a few things. Just a dresser, bookcase, desk, and chair. We can get rid of them if you want, but I thought I’d leave it and see if you need any of them first.”

My room.

The wooden floors continue, and as I cross the threshold, it feels like the room is drawing me in. It’s smaller than my bedroom back home. But there’s a large window with a tree outside it, and the old, chipped furniture is warm and inviting. I run my hand along the top of the desk and feel the grooves of pen marks crisscrossed along the surface.

“What do you think?” Josh’s voice says behind me.

When I turn back around, Parker is gone and Josh is standing in the doorway with two of my bags at his feet, cradling my little stained-glass lamp in one arm like it’s a baby.

Our fingers touch as I take it from him, the brass body of the lamp warm from his hands. I bring my lamp over to the desk— my desk—plug it in at the wall socket, and turn the little key-shaped knob to switch it on.

“Perfect,” I say, turning back around to face him. He leans against the doorframe and smiles the way he always does. That perfectly imperfect smile of his. But this time it sparks something in me, like that key-shaped switch. Like I’m seeing him in full color for the very first time. My feet are frozen in place. But in my mind, I’m walking over to him. Because all I want to do is pull him inside the room, my room, close the door, take his hands in mine, and put them on me. I want to kiss him everywhere, feel his mouth on my skin. I want to—

“You okay?” he asks, picking up the bags and walking toward me like he’s definitely not thinking any of the things I am right now.

I swallow, watching his arms working so easily, so smoothly, as he sets the bags down next to the closet door. “Yeah. I’m just . . .” I bring the backs of my hands to my cheeks. They’re flaming. I’ve always been attracted to him, but this is different—this churning inside me is like a gnawing hunger but deeper. I usually have so many firewalls up when I start thinking about him, the sudden vividness of this fantasy catches me off guard. “Just hot. Warm,” I correct.

I don’t know what is happening to me. Is this just how I feel about him when I’m not filtering my emotions and censoring my every thought?

He walks past me, his arm just grazing mine, as he goes to the window. “Let me see if I can get this open. All these old windows stick really bad in the summer.” He unlocks the metal latch at the top and gives the wooden frame a sharp jab before it squeals open, ushering in a fresh breeze, which hits my skin, cooling me down just enough to stop me from rushing over to him and acting out the things that won’t stop playing in my head.

“Thanks,” I tell him, reaching out as he passes me. My fingers catch the sleeve of his shirt, my hand grasping his forearm as he stops. I want to pull him in, want him to reach for me too, but he stands there and covers my hand with his for only a moment before letting go.

“No problem,” he says, all nonchalant, and goes to the doorway as if I were really only thanking him for opening the window.

I make my way downstairs, feeling slightly dizzy as my senses attune to him, just steps behind me. All day long we’re in such close contact, passing in the hallway, squeezing by each other on the stairs. Every single time I want to reach out to touch him. But he doesn’t seem to be having the same problem at all, and I don’t know what to make of that.

The day is only getting hotter and more humid when I find myself alone outside. I take one last sip of my now melted frozen cappuccino and decide I can at least try to undo the bungee cords holding the mattress and box spring in place.

Standing up on the inside of the car door, stretching on my tiptoes, I reach under the mattress, trying to feel the spot where the two hooks connect. I can’t see it, but I can feel it right at the edge of my fingertips.

“Don’t be a hero, Eden!” Parker calls out, suddenly behind me. “Let the guys get that one. It’s not anti-feminist, I promise. Or if it is, whatever, I won’t tell anyone.”

“I got it,” I say, even though I can feel my grip slipping.

“Here,” Josh says as he comes up behind me. I feel his leg next to mine, his hand resting on my back for a moment as he reaches his other arm around me, his body pressed up against mine now. “You almost had it,” he says with his hand moving along my arm to the place where my fingers almost reach the hook. He pulls the cords closer and says, his mouth painfully close to me, “Hold this side.” He slips the hook into my hand and then reaches farther, pressing tighter against me, to unclasp the two.

My heart stutters at the feeling of his body on me like this. He has to be feeling it too.

As he steps down, I lose my balance. “Oh, ya good?” he says, normal as anything, as he places his hands on my waist to stabilize me. If I turn around, I’m afraid I won’t be able to look him in the eye without kissing him.

And because I don’t think I should do that here, in the middle of the street, I just mutter, “Yeah, all good.” I keep my back to him as I slip under his arms. I go stand at a safe distance on the sidewalk with Parker while we watch the two of them maneuver my mattress off the car.

I run up the steps to hold the front door open for them, and as Josh passes, he says, “Thanks.”

I let myself look up for only a split second, and I can tell he has all these questions in his eyes as if I’m the one being weird.

As the door swings closed behind them, Parker snorts a laugh.

“Well, then.” She breathes out an exaggerated sigh, almost a whistle. “You could cut that with a knife.”

“What?” I ask, even though, of course, I know.

She tilts her head and smiles.

I press my hands to my cheeks again, feeling the blood simmering under the surface of my skin. “Um. So, food?” I say, instead of acknowledging what is apparently obvious to everyone around us. “I’m gonna order us some food. What’s good around here?”

Thirty minutes later, we’re all on the roof with a large pizza and a two-liter of soda. Dominic brought up paper plates and plastic cups and hands them to each of us.

Parker says, “You’re destroying the planet with these—you know that, right?”

Dominic doesn’t skip a beat. “No, the energy companies and big-ass corporations are destroying the planet. I am being thoughtful and making our hard-earned dinner a little more civilized.”

Josh scoots over on the wicker love seat, making room for me to sit down next to him. “You’ll get used to their bickering,” he says, smiling as he meets my eyes. It feels like the first time he’s even looked at me all day.

“No, it’s nice,” I say. And it is. My house has felt so dead these past months, with no one talking to each other. No one joking around. No one laughing. “This whole place is nice,” I add, taking in this little patch of space on the roof, filled with mismatched outdoor furniture, a patio table and chairs, potted plants.

With the sun finally retreating behind the taller buildings in the distance, a comfortable quiet washes over us as we sit with our slices of pizza. Until Dominic sees me trying to blot my oily fingers on a clean spot on my grease-stained paper plate.

“Oh shit, forgot . . .” He pulls a wad of napkins he’d had bunched up in his pocket and hands me one. ”Here you go.”

“More paper products?” Parker shouts through her last bite.

“Well, you can just use your pants as a napkin if you prefer!”

Parker holds both hands up in the air and then brings them down against her thighs, smearing them all over her jeans. Dominic stands abruptly, commanding everyone’s attention, holds up one finger like he’s about to launch into some kind of serious monologue, but then his only response is “Ew.”

I can’t help but laugh, even though I’m not entirely sure how much they’re joking with each other. Next to me Josh exhales a short snicker but restrains himself.

Parker stands up with a satisfied grin on her face. “All right, kids. I’m gonna try to get in a swim before it gets too late.”Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

“And I have a hot date I need to get ready for,” Dominic says. “And by hot date, I mean a video call in my room.” My confusion must show on my face because he continues. “Me and Luke—you know him, I think, Lucas Ramirez from school?”

“Oh yeah,” I say. “He was a year ahead of me.”

“We’re doing the long-distance thing for now. Trying to convince him to come out here like you did, but—” He stops talking suddenly, and Josh sort of squirms next to me. “Well, I mean, not that it’s the same thing. I’m not saying you came here just to be with—”

“Oh-kay,” Josh interrupts. “Don’t wanna be late, do you?”

Parker puts both of her hands on Dominic’s back, steering him toward the door. “We’re leaving, but you two enjoy this totally unromantic sunset. Later, roomie.”

“Wow,” Josh breathes as they clamor for the door, their laughter echoing after it closes. “I’m sorry about them. They’re being weird and immature.”

“They’re fine.” What I really want to say is he’s the one who’s being weird and immature. “I like them.”

I set my paper plate on top of the empty pizza box and lean back into the cushions, feeling all the tension in my muscles coming to the surface. But the view is beautiful as the light hits the buildings that make up the small city of the university and then a landscape of rolling green hills just beyond. So much nicer than the flat monotony of back home.

The breeze flows over us and rattles the leaves of the nearby trees, cooling my hot skin and sweat of the day. This would be the perfect moment for him to kiss me, talk to me, do literally anything to me.