Page 10 of Double Dared
“Are all straight men obsessed with penises?” he asked.
I gave it a short thought. “We often go to war because of them.”
“That might be the truest thing that was ever said,” Harrison said. “It reminds me of Dr. Strangelove and the whole dick-measuring contest of the Cold War.”
“I haven’t seen it,” I said.
Harrison shot me a devastated look. “I don’t think we can be together, Taylor.”
I reached for my breaking, crumbling heart, distraught.
Harrison bumped into me with his shoulder. We went to the subway together and got out at the same stop, just off campus, where Harrison said he would take a stroll back to his place.
I tucked my hands into my pockets and nodded. “Let me know when you want to try again. I fed my gossiping friends just enough to make them salivate.”
“That is an image I will carry to my grave. Thanks for that.” We shared a laugh, and I began to turn away. “Oh, wait. I almost forgot. Here, I got you a keepsake.”
I turned back to him and looked down at his hand. In it lay a figurine of a stork standing on one leg. “Really?” I asked, my voice pitched a lot higher than I would like to admit. “I never got anything on a first date.”
“I’m sure that’s not exactly true,” Harrison said.
“Who’s obsessed now?” I asked, picking up thestork from his hand. Soft skin, smooth. He was an artist, alright. “Thank you.”
“Thank you for taking the time for this,” he said.
I wanted to tell him it was my pleasure, that going to weird places for the first time in my life was the fuel for stories that I needed. But I didn’t. Harrison was already turning away from me, walking down the street, as I stood and watched the figurine in my hand.
Huh. That felt good.
CHAPTER FOUR
harrison
My fingers smoothed my mustache.Not that it was nearly so big that it needed smoothing. It was simply the last line of defense from falling back to the terrible old habit of biting my nails. I’d stopped doing that the day I’d come out to my parents, a good eight years ago.
My gaze flicked to the clock with Roman numerals on the brown wall opposite the French balcony door. The light of the setting sun made the texture of the clock pop. It was quarter past six, and I still had forty-five minutes to kill before Taylor was supposed to arrive. Make it an hour.
Looking around the place, I noticed the corkboard for one particular reason. The photo in the middle of it was of me hugging Emma from behind, both of us laughing, looking into the vintage Polaroid camera on a day that was, in my memory, as good as any day we’d ever had together.
Seven hundred and forty-three days. That was how many days we’d had. From the short documentary festival where I’d bumped into her to the day she sat me down with a held-back sigh and a tired look of someone who could no longer do this, all of it happening somewhere behind the curtain, in the dark hallways and hidden nooks and out of the vision of the only member of the audience who sat through it all happily, confident that things were as good as they could be.
I got up on impulse, picked up my keys from the vintage glass bowl in the hallway, and shut the door on my way out. I didn’t have a destination in mind, only time to pass without going insane with no one but my insufferable self to keep me company.
The sidewalk led me under the bare branches of the trees in March, little buds swelling, working up the courage to sprout and unfurl their wondrous leaves, readying to bring life back into the world.
I walked for a long time before remembering to look around beyond the branches and the darkening sky above. As I blinked myself back to awareness, I realized where I was. This was the small park between four buildings where Emma and I had spent hours into the night on our first real date. I’d walked her home, but we’d carried on a few streets further, stopping here because I was telling her about my favorite compositions from Tarkovsky’sStalker. She’d kept asking, and I hadn’t even thought that I might have been boring her with it.
Had I been boring her with my flights of fancy for two years?
I turned on my heels and headed back home, resisting the temptation to follow fate’s own guidance and walk to Emma’s building. Taylor had been right on Sunday when he’d convinced me not to call her. I’d overreacted to her absence and saw her pass down Whitmore Street on her usual route. She was fine. Nothing at all had been wrong with her. She’d simply…missed it.
In the months since we’d split up, I had seen her from a distance on too many occasions. I hadn’t been trying to. I had just happened to be in the places where she took her new boyfriend, and I had just happened to notice them laughing together, her hand reaching for his, the other hand going to his shoulder, his gaze moving to her face, warmth in their eyes making me squirm.
It was dark by the time I reached my brownstone building, and my heart sank when I saw him sitting on the stairs by the front door. “Taylor, I’m so sorry,” I said, spreading my arms a little in surrender. I had no excuse.
“I was starting to think you’d dumped me,” Taylor said, that big smile revealing big, white teeth. “But here you are.”
“I’ve never dumped anyone in my life,” I said as Taylor hopped onto his feet, stepped closer, and hugged me. “Nobody’s around to see it.”
