Fast & Wet (The Fast 2)

Much to Klara’s shock and delight, we’re going out tonight.

It is Saturday night, and she thinks we’re celebrating the job offer that I informed her I would be accepting. Not only will I have a job, but this is a celebration for Klara, too. She’s inevitably going to get fired from the cafe with her propensity for swearing at small children. I’ll be making enough at Imperium to cover our rent when that happens so my Swedish friend can finish up her masters stress-free.

Then we can both

get on with our lives.

In my new self-imposed and improved mind space, though, we’re mostly celebrating my determination to turn over a new leaf. I’m not going to be held hostage emotionally anymore with romantic fantasies of unrequited love and memories from half a decade ago.

I have to face this head-on, take control back.

I’ve told Makenna, my mother (who has undoubtedly told the Major General by now, as well,) and I’ve emailed Professor Tillman that I will be accepting the job. All I need to do is call Imperium on Monday and formally accept the offer.

There’s no going back now. There’s only going forward, and that’s what tonight is about.

I’m wearing the new heels I bought for my interview and a green, form-fitting off the shoulder v-neck dress with sleeves and little bunches around my waist. It hits mid-thigh, and it’s scandalous. Not just scandalous for Emily Walker—it’s naughty. Klara calls it a “fuck me dress,” and I bought it months ago, the last time I thought I was going to get over Cole Ballentine.

I never wore it then, it’s way outside of my comfort zone, but I’m rocking it tonight.

Just kids having fun, eh? It’s high time this kid had fun, then.

“This one,” Klara hands me a tube of lipstick from her impressive collection. It’s called ‘Vengeance,’ and it is blood red.

“Perfect,” I smooth it over my lips and smack them together, fluff my hair one more time, and then take the first step out of my flat door toward the new me.

Seven

“Sitting alone tonight, waiting for the sunshine. Sometimes I kneel and pray, hoping someday that you’ll be mine. But she’s so many miles away, I’ve got so many things to say. And all of the games we’d play don’t matter anyway.” - Everlast - This Kind of Lonely

Cole

A couple dozen people dance and grind on each other in my living room to a bastardized remix of Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart.

It’s not an unusual Saturday night, per se, I just find myself in no mood for it. I don’t even invite these people over most nights, they just show up. I recognize some guys from the team, but I’ve never seen the majority of these people before.

I don’t know them, they don’t know me.

I’m avoiding them all, brooding outside on my terrace overlooking the River Thames. The Battersea Bridge lights cast a haunting glow onto the water below, and the sprawling mass of city twinkles in the distance.

It took me a long time to get used to living in London. It’s a city that’s both very hard to love and very hard to hate. It’s filled with extremes, and there’s no escaping it. It pulsates at all hours of the day and night, and I’ve gotten so used to the clouds that I start to resent the sun when it makes a rare appearance.

I spent the day wracking my brain about Emily and still have no answers. The only thing I know is that I don’t want her to leave London even though I’m more miserable with her here. When she was at home, in the States, there was distance and an artificial separation I could rationalize.

She never left my mind, but she wasn’t breathing the same air as I am. She wasn’t close enough for me to drive an hour and watch her turn her bedroom light off at night before going to sleep. I didn’t look for her face on every street corner or in every car I passed on the road.

And every once in awhile, if I tried hard enough, I could distract myself from her memory. I never allowed myself to believe I could have her back.

But now, and for the past ten months, she’s everywhere around me. No amount of distraction gives me even a moment of peace. My head is filled with what-if’s. Her coming to London was her siren summonsing possibilities I’d long since written off as plausible. Now, she’s here but she’s graduated, and she could leave again, so I’m forced to deal with that reality.

She was in school for the better part of the last six years, and I had reasons for not contacting her, then. Now, if I’m frank with myself, I question if those reasons are still good enough. And that’s what’s eating me alive.

We aren’t kids anymore. She should be able to make her own decisions, make up her own mind. Granted, that means I would have to give her all the information so she can do exactly that.

That may kill me, but I can’t live inside this stagnant holding pattern forever. Emily either needs to be in my life, or I need to find a way to get past her. I can’t lie to myself and make excuses anymore. She can’t leave London without me knowing for sure, one way or the other.

I push myself off the metal deck railing overlooking the river and flop onto the stiff outdoor sofa. There’s a small propane fire burning in the middle of the deck table, and I turn the switch off before one of the drunk mystery people inside burns my apartment down, next.

The giant sliding glass door opens, and a wave of music rushes out when Dante and two women draped over him pass through and invade my outdoor area.