London Is the Best City in America

Berringer.

He was lying there, just lying on my bed, like it was his right. On top of the blanket. Fully dressed, except for his shoes. I was going to ask him how he got back here before me, but I didn’t really care. I didn’t really care how he got here, or what exactly had happened first. It didn’t seem to matter so much.

Instead, I sat on the edge of my bed and didn’t say anything for a while. I didn’t move at all. Neither did he. He kept his hand on my back though, the entire time I sat there, his fingers pressing in softly. My heart was beating so fast, I was worried he could feel it through his fingertips. I was worried that this was why he was keeping his hands there: to steady me.

Eventually, I took off my shoes and put them right by Berringer’s, and I took down my hair. Then I stood up again and locked the door. I lay down next to him. Berringer watched me do all of this, not saying a word. At least I think he was watching me. In the dark, I could see him blinking. My whole left side was touching his whole right side—side arm to side arm, hip to hip, side leg to side leg. Foot to bad foot.

“You hurting?” he said.

“I’ve been better.”

He didn’t say anything. But he turned toward me, leaning on his elbow, waiting for me to continue.

“I made things worse today,” I said.

He shook his head. “You don’t have that much power.”

I kept lying there on my back, but I turned my head to face him too. I started to ask why Celia hadn’t been at the wedding earlier. But then I realized I didn’t have to, not right then. Even if I didn’t know why yet—if he hadn’t actually said out loud that after the rehearsal dinner they’d had a discussion, that he told her he didn’t think he could see her anymore—I knew that it was over with her. I just knew it. Berringer didn’t work any other way. It was nice, among these boys whom I loved, that someone didn’t.

Berringer turned me on my side away from him and started unzipping my dress. His hands were cold and quick on my bare skin, like glass.

“Let’s just rest for a while,” he said. His hands were on my stomach now, crisscrossed around each other, holding me.

“With your hands like that?” I said.

“We could try,” he said.

I turned around to face him, his hands on my back. “Okay,” I said, but I was already kissing him while I said it. He looked so nervous that it freed me somehow to not feel it myself—how nervous I was.

Which was a good thing.

Because if I had done anything differently—if I had looked away from him, had let him look away from me, if he hadn’t touched my skin, lying down above me, close, we might have thought better of this.

We might have stopped.

But instead he held me there, pushing my hair back with his fingers, his eyes open on my eyes, watching, everything happening so slowly at first, as though we’d been here, right here, a thousand times instead of one, as though this time we might be able to hold on to it. Locate it. Something old and quiet and lost that you can see again for just a few seconds, see in a bright flash, before you have to blink, close your eyes against it, start to quickly let go.

I must have drifted off because when I woke up, I was naked and Berringer was gone, which made me feel more naked. I got up slowly, but I felt it anyway—the sharp squeeze of it—my heartbeat moving around in my foot. I lay back down, taking an uncomfortable breath in. As I did, my cell phone started ringing from the bed. I reached for it, careful not to move my foot, which was as heavy as a cannon.

JOSH.

Man. “Where are you?” I said.

“The city still,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Home.”

“You’re home?”

I cleared my throat. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to bring up Meryl, or push him on what was happening with her back at the hotel. I wanted him to tell me when he was ready. I was hoping, now, he wouldn’t have any trouble actually telling me when he was ready.

“Listen,” he said. “I’m actually looking for Berringer. Did he come by the house? Have you seen him anywhere?”

I shot up, grabbing for my dress. “Why would I have I seen him anywhere? Why would I have seen Berringer? Anywhere?” I knew I was rambling, but I couldn’t help it.

“Emmy,” he said. “Easy.”

“I’m easy,” I said. Again, not really the best response.