Come Alive (The Cityscape 2)

“No,” I squeaked quickly.

“I see. Good evening, David. Hope to see you around.”

David only raised his eyebrows and followed me out. “That guy is a piece of work. Do you like working for him?” he asked, punching the ‘Down’ button.

I shrugged. “Not particularly, but a job’s a job.”

He only frowned.

In the elevator, I picked an invisible piece of lint from my shoulder. In the enclosed space, tension mixed with the distinct air David held. It was hard to forget the confusing elevator ride from that night. I remembered my internal battle, knowing it was the moment to stop everything. But I hadn’t. I hadn’t said no, I hadn’t said anything. I almost felt guiltier for that moment than all the things that came after.

Now, it frustrated me how relaxed he looked. I wanted to shake him, to ask him what he wanted, why he couldn’t just walk away. I wanted to scream at him and kiss him all at once, anything to crack that perfect exterior.

And then the doors opened, so I did the only logical thing I could and exited the elevator. We crossed the lobby and turned right onto Adams, as though we did that sort of thing every evening.

“Relax, Olivia.”

“What?”

“Relax. Your shoulders are at your ears. We’re just walking.”

I took a deep breath and released an exhale that deflated my shoulders. He was right; my hands were balled into fists, and I felt the tension in my neck. “I’m sorry, I’m just . . . stressed.”

“I can tell. Why?”

“Just things, stupid things.”

“Such as? Work? Home?”

“The house, for one. There’s so much to be done, and it just feels like everything is moving so fast.”

“Moving fast how?”

“Do you really want to know?”

He nodded once, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I do.”

“Buying a home is a commitment. Bill is making such a big thing of it. Of what it symbolizes.”

“What does it symbolize?”

“Our future. It’s like he’s been waiting and waiting for it to start, and now it’s finally here. That’s a lot of pressure. I feel the opposite – like it snuck up on me. One minute I’m twenty-two and graduating college. Suddenly, I’m almost thirty, and I’m supposed to be this other person. An adult, a wife, a homeowner, a mother.”

“Mother?” he blurted.

“One day. Isn’t that why people move to the suburbs?”

“Are you . . .” He paused, swallowing. “Are you having second thoughts?”

I folded my arms into myself as we waited to cross the street. To say yes would be admitting the worst thing possible to the worst person possible. “I met Bill right out of college,” I said carefully. “I was so young. I mean, I don’t know if twenty-five is too young to get married, but maybe it was.”

When I looked up, the cool expression David normally wore had slid from his face. “What?” I asked.

“I meant . . .” he paused. His voice was disjointed, as if his throat were constricting. “I meant second thoughts about the house.”

“Oh,” I breathed in a rush of air, too conscious of the flush creeping up my neck. “No. I was hesitant to move out of the city at first. Maybe I still am. It’s not the house, though.”

His hand shot out and yanked me back when I stepped off the curb. “Can’t you see there’s a car coming?” he chastised.

We both looked at his hand on my arm, and he dropped it after a moment. “Continue.”

I sighed. “I’m boring you. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not the house, you said. Then what is it?”

Once I’d made a show of checking for cars, we continued across the street. “I guess I just don’t know when everything happened. I don’t remember choosing this. I knew it would eventually come to this, me on the brink of my life, about to dive in, but I expected to be more ready.”

“You keep saying that you two are starting your future together. There’s no start to your future. It’s already happening. Finding you should have been the start of his future.”

“When you say things like that, I can’t tell if you’re being authentic or if you’re just so used to feeding people lines.”

He laughed, but his smile slipped from his face quickly. “If I had found you first, there would be no waiting. When I looked into your eyes at that theater – ”

“David,” I admonished quietly, scanning the faces of passersby. His words hit me forcefully, diffusing as much guilt through me as disbelief. If he finished his sentence . . . If I let myself believe him for even a moment . . . I knew I’d fall quickly and painlessly under his spell. “Don’t say those things to me. Save it for your girls.”

“You don’t have to go through with anything you don’t want to,” he said over me.

“Yes, I do,” I said resolutely. “We’ve put the offer in. There’s no reason they won’t accept it. And anyway, I want it. I just said I wasn’t quite ready.”

“It’s just money. Don’t let that get in the way. If you’re not ready, if you don’t want – ”

“I want it,” I snapped.

>

A tourist with an upward-pointing camera momentarily split us apart. My gaze spanned the city around us. I wondered why he didn’t just leave me right there on the sidewalk. I sighed and looked over at him in the falling dusk, noting how powerful he seemed with the steely buildings as his backdrop. As if, with a snap of his fingers, Chicago would bow at his feet and heed his commands.

“What are you thinking?” he asked in a disarmingly gentle tone.

“That the city looks different depending on who I’m seeing it with.”

He nodded easily, as if this same thought had occurred to him.

“I notice different things,” I continued. “Like with you, I pay more attention to the details of the buildings – the textures, the colors, the people standing in front of them. The reflections are different.”

“Reflections?” he mused.

“They just are.” I watched our bodies morph and distort in the window of an empty bank. “You’re there,” I said quietly. “That’s how they’re different.”

I wanted to ask him why he was walking with me after he had told me he couldn’t fuck me again. Didn’t he know it was impossible for us to be anything other than what we had been that night? A sweeping and powerful force of passion and insatiable hunger?

Without missing a step and still looking ahead, he touched me. “Relax,” he instructed.

My muscles melted under his hand. He removed it once my shoulders were back in place, but the warmth lingered. “Clearly I need a vacation,” I joked.

“Where would you go?”

“I’m not being serious.”

“But why not?”

I made a face.

“Don’t you ever travel? Everyone likes to vacation.”

“Not Bill.”

“I remember. So what?”

“So maybe I don’t like to either.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Vacation is always, like, idealized. It becomes something huge in your mind, like all the other days in the year are leading up to this one week. You’re going to dine grandly and spend hours in the sun forgetting that you have a real life. You’re going make love sweetly – maybe on the beach, maybe under the stars or by candlelight. But those things don’t happen. Your flight is delayed. You spend the next three days in a state of permanent jetlag. You never remember the sun being as strong as it is. You eat too much and – and you have to undo the top button of your jeans.”