You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

“Yes,” I tell him. Eitan was the first, but he wasn’t the only. Last year at work, a college guy named Pat, a drummer in a shitty punk band, asked me out, and I saw an opportunity to get back the power I’d craved since Eitan left. We didn’t exactly date, but we slept together for a few months, until he quit the music shop to spend a semester in Argentina. He was the second guy to leave me for someplace else, but I wasn’t heartbroken. That time I was smarter. I had told myself it was only physical between us, that we were only together for the time we spent in his room with the door locked, a sock on the knob, his roommate sexiled.

Trying to be coy, I stare up at Arjun from beneath my lashes and pass the question back. “Have you?”

His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he tells me yes, though not condescendingly.

“Good. Glad we got that out of the way.” I pick at my tights, imagining them on the floor of his bedroom. All of a sudden, I’m nervous. I’m not inexperienced, but he has surely done this many more times than I have. I want my performance to impress and astound. In that way, I suppose, it isn’t too different from what I did onstage at the symphony hall earlier today.

“You know, I haven’t heard you play in a while,” I say, stalling for time.

“You mean, since you eavesdropped on me?” He quirks an eyebrow in jest, and I try to look apologetic. “I’ll play if you will.”

“A duet?” If I play flawlessly tonight, perhaps it’ll cancel out my performance this afternoon.

“Why not?”

I follow him into the studio, where he sets up two music stands, takes out his own viola, and pages through a book. We find a Mozart piece that starts languidly. The first few minutes, I try not to watch him. As the concerto builds, I allow myself a peek. He’s sawing back and forth on his viola like he’s about to break it.

His gaze is full of an energy I’ve never seen before. It’s raw and rich and makes me feel alive, something I’ve desperately needed to feel lately. By the end of the concerto, we’re both breathing hard. I have more than canceled out my rehearsal.

“Another?” I ask, and he shakes his head no. He sets down his viola and grabs mine, too, and then he’s kissing me with more fierceness than ever before.

“Bedroom,” he says, and together we stumble out of the studio and down the hall.

His closet door is slightly ajar, exposing a few crisp collared shirts. Books are stacked on a neat black shelf, and a thick one on his night table has a bookmark stuck inside. I had fantasies of undoing his buttons one by one, but tonight his shirt has none, so I tug it easily over his head. His body is lean, not too muscled—skinnier than I thought he would be, but I don’t mind. I press my hands all over his chest, as though trying to convince myself he is real and this is happening. It is. Oh my God, it is.

Suddenly he pauses, clasps my hands in his. “You’re sure about this?”

And though I have wanted this for so long, I appreciate the question. “One hundred percent.”

He unzips my dress, the fabric slipping away from my skin. Dips his hand into the waistband of my tights. Groaning into his ear, I place my hand over his and guide one, two fingers inside so he can feel how desperate I am for him. I can’t keep standing like this for much longer.

“You said you imagined this before,” he says. “Is this what you pictured?”

“Pretty close,” I manage between breaths. “Is it what you pictured?”

“Almost.” He backs me up until I’m on his bed, on top of his navy sheets, and then he strips off my tights, cups my hips, and puts his head between my legs. I clutch at the sheets, at his hair. I am putty.

“Come back,” I whisper-whine, because I want him to see my face when he makes me fall apart. He laughs at my request, this deep and sexy sound octaves lower than his regular laugh. I drag him up to me, pulling off his pants and boxers, and at last take in all of him. All mine. He reaches into a bedside table drawer and tears open a foil packet, and then there is no going back—we will be two entirely different people to each other from this night on.

He has amplified my senses. I hear the symphony of his breathing, in-out, in-out inoutinoutinoutinout. I taste the salt on his skin, the sweetness from the wine on his tongue. I feel his hair between my fingers. I have never been with someone who cares that it is good for me, too. Someone who isn’t in a rush to send me away. He is more aggressive than the others, which makes me feel like he needs me more than I could have possibly imagined. All this is not happening because he pities me. There’s too much emotion, too much raw need. Still, I want to hear him say it.

“Tell me you want me,” I say next to his ear.

“I’ve always wanted you,” he says with a ragged breath, and maybe I really am made of glass, because I shatter.

Eighteen

Tovah

“THIS PLACE HASN’T CHANGED AT all,” Adina says as we get our skates. Size eight for me, six and a half for her. When we were younger, I teased her about her baby feet. She whined that I was being mean, but I think she secretly loved her dainty shoe size.

After much convincing that she could afford to take a break from her relentless practicing—which at home she does only with her door closed—she agreed to come to Great Skate with me as long as I wouldn’t mention Huntington’s disease. I can do that. Our fragile peace is a sheet of ice over a newly frozen pond. Easily breakable.

Adi sniffs the skate before putting it on her foot. “It smells like someone peed in this.”

“They spray them with antifungal . . . spray,” I offer, and she heaves a dramatic sigh.

“And did they have to cover the whole place in Christmas decorations?”