“I don’t know what to tell you,” you say.
Inez just stands there, glaring back at you.
You shrug. “I can’t explain it. It’s just how I feel.”
Inez stands unmoving, studying your face for nearly a full minute. Then she says, “Then do you think I’m ugly then?”
Now she’s lost you. “What makes you say that?”
“You hop into bed with people the night you meet them but it’s been nearly a month now and we haven’t even kissed.”
You glance down at your shoes, scuffing one of them across the pavement. “Like I told you,” you say. “You’re different.”
“What if I don’t want to be different?” she asks.
You feel twenty different emotions flash through you all at once. Excitement. Fear. Desire. Guilt. And doubt. Where the hell is doubt coming from?
You fight them all down, stepping forward. You have to stand on tiptoe to reach, but you kiss her. You don’t reach out to her – your fists pushing even deeper into your jacket pockets – and it’s a slow, gentle kiss. But it’s hardly chaste. And both of you can feel it.
When you step back again, she’s smiling, but with one eyebrow lifted in amusement.
“It’s a start,” she says wryly.
“I –” Suddenly you feel like a little kid again. “My dorm room’s a single.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
Inez is soft, and warm, and tender. She purrs softly when she likes the way you’re touching her. And you hold one another afterwards, not speaking, watching the dancing shadows of the trees outside your window as the wind blows through them.
She soon dozes off. Relaxed, contented as you are, sleep doesn’t come. That feeling of doubt rises to the surface again. Finally, you give up, slipping out from under her arm and walking naked across the room to your desk where the rabbit’s foot and Inez’s – the missing Inez’s – note sit waiting for you. Your fingers reach up and find your house key still hanging there.
And finally you figure it out. You ask the question that your brain has spent the last three weeks avoiding.
Is this really what you want?
You have nothing more than Father’s word for it that you and Inez end up getting married. Not that you think he’s lying to you. And Inez is an incredible person – there’s no doubt about that. But you can’t help wondering: are you falling for her because you’re really falling for her? Or is it just that you feel you’re supposed to?
But even as you allow yourself to ask the question, you know that it will be impossible to untangle your feelings enough to figure out the answer.
* * *
Inez is gone when you finally wake up the next day. Your heart sinks at first, but then you remember that she has a morning class on Thursdays.
You shower and dress and find your way down to the cafeteria. Jim’s there, sitting at a table by himself. You grab a coffee and join him.
“I’m sorry about how Kathy was acting last night,” he says without greeting you.
You grunt in reply. “Where is she?”
“Still asleep,” he answers. Then he adds: “Sleeping it off.”
“She really put on a show, didn’t she?”
Jim’s mouth tightens into a knot. “She’s getting worse.”
“Oh, you know how she gets sometimes.”
“Yes, I do,” he agrees. “But you don’t. Not really.”
“It’s that bad?” you ask.
Jim doesn’t answer.
“I’m sorry,” is all you can think of to say.
“I’m thinking of breaking up with her,” Jim says.
No no no, you think. That’s all wrong. They don’t break up until halfway through senior year. And your memories of your college days never included having this conversation with Jim.
I’m changing things, you think, trying to fight down the panic. I must be doing something wrong.
“I don’t think it’s come to that, has it?” you ask him.
Jim sighs, staring away from you and out across the room. “I really don’t know.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help you patch things up…” you begin, but you can’t imagine what on earth that might be.
* * *
Inez isn’t waiting when you come out of your last class.
She isn’t waiting for you in your dorm lobby.
When she hasn’t texted you about having dinner together, you start to get worried. When she doesn’t respond to any of your texts, you know something is wrong.
Finally, a little before 8, she texts and asks you to meet her in the coffee shop at the student union. You text “Why?” and then “Is something going on?” but she doesn’t respond to either.
You rush right over, getting there before she does. The table where the two of you had your first conversation is already taken, so. you sit at the table next to it.
When Inez appears, she’s wrapped up in a quilted coat about two sizes too big for her. She doesn’t stop by the counter for coffee, coming right over to sit across from you.
“You’re scaring me” you say without greeting.
She huddles deeper into her coat, looking you steadily in the eye. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Usually a good thing,” you say, but it comes out sounding sour rather than witty.
“I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
For several seconds all you can do is gape.
You laugh. “The sex couldn’t have been that bad.”
She purses her lips. “Not bad. Not bad at all. Except that you weren’t really there.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It wasn’t intimate,” Inez tells you. “You were enjoying yourself, but it was just physical to you. No emotion involved at all.”
“I –” you begin. Then you start again: “We –” Finally you manage, “It’s not true.”
Her only answer is a hard look.
“I don’t get a second chance?” you ask her.
“It wasn’t just the sex,” Inez says. “That just confirmed what I already suspected. I still don’t know what exactly you’re up to, but you’re not being honest with me. You’re holding something back. And last night you were just going through the motions.”
“I wasn’t.”
She frowns and gives a slow nod, her eyes drilling into you appraisingly.
“I’m telling you, Inez, we’re meant to be together.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“If you just give it one more chance –”
“Damn it,” she says. “This isn’t a love story. This isn’t a romcom. This is my life, and I get to decide what’s meant for me and what isn’t.” She stands up and then leans across the table, towering over you. “Keep pushing this and you’re going to cross the line from jilted lover to creepy stalker.”
And she turns and walks away, leaving you stunned. Lost. Confused.
But, you have to admit, not heartbroken.
You can:
use the house key to go back to the day you and Inez first met.
pull out Inez’s note to try your hand at solving the puzzle.