Blackout ✓

19 | just friends

I PAUSED IN FRONT OF the Jays' door before I knocked.

I had it on good authority—meaning Jake—that only Jamie was inside, probably a few feet away from where I waited. I heard his study playlist, low thumping bass and crooning vocals, and the clicking of his laptop keys emanating from within.

I tugged up the strap of my bra, made of black lace. It was one of the skimpiest things I owned—and that was saying something. The bottom piece, an arrangement of gauzy fabric, matched the top. Over the matching lingerie, I wore a sweater and sweatpants, intended to mislead, to surprise. A claw clip held my hair in place at the back of my head, almost like a bow on a gift.

Ready for unwrapping. Birthday cake, Sushmita had advised, every day of the week.

I knocked twice.

For a moment, I thought Jamie might not have heard me over the music. Several moments of anticipation buoyed between each thud of my heart. Then the song paused. I heard a chair squeaking on its axle and a turning door handle.

When Jamie saw who had visited, his eyes widened in recognition before narrowing. "Viv."

"Can I come in?"

Jamie flexed his jaw, considering my words. After a few seconds of my silent, plaintive expression, he stepped back and gestured his arm. I strolled into the bedroom and shut the door behind me. By the time I turned around, Jamie had retaken his seat.

He asked me, "What do you want?"

"You."

Jamie crossed his arms, the long-sleeved shirt he wore stretching over his biceps. His searching gaze pierced the heart of me.

"No, you don't," he concluded. "Not the way I want you."

"Maybe not," I shrugged helplessly, pleading for him to see things my way. "But I still want you, Jamie. Does it have to be your way?"

"The way you 'want' me," Jamie swivelled his chair around to face me fully, "makes me feel like a sentence on a page."

A blade of guilt struck my chest. That had never been my intention. It had been so long since I felt this way about anyone that I didn't even know how to talk about my feelings anymore. Eric, Bryson, Sung-seo, Johannes... my last several boyfriends had never been this complicated.

But they hadn't been this... special, either.

So what if it wasn't romance? Even without an expression of love, I let him share my bed, learn my secrets, and comfort me through my pain. My respect, trust and comfort were still precious things I could offer Jamie. Everything but my heart.

I sighed shakily and tried again. "I don't usually give boys a second night, but you got that and more. I tell you stuff I don't tell other people." 

I knew that to someone like Jamie, whose heart was hopeful and unscarred, that what I was saying sounded frigid. Pathetic. Not good enough.

I didn't have a rosy, unblemished outlook to offer him. But the scant trust I could put in another person, well— it meant a lot. Anxiety clawed at my throat.

"That counts for something, in my book."

"Yet that's not enough to make you give me a chance," he reiterated.

"I—" My eyebrows furrowed, and I glanced at him pleadingly.

When Jamie continued staring expectantly, I huffed in defeat. What I wanted to say eluded me; everything I said just dug the divide between us deeper. And the language we spoke to each other had never been verbal, anyway.