Addicted to You (19 page)

“Hey, desperate times,” Finn said, laughing.
He sounded more like his usual self again.

Will
was
desperate, but he wouldn’t
resort to blackmail.

But what he
could
do was contact her
and ask to meet in order to return her purse. Then he’d explain
himself again—as many times as necessary—and ask her
forgiveness.

He made his way through the maze of canvases
into the kitchen to wash his hands. Then he returned to the living
room and dug into his backpack for Leah’s purse. Going through its
contents, even if it was just to find her contact information,
still felt like a violation of her privacy so he did it
quickly.

He found her ID tucked into a slim, red
wallet. Holding it up, he read her information. Her last name was
Carter, and she lived in one of the suburbs surrounding the city.
Armed with her full name, he opened up his laptop and looked her up
under the REU student directory to find her email address.

With a glance at Finn, who gave him an
expectant look over the edge of his canvas, Will opened up a blank
email. He paused, debating how to word the subject line so that she
wouldn’t see his name and immediately trash his email without
reading it. Writing an email had never been this
nerve-wracking.

“You should pretend you’re looking to get
some website stuff done,” Finn suggested, apparently seeing Will’s
dilemma.

“Stop suggesting I deceive her. That’s what
got me into this mess in the first place.”

“So you’re just going to hope for the best
then?”

Hope was all well and good, but it wouldn’t
get him what he wanted. He had never lived by hope. If he had, he’d
probably still be in Glasgow. If he wanted Leah to forgive him,
he’d have to take action and earn it.

At first, he typed into the subject line: ‘I
have your purse.’ But then he realized it sounded like the
beginning of a ransom note. So he settled for simply: ‘Please
read.’

Subject: Please read

Leah,

You left your purse at my apartment the
other night, and I’d like the chance to return it in person. When
you’re available, could we meet somewhere—

With Finn’s suggestion to use his resources
echoing in his ears, Will deleted ‘somewhere’ and instead
typed:

—at Vitale’s to talk? (Do you like Italian?)
There are things I’d like to say that I’d rather not put into an
email.

“Like ‘let’s not have sex’?” Finn asked.

He looked up to find his friend had left his
station at the easel and was now hovering over Will’s shoulder,
reading his email. Will elbowed him, and Finn laughed, backing off.
He ended the email with:

Please forgive me. Will.

He spent a good minute debating on whether
to send it. Chances were high Leah would still delete it anyway.
After another few seconds, he saved it as a draft and then closed
it. An email felt too impersonal. Leah’s ID also had her address on
it. It would be better to go see her in person.

A part of him knew that he ought to just
find out where she worked on campus, drop her purse off with her
boss, and reconcile himself with her anger and distrust.

But he sort of had the feeling that Leah
might not be completely against seeing him again.

Leah barely slept for the third night in a
row. She rolled out of bed, bleary and delirious and cursing the
blue-eyed boy for refusing to leave her thoughts alone. It was now
Sunday. She had expected him to contact her by now. What if he
hadn’t even noticed her purse yet? What if by the time he did
notice it, she might have convinced herself (again) that she didn’t
want to see him?

She was very good at convincing herself of
things.

Her anger over the whole situation had
shifted now to annoyance, although she had no idea if she was more
annoyed with herself or with Will. Will had joined the group under
shitty pretenses, all things considered, but she was pretty sure
that if his boss wanted to publish anything, the group members
would have to be contacted for permission, regardless of the fact
it was all anonymous. She couldn’t help but wonder how Will had
presented them in his research. Had he taken unbiased observations
or had he been secretly judging her from the start?

Now she understood why, before kissing her
at the theater, he’d asked if she meant it when she said she didn’t
have a sex addiction. Apparently, he’d been having a moral
dilemma.

His betrayal still stung (God, she hated the
word ‘betrayal’; it was so melodramatic). But if he had been
telling the truth, then he had already quit the project (although
it didn’t excuse his lying-by-omission). And even before
confessing, when she’d told him to stop, he’d been willing to call
it a night and give her time (respecting a girl’s wishes should
have been standard behavior, but it sadly wasn’t in Leah’s
experience).

This caring thing was exhausting. Now she
remembered why she’d stopped.

Helena, ever the early
riser,
looked up in surprise when Leah
stumbled into the kitchen at seven in the morning. With one eye on
her scrambled eggs still cooking on the stove, she gave Leah a
suspicious nose wrinkle.

"What on earth—" she began, only to pause
when Leah half-grunted, half-snarled in her direction. She
brandished her spatula. “Just imagine where I could insert
this.”

Ignoring her, Leah began rummaging through
the tiny pantry across from the refrigerator. The narrow space made
it so that she could never have both the pantry door and the fridge
open at the same time. She pulled a large mixing bowl out of a
cupboard and began filling it with items from the pantry. Flour,
sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, and a few other things before
carrying her items out to the dining room table.

Since she no longer had her journal, baking
was the next best way to distract herself. And brownies sounded
perfect right now. She returned to the kitchen for eggs, butter,
and her measuring cups. She paused to preheat the oven on her way
back into the dining room.

Helena observed her in silence. Then she
switched off the stove, slid her scrambled eggs onto a plate, and
joined Leah at the table. “So I take it you’ve seen it.”

Leah finished dumping sugar into the mixing
bowl before asking, “Seen what?”

“You know, the column.”

She gave Helena a baffled look. “What
column?” She looked around, half-expecting a giant beam to have
appeared overnight in their apartment.

“The
newspaper
column,” Helena said,
sounding exasperated.

“Oh. I knew that.” She dropped two sticks of
butter into the sugar and began mashing them together with a whisk.
Damn burglar had taken her stand mixer. “And no, I haven’t seen it.
What are you talking about?”

Helena took her time chewing a mouthful of
eggs and washing it down with milk. It was annoying that she knew
precisely how to time her delays—just long enough to annoy Leah but
not before she lost interest and no longer cared about the answer.
Leah rolled at her eyes at Helena’s baiting and finished mixing her
wet ingredients.

“There was an editorial in the University
newspaper on Friday,” Helena said. “Word’s out that there’s a
student attending a program for sex addicts.”

“Two
students,” Leah said as she went to get a second bowl for her
dry ingredients.

Helena lifted an eyebrow. “Hello? Don’t you
care that they might find out—” She stopped, shook her head, and
resumed poking at her eggs. “What am I saying? Of course you don’t
care. How did they find out anyway?”

Leah shrugged. She was never going back to
those meetings anyway, so if anyone asked, denial would be the name
of the game. “Maybe someone saw me leaving the church and got
curious. Or maybe someone overheard Will’s friend when he announced
my problem to the entire theater. What else did it say?”

“Just that they think it’s someone in the
arts.”

“Well, then it must have been at the
theater. No worries. I’m humanities.” She whisked together the dry
ingredients and then began gradually stirring them into the other
bowl. A white tuft of flour shot out in Helena’s direction.

Helena flapped her hand through the air,
grimacing. “You’re going to get flour in my breakfast.”

“At least it’s tasty flour,” she said,
stirring in earnest now to smooth out the batter. This was actually
kind of relaxing. Maybe she didn’t need a new stand mixer.

“Well, if you’re not upset about the column,
then what’s wrong with you?” Helena asked, confused. “You’ve been
downright morose for the last couple days.”

Leah frowned at that. “I
haven’t been
morose
. Where do you learn these words? I’m taking away your
dictionary.”

Helena rolled her eyes.
“For
you
, it’s
morose. And you’re making brownies.”

“What’s your point?” She returned to the
kitchen again to get the baking pan.

“Brownies are your comfort food. Now tell me
what’s going on.”

Resigned, Leah told her.

And passionately resented the huge grin on
Helena’s face when she was finished.

“So, let's get this
clear,” Helena said, smirking. “Despite the fact that you have done
nothing but self-sabotage yourself with every guy you’ve ever met,
he
still
seems to
want you.”

“I don’t self-sab—”

“And you, uncharacteristically, have
forgiven him for lying to you—keeping in mind the only thing he
lied about was being a sex addict, which frankly, I’d be relieved
about if I were you—

“He was researching—”

“It’s anonymous! Now what was I saying? Oh
yeah, you’ve forgiven him even though it took you six months to
forgive me that time I scratched your CD—”

“I haven’t forgiven him,” she said, but
Helena continued to ignore her protests.

“And then you ‘accidentally’ left your
contact details at his apartment when you stormed out in what I can
only imagine was the most dramatic hissy fit in the history of
everything. Am I right?”

Leah tried to glare her into the wall. She
had actually made those bunny-ear air quotes when she said
‘accidentally.’

“Are you suggesting that I subconsciously
left my purse at his apartment on purpose?” she asked, returning
her baking supplies to the pantry a bit more forcefully than
necessary.

“Well, you did, didn't you?”

“No!”

“How could you have made it all the way home
without realizing you didn’t have your purse?”

Leah sat down and opened her mouth—and then
shut it again. Damn it.

“Ha!” Helena cackled, waving her fork with
all the maniacal energy of an animated sea sponge. “Leah's in love!
Leah's in love! Oh my God, break out the bubbly and check the sky
for raining fire.”

“What are you, nine?”

Helena leaned across the table, beaming and
not the least intimidated by Leah’s ‘the Death Star was a minor
complication compared to my retribution’ glare. “Leah's so in love
that she can't sleep even though most mornings, I have to drag her
out of bed by her hair so that she won't be late for class."

At which point, for the second time in three
days, Leah stormed out.

Helena shouted after her. “Don’t forget
about your brownies!”

The address on Leah’s driver’s license
matched the mailbox that marked the entrance to a long gravel path.
Will followed the path up to a pair of dilapidated gates and a
mansion bigger than some of the University buildings. His brows
rose at the sight. Leah hadn’t been kidding when she said her
parents had come from money. Care of the place had clearly been
neglected for a while, but it was still grander than any home he
had ever been in.

He parked his car and then stepped out to
examine the lock on the gates. A rusty metal interface sat in the
brick wall alongside the left gate. Since there was only one button
beneath a broken monitor, Will pushed it and hoped it still
worked.

He was in luck because a moment later, the
speaker beneath the broken monitor crackled to life and a familiar
voice asked, “Who is it?”

Will smiled. “Hey Elijah. It’s Will. We met
at the party last weekend. Can I come in?”

“Will! Sure, one second.”

The speaker went silent, and a moment later,
the gates gave a low buzz before slowly swinging open. Will left
his car where it was, grabbed Leah’s purse and the gift bag sitting
in the passenger seat, and continued through on foot. He couldn’t
help gawking a bit as he walked up the drive to the front of the
mansion. Ivy had begun creeping up the columns that framed the
entryway.

The Carter Estate held a similar sort of
aged beauty to the buildings in Glasglow. For a moment, he felt a
pang of nostalgia.

The front door swung open, and Elijah leaned
out, his head tilted and a broad smile on his face. Like Leah, her
brother had hazel eyes, but his hair was dark where hers was light.
Even so, it was easy to tell they were siblings.

“What are you doing here?” Elijah asked,
throwing open the door to allow Will inside.

Matching Elijah’s cheerful greeting with a
smile, Will followed the boy into a circular foyer. An aging
chandelier hung from the high ceiling, and a curving staircase
hugged the wall along the right side. The marble tiles beneath his
feet were scuffed and dull, but he still felt a bit like when he’d
attended the party last weekend—like he’d stepped into some
alternate dimension where opulence was expected and people said
things like ‘Care for some wine?’ or ‘Where are the hors
d'oeuvres?’ And they could actually spell ‘hors d'oeuvres.’