“Don’t tell me you’ve been lying to me all summer. That’s bullshit.” Finn’s the most genuine, honest person I’ve ever known.
“You know what he does? My father? He’s a researcher at Johns Hopkins. He’s the last person on earth you’d imagine being the dick he is. But he started hitting my mother when she was pregnant. Said she was letting herself go. She went to work with a black eye and told everyone she’d walked into a door. They believed her because how could it be anything else? John was a med student, volunteered at a clinic, and beat the shit out of his wife every month or so. He never touched me until after she left, and then it started. My grades would fall and I’d get the belt. My team would lose and I’d get a kick in the shins. I learned to study and learned to run, but there was always something, some way I wasn’t good enough. My mom, she knew. Sort of. She didn’t know how to ask what was happening and I didn’t know how to tell her, so we just continued on like it was normal. Which it kind of was by then.”
He picks up the handcuffs on the dresser and works the key. Open, close. Open, close. “He had a bunch of girlfriends, students mostly. He’d come home and tell me to get lost for a night or a weekend.
I’d go and stay with Jamal, sometimes my mom. One of the girls came over when I was fifteen. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. She came looking for my dad, but he was out. She said she was looking for a good time and what did I know about showing her one? I didn’t know a goddamn thing, but she took me to bed that day and every day for a week. She was my first and I thought I loved her because of it. When I told her, she laughed. Said I was very sweet, but sex isn’t love and John should have done a better job making sure I understood that. Funny thing is, I did understand, but I thought I was different.”
“But you’re not?” The thoughts spinning in my head make me dizzy.
“No.”
“How many women have you hit then?” I hold my breath and wrap my arms across my stomach.
Finn’s eyes are black. “What are you asking?”
“Just what I said. How many women have you hit? One? Three? More?”
Please let me be wrong. Please let me be wrong
.
His voice rises. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you think it’s a joke?”
My fingernails dig into my ribcage now, but I won’t back down. I need to know. “Do I look like I think it’s funny? You said you were just like him, Finn. So how many? Do you want to start with an easier one, like how many women you’ve fucked? Did any of them matter after you made that mistake with the first one?”
“No.” I never thought one word could be so cold.
“How many?” I try to keep my voice cool as well, but my heart is practically thumping outside my chest.
He shrugs, but it’s anything but casual. “Ten. Fifteen.”
I’m pretty sure I might throw up when I ask, “Which is it? I know you know.”
“Twelve.”
I hate knowing that.
The pain is sharp and hot as the number sears itself into my brain.
“How many of them did you hit?” My voice is steady, even though I want to hurt him, lash out. But I can’t hurt him any worse than he’s been hurting all these years.
He doesn’t answer right away. Instead he picks up the whip from the dresser. Which might be coincidence and might not. Either way, my mouth goes dry. Because I’m not so sure I’m not playing with fire.
“One.”
I’m ready this time for the hot and cold that wash over me when he says it. Although that doesn’t make it any better. “Why?”
“I thought that’s how it was done.”
“It’s not.”
“No shit.” He sort of spits the words at me. “But it proves it, doesn’t it?”
“It proves you were an asshole once, if that’s what you mean.”
“No. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. That’s what it proves.”
“You made a mistake, Finn. That’s like saying just because I’m not sick yet doesn’t mean I don’t have cancer.”
“It’s not the same fucking thing, Zosia,” he shouts.
And, finally, so do I. “You won’t have sex with me because you love me? But you’re afraid to love me because you think you’re just like him? Like the person you are with me isn’t real? Jesus, you’re the most real person I’ve ever met.” My voice cracks and I let it. “And that has nothing to do with Tokyo or me. It’s you. You are kind and smart and generous and funny and beautiful. That’s who you are and that’s real.”
“No, Zosia. Why can’t you see? It’s not.” Finn looks like he’s going to cry. “I’m not.”
He goes into the bathroom and slams the door. The water runs for a minute, and then he throws it back open. His face is red. His T-shirt’s on inside out. He still looks like he’s going to cry.
When he brushes by me and out of the room completely, I stay in the middle of the floor, unmoving until I no longer hear his footsteps in the stairwell outside the door. Then I sink back onto the heart-shaped bed and bury my face in my hands.
B
y the time I slip my shoes off and make my way to the couch in the dim light filtering in through the windows of the apartment, it’s after eleven. An hour in the hotel with Finn, an hour wandering around Shibuya, and another hour to get home and not a word from Finn. He hasn’t called or texted. I half-thought he’d be waiting for me outside the hotel or at the station, but there was no sign of him anywhere. I slide my phone from my back pocket before I lay down and glide my fingers over the smooth surface. Still nothing.
I still haven’t turned on any lights when I Skype Mindy, the laptop propped on my stomach. “Hey. What are you doing? I can’t see a damn thing.”
I shake my head, even though she can’t see me. “Not yet. I just want to talk.”
Her voice changes, goes on alert. “Oh God. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Finn and I had a fight. He walked out on me.” I haven’t cried. Not a single tear. I sat on that bed waiting for it, but nothing.
“About what?” Mindy’s got half her makeup done, so one eye looks dramatically wider than the other.
I don’t answer her. “Do you think people are predestined to be a certain way?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like if your mom has a bad temper, does that mean you’ll have one, too?” The example is a little closer to home than I intend, but Mindy gets it.
“Nature versus nurture, you mean? I think it depends.” She chews the end of an eyeliner pencil. “I mean, Liz is neurotic as hell, but I think that’s because of everything that happened. She wasn’t like that before.”
“But you’re not, even though the same thing happened to you.”
“I don’t think I have it in me. Not that I don’t care. It’s just different.” Mindy draws a line around her lower eyelid. “Is that what you two fought about?”
“More or less.” I shake my head. “My dad knows we’re in love.”
“Oh shit. Did you tell him?” She stops drawing. “And turn on the damn light so I can see you.”
I obey her this time and blink hard against the brightness. “No. He assumed.”
“Well, you’re not exactly subtle about it. I knew before you told me.” Which is true. She tried to get me to admit it, but I wouldn’t, not even to her. “So what are you going to do?”
“Do?”
Mindy rolls her eyes. “You had a fight. He walked out on you. What are you going to do?”
“He doesn’t think he’s good enough for me.”
“Is he?” One of the reasons I like Mindy is that she doesn’t always assume I’m right.
“He’s amazing.” The tears prick behind my eyes.
“You could text him and then back off?”
“He walked out on
me
, Min.”
“Because he doesn’t think he’s good enough for you. So you want to confirm that?”
“I’m not sure I could convince him if I shouted it from the top of Tokyo Tower.”
“Can you tell me why?” she asks. Another reason to love her. She understands confidences.
“No. I’m not even sure I know the whole story.”
“You’re not giving me a lot to work with here.”
“He thinks he’s bad. A bad person. Bad for me. You name it.”
“He’s not.” It’s a statement. Like she knows. And maybe she does. Finn and Mindy are alike in a lot of ways. What you see is definitely not what you get.
“No, he’s not.” My voice gets louder. “I mean, he’s no angel, but he’s not…I just…I wish he could see himself the way I see him.”
“So show him.” Mindy’s voice is gentle in comparison to mine.
“How?”
“I don’t know.” The eyeliner pencil goes back to her mouth. “Remember when I got in trouble for shoplifting? We were what? Fourteen? My parents sent us to my room while they talked to the police, and we looked at
Seventeen
like it was any other day. They called me down, and after I talked to them, I came back up and we went right back to ogling the guys in their ‘Hot Twenty Under Twenty.’ You didn’t ask how I was or what they said until way later. You just let me be. I think the only time I felt normal that whole year was when I was with you, your taste in boys aside.” Mindy smiles and I have to laugh. We disagreed on every single guy. That feels like a long time ago.
“My taste has clearly improved, but what does that have to do with Finn?”
“I decided that day you were going to be my best friend forever.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” I remember that day, too. I hadn’t known what to do. Much like now.
“Which is exactly what I needed. And when Todd Sullivan fucked me over you bought me
He’s Just Not That Into You
and forced me to read it. You know him, Zo. You’ll know what to do.”
She makes some gesture and either hangs up accidentally or the gods of cyberspace have decided I need to figure the rest out on my own. Regardless, we don’t call each other back, and I lay back on the couch with my phone on my chest in case Finn texts. My conversation with Mindy helped, even though it didn’t solve anything. Images float in my head, bits of conversation, moments. Finn. When I finally pick up my phone and tap out the letters, I erase the text five times before I press send.
I miss you
.
I’m not sure it’s the right thing to say, but I at least expect a reply. A phone call or a text in return. Instead I get nothing.
Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, I run a bath because I can’t sleep. To be fair, I’m usually not asleep yet on a normal night, but I want this day over and done. I leave my clothes in a pile in the living room and sink into the steaming bath. For how lame the shower is, the bath is awesome. Deep and hot, I can stretch out with just my head exposed. I dip my head under and close my eyes.
The water’s cooling when the knock sounds at the front door. At first I’m not sure, but then it sounds again. I stand up too fast and have to steady myself against the wall because being in the hot water so long has made me dizzy. But that’s not why I don’t grab a towel. Or a robe. Or the crisp white
yukata
I bought last weekend hanging on the hook. I tread across the floor, dripping water everywhere. Naked.
I have the sense to peer through the peephole to make sure it’s Finn. I open the door and he walks in the living room and his eyes are deep and dark. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognize the cliché in me standing naked in front of him, but I don’t move. He takes in every inch of me. And I mean every inch. Until he looks away and I walk back to the bathroom and get my
yukata
from the hook. I’m still wet so the thin cotton sticks to me, and I leave it hanging open.
When I go back out, Finn’s opened the big sliding glass door and stands on the balcony leaning on the railing. The breeze billows the edges of the
yukata
away from my ribs like wings, and it flutters against his arm as I lean next to him.
I stare at the apartment building across the alley. There are only a few lights on, but the people directly across haven’t shut their curtains, and I watch the woman bounce a crying baby, the husband patting her shoulder, kissing her hair. She paces and bounces, rubbing the baby’s back, while the husband stands by the counter. His mouth moves occasionally, and she flashes a smile or two in between the shushing.
Finn watches them, too, and we both see them turn toward us at the same time. The wind has caught my
yukata
, and it alternately covers me like a shroud and billows like a cape behind me. I try to grab for it but I miss.
Finn doesn’t. He catches one side between his fingers and holds it while he reaches for the other. He’s got fistfuls of white in his hands, and he closes the foot between us, wrapping the edges around me as his hands rest on the small of my back.
The Japanese couple is still watching us. She looks confused, like she can’t really figure out what’s happening. Because I imagine it’s clear, even through the window, across the alley and over the language barrier that I don’t know what to do.
My hands stay at my sides, and my voice sounds small when I speak. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I see him swallow. “You shouldn’t be.”
“I am.” I bring my hands up, balled against his chest. I feel his heart beating. Or maybe it’s mine. My pulse hammers in every single nerve ending of my body right now.
“I shouldn’t have walked out on you.”
“I shouldn’t have pushed.” I flatten out one of my palms.
“I don’t remember the last time I was that angry.”
Angry isn’t the word I’d use, but I ask, “Are you still?”
He doesn’t answer, saying, “I walked around and thought about what you said. About saying goodbye.”
The air whooshes out of my lungs. “And?”
His arms tighten against my ribs, his words fast. “I went there that day I saw him with Lexy. My father. I don’t know what I wanted, but it wasn’t what I got. I thought it meant something, that he gave me the ticket. For all I know, my mom bought it and said it was from him. She’s done shit like that before. Christmas presents. Birthdays. So I don’t feel bad. Or maybe so she doesn’t feel so bad that I’m stuck with him. Even if I never see him again, I’m stuck with him.”
The lights go off in the apartment across the alley, and we both turn toward the sudden dark. The father’s silhouette draws the curtains closed and I’m still looking at the white liner when I ask, “Do you think you will? See him again?”