The Way I Am Now (The Way I Used to Be)

The drive to the all-night diner is unbearable. Steve sits all the way on the opposite side of the back seat, staring through the window. Mara and Cameron keep glancing back at us uncomfortably.

“God, I’m starving,” Mara says, trying to break the awkwardness. “I hope it’s not packed.”

No one responds.

Cameron and Mara exchange a look, and then Cameron adds, “Dude, that second set was sick, wasn’t it?”

Nothing.

We pass through two traffic lights, and he’s still pouting, fuming, acting like I did something wrong.Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Will you say something?” I finally ask.

Steve turns to me now, looking at me for the first time. “You can’t just disappear like that.”

But I am, I think. I’m disappearing all the time. I’m disappearing right now. That’s all I ever do when I’m with you. But what I say is: “I didn’t disappear. I had to get out of there, and I told you that.”

He shakes his head like I’m not making sense.

“What?” I demand.

His eyes flick up to the front seat, and then he turns toward me, inching closer. “Did you plan to meet up with him tonight?”

“You’re actually asking me that?” I say, more than loud enough for them to hear too.

“Well, you can’t blame me if that all felt just a little familiar,” he says, still talking low, as if he doesn’t want to embarrass me in front of our friends.

It takes me a second to rewind all my sins of the past couple of years until I land on the memory he must be referencing. “Oh, so you wanna go there? Okay, let’s.”

That night is fuzzy, but I remember the highlights: We were at a dorm party, me, Mara, Cameron, and Steve. Mara had been pressuring me to give Steve a chance. But his sweetness as he talked to me in the crowded hall grew increasingly offensive the more I drank. Like he still thought I was the innocent little band geek he was friends with freshman year. And so I sent him off to get me another drink and hooked up with the first guy who looked at me. Until my brother showed up for some reason—those details are lost—and we had a screaming match in front of everyone. I was exceedingly drunk and terribly mean to everyone, I am told. When I relayed the story to my therapist, she said this sounded like my rock bottom. I can only hope that’s true.

“Edy?” Mara says from the front seat. “I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that. Right, Steve?”

I ignore her because he definitely meant it like that. “You do realize we weren’t even together when that happened, right?”

“Fine, never mind.” He grabs my hand. I snatch it away. “Forget I said anything.”

“Tonight, which is what we’re actually talking about,” I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking. “Josh saw me running out, and he came after me to see if I was okay.”

“You told me not to come,” he argues. “You said you were okay!”

“Obviously I wasn’t okay.” How does Josh know I’m not okay, but Steve—the one I see all the time, the one I’m supposedly in a relationship with—doesn’t? “You know that I’m having these anxiety attacks, which make me feel like I’m actually fucking dying, by the way, and that I wasn’t going to be able to make it through that fucking concert. And you pressured me to go anyway, and now you—”

He starts laughing but not in a ha-ha-funny way; in an angry, I-have-the-moral-high-ground way that makes me want to open the door and jump out of the moving vehicle just to not be sitting next to him anymore.

“What’s so funny?”

“You still didn’t answer the question.”

“And I’m not going to!”

“Guys!” Mara shouts. “I’m trying to drive, and you’re giving me middle-school flashbacks of my parents’ pre-divorce fighting.”

“Yeah, can you take it a little easy there?” Cameron says, and I’m about to argue with him until I realize he’s talking to Steve— for once not blaming everything on me.

The car is silent until we tumble into the parking lot over the potholes that threaten to tear Mara’s old brown Buick apart. She pulls into a free spot and slams the car into park, then turns around and says, “We’re going in and getting a table. You two can stay out here and fight or fuck or whatever you need to do. Either way, I’m going to order a banana split. Lock the car up when you’re done.” She tosses the keys onto the back seat, and they go in, leaving us here.

“So, I guess we’re fighting,” Steve says as if he didn’t start it.

“Well, we’re not doing the other thing.”

“Right.” He scoffs. “Why am I not surprised?”

“What does that mean?”

“You know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Come on, it’s not like I’m some frat bro all hard up for sex, but—” He stops midsentence.

“So, wait, I’m confused. Is the problem that I’m too slutty or not slutty enough for you?”

“Never mind, you’re just twisting what I’m saying.”

“No, I just want to make sure I get it right, Stephen,” I add, using his full name like I used to when we were just friends. “Is this because I didn’t want to give you a blowjob the other day?”

“God, do you have to say it like that?” he whisper-shouts.

“Because you know you asked me at the worst possible time, right? When I was trying to have a serious conversation with you about coming back to school.”

“I know, and I said I was sorry. But it’s not just that.” He rolls his eyes at me and sighs. “Why do I feel like you were more interested in me before we were together?”

I bite my lip, try to keep myself from smiling or laughing, or worse. Because I could hurt him if I wanted to. I could tell him the truth, which is that I was never all that interested in him. But I’m trying to be good. Trying to be happy in my relationship with the age-appropriate boy who my best friend pushed onto me because she thinks he’s the nicest guy we know. The truth is, he was just there. And I was just there too, trying so hard to be normal, thinking maybe he was the way.

“Before we were together,” I begin, still deciding how honest I can afford to be, “I was interested in fucking anyone with a pulse, so . . .”

“Nice.” He gets out of the car, leans in, looks at me, and says, “That’s great, thank you very much.” Then slams the door in my face. Too honest. I grab Mara’s keys and follow him to the edge of the parking lot, where he’s standing with his back to me.

“Steve!” I yell, marching over to him. “Look, I meant that as, like, do you really want me to be acting the way I was before we were together?”

He swings around so fast that I have to fight the urge to shield myself. “Did you have sex with him?” he blurts out.

“Are you serious? We were only talking!”

“Not tonight,” he snaps. “I mean, have you had sex with him?”

“Why?”

“Because he was looking at you like . . .” He clenches his fists as he turns to one side and then the other, like he’s searching for words he’s dropped on the pavement.

“Like what?”

His face twists in disgust as he starts again. “Like he . . .” And I decide I don’t want to know what he was looking at me like, anyway, because it’s pointless to know something like that.

“Like he was concerned?” I finish.

“And I wasn’t concerned? I was texting you all night, Edy!” he shouts.

“All right, I’m sorry, I know. Please, Steve, I don’t want to be fighting.”

“I don’t either.” There’s a silence, and when he starts talking again, he’s quieter. “It’s just—he was holding your hand.”

“He was helping me down from the table. And we were just talking. We’re friends. That’s what friends do.”

He shakes his head as if the things I’m saying don’t even matter and cuts his eyes to me like he thinks he’s catching me in a lie. At this rate, maybe I should’ve just kissed Josh like I really wanted to—significant others be damned.

“But you used to be together, right?” he asks.

“He’s my friend,” I repeat, more firmly.

He looks down at his hands, then back up at me, squinting.

“He’s my friend now. And he’s helped me a lot, and he’s really kind, and you were a total jackass to him.”

“I know I was!” he shouts. “But he was being a jackass too.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

He scoffs and shakes his head. “You just didn’t see it,” he says, dismissing me.

I hate when he gets mad—it’s dizzying and scary and makes me want to be small and back down. It makes me feel weak, which scares me more than anything else. “You know I didn’t plan to run into him there, don’t you?” I finally say, giving up the last shred of self-respect I was clinging to.

“I know,” he admits.

“Then why are you being like this?”

He turns his head and looks at me like I’m an idiot. “You know, I do realize that you’re a ten and I’m like, what, a three,” he says, softer now, more like his usual self. “On a good day.”

“What?” I laugh. “I’m not a—”

“And that fucking guy. Miller,” he mutters, knowing his name after all. “I mean, Jesus, could he be any taller?”

“Wait, so you’re really just . . . jealous?”

He shrugs and nods, his cheeks darkening, embarrassed now.

“And that’s why you’re being mean and insulting me?”

“I’m sorry.” He extends one arm toward me and taps the fingers of my right hand with his left. “I really am. It’s just that, I don’t know, ever since we’ve been together, I feel really insecure. Like you’re gonna realize you’re way out of my league and—”

“That’s not even—” I try to interrupt, but he interrupts me right back.

“No, I’m serious. I feel like it’s only a matter of time before I’m gonna lose you to someone just like him.”

I reach for his hand now, and he pulls me into a hug.

“You don’t need to be worried about that,” I tell him. Because it wouldn’t be someone like Josh—there’s no one like Josh—it would be Josh.

He tilts my chin up as he looks at me, and I can’t tell what he’s really thinking, but he leans down and presses his lips against mine. He wraps his arms around me again and says “I’m sorry” one more time.

I should tell him it’s okay. Not because it is, but more in the spirit of making up. I can’t force myself to do it, though, not when I can close my eyes and still feel Josh’s arms around me.

“Will you stay over tonight?” he mumbles into my hair before pulling away to look at me. “My dad’s at his girlfriend’s house. You could tell your mom you’re sleeping at Mara’s.”

All I want to do is go home, flop onto the couch, and fall asleep with the TV on. But before I can even think of a response or an excuse, he continues.

“It’s just—I feel like we haven’t had any alone time lately. We’re always with Mara and Cam. You know I love them, but I miss just us.”

“I’ll text Vanessa—I mean my mom,” I correct myself. Trying to get back into the habit. My therapist says it will be good for me to start calling my parents Mom and Dad, that eventually I’ll start feeling like we’re family again.

We walk in and I spot Mara and Cameron in a booth near the kitchen. I send Steve over and signal to Mara that I’m going to go to the bathroom. When I get inside, I lean against the sink and wait for her. “A little tense out there,” Mara says.

“Just a little,” I agree. “Honestly, did I do anything that wrong?”

“No—I mean, no, but . . . ,” Mara hesitates, hoisting her bag up on the counter. “It was kinda scary when you weren’t texting back, but Steve was definitely being a little agro jerk. Which is bizarre, because he’s like the king of calm.”

“Not always,” I mutter. Didn’t she remember that day in the hall four months ago when he told me off in front of everyone in our study hall? He called me a bitch, which was fair enough, but then he also called me a slut, and no matter how many times he’s apologized for both, I don’t think I’ve quite forgiven him for that one. “I can’t believe he brought up that stupid party.”

Mara’s lips twist, and she sucks in a breath, hissing. “Yeah, that was a pretty low blow. I guess even big, sweet teddy bears like Steve can be assholes sometimes.”

“Teddy bears are still bears,” I say, but she doesn’t seem to give my statement much thought as she leans forward to wipe the mascara smudges from under her eyes. I’ll have to remember that one for my therapist; she’s great about making me feel smart and insightful.

Mara meets my eyes in the mirror. “So, Joshua Miller,” she says—a question, a statement, a command, an exclamation.

“So.” I inhale deeply, suddenly unable to catch my breath. “Him. Yeah.”

“Joshhhh.” She draws out the word, torturing me, and then she smiles in this mischievous way. “Apparently he just keeps getting more and more attractive, huh?”

“Oh, really?” I ask her, though I can’t seem to wipe the smirk off my face. “Jesus, don’t tell Steve that. Speaking of, I thought you were Team Steve all the way.”

“I am, but . . . damn.” She fans herself with her hand like one of those Southern belles in black-and-white movies. “Who knew he could rock the scruffy look?”

I shake my head, ignoring her eternal fake lusting after Josh, and examine myself in the mirror, thankful I’d at least taken a shower today. “It was weird seeing him.”

“Makes sense,” she mumbles as she presses her ruby lipstick to her upper lip. “It’s been a while since you saw him.” And then her bottom lip. “A lot’s happened.”

“No, but that’s the thing. It was weird that it wasn’t weird. Like, after the initial awkwardness, we just kind of picked up where we left off and . . .” I stop myself before I say something too true. Like how I’ve been on pause these past months while my life has just been moving on without me, and tonight, with him, it was like being unpaused, feeling what it’s like to be alive again, even if only for a little while.

Mara turns around to face me now. “And what?”

I unscrew the top of her tiny expensive pot of lip gloss and dip my ring finger in, dab it against my lips instead of answering, admitting that I’ve been thinking about him way too much ever since I started seeing Steve, comparing everything he does—and doesn’t do—to Josh.

“You wanna go there again, don’t you? And by there, I mean the whole Josh . . . thing.”

“The whole Josh thing?” I ask, almost laughing. “What’s that?”

“You know, the whole steamy-secret-Joshua-Miller-yumminess-passion thing?” she adds, with an exaggerated shiver through her whole body.

“Okay, one: you’re ridiculous. And two: even if I did, it doesn’t matter.” I shrug and toss her lip gloss back into her purse. “Josh has a girlfriend.”

Mara laughs with her head thrown back and then says, “And Steve has a girlfriend, too, don’t forget!”

A waitress comes into the bathroom, probably checking to make sure we’re not doing lines in here or something. “Shut up,” I mutter under my breath. “Obviously, that too.”

As we move toward the door, Mara stops short and turns around to face me again. “I’m Team Edy, by the way,” she says. And she looks at me more seriously than she has in a while—she’s avoided too much seriousness with me ever since I told her what happened. I think she’s trying to keep my spirits up, but sometimes I miss this look.

She gives my hand a little shake. “You know that, right?”