The Rockmore House

15 | Find Me Again

At a table in the sunroom at Eric's house, we worked on the remaining parts of our biology projects. Eric was trying to create a model of rough endoplasmic reticulum with ribbon and glue, and I was on my laptop writing about its functions within the cell. Daylight savings time had ended that day, the clocks were set back an hour and the cloudy sky was darkening earlier than usual. The sunroom was chilly, but Eric wanted to work there instead of at the kitchen table so we wouldn't be bothered by his family.

"I didn't take AP Bio to do craft projects," Eric grumbled as he struggled. "If Mrs. Birch wanted to assign stuff like this she should've been an art teacher."

"Look at it this way; it gives you a chance to practice your hand skills," I said while I typed. "If you're going to be a surgeon, you need hand skills. You should probably do more crafts actually. Perhaps you should take up knitting. Or crochet. Or embroidery."

"Vanessa," Eric interrupted. The seriousness in his voice startled me and when I peered over the laptop screen, his eyes met mine and I felt even colder.

"Or cross-stitch," I continued, looking back down at the screen. "Or mosaics."

"I have a question."

"No."

"You don't even know the question yet."

"No questions. Unless they have to do with crafts or cell bio."

But of course he ignored my stipulations and asked anyway. "Were you actually seeing someone last summer? Or was that a front for your other activities?"

"Um, I was, actually. Seeing someone."

"Okay, because Sophie said she never met him, and that the things you told her about him, like where he worked, turned out to not be true. So what was the deal with that? Why all the secrecy?"

"I explained all that to Sophie like a month ago, so don't worry about it. We're good." I waved my hand dismissively.

"What exactly did you tell her?"

"You know what? I don't have to explain it to you." I closed my laptop and slid it into my bag on the chair next to me. I did not sign up for this conversation and I was going home. "I think you've got the project from here."

Eric hooked his foot around the leg of the chair holding my bag and dragged it out of my reach. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. "So it's over with this sketchy guy you had to lie about all summer?"

"It's over. Like, forever." My lip started trembling, so I bit down on it. I stood and reached for my bag, but Eric hoisted his leg up and rested his foot on top of it. So he was going to hold me hostage? Cool.

"Because he went back to school, like you said? Or because the pool closed?" He was focused on peeling dried glue from his fingertips. When I didn't answer, he asked, "Is that why you went to...where you did? All those times?"

I responded with a firm,"No," but as I said it I covered my face with my hands and that was all the answer he needed.

"Whoa Ness, that's-"

"Messed up. I know." My words were muffled by my cupped hands. "Drop it, okay? Please don't say a word."

"I was only gonna say that's kinda sad."

"Yes, it was sad. And now I'm sad, like, all the time," I said in a weird, strained voice that didn't sound like my own.

"I mean, it's kinda sad you felt like you needed to go through all that trouble for some guy. I'm sure there's at least a couple around, like, this century, that would go out with you."