I play ignorant. “What needs to stop?”
He brushes my hair away from my forehead and smiles one of those sad smiles. It’s not you, it’s me. Such a fucking cliché.
I hope he doesn’t insult me by fucking saying it.
“I care about you,” he says. “I care about what happens to you. Fuck, Carrie, I was worried sick about you. But I can’t let this turn into anything it shouldn’t be.”
“Anything it shouldn’t be?” My tone comes our sharper than I mean it. “Who’s to say how this should and shouldn’t be?! Who makes up the rules?!” My eyes burn into his. “Did you make them up? What about what I think should and shouldn’t be?”
I stare right at him, all thoughts of scrubbing muddy boot prints drifting into nothing.
“I want you,” I tell him. “I want to be with you. When I’m with you, I feel like we fit. I feel like you could get me, even when I don’t get myself.” I pause. “And I feel like I could get you too.”
“We do fit,” he says. “And that’s a good thing. We can be friends, Carrie. I’d like to be your friend.”
I’d laugh if I wasn’t so fucking mortified.
Fucking friend-zoned by the hot older guy I’ve been getting myself off over for months.
It stings bad.
“Friends?! You want to be my fucking friend?!”
“Yes,” he says, and he’s got that serious edge to him again. “I’d very much like to be your friend, Carrie.”
“And that’s all, just friends? No matter what?” My eyes search his for a chink in his armour, but he looks so sure.
“Just friends,” he says. “And I’ll be your friend no matter what. I’m on your side, Carrie, always. You can count on me.”
I hear Jack’s footsteps in the hallway, and I’m too fucking proud for either of them to see me upset like a silly little cow, so I grit my teeth, shrug my shoulders and act like I don’t give a shit about Michael Warren anyway.
“Fine,” I tell him. “Just fucking friends it is then.”
I turn my back on him and scrub that carpet until I get blisters.
They don’t hurt nearly as much as my heart does.
Jack
I try to work out if they’ve fucked or not. Michael’s got stronger control over his fucking dick than I have if he hasn’t fucked the girl already.
Whatever heated exchange they’re having on my living room carpet dries up as I return. You could cut the atmosphere with a knife as Carrie scrubs the carpet like a lunatic.
Oh how quickly things change.
This morning I boarded a plane with the sole intention of putting an end to Michael’s Carrie Wells insanity for good. This evening I’ve invited the crazy girl to stay in my home, not for Michael’s sake, but for hers.
Hers and maybe mine.
I’m rarely excited by anything, but I’m excited by her.
When I was a kid, I loved going to watch daredevil stunts with my dad. I loved the guys on bikes doing flips in the air and the people getting shot out of cannons. I loved magic shows where the pretty assistant always got sawn in half in a box.
It always felt so exhilarating – the inevitable buzz of adrenalin that zipped up my spine at the thought that something could really go wrong. As though I was dancing with danger just by looking on from the sidelines.
That’s how Carrie Wells makes me feel – only I’m not on the sidelines with Carrie Wells, I’m right in the fucking arena.
Being around her feels like dancing with danger. It’s all in her eyes. In her wildness. In the way she gives no fucks for social norms and conventions.
It’s in the way I know she won’t be tamed, but I want to try anyway.
I don’t fucking know why, but I do.
I’m watching the clock until sensible Michael heads home for a sensible sleep before work tomorrow. I’m wondering how much work of my own I’ll get done knowing this exotic sprite of destruction is loose in my house tomorrow.
Michael hovers a long while before he leaves. He declines a beer as we finish up the cleaning. He declines a coffee too, stating – as predicted – that he needs a decent night’s sleep in order to give his meetings the best of himself tomorrow.
He’s always trying to give the best of himself.
If he hasn’t fucked Carrie Wells yet, that’ll be the reason why. His own inflated sense of decency.
I tell him I’ll see him soon when he finally heads off for the night. Carrie nods her head but says very little, even though he prompts her for a goodnight.
I can’t keep up with their exchanges. One minute they’re falling over themselves to take the blame for each other, the next they won’t even look each other in the eye.