Sext(27)

"Just go away, please." I force myself to speak loud enough to get  through the door. It takes effort. My voice is scratchy from sleep, my  throat thick with emotion.

"Clove, talk to me. What's going on? Did something else happen with the photo?"

"Go. Away. Zayne."

"Please, just tell me what's wrong, Clove. Whatever it is, we can talk about it, work through it."

Almost without thinking about it, I realize that I've turned on my  phone. Pulled up the app and scrolled to the message. I stare at the  images of the texts he's been sending, the dates stamped across them. I  glance back and forth from that damning evidence to the handsome,  desperate-looking man outside my door. Is he faking this? Is he this  good an actor?

My gaze lands on one message in particular. An exchange with a girl  whose username is MissMisMatched. Half of me wants to laughingly  appreciate the pun, especially given who she's talking to.

Zayne's message to her is the one that sticks in my head. The one that  stings. The one that makes me realize this isn't a joke or a fake.

Trouble sleeping? he asks her. That opens the conversation, which  quickly turns to flirty talk of what they're both doing up so late.  (Him: I work the graveyard shift some nights, so I'm always up late  looking for intriguing distractions). The words resonate, a little too  familiar.         

     



 

I open up my conversation with Zayne. Scroll up to the top, past all of  our sexts and flirty back-and-forths, and even the photo image I sent  him that started this whole mess.

I scroll all the way up to the top, and I stare at those two words, written in damning black-and-white on the screen.

Trouble sleeping?

It's how he first started talking to me. The opener he used after we  matched, when I was still trying to figure out how to respond to him.  And here he is, just a couple of days later, using that same opener on  another girl, after he told me he wanted to delete this app altogether.

"Goodbye, Zayne," I tell the door loudly.

He protests, calls after me to wait. But as I turn and trudge back to my  bedroom, I pause just long enough to turn the volume of my speakers up  all the way. Music blasts through my rooms, drowning out his knocks and  shouts. Eventually, even the distant faint ring of the doorbell fades  away, as I presume he finally gives up on me as a lost cause and heads  up to bed.

He'll get over it. He can find some other girl to string along. Someone  else to mess around, while he messes with a few dozen other girls' heads  at the same time. Me, I'm over it.

That's what I tell myself, anyway, as I crawl into bed and bury myself  in the covers. But I've already slept a lot today. I know I'm not going  to be able to get back to sleep, not for a long while. So I just pull  the comforters up around my head and stare at my ceiling, willing time  to pass faster. If it does, then maybe this bruise on my heart will heal  faster, too.





11





Right. I've moped long enough.

I wake up bright and early the next day and put on my war paint. I do my  makeup to the nines, professional as hell. I put on a pencil skirt, a  formal blouse, and even switch my belongings from my usual slouchy old  hobo purse to a structured, tailored bag that I bought a few months ago.  It looks like a briefcase, all professional lawyer-chic, but I'd been  too lazy to switch purses ever since I bought it.

Today, however, calls for the new purse. It calls for breaking out all the big guns, in fact.

Today, I've decided I'm going to get my job back.

I can't stand sitting around this apartment any longer. I need to pull  my life together and put it back on track, and that starts with a  polite, face-to-face, professional conversation with my boss. I fire off  an email to her just as I'm strapping on my heels-the demure,  mid-height ones that are perfect for business meetings, but not high or  sexy enough to be suggestive. The last thing I want today is to come  across as sexy in any manner. I want to be professional,  family-friendly, and the face of everything my company stands for.

After all, that's how I plan to convince them to let me come back.

I write the email in a deliberately straightforward way. I have to stop  by the office today, so I was hoping we could speak about the situation  and ways in which we may look to remedying it.

I don't ask her for a meeting, because if I ask, she could say no.  Instead, I'm going to just show up and not take no for an answer.

I'm not sure it will work. I'm not sure anything will, at this point. But I have to try.

Battle armor donned, I square my shoulders in the mirror and give myself  one good stern nod for good luck. Then I wrench open my door, and  nearly trip backwards over myself in surprise.

Zayne rolls into my apartment, his head drooping to one side, neatly  pressed uniform crumpled and wrinkled. As soon as his body touches the  ground, he startles awake, pushes himself back into a sitting position  and rubs sleep from his eyes. But there's no disguising what happened  here last night.

He clearly spent the night sleeping on my doorstep.

"Zayne … " I bite my lip, shaking my head. I don't know what to say to  him. Nothing seems right. I step over him and stride across the hall  toward the elevators. "Try not to drool on my welcome mat," I call over  my shoulder.

"Clove." His voice sounds almost as bad now as mine did last night.  Scratchy and thick with sleep. "Please, wait, I need to talk to you."

"Anything you have to say to me, you can say to my voicemail. I'll  delete it right along with all the creepy messages the other assholes  are leaving me, but still. You can get it off your chest there." I press  the elevator call button decisively.

"What happened?" He struggles to his feet and staggers across the hall  toward me. He catches my hand just as the elevator arrives at my floor.  He holds my wrist, not too tightly, gently enough that I could pull away  if I wanted to. But his skin against mine reminds me of things I don't  want to remember. Of all the ways he sets me on fire, ignites me in a  way that nobody else can. "Yesterday morning when I left, we were great.  Then I got back from work, and you refused to see me, just kept telling  me to leave. Clearly something happened, Clove, so please, tell me what  it is. We have something real here, a connection, don't we?" His eyes  bore into mine. I can't stand the sincerity in them. I can't stand the  way my heart screams at me to trust him when the proof of his  untrustworthiness is sitting just inches away in my phone, damning,  impossible to ignore.         

     



 

"You owe me this much," Zayne murmurs, his voice dropping low with feeling. "At least tell me what's going on."

I swallow hard. "I could ask you the same thing." I can't meet his eyes.  Not with all these thoughts racing through my head. I stare at the  floor between us instead. "Why do you have two dating profiles?"

Silence.

I look up, after it stretches on long enough, and find Zayne grimacing,  running his hand through his hair. "Well? Are you going to deny it?"

He meets my gaze, and I ignore the shock of pain in my gut. Hold his  eye, because dammit, he should at least need to look me in the eye while  he lies to my face. "No," he says. "I won't deny it."

The blow lands hard. At least he didn't lie, I think, distantly. But it doesn't help very much. The truth still hurts.

I pull my hand free from his. The elevator doors have long since closed  again, but when I stab at the button, they open once more, ready to  whisk me away from here. From him.

"Clove, please, wait."

I step into the elevator, but he steps in with me, pins me against the  back wall with his hands on both of my shoulders, gripping me tight,  desperation in his eyes. "I can explain," he says.

I laugh once, sharp and bitter. "Right. Like you've explained everything so far."

"I only made the new profile for you."

My eyebrows shoot up so high that it's a wonder they remain attached to  my face. "You think that's helping your case? You made a whole profile  to trick me? Great."

"No, that's not …  Not to trick you, Clove. To match with you."

"What the hell are you talking about."

He's digging in his pocket now, pulling out his phone. I reach past him  to press the ground floor button, but hesitate halfway there. The  elevator doors close, leaving us suspended in midair above my floor, but  I still, I don't hit the button. Part of me wants to know, too badly,  how this story pans out.

I hate that part of me.

"Clove, that night when I fought off your stalker …  It wasn't the first time I noticed you."

I scowl at him. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've been wanting to talk to you for years. Trying to find ways  to get closer to you. But you never noticed, never saw me standing  there. I thought a few months ago, when you joined this app, that maybe  this would be it. The way I could get through to you. Finally connect.  We matched, actually, three months ago. On my old profile."