Drown

10. Dilated

"What are we? To eachother, I mean."

Vince looks up from his cereal, mouth half full. His spoon clatters in the bowl.

"Uh," he says.

"Got it. Okay."

"Caroline, I didn't even say anything."

"You answered my question." I'm trying to keep my voice light, but I can't stop blinking and staring at his table instead of looking at him.

He pushes his chair back.

"Don't be silly," he says. He doesn't say: we're together, duh. He doesn't say: I like you. I like you all the time. He says, "I have to get to work. See ya."

He's in a strange rush today. He puts his hand on my cheek and then pulls on a shirt and his hat, and leaves me sitting alone in his kitchen.

"Vince, wait," I say. I'm about to tell him the real truth, the truth of it all: I want you I like you I want you you saved me. You saved me.

But he didn't hear me and the door closes and he's gone.

I clean his bowl in the sink, and my stomach clenches.

Don't get attached, I think.

Too late.

***

"You spend an awful lot of time with him, don't you," my grandma says. She's painting her nails a light, transparent looking pink color.

I swallow. "Yeah. I guess I do."

My mom is drinking coffee, looking out the window. It's still strange to me to see her out of bed, moving and breathing and acting like a normal person.

"Do you have feelings for him?" My grandma asks. She smiles like she already knows. My mom's head tilts to signal that she's listening.

"No. Yes. I don't know." But I do know. And I'm scared.

"Hmm," she says, without looking up.

"I don't think he has feelings for me," I say. Or maybe he did, when he kissed me that first time, but now they're gone. I wouldn't be that surprised.

My grandma looks up at this. "He would be a stupid fool to not like someone like you."

I smile at her because that's what I'm supposed to do. Someone like me? It's laughable.

This shaking, trembling girl. Someone like me. He would be a stupid fool to like me and Vince is anything but a stupid fool.

I laugh.

Someone like me.

***

"I just don't get what you want from me."

Vince squints at me, licks his lips in an annoyed way that he does.

"God, Caroline."

"I'm serious."

"I know," he says. "I just don't know why I have to want something from you. Why does there have to be some ulterior motive?"

Because there always is one, I think.

"Because," I say, out loud. Then, looking at my shoes, I say, "I just don't know what we're doing anymore. What are we to eachother?"

"This again?" he says. He scrubs a hand down his face. His face looks very tired, just as it has all the time lately.

I swallow. I wish he wouldn't make me feel like I was wrong for asking. He comes close, and reaches out for me. I let him bring me close. Then his nose brushes against mine, and his lips come closer. His breath smells like bubblegum, and something else.

I turn my head, so his lips brush against my ear. I hear him breath out, surprised.

"Oh," he says. "Oh."

"Yeah," I say.

I start to walk away. I feel him grab my arm, but real gentle.

"I'm sorry. Okay?"

"Okay," I say and let him kiss me, and I keep thinking about how he doesn't want to be with me, not really, not for real anyway.

And I keep thinking about how it doesn't matter, not really. Not when my dad is dead and I'm a mess, not then, not really.

Not really.

"You're mad," he observes.

"I'm not."

He sighs. I don't like the sound - exasperated, tired, long suffering.

And then I think: it does matter. It matters that he doesn't want me, not enough to count.

"Okay, yeah. I am," I say. "Consider me mad. Consider me confused about what we are. I'm mad that you kiss me, I'm mad that you touch me, I'm mad. And you can't just say sorry and kiss me and expect it to be okay."

He stares at me, silent with surprise.

"Oh," he says.

"Yeah," I say and he doesn't reach for me this time when I leave.

****

The next day at work, Vince finds me stacking the shelves with the new shipment of blue ink pens.

"I'm sorry, okay." I smell something on his breath, something I haven't smelt in a while: cigarettes.

"Have you been smoking?"

Vince fidgets with his shirt collar before answering. "No, of course not," he says, and I see his hand go to his pocket, an imprint of a pack right there for me to see. His fingers shake.

"What's going on with you?" I say. You're not Vince, I think but don't say.

He's looking around, skittishly, nervously. His hairline is matted with sweat. He worries his lower lip with his teeth. His breath is heavy.

"Vince?"

"Vincent?"

"Are you okay?"

He's looking at me but his eyes are unfocused. That's when I see that his pupils are dilated.

"Are you on drugs?" I say, shocked and scared all at once. "Vince?"

He stares at me, and his eyes finally focus on me for a second. What I see scares me: Vince, completely not himself. Vince, blank and empty.

"Caroline, is that you?" he says, very softly, before he collapses right there onto the floor.