Loathe to Love You (The STEMinist Novellas #1-3)(60)

“What is it, then?”

I swallow, trying to prod at the reason my stomach feels leaden, the reason I’ve been feeling sick with disappointment and fear ever since finding out the truth. And then it hits me. The one thing I have been actively trying not to verbalize hits me just as I say, “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

I close my eyes. Yes. That’s it. That’s why. “Because I ruined it.”

“Ruined it, how?”

Now that I can name it for what it is, the horrible feeling grows, acid and bitter in my throat. “He won’t be interested in me. He met me and thought that I was funny, that he had tons of things in common with me, that he really liked me, and then I . . . I acted like a totally irrational, absurd, deranged person and blocked his number and accused him of fucking corporate espionage and maybe he wants to set the record straight, maybe he hates the idea of me thinking that he’s a horrible person, but there’s no way he wants to pick up where we left off and—aaaargh.” I bury my face in my hands.

I fucked up. I just . . . I fucked up. And now I have to live with the knowledge of it. I have to go on in a world in which no man will ever compare to Erik Nowak. No man will ever make me laugh, and make my body sing, and make my soul absolutely indignant with his outrageous opinions on Galatasaray—all at once.

“Oh, honey.” Mara cocks her head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do. It’s likely.”

“That’s not the point.” Hannah leans closer to the screen till all I can see are her beautiful face and dark eyes. “Okay, so Erik now knows that you occasionally display an appalling lack of conflict-resolution initiative.”

I groan. “I really wish I had the emotional fortitude to hang up on you.”

“But you don’t. What I’m saying is, maybe Erik will decide that you’ll make for a terrible girlfriend who overreacts and is more trouble than you’re worth. Maybe he’ll decide that he wants to bitch about you on the relationship subreddit. But if you cut him out like you did three weeks ago, you’d just be making this decision for him.”

I blink, confused, suddenly remembering why I went into engineering. Logarithmic derivatives are so much easier than this relationship shit. “What do you mean?”

“Sadie, I know you like this guy a lot. I know that if he does decide that he doesn’t want you in his life it’s going to hurt, and that you’re tempted to preemptively pull back to protect yourself. But if you don’t at least give him a chance to choose you, you’ll lose him for sure.”

I nod slowly, trying to think past the hard knot in my throat. Letting the idea—go for it, just go for it, ask for what you want, be brave—slowly seep through me. Remembering Erik. Remembering the breeze hanging between us on a park bench, on a deserted sidewalk. The way my stomach fluttered at the feelings it carried. Of possibilities. Of maybe.

This is my new happy place, Erik murmured into the shell of my ear the second time we had sex that night. And then he pushed my sweaty hair away from my forehead, and I looked up at him and thought, His eyes are the exact color of the sky when the sun shines. And I always, always loved the sky.

“You’re right,” I say. “You’re so right. I should go to him.”

Hannah smiles. “Well, it’s actually what, one a.m. in New York? I was thinking more of a phone call tomorrow morning. Around ten.”

“Yes. I should go to him right now.”

“That’s the exact opposite of—”

“I gotta go. Love you.”

I hang up and bounce out of bed, looking for a jacket and my phone. I start ordering an Uber, except—shit. I know where Erik lives, but not his address. I run to the door, simultaneously looking for my keys and typing the closest landmark to his apartment that I can recall. How the hell do you spell—

“Sadie?”

I look up. Erik is standing in my open door. Erik, in all his tall, unsmiling, Corporate-Thorship splendor. Wearing the same clothes he had on when I left him plus a light jacket, his hand up in midair and clearly about to knock.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“No. Yes. No. I . . .” I take a step back. Another. Another. Erik stays right where he is, and my cheeks burn. Am I hallucinating him? Is he really here in Astoria? In my apartment? I hear a loud thunk, and my keys are on the linoleum floor. I need a nap. I need a seven-year nap.

“Here.” He bends down to pick up the keys, pauses for a second to study my soccer ball key chain, and holds them out to me. “Can I come in for five minutes? Just to talk. If you feel uncomfortable, the hallway’s okay, too—”

“No. No, I . . .” I clear my throat. “You can come in.”

A brief hesitation. Then a nod as he steps in and closes the door behind him. But he doesn’t move any farther inside, stopping in the entrance and simply saying, “Thank you.”

I was coming to you, I open my mouth to say. I was on my way to tell you many, many confusing things. But the surprise of seeing him here has frozen my bravery, and instead of flooding him with the impassioned speech I would have typed on my Notes app in the Uber, I just stare. Silent.

For fuck’s sake, what is wrong with me—

“Here,” he says, holding out a phone. His phone.