Stuck with You (The STEMinist Novellas, #2)(9)

I frown. “I might be able to reach the exit by myself. In which case you technically don’t have to let me.”

“If that happens, I’m going to physically prevent you from doing it.”

I hate him. So much. “Listen, what if we’re stuck in here for days? What if me climbing out is our only chance?”

“There is nothing to suggest that the elevator won’t start up again the second the power outage is resolved. We’ve been in here for about thirty minutes, which is nothing, considering that the repair crew is probably working on the grid to fix a block-wide outage. Not to mention how incredibly dangerous what you are proposing would be.”

He’s right. I’m being impatient and irrational. Which flusters me. “I—only for me.”

His face turns into stone. “Only for you?”

“You’d be safe in here. You’d just need to wait for me to call help, and—”

“You think I would be okay with you putting yourself in danger?” At baseline, Erik is not exactly a warm, convivial guy, but I had no idea he could sound like this. Deceptively calm, but furiously, icily livid. He leans forward as if to better glare at me, and his hand reaches up to close around the handrail, knuckles stretched white. I have a brief vision of him snapping it in two.

His anger, of course, gives me anger FOMO and makes me just as angry. So I lean forward, too. “I don’t see why not.”

“Really, Sadie? You don’t? You don’t fucking see why I wouldn’t be okay letting you, out of all people—” He looks away abruptly, jaw tense, a muscle ticking in his cheek. His hair, I notice, is shorter than when I touched it. And I think he might have lost a bit of weight. And I cannot, I truly cannot bear how handsome he is. “Would you really rather do something that idiotic and reckless than be in here with me for a few more minutes?” he asks, turning back to me, voice icy and calm again.

Of course not, I almost blurt out. I’m not some horror movie not-quite-final girl who follows the DEATH THIS WAY sign only to be flabbergasted when an ax murderer chops off her leg. I’m usually a responsible, levelheaded person—usually being the key word, because right now I’m kind of tempted to run into the loving, ax-wielding bosom of a serial killer. Rationally I know that Erik is right: we won’t be stuck in here for long, and someone is bound to come get us. But then I remember how betrayed and disappointed I felt in the days after he did what he did. I remember crying on the phone with Mara. Crying on the phone with Hannah. Crying on the phone with Mara and Hannah.

Being here with him seems just as reckless as anything else, honestly. Which is how I find myself shrugging and saying, “Kind of, yeah.”

I expect Erik to get angry again. To tell me that I’m being foolish. To make one of those dry jokes of his that made me laugh every time. Instead he takes me by surprise: He looks away guiltily. Then he presses his index and forefinger in his eyes, like he’s suddenly, overwhelmingly exhausted, and murmurs quietly, “Fuck, Sadie. I’m sorry.”





Chapter 6


Three weeks ago


I have a grand total of zero superstitious rituals centered around dating.

And I promise I’m not saying this to brag. There is a simple reason I haven’t convinced myself that I need to chug down a Capri Sun or do seven jumping jacks before going out with someone, which is: I do not date. Ever. I used to, of course. Once upon a time. With Oscar, the Love of My Life.

Like Hannah often points out, it’s a little misleading for me to refer to the guy who met another woman at a data science corporate bonding retreat and two weeks later called me in tears to tell me that he was falling for her as the “Love of My Life.” And I swear, I do get the irony. But Oscar and I go way back. He gave me my first kiss (with tongue) when we were sophomores in high school. He was my date to the senior prom, the first nonfamily person I went on vacation with, the one whose shoulder I bawled on when he got accepted to his dream school in the Midwest, exactly seven states away from me.

We actually made it work pretty well during four years of long distance for college. And we did get to spend summers together, except when I was on internships, which was . . . well, yes, every summer but junior year, and I had that coding boot camp at UCSB then, so . . . yup, every summer. So maybe there were no summers together, but I did end up with a killer CV, and that was nice. Better, even.

When we graduated college, Oscar was offered a job in Portland, and I was going to follow him and find something there, but I got into Caltech’s Ph.D. program, which was too good an opportunity to pass up. I really thought we could do five more years of long distance, because Oscar was a great guy and so, so patient and understanding—till the beginning of my third year. Till the day he FaceTimed me, crying because he’d met someone else and had no choice but to break up with me.

I wept. I stalked his new girlfriend on Instagram. I ate my weight in Talenti gelato (salted caramel truffle, black raspberry vanilla parfait, and, on a particularly shameful night, mango sherbet melted into a pot of Midori sour; I am filled with regrets). I cut my hair short, to what my hairdresser dubbed the longest bob in the history of bobs. I couldn’t bear to be alone, so I slept in Mara’s bed for a week, because Hannah tosses around way too much and I’m pretty sure she changed the sheets twice in the five years we lived together. For about ten days I was utterly, soul-smashingly heartbroken. And then . . .