The Girl He Used to Know(8)

“Ready?” I ask when nothing but melting ice remains in our cups. She stands in response and as we walk, she mentions how much she loves her apartment’s proximity to the park and museums, and points out her favorite places to grab takeout or go shopping. Her neighborhood provides everything she could ever want, and Annika the urban dweller makes perfect sense now. She lives in a bubble where nothing takes her out of her comfort zone, and everything is within her reach.

I should have realized it immediately: Annika is doing fine. There’s no one here to save.

As we approach her apartment building, her bouncing stride and nervous chatter ramps up as her anxiety reaches a fever pitch. Has she been waiting for me to say something and now that we’re almost home, she’s afraid a confrontation is imminent?

I grab her hand because I don’t know how else to still her, and the memory that slams into me stops me in my tracks. We’re not on S. Wabash anymore but rather the doorway of her college apartment building. Her palm is small and soft in mine, and it feels exactly the way it did when I held it for the first time.

“We don’t have to talk about it.” She stops moving and the look of sheer relief on her face tells me I was right. There won’t be any explanations today, but I’m not sure I have the fortitude to keep peeling back Annika’s layers in order to obtain them. “I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

She takes a deep breath. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” I glance toward the entrance of her building. “Well, I should get going. It was great seeing you again. Thanks for the coffee. Take care, Annika.”

Though she has trouble deciphering other people’s facial expressions, her face is an open book and no one would ever have trouble understanding hers. I’ve always wondered if she exaggerates them to help people understand what she’s thinking, the way she wishes they would for her. I find it endearing. When she comprehends that one coffee date is the extent of our reunion, she looks crushed. Though it isn’t intentional and it’s certainly not retaliatory, I have the fleeting thought that this is the first time I’ve ever done anything to hurt her.

And it feels awful.

But maybe my failed marriage isn’t far enough behind me. That’s the thing no one tells you about divorce. No matter how much you and your spouse agree that the relationship is broken, it hurts like hell when you go your separate ways, and the pain follows you around until one day, it doesn’t. It’s only recently that I’ve noticed its absence, and I have no desire to gamble on replacing it with more heartbreak.

I don’t want to leave.

I want to pull Annika close, twist my fingers in her hair and kiss her the way I used to.

Instead I walk away from her feeling more than a little lonely and very, very tired.





6


Annika


THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

1991



One week after I beat Jonathan at chess, Eric sat down across from me a few minutes before Sunday night’s club meeting began, thus restoring order to the chaos he’d inflicted upon my world.

“Tell me this is the year you’re going to agree to compete,” Eric said.

“You know it’s not.”

“You could if you wanted to.”

“I don’t want to. I don’t like being away from home.”

“You’d only have to travel a couple times. Three if we make it to the Pan-Am. There’s going to be a practice meet in St. Louis in October. You could go to that one. Feel it out. Drive home afterward.”

“I don’t drive.”

“You could ride with someone.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Eric nodded. “Good. I bet you’d like it.”

I would totally hate it, and I purged the thought from my mind immediately.

I was studying the board, already formulating my strategy and pondering which opening move would be most effective, when a voice said, “Would you mind if I played with Annika again?”

Jonathan was standing there looking down at us. Why would he want to play with me again? On the rare occasions when Eric missed a meeting, the other club members rarely sought me out to play, and I usually ended up slipping away and going back home.

“Sure, man. No problem,” Eric said.

Jonathan sat down across from me. “Is that okay with you?”

I wiped my palms on my jeans and tried not to panic. “I always play with Eric.”

“Is he your boyfriend?”

“What? No. I just … I always play with him.” But Eric had already taken a seat two tables away across from a junior named Drew.

“I’m sorry. Do you want me to ask him to switch back?”

That was exactly what I wanted, but what I wanted even more was for the two of us to start playing so we could stop all this talking. So I did the only thing I could to make that happen.

I picked up my white pawn and made the first move.



* * *



This time, he won. I’d drawn on every bit of skill and experience I possessed, but it still wasn’t enough, and he deserved the victory. “Thanks,” he said. “That was a great game.” He whistled as he packed up his things.

Our game had gone on for so long that once again, everyone had already left for dinner. When I picked up my backpack and turned to go, Jonathan grabbed his and fell in beside me. I fervently hoped it was because we were both headed in the same general direction of the exit and that it would be a largely silent endeavor, but I was wrong.