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Tags: Humor, Chick lit, Romance, Contemporary, Adult

would always be the one who got off first. When we kissed, he always pulled away first. He always kept me just on the edge of crazy. Feeling like I wanted him too much, which just made me want him more.
    <> That sounds excruciating.
    <> Excruciating and wonderful. It feels good to want something that bad. I thought about him the way you think about dinner when you haven’t eaten for a day and a half. Like you’d sell your soul for it.
    <> I’ve never not eaten for a day and a half.
    <> Not even when you had the flu or something?
    <> Maybe once. What happened to your Sig Ep?
    <> Oh God. It was terrible. I didn’t remember to dump him until Sunday afternoon. I had two boyfriends for like nine hours. Not that I called Chris my boyfriend then. I didn’t want to spook him. That first year was strange. I felt like a butterfly had landed on me. If I moved or even breathed, I thought he would float away.
    <> Because he always hung up first?
    <> That. And other things, too. I never knew when I would see him or when he would call. A week might go by and I wouldn’t talk to him. Then I’d find a note slid under my door. Or a leaf. Or song lyrics written on a matchbook.
    Or Chris himself. Leaning against my door on a Wednesday afternoon, waiting for me to get back from economics. Maybe he’d stay for 15 minutes. Maybe he’d leave that night after I fell asleep. Or maybe he’d talk me into skipping classes for the rest of the week. Maybe we wouldn’t leave the room until Saturday morning when we’d finally exhausted my supply of salsa and Popsicles and Diet Coke.
    He made me nervy. I spent a lot of time looking out of windows, trying to will him to me. I rented movies about girls who chewed on their hair and had fever patches on their cheeks.
    I’ve never been happier.
    <> I think I’ve figured out why we weren’t friends in college. You were kind of scary.
    <> Not scary. Single-minded.
    <> Scarily single-minded.
    <> I was focused. I knew what I wanted in life. I wanted Chris. And it was such a relief not to be distracted by anything else. I had no boring subplots.
    Weren’t you ever like that with Mitch?
    <> Never like that.
    I mean, I was definitely head over heels. But, if anything, he was more caught up than I was, which is probably why we’re still together. I needed Mitch to wear his heart on his sleeve. I was so insecure, I needed him to bang down my door and fill my room with flowers.
    <> Did he actually fill your room with flowers?
    <> Yep. Carnations, but flowers nonetheless.
    <> Hmmm. In theory, I think that sounds wonderful. But in practice, I was drawn to Chris because he didn’t do that sort of thing. Because he would never do anything that was romantic in a traditional sense. And not just because he was trying to be different, but because his instincts were ( are ) so different from every other guy’s. It was like dating the man who fell to Earth.
    <> I’m glad you finally told me all this. I hated feeling like there was this major part of your life that we couldn’t talk about.
    That said, I don’t think you ever have to worry about me running away with or making a drunken pass at Chris. He’d make me insane.
    <> Ditto on the being glad we talked about this. But I can’t give you a ditto on the drunken pass thing. Mitch is a hottie.
    <> Now I’m rolling my eyes.

CHAPTER 16
    THEY MUST BE about his age. Jennifer and Beth and Beth’s boyfriend. Twenty-eight or so. Maybe they’d all been in college together. After Lincoln transferred to the state school, after Sam broke up with him, he’d stayed in school a long time, through multiple degrees. There was a good