Love, Theoretically

From: [email protected]

Re: Thermodynamics Essay

Doctor Hannaway, ma’am, it’s been 23 hours, have you graded my essay yet?

Saturday’s a daze.

I shuffle around my room gingerly, full of distant stares and hands stopping midaction, like I cannot remember what I opened my closet for, how to squeeze the tube to get the right amount of toothpaste.

It’s a first. I sense that some paradigmatic shift has happened within me, but I cannot justify it. Jack and I did a bunch of things that high schoolers today would barely consider a quarter of first base—so what? I try to cognitively reframe last night as two adults having casual fun, but my head is full of aggressive, intrusive, embarrassing thoughts that make it hard to concentrate on grading. As though the sheer nature of grading didn’t do it on its own.

“When did you get back last night?” Cece asks when I emerge in the kitchen. As usual, she’s engaged in a mix of activities: teaching Hedgie an obstacle course, listening to an audiobook on the women of the Plantagenets, making oatmeal.

I try to recall what the clock in Jack’s car looked like when he dropped me off. The red numbers blinking at me in the dark, as if to say, You should go. And Jack leaning over the armrest for a kiss, then pulling me into his lap. Whispering, Not yet. “Around one.”

“A record.”

“We watched a movie,” I tell her, to avoid saying, I think I had the most soul-shaking night of my entire adult life, and it didn’t even involve cheese.

“What movie?”

“Um . . . a vampire movie.”

“Oh my God. Nosferatu: Eine Symphonie des Grauens?”

“. . . Yeah.”

“Lucky you.” She sighs. “Did you make out before or after Count Orlok awakens?”

“We didn’t—” She points at my neck, and I turn to catch my reflection in the microwave. Dammit. “During.”

She nods knowingly. “It’s a horny movie, isn’t it?”

I remind my brothers that if they go to jail for killing each other, their future lives will contain very little Dana and very copious amounts of toilet wine. In response I get called a bitch (Lucas), ordered to get a fucking life (Lance), and told, unceremoniously, “Humph” (Mom).

“They did agree to not run over the other if they meet at the farmers’ market, so there’s that.”

“Glad to see you’re doing your part for the family, Elsie,” she says.

I think I’m forgiven. Because I did what I was told. There should be relief in that, but while Mom goes on about that Comic Sans inspirational quote my aunt posted on Facebook that may or may not be shade, I picture practicing honesty. Mom, stop. This is messed up.

I don’t do it, though.

I often meet with Dr. L. on Saturdays, and I’ve been dying to discuss George’s offer with him, but he’s out of town. Instead I have lunch with Cece (a quinoa bowl—I snap a picture and send it to Greg, who replies with seven face-palming emojis in a row) and then spend the afternoon at the science fair, manning the UMass Physics Club stand alone because none of the students who were supposed to help showed up. I freeze my ass off, wonder if I should be worried about the group of kids who keep begging me to teach them how to build a catapult, then imagine doing this next year, all over again.

Then I imagine making my life about what I want.

When I get a text from Jack, my brain stops working.

JACK: Greg invited us to dinner. Want to go? We can stay in if you prefer.

He talks like his Saturday nights belong to me, even though this thing with us only just started, and my heart skips too many beats.

ELSIE: I’m at UMass doing unspeakable things till late. But I could join when I’m done.

JACK: Perfect.

I think of the word honesty a lot before adding:

ELSIE: I’d like to spend the night afterwards.

The reply takes a long time to come, and I find myself picturing answers. It’s too fast. Let’s get back on track. Take it slow.

But something has shifted. Maybe on the windowsill. Maybe when he nipped my chin after buttoning up my coat. Maybe in the parking lot, the moment he grabbed my hand and pulled me back into the car, telling me that I couldn’t leave without telling him the ending of the movie. Do they go to college? Does Edward ever see a dermatologist? Who wins the golden onion?

His reply takes a long time to come, but I’m not surprised when it does.

JACK: Good.

•   •   •

By the time Greg opens the door, I’ve worked myself up to a state of panic.

“I thought coming empty-handed would be rude,” I blurt out, “so I grabbed this. Because it was cheap, but not the cheapest.” I hand him the bottle of red wine like it’s a hot potato. “I didn’t notice the name until I got on the bus, and . . .”

Greg looks down at the label, which proclaims “Ménage à Trois” in a sexy, flirtatious font. He snorts out a laugh.

“I swear, this is not a proposition.”

“Noted.” He hugs me, at once new and comfortingly familiar. “I’ll put this orgy invite in the fridge and go finish the food. Make yourself comfortable.”

I claw out of my anxiety pit, take off my coat, then make to follow him into the kitchen, when—

Jack.

For no reason whatsoever, my heart jolts and I cannot breathe. Maybe there’s something wrong with my cardiopulmonary health—is my entire body joining my pancreas and crapping out? Does nothing inside me work anymore? But really, it’s not important. I don’t care. Jack doesn’t care. He stands just a few feet from the entrance, arms crossed, chestnut eyes full of warmth and amusement as he murmurs, “Looks like you and Uncle Paul have something in common, after all.”

“I . . . He . . . It’s a misunderstanding.”

His mouth twitches. “When you said you wanted to spend the night, I didn’t think you meant here.”

I groan, covering my eyes with my hand. And when I feel Jack’s heat, I know he has drifted closer, and I let myself sink into him.

“Hey,” he says, lips against my temple, and suddenly everything feels a bit more right in the world. I want to kiss him, desperately, just as desperately as I don’t want his brother to walk in on us kissing in his living room. So I pull back and open my mouth to say the first thing I can think of.

Then immediately close it.

Am I going insane? Is my brain leaking out from my ears? I can’t say that. I’m not batshit—

“Honesty,” he chides gently.

Crap. “I . . .” I swallow. Buck up. Take a deep breath. “I missed you.” I rub my forehead. “God, I’m such a weirdo.”

He nods slowly, as though mulling it over. Then offers, “I went to campus today to get work done. Instead I kept wondering how buck wild it would be if I asked you to move in.”

I let out a surprised laugh. “You’re a weirdo, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever . . . ?”

“Nope. Total first.”

“What’s wrong with us?”

His eyes hold mine, unyielding. “I think we both know what.”

I laugh again. “What?”

“Come on, Elsie. You know where we’re going, here.”

I take a step back, nearly bumping into a fully assembled hutch. Panic bubbles as I track this conversation. I think I know what he’s referring to, but . . . It’s not possible. It might feel like that, but it’s too fast.

“No,” I say. And then turn away, dry mouthed, because he’s giving me the look again, the one he reserves for when we both know I’m lying.

I’m afraid he’ll be his usual merciless self, but he just nods, pushes a strand of hair behind my ear, and tells me, “It’ll come to you.” His touch lingers briefly, then his hand drops to his side just as Greg calls to tell us that dinner is ready.

“I’m a very mediocre cook,” he warns me, and it’s not a lie, but his mediocre food pairs perfectly with my mediocre wine, and even better with stories of his and Jack’s mediocre childhoods. Teenage Greg, apparently, used to update every Facebook status with emo song lyrics. Jack had a skater phase and a man-bun phase (not overlapping). They once collaborated on a homemade mafia thriller titled The Godson, which Greg promises to show me. In exchange, I make them laugh with my weirdest fake-girlfriending stories, like the guy who had me learn sea shanties in preparation for our date, or the one who was afraid of wallpaper.

“This is . . . easy,” I tell Jack when Greg gets a late-night work call. He’s washing the dishes; I dry.

“What is?”

“Just . . .” I stare at his soapy fingers. “This. The three of us. I thought it’d be weird, but . . .” It’s not.

“Why do you think that is?” he asks, with the tone of someone who already has the answer. I don’t, though. It eludes me, even as Greg unearths The Godson for its first showing in two decades. After we hug him good night, I doze off inside the car. And once we’re home, I hang my coat on my hook.

Is it messed up that I’ve started to think in those terms? If being somewhere three times were a sign of ownership, Cece and I would be the barons of Trader Joe’s cheese aisle. But my peacoat always finds itself in the same spot—between a lightweight black jacket and the lanyard with Jack’s MIT Physics Institute badge. The budding domesticity makes reaching for possessive pronouns that much easier.

“Want a hot chocolate?” he asks. He ventures deep inside the apartment, turning on just one light. His face is full of shadows, and I’m a little lost in them.

“No.”

“Anything else?”

I shake my head and stifle a yawn. It’s past two and all I want is a pillow, but I think we’re about to have sex. That’s what spending the night means, right? I should check Urban Dictionary.

“Let’s go upstairs, then.”

In his room, he hands me an extra-large hoodie and herds me toward the bathroom. I change into it because I’m too tired to wonder why, because it’s kind of comfy, and because maybe it fits into a kink of his. He did like lingerie. Sportswear might be the next logical step. Or tentacle dildos.

I use his mouthwash, scrub my face clean, then pad back into his room, hair up in a messy knot, the thick cotton hitting my thighs almost to my knees. I brush past Jack and his amused look and throw myself on my side of the bed—more unwarranted possessive pronouns—and sneak in a twenty-second micronap. Or maybe it’s more like ten minutes, because when I next wake up, Jack blocks the night-light seeping in from the hallway. He smells like shower and toothpaste. And he’s wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a Toy Story T-shirt.

“Cute,” I say, closing my eyes again. “Did you notice Woody and Buzz’s homoerotic undertones?”

“I thought they were very overt.”

“Validating. Thank you. We’re about to have”—I yawn—“sex, right?”

The mattress dips. “Sure.” Under the down blanket, strong hands pull me closer, long legs tangle with mine, and we’ve done this before. It’s comforting. Familiar. The word mine pops into my sleepy head again, and I let it float about longer than I should.

“Okay, good.” I can’t stop yawning, but I force my lids open. “I’m on the Depo shot. I get it from Planned Parenthood, otherwise I couldn’t afford it.”

“Planned Parenthood’s good people.”

“Yeah.” I shift closer. He’s hard against my stomach, but nothing about him broadcasts impatience. “We don’t have to, like, use a condom. Unless you have pubic lice.”

His cheek curves against mine. “I doubt condoms protect from pubic lice, sweetheart.”

I doze off into a pillow that smells like shampoo and a hint of sweat and Jack’s MIT office, thinking about the logistics of little critters jumping from one crotch to another, only to jolt awake mid-fading. “Don’t let me fall asleep,” I yawn into his neck. “We’re supposed to be doing it.”

“We are. We’re going at it like animals. Just close your eyes.”

I do. It’s easier. “Is this another rule of yours? Are you into BDSM?”

“I do have a thing for consent. And my partners being awake.”

I picture legions of beautiful, intelligent, curvy partners with advanced degrees. “What happened to the geologist?”

“Who?”

“She was your date the day I met you. Very nice. On the short side. Dark hair. I forgot her name . . .”

“Madeleine. She’s currently in Europe for her sabbatical. Spain, I believe.” He pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “She’s cool. You two would get along.”

I’m marginally more awake. “Have you been with lots of women?”

“Mmm.” The sound purrs through my skin and bones. “I don’t know.”

“How do you not know?”

“I have no idea what the parameters of ‘lots’ are.”

“Between one hundred and three hundred and twelve.” He slaps me gently on the ass. I chuckle and melt into him. “I’m not sure, either.”

“Then we’ll never know.”

“But you do this a lot.”

“I haven’t in a while.”

“Since when?”

“I think you know.”

Oh. “You like sex,” I say. Not a question.

“I do.” He pauses. “But I’ll also go months without thinking about it if I’m busy working on a grant or an experiment.”

“Like your current sets of failed experiments?”

He laughs softly, pressing a kiss on my hair. “I’ve thought more about sex in the last six months than ever before.”

“I hope you’ll like it.” I burrow further into him. “With me.”

“I will.”

“You can’t know.”

“I can.” He rubs a hand up and down my back, like I’m a fussy pet in need of soothing. Maybe I am.

“Sexual compatibility is a thing. What if we’re not . . .”

“Then we’ll work on it.”

“I don’t want to be work. I don’t want you to feel that I’m work.”

He sighs. “Somewhere along the way your wires got crossed. Your brain decided that you’re not worth people’s time and effort, and that if you ask for anything, they won’t just say no, they’ll also leave you.” He says it matter-of-factly, like he’s Archimedes of Syracuse repeating his findings about upward buoyant forces to the acropolis for the tenth time. “That’s not how love works, Elsie. But don’t worry for now. I’ll show you.”

“But I—”

“Go to sleep.”

“What? Why? No!” I try to move up, but his arms cage me tighter. “We should be having all the sex.”

“In a minute. For now, just close your eyes and be silent for twenty seconds.”

“Why?”

“It’s a kink I have.”

“You perv.” Yawn. “What happened to anal play and bondage?”

“We’ll get there. Are your eyes closed?”

I nod into his chest.

“Perfect. Now count to twenty in your head.”

His breath is a soft, steady rhythm under my ear. I’m warm and safe, and I get only to thirteen before I’m lost to the world.