Fifty Words for Embarrassment

I was supremely glad that I had finally moved out of my mother’s house and into a shared apartment with Florence, since that most certainly spared me a lecture come morning when Reed was still snuggled up against my side. What I was not spared was Florence’s excited squealing.

“Rhea, dish!” she commanded in a loud whisper. I, myself, was still groggy and a little shell shocked at seeing Reed there on my bed, under my pink sheets. I was at a complete loss to give any better reaction than wide, urgent eyes and a swift gesture meant to quiet her.

It didn’t. “Well, come on to my room then. We won’t wake him up, don’t worry,” Florence insisted. I groaned. If she understood just how comfortable I was in that moment, how much I needed to be left alone with my thoughts (or, as alone as one could be with someone else in one’s bed), I think she might have quit pressuring me. As it was, she was far too excited about the implications to give up on getting the story from me, pronto.

I had just started wriggling myself away from Reed with the aim of keeping him asleep when he shifted, flung an arm around me, and drew me in so that I was pressed against his side. I gave Florence a helpless look and a little shrug, foolishly thinking that perhaps this would get her to let the issue rest for now. It didn’t.

“I guess I have no choice, do I?” she said, grinning. She took a step and rolled onto the balls of her feet to absorb some of her momentum, coming to a stop. “Wait. You both have pants on, right?” I glowered at her and snapped a quick affirmative. Without a moment’s hesitation, Florence leapt atop my bed so that she was splayed over me and Reed.

Reed’s eyes snapped open. He was silent for a moment, taking in his surroundings. He looked at Florence first and I saw his brow pucker before his gaze shifted to me and warmed. “Florence, what are you doing?” he asked in a gravelly voice, keeping his eyes fixed on mine.

She gave one of her signature pouts, but it was lost on him. With a huff, she said, “I’m waking you up so I can have Rhea for a bit.”

Reed’s arm tightened around my waist. “No dice. What time is it?” His eyes left mine for the first time and landed on my alarm clock. I looked too and saw that it was almost nine. “You can have her at ten, okay?”

“Nine thirty,” Florence argued.

“Nine fifty, final offer,” said Reed. “Think of it this way, Flo: the more time you give us, the more Rhea will have to tell you afterwards.”

This was exactly the right thing to say, since it had Florence springing agilely off of us without hesitation. “I’ll see you at eleven, Rhea.” She blew us kisses and walked her bouncy walk out of the room.

Reed and I laughed a bit. “I’m impressed,” I told him. “If I’d known you were that clever, you might have ended up here a bit sooner.” I managed, barely, to keep my expression lighthearted and to keep my eyes from darting nervously about. I hadn’t been planning on saying that. Blast him. It was always difficult to censor my words when he was near.

Thankfully, Reed didn’t get awkward about it. In fact, he seemed kind of pleased. I rolled over so that he and I were both laying on our sides, facing each other. He looked adorably tousled. I didn’t know what to say to him. This was unprecedented for me. Judging by his content expression and lazy grin, I thought that perhaps it wasn’t so uncommon for him. That only made me feel more uncomfortable. Then Reed cleared his throat and I felt better, since this was a nervous habit of his. “Rhea, tell me what you’re thinking.”

I inhaled deeply. “I’m thinking about how surreal this is. I still haven’t forgiven you, you know, and here you are in my bed.” My words cast a strange quality to the silence that engulfed us.

Reed cleared his throat again. “I’m sorry. I know I said it yesterday, but I really am. Am I allowed to talk about everything yet?” Last night when we were watching The Mummy, I had expressly forbidden any mention of yesterday’s revelations. I had wanted to enjoy his company without that weight. I had almost kicked him out for trying to apologize to me.

“Well, we can’t go on not talking about it forever,” I said, resigned. As much as I wanted to put off this talk for fear of what it would reveal, I knew that I would feel better after it was done with.

Reed looked glum. “I know it would be too much to expect you to forgive me. I lied to you. I hurt you on purpose. I don’t deserve to be here, to be talking to you like this.”

“As far as beginnings go, that’s pretty grim,” I commented. “Go on.”

Reed looked at me, and his eyes looked darker than usual. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I want you to know that I’ve felt terrible. Every day has been a trial for me, especially after you cast me out of your life. I was afraid you’d never let me back in, but now it looks like maybe I wasn’t so wrong to hope.” I gaped at him, amazed at his candidness. Whatever I had been expecting to hear, it had not been this. I put my head back down on my pillow so that I couldn’t see him anymore, but my hand reached for his and our fingers wove together.

I don’t know how long it was that we laid there for, but eventually Reed gave my hand a little tug. I turned and looked at him. There was a look on his face that I had never seen there before, one that I could only begin to interpret. “Reed,” I said. “I still can’t forgive you yet. I don’t know how long it will take me to trust you again. It might be quite a long time. While we’re being honest with each other, though, I want you to know that I care about you. I care more than I ever expected to, more than I ever have about anyone else. You’re important to me, and I think you have the potential to be even more important, if only we can get our acts together.” Reed opened his mouth but I cut him off before he could say anything.

“Reed, please listen carefully. I don’t want to have to go through this again. It’s embarrassing enough just once.” I wasn’t sure whether I meant the whole situation or this conversation. The statement applied to both. “We never will be anything more than friends to each other, not unless something big changes. I have to feel that I can trust you, yes, but you also have to learn to trust me. I don’t think you ever realized just how attached I was to you last spring. If you had, we never would have been through this terrible mess at all. You must have faith in me. I never once gave you a false impression. I was always honest with you in what I was feeling and in words- at least, I was back before all of this and once we started trying to be friends again.” That in-between part, I thought, really didn’t count. He had been trying to hurt me, and I had been trying to protect myself.

Reed bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He started shifting and I realized that he was planning on getting up. I took hold of his other hand too and pulled him back down.

“I don’t know what you’ve got planned today, but it seems to me that we have another movie to watch.” I rolled and reached into the bag of library things that was on my floor, pulling out The Mummy II. I waved it enticingly and Reed grinned, settling back down. I had to get up to put the disc into the Blu-ray player, but after I settled back in Reed wrapped his arms back around my waist and I adjusted myself so that we were matched up, my body easily fitting to his hollows and ridges. I felt his warm breath stirring my hair and smiled.

***

After the movie, Reed and I got up and rummaged around my kitchen for something lunch-y. I was just thinking to myself how lucky we had been, that Florence had disappeared from the apartment completely rather than disturbing us at eleven as she had promised to when a knock sounded on my door. I would give you three guesses to figure out who it was, but I really think just one would suffice. Of course it was Riley.

I spotted him through the peephole and groaned. Reed poked his head out of the kitchen, a question on his face and a pan of water in his hand. I shook my head. “I’ll be in there in a minute,” I promised. He looked skeptical but went back to his cooking.

Reluctantly, I opened the door. “Hi, Riley,” I said. I think that I managed to keep my true feelings from showing, that I looked civil and maybe even friendly. It was hard to be sure. I could barely feel my face through my trepidation, much less arrange it into politeness.

“Rhea, hi. I believe you still owe me a trip to the museum,” Riley said, smiling at me. Curse him. Why did he have to be so nice? It would be much easier to get him to bugger off if I didn’t care about hurting him.

“Actually, today’s not good, Riley,” I said. I was fishing around for some reason I could give him when Reed poked his head out of the kitchen again.

“Rhea, I can’t read your handwriting. Does this say a tablespoon or a teaspoon of baking powder?” Reed came striding over to where I stood in the doorway with Riley and handed me the scrap of directions with a recipe for my grandma’s muffin loaf on it. I took it but didn’t look. I was too busy noticing that Reed looked a bit more disheveled than he had a moment ago. His shorts were akimbo so that his boxers were poking out on one side but not the other, his hair was mussed, and his shirt looked like it had been pulled on in haste thanks to a couple of well-placed bunches in it and the way that it lay slightly crooked across his chest.

Why, if I had seen someone dressed that way at a friend’s apartment, I might have assumed a couple of things- a couple of personal, dirty things, you understand. Realization dawned on me and I almost laughed. Had Reed really made these little adjustments to give off the impression that we’d been intimate or headed there? And why did that not upset me at all? I turned apologetically toward Riley. To be perfectly honest, I was glad to not have to invent a reason not to go to the museum with him.

Riley shifted his feet so that his stance was wider and stood up a little straighter. “Alright, maybe next time,” he said. “I had better get going.” He turned away and I almost would have believed that he wasn’t upset, if not for the way his eyes flashed toward me just before he left.

I shut the door and turned on Reed. “You want to explain that?” I asked, careful not to let on that I wasn’t actually angry.

Reed had the grace to look guilty. “Not really, but I will. I didn't want him getting any ideas.”

I fought off a smile. “And what if I did?” Reed looked vaguely nauseous. His upset tugged on my sympathy and I hugged him tightly. “In fact, I don’t have the energy to be upset with you right now. You know why?” I said, pulling away and letting my cheeriness seep into my tone.

Reed grinned at me. “Why?”

“Because I’m in dire need of muffin. Back to the kitchen now, off with you. I’ll be there in a minute.” Reed did as he was told and I fished my phone out of my pocket, shooting off a quick text to Florence letting her know that everything was going well.