prologue

Summer 2011

Perry

Perry blinked awake, his tired eyes coming into focus on an unfamiliar room.  Sunlight streamed in through unfamiliar curtains.  He lay still, listening to the quiet as his bearings slowly came back to him.  For a moment, he’d forgotten where he was, and that he’d spent the night with the girl of his dreams sleeping away soundly on his chest.

He stretched an arm out, palm grazing the sheets where her sleeping form should’ve been, finding it empty.  Cold. No soft skin tucked against him, no sleepy murmur in his ear, no trace of the girl he’d finally had a real moment alone with.

“Lauryn?” He sat up to look around the now recognizable hotel room.  His eyes scanned the space, confirming what he already knew.

Her heels and purse were missing from the nearby console.

Her overnight bag that had been open on the luggage stand?  Gone. 

And so was she. 

Perry eased off the bed and checked the time.  Barely nine in the morning.  She wouldn’t have checked out already, would she?  And if she had, why hadn’t she woken him?

He wracked his brain trying to remember anything he might have done to put her off.  Had he managed to ruin things before they’d even gotten started? After she’d kissed him so softly in the dark the night before, her soft pink dress shimmering in the dim light from the lanterns along Wacker Drive. 

Perry stared at the swirls in the sheets where she’d been curled into his side just a few hours ago.  She’d been warm, soft, impossibly close after six years of never being able to tell her how he really felt. 

They hadn’t slept together– not fully.  Just kisses that somehow felt like confessions, their fingers wandering, both of them laughing and whispering in each other’s ears.  She’d pressed so close he’d been convinced she felt the same way. 

Did I move too fast? 

Perry’s jaw worked as he considered it, finding his dress shirt and shrugging into it.  He buttoned it up slowly, wondering if he should have declined when she’d invited him to stay and get some sleep before he got on the road. It’d been late when he’d walked her to her hotel last night, and even later when they closed out at the hotel bar.  He’d been headed toward the hotel lobby doors, but upon her asking, had escorted her upstairs instead. And couldn’t believe when she’d invited him in.  He’d been telling himself all evening that if she asked him to stay, he would.

Maybe he’d read the moments all wrong, misjudged the shift in her eyes, and the way her laugh softened around him.  Or worse, had he inadvertently said or done something that made her uncomfortable?

No.  Perry crossed the room again in long strides to retrieve his phone from beside the bed.  His battery was dying, but he swiped his thumb across the screen to call her anyway, setting it to speaker phone.

It rang once. Twice. Three times, “Lo.  At least let me know that you’re alright, girl.”  He grumbled into the phone, starting to pace.

Maybe she wouldn’t. “Hey,” her voice came through, faint, a little breathless, the muffled clang of a train announcement breaking through in the background. “Sorry… hold on.”

He stopped pacing. “Lauryn?”

“Yeah…sorry, I’m on the train. Headed back.”

Back? “You’re on your way home?”

“Yeah, back to the burbs,” The pitch in her voice tipped higher, airy in a way that sounded like she’d practiced exactly what to say to him.  As if there was any possible way they could skip over the awkwardness of her disappearing at the crack of dawn.

Perry listened for her to continue, the clamoring sounds of the train sounding a lot like all the questions banging around in his mind. “You good?”

She hesitated just long enough to make him doubt everything, before rushing in, “Yeah I’m good. I meant to text, I’m sorry. I had something early that I totally forgot. Didn’t wanna wake you.”

“I wish you had,” And he did.  At least then he wouldn’t feel like he’d imagined their closeness. “I would’ve made sure you got home, or at least given you a ride to the train.”

“No! I just got a cab.  You enjoy the room.  It's already paid for and one of us should be able to sleep in,” her laugh was unlike the laughter he’d heard last night, missing the ease with which she’d rolled him onto his back, her dense straightened hair falling around them like a curtain as she kissed him. 

She paused, softer now, like she was smiling on the other end of the line. “But… last night was good. It was really great to see you.’

Great to see me? He exhaled, stepping forward and switched off the speaker phone.  He held the phone to his ear with one hand, while the other wound in the air as if it might help him form his next question. “Lo, did something happen that you didn’t want to happen? Did I– did I say something?”

“No, Perry.” Her voice was clearer this time, firm and warm. “No, you were a gentleman, as always.”

“Then what?”

“It was just… the drinks hit kinda hard, I think?” She exhaled with another laugh as if she was trying to keep it light. “And maybe the whole romantic wedding reception vibe and all. But it was really, really nice to hang. I promise.”

Perry swallowed and his jaw loosened, but the knot in his chest remained. 

She continued, gentle but final. “Thank you for being my unofficial wedding date.”

He closed his eyes, anchoring himself in her warming tone. “Any time. You know that.”

Her breath caught, like maybe she wanted to say more, but then the loudspeaker cut through, her voice rushing out, “I gotta go, the train is almost at my stop.”

“Lauryn-” he started, but heard the triple dial tone of the call dropping. He held the phone out, finding the screen black and the device completely dead.

Perry cursed.  He had no charger, no way to call her back until he got back to his car. And even then… would it matter?

He could chase her, maybe. Call her once his phone was charged. But something about the way she’d slipped out, quiet and careful like it was safer to leave it all unsaid, made him hesitate.

Perry sank down onto the hard couch near the windows.  From where he sat, he could see Wacker and the Chicago River that was already sparkling in the morning light on its way out to Lake Michigan. He wasn’t supposed to have last night. Not the way she’d felt in his arms, or how her laugh sounded when she finally let it spill out unguarded. He wasn’t supposed to have the weight of her thigh draped over his, or the quiet little gasp when his fingers traced down her stomach. He wasn’t supposed to have any of it, but it had happened.

He’d finally had her close, and she still chose to go. Still chose distance. Maybe it was the drinks, or just every damn thing he’d never said out loud.

It really didn’t matter now.

She was gone. And he didn’t know what hurt more: the fact that she left, or how right it had felt before she did. 

He sat there in the stillness, her absence loud and pressing on him. Now there was only air. Just questions and the imprint of something real she hadn’t stayed long enough for them to claim.