Unspoken Pleasure

“A whole year with Crystal. I still can’t believe it. She was sooo… Her freaking name was Crystal! You deserved so much more than her. That you wasted your time with… agh!”

“You’ve never given this up.”

“Well, you keep repeating the process. She was never good enough for you!”

“You shouldn’t judge her like that!”

“I’m not judging! I just know you. You were never really happy; you just liked having a girlfriend. You always settle! That’s your biggest flaw. You deserved so much more!”

“Like who? Who else was I supposed to be dating that was better?”

“See? You can’t honestly say she was the girl for you. You couldn’t then and you can’t now. She was just a nice girl.”

“She was my Vee-jay, I guess.”

Thuy glared at me, then said, “Yes.” Then, “At least I broke up with him. She had to dump you because you are so damn loyal. I think you were happy to escape.”

“I haven’t seen Crystal in four years. We are talking about us as juniors. Who cares anymore?”

“I just don’t think things have changed. I think you will settle again if you don’t watch yourself.”

“What’s wrong with spending time with someone because she’s nice?”

“Nothing! But you are the kind of guy who will marry that nice person and then the person you’ve always wanted will be gone. Out of reach forever. And it’ll be your fault.”

“Who is this person?! You seem to have someone in mind.”

“I don’t know, Jake. But you have to find her somehow, some day. And you won’t ever, if you give up on her too easily.”

“Show this person to me or get off my back! I don’t tell you whether or not your boyfriends are good enough for you!”

“Why not?! Don’t you care?! Maybe I will spend my life with one of them, screwing everything up, and you will just let it happen! Why don’t you say something?!”

“Because I can’t see you with anyone, OK? Because I hate–” I paused, controlling myself. What I had just said didn’t make a lick of sense. “I want you to be happy. I have faith that you will figure it out. You always do. I’m not the right person to help on this. You…. Thuy, I don’t know what we are fighting about.”

Thuy froze and said simply, “I don’t know either. I don’t know why we are fighting.”

“Let’s stop then.”

“Yeah. I don’t know why I got angry. I like you too much. I just think it would kill me for you to not get everything you ever wanted.”This belongs to NôvelDrama.Org - ©.

“I don’t always know what I want, to tell the truth. I wish I did. I… Sometimes, I think I know what I want, but then the thought flies away. There’s an image trying to form of someone or something. Something obvious. It’s just beyond my grasp.”

Thuy actually gasped. “That’s why I broke up with Veejay. The more I was with him, the more I kept feeling that I should be waiting for something else. That it was coming soon, and I just had to show more patience.”

“What are we waiting for?”

She only shook her head. “I don’t know, but… but…” She looked at me and I felt my heart pounding. The thought that I had tried to tell her about was coming into my head again, but she said, “Shouldn’t we go home?”

We each threw half the money on the table as we had agreed to years before and headed out. She tossed me her keys, saying, “I’m tired.” I closed the door behind her and soon the stars were flying past the window as we got out of the city, heading down 530.

I was beginning to wonder if Thuy had fallen asleep when she asked, “Jake, why didn’t we ever date? Not once. We never even tried to see if it would work.”

A million thoughts were swirling in my head from this evening, and all I could say was, “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. I mean– that’s not what I mean. It’s just that all our lives people have wondered this. People have wanted to fix us up a hundred times. My friends ask about you. People at school who’ve never met you ask me about you. My mother asks me. Hell, your mom has asked me.” I didn’t say anything and she continued, “I know you think I look OK. If not, you fake it well. I haven’t been checked out like you did in the driveway tonight in a long time. Your eyes made my Bs feel like DDs.”

“I looked away!”

“I know. I don’t know what I wanted to kiss you more for, looking or looking away.”

Kiss me?

After a pause, still curled in the seat next to me but with her eyes open, Thuy said, “So?”

“I think that… I didn’t want to risk it.” There was silence. “Having you as a friend is too important to risk.”

She took my hand and held it, then closed her eyes again, but spoke again after a pause. “I took you for granted, I think. It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t be there, that….”

“I will always be there, Thuy.”

She squeezed the hand she was holding. “I’m going to be asleep soon.”

“I’ll carry you to your bed.”

“Your bed. I still am afraid of being alone in the house.”

“Are you sure?”

I saw a slight smile form on her face. “Jake, you aren’t going to take advantage of me. The idea’s silly.”

We didn’t speak the rest of the drive home and she was soon asleep. After we got home, I did as she had bid and carried her to my bedroom. After turning on a small light for her, I headed for the door, but she mumbled something like, “trust you” and patted the bed next to her.

But I knew it wasn’t a real option. Not now. Not the way I was feeling. I stood at the doorway watching her slight movements under the sheets, her chest rise and fall gently. I would never be able to say how she looked that night, but I have never forgotten a detail.

I curled up on the couch in the living room, the couch that she had laid upon for so long this afternoon, feeling her scent, touch, and voice. After some time, I fell asleep.

—

I awoke the next morning to some rattling in the kitchen. I opened my eyes to find a disheveled Thuy still in her black dress with hair shooting all over the place getting a glass of water. She stumbled half-asleep to the kitchen table where she plopped down stony-eyed.

Wrapping my sheet around me, since I was in boxers only, I shuffled over to get some coffee going. “Oh, good,” was all she said, and I joined her in a chair in my own sleep haze. We sat there listening to the coffee pot. “You look hysterical,” she said in a completely flat voice. “I think squirrels played in your hair all night and one side of your face is covered in pillow lines. You’re a squirrel wrestling zebra.”

“I think some of your hair is in Missouri.”

“I’ll be untangling it for a week. My dress has more wrinkles than a pug dog’s face.” I poured two cups of coffee for us and tossed her some creamer. “I think my throat is dry from yesterday. We talked for eight hours straight by my reckoning.”

“Coffee cures scratchy throats, I’m sure.”

She giggled and continued nursing her cup.

“Thuy, do you remember last night much or too asleep?”

“I remember that we got angry at each other for the first time since… the last time we talked about Crystal.”

I laughed. “Yeah. How about after that?”

“I can’t tell you what I’ve forgotten.”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Jake, just ask me.”

“‘K,” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to bring it up, but it was the only thing on my mind, so it was talk about this or don’t talk. “You asked why we never dated.”