Love You a Latke

Chapter 18

18

In my childhood synagogue I had my designated fleeing spots for when things got to be too much: the single-stall family restroom; the back corner of the library; the beit midrash. But this was an unfamiliar location. Which was how I wound up in what appeared to be the rabbi’s office. You’d think they would’ve locked it, but no.

I probably should’ve left, but I didn’t want to risk running into Mrs. Landskroner—or anybody else—in the hallway. So I crept past the piles of books on the floor and all the books on the bookshelf—the mark of a good rabbi? Way too many books—and took a seat behind the rabbi’s big scrolled wood desk. He or she was clearly much taller than me, since my feet barely touched the floor from the threadbare rolling chair.

Seth would text me eventually when it was time to go, I assumed. I could lie and tell them I’d had a bathroom emergency. Vomiting or something just as gross that nobody wanted to hear details about. Until then I’d just hang out here. If it weren’t so dark, and I weren’t afraid to turn on a light or use my phone flashlight, I could maybe page through some books. The darkness was good for me right now, though. Better for my eyes than a bright light that would make my headache worse. It had already lessened a little bit just by virtue of getting away here into the dark.

Or away from the cause of the headache. I grimaced. Admitting that to myself was basically admitting that my headaches were caused by…stress? Repressed emotions? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to think about it too hard, because that would mean I really wasn’t processing everything in the healthiest way. Not if it was giving me headaches to the point where Seth might start to wonder if I had a lurking brain tumor or something.

There was just barely enough light filtering in through the blinds behind me to survey all the photos on the rabbi’s desk. A wedding photo of a bride and groom in puffy ultra-nineties fashion, their smiles tame but their eyes sparkling. Photos of plump babies and children hugging each other. Pictures of the parents and children at a water park, at a high school graduation, all beaming together with the Roman Colosseum in the background. A brightly colored, modern photo of a new baby, showing that the cycle had started all over again.

Something ugly twisted in my stomach. My fists balled in my lap. If I had a little bit less self-control, I’d have picked up one of those photos and hurled it at the wall, felt a mean sort of glee as the glass and the frame shattered all around it.

The door creaked open. I sat up very straight in the chair, rehearsing what I was going to say in my head. Sorry, I know I shouldn’t be here. I got turned around. I needed a minute to rest in the dark so that this migraine wouldn’t get any worse. I’ll go now. Sorry.

“Abby?” But it was Seth. He eased himself inside, something relaxing in his face when he saw me. “Oh, good. I found you.”

I tried to take a deep breath, but it hitched in the middle. “I wasn’t hiding,” I lied. “I just…needed a minute to myself, and this was the closest place I found.”

He didn’t bother asking me why I hadn’t tried the bathroom, which had a door that locked. Maybe Bev had been known to bust in on people. It wouldn’t surprise me. “Okay.” He closed the door behind him. I guessed he wasn’t going to judge me, which was a relief. Not that I cared what he thought.

He stepped closer. My chest grew tight, but he didn’t come close enough to touch me, which was also a relief, because I was so tight that I might collapse if he did. Instead, he took a seat in one of the cushioned chairs facing the rabbi’s desk, which appeared way more comfortable than the bare-bones one I was sitting in. “So,” he said. “That woman. She was one of your parents’ friends?”

First instinct: I could throw one of the photos at him and make a break for it.

But of course I couldn’t do that. That was assault. And if there was anything I wanted less than Mrs. Landskroner bringing news of my fake boyfriend to my parents, it was her bringing them news of my arrest for assault. And also Seth getting hurt. I didn’t want that, either. “Yes,” I said. “And my old Hebrew school teacher. But after, like, middle school, she was mostly in my life as my mom’s friend.”

“So she was part of your bad childhood,” Seth said. “Do you want to talk about it?”

My answer was immediate, automatic. “No.”

The look Seth gave me in response was hard to read in the shade of the room, but it seemed a little like disappointment. Was he disappointed in me ? The thought was disconcerting, and I was surprised to realize how much so. When had I started caring what he thought?

My head was throbbing again. It wasn’t a Category 3, though, the one his presence had always caused. This was something new and different, something not on the scale. A Category 5.5. Maybe even a Category 6.

I took a deep breath. This one hitched twice. “My parents didn’t beat me. It wasn’t like that. I didn’t go to school with bruises or have CPS called on them or anything. There are people who had it way worse.”

I waited for Seth to protest, to tell me that you couldn’t compare your life to anyone else’s, that my experiences and feelings were all true and valid and gag .

But he didn’t. He only sat there listening, totally still, as if I were a deer in the woods and one movement might send me running away. And, miracle of miracles, my headache receded a tiny bit, bringing me back to the painful but familiar territory of a Category 5.

The lack of response and the lessening of the pain behind my eyes made it possible for me to go on. “The thing about my parents is that I always had to be on edge around them. You know, that cliché of walking on eggshells, except I’d describe it more as walking on glass. If you stepped the wrong way it wouldn’t just break; it would cut you.” I bit my lip. “Again, not literally.”

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t judge. Just listened. My headache receded another half a point. It was kind of spooky. Like speaking these thoughts and feelings out loud was a Tylenol.

“It was like they had all these rules I didn’t understand and that didn’t make sense and sometimes contradicted one another. Like, sometimes they’d be really happy if I made dinner for them before they got home and would get mad if I didn’t do it because they’d come home hungry, and sometimes they’d be furious I did it because I could’ve lit the house on fire. And they’d punish me for things, but not like the ways my friends were punished. They wouldn’t tell me no dessert or ground me or take away my phone or anything; they’d give me the silent treatment. Or suddenly wouldn’t drive my friend to activities they’d agreed on and blame me. Or tell people something really embarrassing about me.” I cringed again at the memories. “Again, they didn’t beat me or anything. There are definitely people out there who have it worse. I’m not trying to say I had it the worst.”

Seth finally spoke. “Abuse isn’t a competition.”

He believed me. He thought it was abuse. My headache receded again, all the way down to a Category 2. The way it was shrinking like this was kind of freaking me out, to be honest. “I talked about it a little bit to my roommate in college, who tried to convince me to go to therapy.” I pressed my lips together at the memory. It had felt a little bit like she’d slapped me across the face. Go purposely spill my innermost secrets to someone? Who then might go on to spill them to someone else, who could use them to hurt me? No, thank you. “I didn’t, but it was the first time I realized that my childhood wasn’t normal. I did a bunch of reading and figured that I didn’t need therapy; I just needed to get away from my parents. So I did.”

And then I’d made the mistake of coming back. That was why I was having all these issues with panicking. Not because there was something wrong with me, or that I’d done something wrong.

Right?

Maybe Seth had a point. Maybe I hadn’t processed everything as well as I’d thought. Maybe all I’d done was turn my back and run away and pretend nothing was there. That was the opposite of how I’d dealt with the spiders who seemed to love hanging out in my shitty apartment. Running away from them meant that they were still there to freak me out and make me jump. The way to keep myself from jumping was to force myself to collect them under my designated spider mug with a sheet of paper and dump them outside (because, gross or not, I still appreciated how they ate mosquitoes).

Well. I just had to make it through three more days. Then I could go back to Vermont and never even think about coming here again.

“Therapy doesn’t mean you’re broken,” Seth said. “It’s not a bad thing. I’ve been to therapy, and I’ve found it really helpful in dealing with hard times and hard things.”

I blew a deep breath out through puffed cheeks. “I didn’t say that therapy means you’re broken or that it’s a bad thing. It’s just…not for me.” I didn’t understand how Seth could be so unguarded about his vulnerabilities. He was just opening himself up to a world of pain if someone decided to use them to hurt him. Like my parents did. “I’m perfectly happy with my life and how I am.”

“Are you?” His voice was mild and not especially judgy, but it felt judgy. Maybe because I’d already shared with him more than I’d shared with anyone in a long time. And yes, Seth, I was happy. Really happy. Happier now than I’d been in a long time.

Even if it was only pretend. Only temporary.

I shrugged, ready to instinctively snap back, then stopped myself. He’d listened to me. He’d believed me.

So I took a deep breath. “Thank you. For hearing me,” I said. “We should probably go cheer your parents on.” I turned, ready to go.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Seth said to my back. “It’s what friends do.”

When did that lump swell up in my throat? Hopefully, it wasn’t cancer. “Okay.”

As we were walking down the hallway toward the social hall, he gently touched the small of my back, as if helping to hold me up. I didn’t need the help. I already had my smile fixed on my face like a shield.

But I let it stay there anyway, warm and sure against my spine. Maybe it wasn’t the worst thing in the world to be given some help from a friend.

—

Bev and Benjamin did not win the contest, which she didn’t stop muttering about on the way home. “The whole thing was fixed. Of course Eva Hallac got third place. She probably paid off the judges.”

“It’s the ice caps all over again,” I said. Benjamin and Seth both snickered. Warmth swept through me. I’d forgotten how nice it could be to be part of an inside joke. You typically needed to be close to somebody for that. The last time I’d been part of one was…when? With Connor?

At home we got to feast on Bev’s cookies, which were very pretty but also hard and dry, which prompted more muttering from Bev about what was the point of food looking good if it didn’t also taste good. I could agree with that, but what I agreed with more was the large bottle of very fine wine she broke out to soothe her hurt feelings, and the not quite as large but even better bottle of wine Benjamin brought out after from his apparently very secret liquor cabinet. Some fine scotch followed that, and I didn’t know the difference between fine and not-fine scotch, but I did appreciate how it made the sharp edges of my day blur even faster than the wine did.

Getting drunk with my fake boyfriend’s parents hadn’t been on my list of things to do here, but hey, it could’ve been worse. And wasn’t it the Hanukkah spirit and everything?

No. That was Passover, where we were supposed to get drunk to celebrate that we were no longer slaves in the land of Egypt. And also Purim, where we were supposed to get drunk to celebrate that the evil Haman hadn’t managed to kill us all.

If getting drunk to celebrate not dying at the hands of an evil tyrant was cool on Purim, why not on Hanukkah? We were pretty much celebrating the same thing. Or so I expounded upon—at great length—to Bev and Benjamin and Seth, who all emphatically agreed and toasted me with another shot.

At some point we lit the candles and sang the blessings loudly and boisterously, Seth’s arm wrapped over my shoulder, and screw it: maybe it was the alcohol, but I let myself feel warm and cozy and maybe even snuggled into him a little, had a little spark of joy from the way he looked down at me all pleased and a little surprised. Again: lighting fires while drunk was probably not on the list of Smartest Things to Do in a Small New York City Apartment, but whatever, that was Bev and Benjamin’s business. All that was left to me was to watch the candles burning, their flames blurring before me, fuzzy and otherworldly.

Fast-forward another hour or two and both Bev and Benjamin were snoring on the couch, Benjamin’s tie askew and Bev’s bra strap on full display. Seth and I had abandoned drinking in favor of ransacking the fridge for leftovers, sticking utensils and sometimes fingers into plastic-wrapped remainders of lox, pink and firm; a bag of baby carrots; crusty cardboard containers of lo mein of which I fervently did not want to know the age. I stuffed a mouthful of noodles into my mouth before passing the fork to Seth. Our fingers brushed as he took it from me. I tried to ignore the tingles they left as he said, “It’s a scientific fact that nothing soaks up alcohol like leftover carbs.”

“Fact.” They’d done their job: I could barely feel the buzz of alcohol in my system anymore, and the clarity in Seth’s eyes said much the same. I glanced over at his parents. “Should we wake them up and make them eat?”

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Seth said. “They never drink this much, though. They’re going to be so embarrassed tomorrow morning.”

“Assuming they remember anything.”

He snorted. “True.”

There was nothing else to do at this point besides get ready for bed, so that’s what we did. Well, I went and got ready for bed while Seth cleaned up his parents a little—removing shoes, fixing positions so that they wouldn’t wake up with pins and needles in their arms. I emerged from the bedroom in the T-shirt and sweats I’d been wearing as pajamas to find him tucking them in with the couch blanket, as tender as a parent toward their child.

That ugly thing in my chest that had made me want to throw the rabbi’s picture reared up again. Jealousy. What had I done wrong where I’d never have a relationship like that with my own parents? Why did he get this and I didn’t?

It made me think about kids. Not wanting kids for the sake of not wanting kids was totally cool and okay and normal. But sometimes I wondered if I wasn’t sure about them because of cool, normal reasons or because I was so afraid of being like my parents.

I shook the feeling away as Seth glanced up at me, a wry smile on his lips. It wasn’t like Seth himself had gone to my parents and made them the way that they were. And I knew that their behavior wasn’t my fault. I knew it.

Except maybe if they’d had a different child, a better child, one who knew all the rules and all the right ways to behave, would they still have treated her like that?

Seth was saying something, but I’d totally missed it. He walked off down the hall toward the bedroom and bathroom, leaving me here staring at Bev and Benjamin snoring away. Bev’s mouth was wide open, a thin string of drool stretching down her chin. Funnily enough, I would’ve expected Benjamin to sleep with his mouth closed, but he matched her. Maybe they were more alike than they seemed on the surface.

Whatever. I headed down the hall after Seth, opening the bedroom door to find him in the middle of changing. Again.

I blinked, stunned into stillness for just a moment. He’d frozen, too, boxers on but shirt over his head. Black hair running down his chest, down the stomach, below the belly button…“Sorry, sorry,” I said hastily, backing up—you’d think I’d have learned after this happened the first time—but he just finished pulling his shirt on and laughed.

“Don’t worry. You didn’t see much more than you would have in a bathing suit anyway.”

I relaxed. He got down on the floor and started punching his makeshift bed into shape. As usual, I grimaced in sympathy at how much his back had to hurt each morning when he woke up.

But that wasn’t what I’d blame for what I said next. Maybe it was the relaxed, friendly way he’d laughed this time when I caught him without his shirt. Like we were friends now, and physical proximity wouldn’t be weird, because friends were close to each other all the time.

“You can sleep in the bed tonight if you want,” I blurted. Usually, I don’t blurt things, and when I do I instantly regret whatever came out, but I didn’t this time. It felt right. Fair.

Seth looked up at me from his knees. “Are you sure? I really don’t mind being down here.”

There are way better things he could be doing from his knees. I flushed warm. “Yeah. Your back must be killing you, and there’s plenty of room for the two of us.” When he didn’t move, I hastily added, “Of course, you don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”

He rose slowly, wincing as his knees cracked. “No, I’m fine with it. We’re friends. I’ve shared beds with my friends before.”

And yet, when I’d shared beds with friends in middle school or high school, my stomach hadn’t popped and fizzed this way. I scooted over to the left to lie flush against the wall, while he took the outside edge, so far over that half his body seemed to be hanging in the air. “You can come closer, you know.” I swallowed, my throat dry. “I don’t want you to fall off.”

The thing about a full-size bed is that there isn’t actually that much room. So when I pushed off the wall so that my side wasn’t against the hard, cold surface and Seth wasn’t hanging off the edge of the bed, there couldn’t have been more than a few inches between us. We were lying on top of the blanket, but even so, I felt his heat push up against me.

I rolled on my side so I could look him in the eye. “Are you comfortable?”

He was on his side, too, his eyes level with mine, which meant his feet must have been hanging off the end of the bed. “I’m comfortable. Are you?”

There was a whole world unspoken in that question mark. So many different things I could say. And I knew that, depending on what I decided, we could go in so many different directions from here. Ones that could lead to that radiating heat coming off him touching my own.

So, naturally, I chickened out. “Not as comfortable as your parents.”

Nothing like bringing up someone’s parents to kill any heat in the room. Seth chuckled. “That’s probably true.”

He stared at me. I stared at him. God help me, but that heat sparked all over my skin once more. Quick, bring up his parents again.

I didn’t listen to that intrusive thought. “You’re different than I thought you were,” I said.

“You already told me that. I told you I was just as annoying here as I was in Vermont.”

“No, it’s not that.” I paused and held his gaze. His eyes were dark and deep in the shadow of the room; I couldn’t even tell where pupil and iris began and ended. I might fall in if I wasn’t careful.

When had I stopped being careful? “You’re so…good,” I said. “You and your family and your friends. You’re so normal and good.”

The corners of his lips quirked with amusement. “Thank you?”

He usually picked up on what I was trying to say without actually saying it. Because what I really meant was, You and your family and your friends, you’re so normal and good, unlike me. I’m not normal. There’s something wrong with me and I don’t think I can ever fix it and be normal like you and I’m sad, so sad.

“So what you’re saying is that I’m not annoying after all,” Seth said.

“Ugh.” The sadness dissipated. “Don’t make me say it.”

He scooched closer. One of his hands brushed mine, a gentle touch that sent tingles racing from the tips of my fingers to my shoulder to my heart. “I’m going to make you say it.”

“I’m not going to say it.” I didn’t move my hand, either. Well, I did, but not away—this time I purposefully brushed it against his. His breath went ragged.

“Say it.” His lips quirked. Mine did in response, and damn it, what I used to find incredibly annoying now sparked joy. But I couldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say it. I had to shut him up in another way.

Obviously, I had no choice but to kiss him.

It barely took any movement to close the inches-deep gap between us, but close it I did, pressing up against him like I could melt us together with the heat of our bodies. Our lips were liquid, molten rivers of want and need pulsing against each other, opening and searching and finding. A small groan escaped his throat as I tangled my fingers in his curls to bring his face closer to mine, as if it could get any closer. His stubble scratched my chin, and through the haze of want want want the burn heightened the heat inside me.

We were fully pressed up against each other now, one of my legs between his, one of his hands cupping my hip and pulling me in. Against my belly I could feel him stiffening, his hips pushing even harder into me with a pressure that made me gasp. More of that molten heat sparked between my legs, spreading up and down with a hot rush that made me desperate for the bare, slick feel of his skin under these clothes.

And then he pulled back, his other hand stroking my cheek, sending tingles through my chin and down my neck. His eyes were the softest I’d ever seen them: melted chocolate. I’d done that. I’d melted them. “Hey,” he said, voice hoarse.

“Hey.” Mine was hoarse, too. It was like how bad we wanted each other, how long we’d waited for this, had scoured the both of us from the inside out.

That spark lit again inside me, only this time it wasn’t just physical. Maybe this could be real. Maybe it didn’t have to end in three days—maybe I really had changed enough where Seth’s positive attitude and sunny disposition would forever be no longer annoying but beautiful. Maybe I could really become a part of his family and friend group, and they’d grow to love me and I’d love them back. Maybe I could kiss him every night before I went to bed and he’d decorate my small, shitty apartment and I’d make sure he had coffee and breakfast every morning.

This close, when Seth spoke, I could feel his breath on my face. “I’m going to take that as an admission that you no longer find me annoying.”

I sighed. I felt as if I might melt into the bed. Was this what it felt like to relax? If it was, maybe I’d finally take up yoga or something. “Whatever. Fine. I suppose that, at times, I do not find your presence annoying.”

“Thank you,” he said smugly, but then he ran his fingers through my hair, and it made me want to melt again. My lips found his, and I let myself give in. My body glittered with sparks, some that caught fire where his fingers trailed along my jaw, my collarbone, the curve of my waist.

My own fingers explored his body greedily as we kissed again and again. I wanted to drink it all in: the dip between the muscles of his back; the soft but wiry brush of hair where his shirt rode up on his stomach; the hard cup of his ass. I wanted to feel what they felt like under his clothes, too, and for a moment I went to slip my hand down there, but hesitated. This was his childhood bedroom. Probably not the place for this. So instead I curled up into him, thinking I could stay there forever.

And then, of course, he had to ruin it. Or maybe I ruined it. It was hard to tell. He pulled back to speak. “You’re not bad or abnormal, you know. There’s nothing wrong with you. I like you how you are.”

My stomach clenched, and it was like a door closed inside me. No, it slammed. With part of me caught in it, a sharp, sudden pain.

What had I been thinking? I couldn’t do this. I’d already slipped up and told him too much about me, to the point where he thought he knew what was better for me more than I did myself. This wasn’t safe. If this kept going, he’d expect to know more and more, and I’d seen the pain in Freya’s eyes when she talked about how he dumped her. I’d felt the pain of being dumped when Connor had left.

And in this case it would be even worse, because I wouldn’t just lose Seth. I’d lose the whole community.

I couldn’t give him my key. I couldn’t let him have access to all the soft, sensitive parts of me that he could hurt.

I wrenched myself away, pulling my hand out of his hair so quickly that a finger caught a curl and he winced. “This was a mistake,” I said loudly, as if I could drown out the thumping of my heart.

I looked away so that I wouldn’t have to see the hurt flash in his eyes. It didn’t help; I could hear it in his voice. “What do you mean?”

Better to hurt now than later. “I mean that this kiss was a mistake,” I said harshly, though dialed the volume down so that I wouldn’t wake Bev or Benjamin. “We were drunk, and it’s late, and—”

“I’m not drunk,” Seth said. “And I don’t think you are, either.”

I pushed away the excuse. “I’m saying that this is a business arrangement and we should keep it that way. There’s no point complicating things.” My heart squeezed hard in my chest, but I pushed that away, too. It had no idea what it was doing.

He was quiet for a long moment. I took advantage of it to pull back farther from Seth, pressing my back against the cold safety of the wall. Finally, he said, “If that’s how you really feel.”

My heart squeezed again. What had it expected? For him to put up a fuss or a grand protest or declare his great love for me? Of course not. This was all for the best. Definitely the best. “It is.”

“Okay.” He slowly rolled over to his other side, which brought him back to the edge of the bed, facing away from me.

It took me a very long time to fall asleep.