The Boy Who Died

Closing Time

Marcie

I throw my head back, my sides aching from how hard I’ve been laughing.

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me!” Ben says. “I warned you!”

“You said she bit you!” I splutter between giggles. “A real, adult, adult model!”

“She didn’t understand that I was a real photographer, not a set-up for a scene.” He laughs with me in a rumbling baritone I wish I could bottle.

“Hi, uh, sorry to interrupt.”

I close my mouth around the last of my laughter and open my eyes to see Anaya, one of the baristas who I’ve had a few classes with, standing next to our table.

“Are we being too loud?” My face burns. “We can keep it down.”

She shakes her head. “I came to let you know we’re closing up for the night. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here and all.” She puts a check on our table and walks away.

I blink a few times then pick up my cup of coffee and sip it to clear my head. I must’ve misheard her. But my coffee is ice cold. And she gave us a check for the pastries that used to occupy the crumb-covered plate between us. Pastries we ordered together, off the triangular menu on the table I haven’t touched in my six years at Ardent..

Ben rubs the back of his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you out so late.”

I check my phone, and my stomach flips. It’s eleven o’clock. I spent four hours in this café with Ben without even noticing. Heather even texted to make sure things were going well. I look at him, and my stomach does a double back-handspring. That’s Ryan’s sheepish smile, mostly reserved for parents and teachers. I was supposed to be testing Ben, figuring him out, but I barely know anything more than I did before I sat down. A few stories. A childhood he claims happened in Illinois. Easy lies.

“I’ll pay.” He reaches for his wallet. “If you don’t mind. I know it’s not modern, but I’d really like to.”

I open and close my mouth a few times. He seems to take that as agreement and pulls out a wad of bills. Okay, not a suspicious wad of bills. More like a bunch of fives and ones around a twenty or two. But it’s weird that he’s paying in cash at all, in this day and age.

My mouth won’t obey my requests to comment on this.

Anaya reappears to take the check and disappears again. I survey the table. A twisted napkin bears witness to my attempt to make a rose out of it like I used to be able to. Ben has a second cup, but I still only have one. Four hours.

He wipes his hands on his pants, drops a couple extra dollars on the table as a tip, and stands. “Did you walk or bike?”

“Walk,” I answer automatically.

His glowing smile warns me I’ve made a mistake before he says anything.

“Can I walk you home?”

I tug on the sleeve of my cardigan, the bright red nail marks in my palm from when he walked in still stinging. If he were Ryan, in four hours, I’d surely have spotted something that gave him away. I couldn’t have coffee with my dead best friend and not notice. Right?

The little Dana in my head agrees. I’m letting Ryan hold me back again, indulging in delusion.

Ben holds a hand out for me to take, and my heart slams against my ribs. Even if I assume he’s not Ryan, he’s a stranger. A stranger who just moved here and asked about me after only one class. It would be really crazy to tell him where I live.

“Alas, my Lady Gwendivere,” I say, “it is for the knight to walk the princess home, not the other way around.”

Ben laughs. “You’ve got me there. All right, if you’re sure you’re not going to get too cold doing both.”

I gesture to the cardigan. He lets his hand fall without saying anything, and we walk out into the night air.

“Jesus, the temperature really does drop at night here.” He shivers.

“And you were worried about me getting cold.” I smile wanly.

“You’re already used to it.” He shakes his head. “I’m used to it being cold all day and all night. Nice and predictable.”

“You’ll get used to it.” I bite my lip. “I mean, if you stay. Are you staying?”

He shrugs and stuffs his hands into his pockets. “Depends how this first year goes. Technically, I’m on probation.”

“Is this what you want to do with your life?” I gesture at the campus. “The teaching thing?”

“Nah, it was just an opportunity that came up. And my mom likes the idea of me teaching.” He stares ahead. “I’d like to do the impossible.”

“What’s that?” I find myself asking against my better instincts.

He waggles his eyebrows. “Make art.”

That startles a laugh out of me. “You’re a photographer; it can’t be that hard.”

“You’d be surprised.” He shakes his head. “Most of the gigs are commercial, like ads and stuff, weddings, or somebody’s really specific fetish.”

“But you have such a specific portfolio online.”

He raises an eyebrow, and I realize my mistake. My heart races, and my face burns.

“That sounds—I mean—”

“Did you look me up?” he asks quietly.

“No!” I blurt. “Maybe.”

There’s a beat of painful silence, filled only by my pounding pulse. This is it. If all of my worst fears are right, he’s about to pull out a gun and kill me for, I don’t know, failing to pull him out of the way of the car. If I’m wrong, I’m just a moron who ruined my first kind of nice date in six years.

Ben laughs. “I looked you up too.”

The relief that courses through my system makes me a little weak in the knees, and he catches my arm when I stumble.

“Hey, I thought Lancival did the saving,” he says.

I smile up at him. “It’s a role reversal.”

The rest of the walk to his apartment, another not-quite-off-campus one in a different block than mine, passes quickly. I don’t think too much about the time, the darkness, the fact he hasn’t let go of my arm. I do study his building when we arrive, but it’s the same featureless block as every other. We stop in a pool of lamplight, and I nudge a rock on the ground. How do we do the goodbyes? Do I hug him? Shake his hand?

“I had a really nice time tonight,” Ben says.

Like something out of a movie, he leans in to kiss me. Every muscle in my body locks. What if I’m right? What if I’m wrong, and he has something else awful to hide? I haven’t exactly set the standard for honesty tonight. What if—”

His mouth touches mine. It’s feather-light, delicate, testing. He doesn’t even grab me, like he’s making sure I can leave. My own body keeps me here, but the screaming alarm in my head is ever so slightly drowned out by the faint taste of cinnamon on his lips. He kisses me again, like my stillness is encouragement. I inhale his breath.

Ryan—Ben leans back. I blink. I never kissed Ryan, except in a few dreams I promptly shoved back into my brain and forgot about. I have nothing to compare to.

“I’ll text you.” He kisses my cheek and walks inside.

I stand on the sidewalk, stupidly, for several minutes before turning and racing home.