As soon as Jamie picks up the phone the next morning, I blurt, “Eli’s been bodysnatched.”
“Well, hello,” she says cheerfully. “I nearly brained myself on the shower door trying to get to the phone. Clearly the injury would’ve been worth it.”
“It’s one of those mornings.” I groan this, my hands slick on the steering wheel. I’m racing up to Adam’s house to pick up Eli and I’m flustered and anxious and late. The rusted red metal of the Golden Gate Bridge blurs past as Highway 101 spits me into Marin County’s rolling green hills.
“Tell me about it. I’m in tornado mode because Blake and I have an appointment with a financial planner this morning and I’ve been told I have twenty minutes.”
“Fifteen,” comes Blake’s drawl.
“Fifteen?” Jamie wails. Her dresser drawers open and close frantically, a clatter I used to hear through our shared wall.
“Do you want me to call you—”
“No!” she yells. “Don’t you dare hang up. I was expecting you to call me last night anyway and now you’ve gripped me with this conspiracy theory. I’ll get ready while we talk.”
What a perfect example of the ways our schedules repel each other. “Sorry for not calling, I passed out early.”
In reality, I lay in bed for hours, my roaring thoughts too loud for New Girl to drown out, replaying every moment between me and Eli. When I did close my eyes, all I could see was him standing on the knife’s edge of Adam’s curb until I turned the corner, his tall, familiar body stamped onto the backs of my eyelids like I’d been staring at something too bright for too long.
“Let’s focus,” Jamie says. “Why has Eli been bodysnatched?”
“He’s been acting super weird since I picked him up.” I swear even now I can feel the snare of his eyes, laser-focused on me.
“Really? He seemed pretty normal when I saw him last night.” “He’s being normal in front of Adam—”
“Because Adam will turn into a rabid raccoon if anyone even breathes wrong?”
“Exactly. But with me, he’s been…” I search for the word, then groan. “I don’t know. Bodysnatched.”
Jamie, ever the emotional bloodhound, hears the anxiety pulling the strings of my voice taut. “Okay, tell me.”
As I pass under the rainbow arch of the Robin Williams Tunnel, I give her a truncated rundown of Eli’s behavior, from the airport to the driveway conversation last night. I tell her about his absent phone and his newfound dedication to being present for Adam, the way he’s been just…looking at me. I even tell her about his wrinkles and his too-long hair and that beard.
When I’m done, she asks, voice enveloped in concern, “Are you sure about doing this?”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m sure,” I say. “Eli’s desperate to prove himself, and Adam wants me up there to make sure everything goes smoothly. So it’s happening.”
“And how do you feel about that?”
I take Adam’s exit on two wheels, gritting my teeth. “It’ll be fine. Eli will do his thing and play hero, I’ll do my thing, we’ll get everything rebooked easily and then it’ll be done.”
“Georgia. None of those words were feelings.”
I sigh. “I feel fine. I mean, mostly fine. It’s weird. Not weird like I can’t handle it—”
“No, of course.”
“But weird. Objectively.”
“Of course,” Jamie repeats. “Objectively, having to hang out with your ex-Person for any length of time, never mind—”
“Eight days.”
“Very quick reflexes, thank you,” she says, her voice full of amusement, but also care and empathy. Her classic trifecta. “Eight days with your ex- Person is objectively not the easiest thing, and this is a lot of time to be spending together for the first time in forever. You normally see each other in bite-sized pieces, you know?”
“Oh, I know,” I say grimly.
“This is the man you loved helping you save your mutual best friend’s wedding. It’s okay to not be fine about it. If he’s as determined to integrate himself into it as you’re saying, it could get uncomfortable being around each other so much.”
I groan as I get stuck at a red light, my heart beating hard and fast. “Okay, but what if we skip the discomfort and stay out of each other’s way instead?”
For a beat, I listen to the click-clack of Jamie’s makeup bag as she digs through it, the steady cadence of her breath. And then she asks, “Is it discomfort? Or is it something else?”
“Like what?” I ask, mashing the gas pedal when the light turns green. “Fear, maybe?”
It’s not a feeling I’ve allowed myself to consider, but Jamie’s gentle probe unlocks the cage door of my emotions. Despite my best efforts, I feel it—fear, yes, but also a dangerous kernel of longing. One I recognize from thirteen months ago, and before that, too.
Eli and I had very little closure at the end of our relationship. When I left, that was it. We didn’t pursue any follow-up conversations, and the relief of not having to dissect what we’d each done wrong superseded the hurt. Because the truth is, I did things wrong, too. I just didn’t want to face them with him.
Over the years, I grew more careful with my closest friendships. I’d learned from Heather and Mya, where I’d been too eager, too needy for their time and attention. I tempered myself, never asked for too much, made sure I gave more than I took.
I was most careful with Eli, maybe because deep down I knew a fracture between us would shatter me. When we fell in love, I hesitated before I took
the leap, even though I was sure about him. I’d have more to lose—not just a best friend, but everything: my Person, now my boyfriend, someone who could give me forever, a thing I craved so deeply, but only if I played my cards right.
In hindsight, I see how easy the first two years of our relationship were, how effortless it was to not ask for too much, because Eli was giving me everything anyway—attention, love, time. It wasn’t needy if I didn’t request it, right?
We moved to New York with so much hope and enthusiasm, had been planning and talking about it for months. We spent the first three weeks before Eli started his analyst training program setting up our apartment, exploring our city, falling deeper in love with it and each other.
The six-week training program was intense, but by that time I’d started as an HR coordinator at a beauty company so both of our days were full, and most of his evenings were still free for me. Even when Eli joined his team in September, we managed to eke out time together—a quick breakfast in the morning, though most dinners were out now, and many of our weekends. He was so good at what he did. He loved that, felt exhilarated by it, and I was right there beside him.
And then he was still good at what he did, the gold-star analyst of his team, but a more senior analyst left and Eli had to step up to run the model on a mandate they’d won. What little time we had together disappeared. The expectations placed on him were another gold star; they doubled his stress, tripled it. He couldn’t fail, because he was so good at his job and it was safe and he needed that. As the months went by and the demands grew, his anxiety grew beside it, monster-like. I watched him disappear under those expectations, locked in misery he was sure he could get out of in a year, maybe. Two, max, when he reached associate and he could start looking for a role that didn’t have such a power-tripping managing director.
But somewhere in there I disappeared, too. I’d been happy those first couple months with Eli, but as his availability waned and then went away altogether, I recognized that I didn’t really have my own place in New York, that my happiness was only tied to him. My job turned out to be a terrible
fit, my boss a micromanager, the culture toxic. I had very few friends, none of them deep-rooted. Every type of loneliness I’d ever felt coalesced, an anxiety spiral come true. I repressed the ugly feelings that ballooned: the shame of needing Eli more as he drifted further away, the embarrassment of being so dependent on him. What was I going to do, ask him to quit his job because I needed him? Please.
Needing people like that had only ever hurt me in the past. It was easier to shut down. Over the course of months, our singular, intertwining life turned plural and parallel, until the night it cracked under the pressure of everything we weren’t saying. Everything we still haven’t said.
I’ve spent the last five years numbing myself to every feeling I had for him, good and bad. But what if that’s only been possible because of our agreed-upon silence? Our distance?
“I’m not afraid,” I say, and it’s not a lie exactly. It’s a wish that this bodysnatched Eli will turn back into the Eli I know. That the emotions he’s been kicking up like insidious little dust motes will settle, and I’ll successfully white-knuckle it through this week. “I just want everything to be easy.”
Jamie sighs sadly. “I know you do.”
In the background, Blake calls her name. Time’s up.
I turn into Adam’s cul-de-sac. “It’ll be fine. He’ll probably revert back to his old ways any minute, and then we can live totally separate lives up there.”
After all, it’s what we do best.
 |
“I’m not going to mention that you’re late,” Adam says as he throws open his front door. “Mostly because you brought me Bob’s Donuts.”
“Fair trade,” I reply, shoving the grease-splotched box at his chest as I push past him.
“It’s a good thing, actually,” Adam continues, flipping the lid. “When I went into Eli’s room twenty minutes ago, he was knocked out cold. He’s
getting his shit together right now, literally and figuratively.” I stop short. “He was still sleeping?”
Eli’s always been an early riser, even before his job demanded it. In college, I’d stay the night at the apartment he shared with three other guys and wake up with him wrapped around me, absently stroking my hair while he gazed up at the ceiling or out the window with soft, sleepy eyes.
Really, the only time he ever slept in was after a rare extra-late weekend date, or when his anxiety got the best of him and he’d spend the night—
“Pacing around the living room.” I whip around to Adam. “What?”
“I said, I got up at three because Grace needed water, and he was pacing around the living room.” Adam pushes the front door shut with his foot, nudging me into the living room with his shoulder. “He was tapping away on his phone. He never lets himself have a break.” He looks up as he settles onto the couch and does a double-take. “What’s that look?”
I wipe my expression clean. “What look?”
“That look. Like something’s up.” He straightens. “Do you think something’s wrong with Eli?”
Of course something’s wrong with Eli. Something’s been wrong with him since he got that godforsaken job. I was with him that day senior year when he found out Phillips Preston wanted him, a larger and more prestigious bank than the one he’d interned for the summer before. I saw the flare of relief and triumph in his eyes.
It was stupid of me not to see it coming, how his job would swallow him whole and give him everything he wanted: rock-solid stability, control over the trajectory of his own life, and a place to call home, one that wouldn’t get taken away. He’d make sure of it.
Knowing he’s still caught up in that cycle of late-night anxiety that often morphed into panic attacks underscores the need to keep my distance. Underneath Bodysnatched Eli is the same Eli.
“Nothing’s wrong with him,” I say, swallowing the irritation crawling up my throat. For better or worse, we’re partners now, and Adam looks like he’s two seconds away from adding Eli’s behavior to his list of worries.
“The time difference was probably messing with him. Maybe he was trolling Hinge or taking down a puzzle.”
Adam laughs. “Funny you say that, because there’s a half-finished Brooklyn Bridge puzzle on his floor. You know our boy.”
Eli told me once how oddly soothing the practice was. “I like that if I work hard and long enough at it, it looks the way it’s supposed to,” he said. We were cross-legged on the floor in Adam’s den sometime in high school, focused on finishing one of David’s works-in-progress. Adam wasn’t home, but Laurie told us to hang out until he was so we could all have dinner together.
Something hot flared in my chest watching the pink creep over Eli’s cheeks when he said that, hearing the breath snake out from between his lips as he pressed a piece into place. When he got to Cal Poly, Sunday become our designated puzzle-making night, a tradition we carried with us to New York. Our hallway closet was filled with boxes of them, half of them forever unopened.
You know our boy.
I do, and god, I wish I didn’t still. It’s a gift to know someone when you’re in love with them, and a curse when you’re out of it.
I perch on the arm of the chair nearest Adam, swallowing hard. “Mystery solved, then. Eli Mora was up to his puzzle-making ways.”
“Ah, that’s why my ears were burning,” a deep voice says just behind me.
I yelp, nearly toppling off the chair, but a pair of hands curl around my arms. For a string of unbearable seconds, the solidity of Eli’s body presses against my back, a stabilizing wall until I can find my balance.
I want to linger; that’s why I don’t. Instead I twist around to appraise him. He must’ve just rolled out of the shower—his hair is wet and combed back from his forehead. A drop of water hangs off a lock curling at the nape of his neck, and a fresh soap scent clings to his skin, magnified by the warmth of it.
Despite the purple smudges under his eyes, he looks so handsome it hurts. So familiar it pulls at the space in my chest that’s never forgotten
what he meant to me.
Focus, Georgia. “Warn a girl next time you’re going to scare the hell out of her.”
His tired mouth makes a tiny improvement upward. “Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of scaring the hell out of you?”
“He has a point,” Adam says around a cruller before staring balefully down at the rest of the donuts. “Shit, I gotta save a couple of these for Grace, huh?”
“Where is she, anyway?” I ask.
“Yoga,” he sighs, closing the box.
It’s not until Eli’s hands brush down my arms that I realize he’s been holding on to me. That I sank into it. I sway like a loose-rooted tree when he finishes his lingering release.
“Sorry for cracking into your brand-new puzzle box, Kiz,” Eli says. “No, you’re not,” Adam replies cheerfully.
“No, I’m not.” Eli’s mouth pulls up affectionately as his eyes find mine and stay. The curve of his lips soften. “And sorry I’m late.”
“All good. I was, too,” I say with a sunshine smile. He blinks. I stare at his lashes, still spiked with moisture. We hang like that for one second. Two.
Tearing myself away, I point to the pastry box Adam’s bear-hugging. “I brought donuts if you’re hungry.”
“I had a protein bar,” he says. “We should get going.”
His no-nonsense tone pulls at my spine. We have a job to do, and that job isn’t staring at his unfairly thick eyelashes. “Yes. Absolutely.”
Adam talks a mile a minute as we make our way outside, reminding us that his uncles and aunt will get us settled in the guest cottages once we’re at Blue Yonder and going over the details of the bakery appointment we’re driving directly to.
“Grace’s appetite has been terrible the past couple weeks, but she’s really excited about this bakery,” he says, watching Eli as he tries to stuff his luggage into the packed trunk. “Apparently the woman’s a genius, but she was terrifying on the phone.”
“Terrifying?” I echo.
“Just…strangely intense about baked goods, but I guess that’s her job, right?” He shrugs, scratching at his cheek. “She didn’t even give us confirmation that she’d bake our cake. She just said, ‘We’ll see.’ ”
Eli peeks around the trunk. “What does that mean?”
“Hell if I know. But cake is the only thing Grace’ll be able to eat at the wedding without puking and revealing our surprise baby, and I want her to have something she loves.” Adam splits a pleading look between us. “We have to get this lady. Like seriously, do anything.”
“That sounds potentially illegal, but sure, adding it to my list,” I say. “Speaking of lists, Grace and I put all your to-dos for the week
together.” Adam hitches a thumb at Eli as he shuts the trunk. “Eli transcribed for us, so you should be all set, but if you have questions you know where we are.”
“Great,” I say, looking over at Eli. “I can take that off your hands.”
“It’s on my phone,” he says, his small grin bordering on karmic. “You told me to put together my own list last night, right?”
“Once again encroaching on my dedicated list space?” I tsk. “It’s becoming a nasty habit, Mora.”
“There’s no ‘I’ in team, Georgia. We’ll share it.” I smile serenely. “I’m not a good sharer.”
“I believe in you.” And then this man honest-to-god winks.
Adam watches us with a twinkle in his eye, unaware of the very real tug-of-war happening underneath our role-play.
Once we’re all packed up, Eli and I take turns giving Adam a hug. He steps back onto the lawn, turning into the heart-eye emoji right before our eyes. “My best people. If we get out of this week in one piece, it’ll be because of you two.”
“We’ve got you,” Eli and I say in unison, then exchange a look. It’s going to be a long eight days.
