Side Effects May Vary

His words pinballed in my chest, every syllable hitting harder than the last, but I kept my back straight and my expression unmoving as I opened the microwave.

He turned, walked a few steps, and then spun back around long enough to say, “I can’t pretend to forget anymore.”

Alice. Now.

I went to bed before my parents got home from dinner. I wasn’t sure when I fell asleep, but it was somewhere in between thoughts of Harvey and my mom.

The next morning I slept in and found a note from my mom on the kitchen table.

A—

Doctor’s office called, had to reschedule your blood work for Tuesday.

Big case on Monday. Went to office to prep. Dad came to help sort papers (and

order Chinese food, yum!). Be home late. Call Dad’s cell if you need us!

Love you.

P.S. Left cash in case you go out.

There was a crisp twenty lying on the counter.

“Nice,” I murmured to myself. “Unsupervised Saturday.”

I used to love being alone in my house. Our house always felt full, especially over the last year. Everyone seemed scared to leave me alone, but today being alone in my house felt like a clean bill of health.

I spent my morning trying out each of my mom’s nail polishes and watching reality shows about hoarding and people staging interventions for others with drug addictions. Those shows were a giant time suck. Anything I did was a sad attempt at avoiding thoughts of last night.

These last couple weeks, I’d pushed him farther and farther away while keeping him barely in reach. Then last night, I really fucked up when I almost let Harvey kiss me. I felt weak and wanted to let him in. In the parking lot, it felt like we would be okay, like we could be okay. Under the night sky, everything looked so much better. So much more manageable.

The show went to a commercial break when the doorbell rang. My first instinct was to pretend like I wasn’t home.

The doorbell rang again, then three times in quick succession. “Okay,” I called. “Cool it.” I looked through the peephole and saw Eric on my front porch. His messy hair flipped up around the edge of his beanie. He rubbed his hands together.

I cracked the door open. “Hey.”

“I didn’t feel like waiting until tonight. You free now?”

Rather than respond, I waved him in with one hand and shut the door behind him. I’d forgotten about tonight and our supposed plans.

“God, it feels so good in here,” he said and then suddenly took notice of my bare legs. “Cute.”

I always felt like that word was an insult cloaked as a compliment, but I swallowed my annoyance and led the path to the living room.

“Cool,” he said, “I love this show. Have you seen the one where this guy saves all of his toenail clippings in mason jars? Crazy.”

“Gross.” At least we didn’t talk about cancer. Actually, we never talked about cancer, and that was one of the things I liked best about Eric. “Sit down.”

He sat right next to me, half on my cushion and half on his. “I think I like you,” he said. It was more statement than confession.

I flipped through channels, trying to pretend like I hadn’t heard him because I didn’t know how to respond.

“So what’s up with you and that Harvey guy?” he asked.

“Nothing at all.” I’d never been charitable with words.

“So, um . . . ,” said Eric, from the corner of my vision, and he actually looked a little nervous, which was alarming and endearing all at the same time. He slid closer to me until the bare skin of my thigh touched his jeans. He felt warm, and his closeness made my heart skip. I didn’t feel butterflies or anything like that; he made my skin feel antsy, like I might jump out of myself.

“I’m going to do this, okay?”

He curled his arm around me so that his hand was on the small of my back, pulling me to him. He kissed my neck and unzipped my sweatshirt a little so his lips could travel farther down. A sigh escaped my lips. His kisses became more feverish as he unzipped even more of my hoodie. As he kissed my body, it occurred to me he had never kissed my lips. But the thought vanished as his mouth traveled up my neck to my lips and he kissed me deeply. The feel of him was a magnetic charge, humming my entire body to life.

For a moment, my thoughts shifted to Harvey and the way he was so carefully deliberate with me last night. How he’d taken it so slow—so slow we never reached our destination—and how he seemed so present for the moment, so ready to experience every single touch.