Page 49 of Gifted & Talented

“But I would, though,” said Jamie. “Because you’ll be there, which is kind of my only goal.”

“I like that we’re developing a real rapport,” said Meredith. “But I do actually need to study, and unless you’re single now—”

“I am,” said Jamie, a little breathless. “I mean—not that I’m, like, suggesting anything—”

“I’d actually prefer it if you’d suggest something, and quickly, because I really need to study for this class,” said Meredith, who had been reading about Lou again. Lou had won some kind of award. Lou was very good at college. Lou, as Meredith had always known,wasn’ttalentless, not that it matters to the story.

“I do actually think that most of the things I think about are more valuable than this exam,” Meredith qualified, “and I don’t really like to waste my time, but I still don’t want to fail.”

Of course, there wasn’t really a way to avoid failing, because by definition, not caring about the class was defeating the class’s entire purpose. Jamie told Meredith this, and she considered it, and by then things had emptiedbecause most people had gone to their next class or to lunch or wherever they were going, but Meredith stood there contemplating what Jamie had said, and also the possibility that a department-mandated curve meant that someone was going to fail, and dear god, it might be Meredith, who couldn’t actually care about this no matter how hard she studied.

Which was ironically the inverse of a problem Meredith would later have, although right now, what’s important is what Meredith said to Jamie, which was, “I do really want to have sex with you, although I don’t think it should be especially drawn out given the time constraints.”

Jamie felt destabilized by every single word out of Meredith’s mouth. He felt the beginnings of an obsession, the little prescient stirring in his gut that everything in his life was about to revolve around Meredith. He was about to see her constantly in every crowd, he was about to memorize the divot between her brows, he was about to create an invisible, personal mood ring that would only change color depending on what Meredith did, said, or thought. He did not, however, realize that the feeling would follow him well into adulthood, so that later on, when Meredith lied to his fucking face and he knew it, because he had already learned so long ago how to read her, because he had once considered the mere act of knowing her to be a reward in and of itself, he would suffer the simultaneous thrill of hatred that married with the violence of loving her passionately, without respite.

She was so fuckingunlikable,that was the thing! She was so fucked up it was addictive, because he could never make it stop, this wanting to understand her that was already impossible. It was exactly the perfect inverse paradox of failing a class because you couldn’t care about it. He loved her because he knew he could never actually know her, and for fuck’s sake it was paralyzing, breathtaking. What calmer love could ever compare?

So they went to Meredith’s room in Adams House and had sex, and then because it hadn’t taken too long, they had sex again, and then Meredith studied and Jamie studied next to her because he didn’t want to leave, and then Meredith had to eat and so Jamie went with her to the dining hall, and then Meredith had to sleep so Jamie slept beside her, and then Jamie had to go home and take a shower but then Meredith called him so Jamie came back, and days just kind of kept going like that for a long, pleasant buzz of time, and then Meredith went home for Christmas break and when she came back Jamie realized it had been like he’d held his breath for fourweeks. Like time had stopped and then she was back, and everything was alive again.

And then Meredith went away again, and time stopped again for Jamie Ammar. Though he hadn’t necessarily noticed until he saw her on the Tyche stage, because it was easy to become accustomed to suffocation when it happened glacially over time. After twelve years, you can almost forget what kind of madness lives in your chest until it shows up again to destroy you.

21

It wasn’t a long walk to the coffee shop in town, though it was long enough for Meredith to feel eight different forms of dread before eleven. That was impressive for Meredith, who was single-minded enough to feel only one at a time, intensely, usually. She stopped and turned around to go back to her father’s house several times, at least four or five. But eventually she made it to the coffee shop because physical space had limits. Eventually, destinations were reached.

Jamie was already there, sipping a coffee in the public plaza that was the central part of the town. Meredith recognized him immediately, just as she had when he’d first introduced himself to her in college. She had told herself then that she was never going to speak to him, firstly because he was so attractive it was physically crushing her chest, and secondly because he had heard the professor call her a failure and Meredith felt certain that Jamie knew, somehow, in a mind-reading way (Jamie can’t actually read minds) that Meredith agreed with the professor, and that it wasn’t even the first time she’d heard it, because Meredith’s father called her talentless all the time. Not in those exact words, because Thayer wasn’t usually so explicit. But she did understand after eighteen years of routinely suggesting she become a different person that Thayer didn’t like what she actually was, and that was its own version of being called talentless.

And then Jamie had spoken to her because he felt sorry for her and Meredith had the wild, extremely upsetting thought that she would like to have him on top of her anyway, just lying on top of her looking like that, looking at her, being him. Which was obviously so distressing she had needed to leave the room then, which was also what she wanted to do now, because now they were adults andshewas the one who wasn’t single and yet she still wanted him to lie on top of her and look at her like that for the rest of her life.

Even though he didn’t look the same as he did when he was twenty—actually, he looked better. And once again it crushed her chest and not at all in the way she wanted.

“Hello,” she said in her coldest voice, sitting down across from him and determining this instantly to be a mistake. He had such a strong jaw. She couldn’t look at him, he was too perfect.

“Meredith, a pleasure as always.” He made her name sound beautiful whenever he said it. Not like Cass, who was always bastardizing it, calling her Mer. Why was intimacy so disgusting? Why couldn’t Cass have remained a mystery, never using the bathroom with the door open or cutting her name into stiff paper strips? Why couldn’t she simply revel in Cass’s usefulness, his magnificent way of existing so stably, which she had envy for, which sometimes felt like desire, like she wanted to peel off parts of him and make them hers? God, what she wouldn’t give to wear Cass’s calmness, to put his practicality on like another skin, and yet she sat there and wanted silently to lick the span of Jamie’s earlobe, to bless him tenderly with the tips of her fingers, to do unspeakable things with him tied to her bed.

The fucking carnality of him, it was relentless! She needed a coffee and ten beers.

“Here,” said Jamie, pushing a latte toward her. “I have no idea how you take your coffee anymore.”

“Thanks,” said Meredith with a brief, all-consuming madness that flashed in front of her eyes like a sudden wash of red. “So, what are you going to do after you destroy me?”

“Hopefully wind up with health insurance,” said Jamie. “Maybe see the dentist.”

His teeth were perfect and the latte was exactly right, the sort of thing Meredith never allowed herself to drink. Sweet and creamy, like a day spent in bed. FUCK. “I just don’t understand why you had to come for me,” she said. “You could have written about anyone.”

“Ah, but you’re the only one pulling off such an amazingly sociopathic con.” He drummed his fingers on the table.

“I’m not a sociopath,” Meredith pointed out. “If anything, I’m a psychopath.”

“No, you’re capable of empathy,” said Jamie. “That’s what makes it all the more insane.”

“Again, assuming any of this was true, it wouldn’t beinsane,” said Meredith irritably. “It would be purely a means to an end.”

“An insane means,” said Jamie, “to an objectively toxic end.”

“Journalism is never objective,” countered Meredith, “or you would have given the article to someone else.”

“I want the money,” Jamie argued. “Actually, I need the money. I’m thirty-three years old and still paying off debt.”

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