Page 86 of Fruit
It’s the odd sort of quiet which lives in busy places just after they quiet down. All the young people have left the youth centre, their noise leaving the air to recover. I wash the staff mugs in the little break room, my mind lulled by the repetitive movement. When I turn my head at the sound of stuttered steps behind me, it’s instinctual instead of curious. The sight of Sebastián, when my mind had wandered so far from him, sends a jolt through me.
“Hey,” I manage to say anyway. I’m caught awkwardly in the twist of my neck. I want to return to washing the cup in my hands, but it feels strange to give my back to Sebastián. I don’t want what would have been a casual move to be imbued with meaning.
“Hey,” he replies.
I notice the mug he’s holding in his hands. “You want me to take that?”
He looks at me, confused, and I point a soapy hand. He looks down at his mug. “Oh. You don’t have to.”
“Well, I’m already here. Come on, give,” I say, finally returning to the task at hand.
There’s a moment of silence before I hear him walking towards me. I try not to tense as my awareness of him heightens. There’s another pause, and I can feel him right at my blind spot. The hair on my neck starts to rise, but then his arm appears, placing the mug at the edge of the sink. I empty it of coffee dregs and wash it as he stands there like a ghost.
“Okay,” I say, turning the water off and grabbing a dish towel to dry my hands. “I know you’re doing the whole ‘avoid Iva’ routine but, dude. Relax. You’re giving me an ulcer, the way you’re just standing there.” I lean a hip against the counter, looking at him. The edges of his lips twitch down guiltily.
“Sorry,” he says. I keep my gaze steady for a moment more before sighing. I can’t quite believe we’ve been reduced to this awkward place.
“Look. You don’t have to…” I throw the dish towel to the side. “I can handle how I feel. I’m not gonna freaking jump you in the middle of the common room. So, like. You can stop being all weird and avoiding me. I’ll get over it.”
Sebastián just stares at me. There’s a deep frown on his face that doesn’t seem to suit the situation, but I’m too tired to figure it out. It hasn’t been a bad day, but ithasbeen long, and I’m not eager to be punched in the face by whatever Sebastián is thinking of right now.
I move my hip away from the counter it was leaning on, straightening up and turning to walk away, but Sebastián’s hand halts me. It doesn’t touch me, but its sudden movement, as if it wanted to but stopped at the last second, startles me into stillness. I look at Sebastián’s face, still decorated in that deep frown. He shakes his head a little.
“Over what?” he asks. Now it’s my turn to frown.
“Huh?”
“You said, ‘I’ll get over it’. Over what?”
My mouth twists. “Don’t do that. Don’t—that’s not fucking relevant anymore,” I say, irritated at his stupid confusion. We don’t have to drag my emotions into the ring. They’ve already been knocked out enough to lose.
I shift to move away again, but this time he takes an aborted step towards me.
“Wait,” he says a little urgently.
I cross my arms over my chest defensively, looking at him expectantly. He looks back at me.
“Why do you think I broke it off?” he asks. For a moment, I’m speechless with incredulity. What was irritation solidifies into anger.
“I’m a fucking mind reader, now? You should know your own reasons, the fuck.”
“I—no, I’m asking whatyouthink the re—”
“Okay, this is fucking—I don’t need to fucking unpack my thoughts and emotions about you dumping m—or, whatever, not dumping me exactly but breaking things off. Like…you’re being a fucking asshole right now. I’m—”
“Wait,” he cuts me off, his hands coming up as if to defend himself, even as he takes a step closer to me. I glare at him. “Wait, wait. You, yousaid, when we first started, when, you know—”
“We started fucking,” I say crassly because it feels good to pretend it was just that.
“When we started sleeping together. You said if we developed feelings for each other—or, ‘mushy emotions’, you said—we needed to speak up and put the brakes on,” he says. I stare at him, because what the fuck is the point of this little speech?
“Right. I get it. You saw I had feelings for you and said something. Dude, I—”
“No.Iwas the one with feelings,” he says. The words hit the metal plate of my defences and bounces right off. I stare at him.
“What?”
“I…I realised—I’ve known for a while. That, you know. I felt more for you than what we agreed to. So. You said…” He trails off. I can feel my face doing something weird, going through a series of uncomprehending expressions.
