Page 10 of Unrealistic Expectations

She started a little, as though she’d truly been lost in her own thoughts. When she turned to face him, he felt entirely naked again. Like she could see right through him. But she was inscrutable. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and it was going to drive him mad. He just knew it.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m not sure what came over me last night, and I’m so embarrassed.”

He crossed the room quickly to her, needing to be near her, to reassure her. That urge was pretty foreign to him. He wasn’t what any of his exes would call emotionally supportive. In fact, one of Kennedy’s main complaints was that he always seemed off in his own world and never knew when she was upset. He’d tried to explain that he couldn’t be that to her. But she hadn’t believed him and kept complaining. Finally, he’d broken things off.

Now that he’d had a lot of time to think about what he’d done wrong in that relationship—in all of his relationships—he kind of saw her point. He hadn’t been emotionally engaged with Kennedy on any level. Dating her had been fun at first—kind of a novelty. He’d thought that the sex was a wash, but her video made him wonder.

It didn’t make sense that he was feeling tenderness toward Jessica. She wasn’t his girlfriend—not even close. Even though she’d kissed him later—after tequila shots—she’d been so clear that she didn’t want him. Maybe that had only happened because of drunkenness and proximity and her very recent breakup.

And she wasn’t giving him anything to go by at the moment. But then he realized that he hadn’t said anything after her effusive apologies. “There’s no need to apologize.”

She scoffed. “After getting drunker than I’ve been since freshman year in college and mauling you?” She looked down, and her skin flushed. Galvin felt a hit of gratification that he had some effect on her. “I stripped you out of your clothes and just—like—rubbed you.”

Galvin smiled at her. “I liked it.”

“Is this what dating is like now?” Jessica turned away from him, and he did not like that, so he went into the kitchen. She smelled freshly showered, so that must mean that she had another bathroom, or he’d been passed out on her floor while she showered, and he’d missed the chance to see her naked.

“You smell good.” He hadn’t meant to say that, but he didn’t want to get into the topic of how dating was now. To be honest, he really didn’t like it that much, either. But it wasn’t as though there were a lot of options. He rarely had to go on apps, but he did habitually slide into DMs. And people were so weird.

“You don’t.” Jessica looked at him pointedly, and he backed off. She was almost certainly right. Booze and dance club sweat wasn’t a good smell on anyone. “I’m sorry. That was mean.”

He smiled at her. “No, it was honest.”

“Are you hungry?” It was clear to him that she was going to back away from anything serious this morning.

His stomach growled, answering for him. “I could eat a horse.”

“You know, I’ve never understood that phrase. Like, why is eating a horse your only option?”

“You never played Oregon Trail in elementary school? When you’re out of meat and half your family has died of dysentery or drowned trying to ford a river, you’ll probably have to eat the horse.” He didn’t know why he couldn’t stop talking to her, even about something kind of stupid, but he knew that he didn’t want to stop talking to her. He felt like he couldn’t stop talking to her. It was probably just that she was a therapist, so her job required her to be good at getting people to open up. But he didn’t think it was just that. He felt like he’d known her forever, when they’d technically only ever been acquaintances.

He didn’t even know much about her. But he liked everything he knew—the way she smelled, the way she kissed, the way she looked at him skeptically when he said he was so hungry that he could eat a horse.

“I totally forgot about Oregon Trail,” she said with a laugh. He liked her laugh, too. “Like, such a fucked-up game to let children play. Morbid.”

“It’s no wonder every woman our age is obsessed with serial killer stories. We got started young with gaming out all of the bad things that could happen.”

“I love true crime,” she said. And he wasn’t surprised. “The criminal justice system is incredibly flawed, but there’s something about knowing the depths of people’s capacity for evil that fascinates me. I think it’s the same reason that I love my job. People’s capacity to do fucked-up things to people they profess to love will never not surprise me.”

“Were you surprised when Luke moved out on you?” Galvin wasn’t sure why he’d asked that question. It wasn’t appropriate, and he fully expected her to ask him to leave. But he wanted to know.

Instead, she turned to him. He didn’t allow himself to be caught up in her pretty green eyes. “Totally. I had no clue that he wasn’t happy.”

“Were you happy?” Yet another question that he had no right to ask but was dying to know the answer to.

“I don’t know. And I don’t know if happiness is even the goal.”

“If we’re not here to be happy, what the fuck are we here for?” Galvin had always chased happiness, and he’d been pretty content with his life before the video.

“We’re here to grow and learn.” He could sense she was about to go into some sort of therapy lecture.

“But what about pleasure?”

“We can’t go around seeking pleasure all the time. We also need meaning.”

“Also?” He didn’t know why he was antagonizing her, but it was making him feel very alive. “So you admit that we need pleasure?”

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