I Lost 90 Pounds, Only to Find He Tried to Give Me Away novel · Chapter 19 of 32

Chapter 19: Neil Avenue

I told Betsy with my eyes.

She read it from across the stage, the way she's read everything since third grade.

She put both hands over her mouth.

Then she pointed at Beck, then at her own eyes, then at Beck again.

He nodded at her very seriously.

The team was going to the all-night donut place on High Street to celebrate.

The grad student yelled after us, "Where are you two going?" and the sophomore hit him in the arm with her good hand.

We went out the side door of the union into the cold.

It was after ten.

The quad was full of people still talking about the final, and two of them pointed at me, and one of them clapped.

Beck didn't hold my hand until we were past the library.

Then he did, and he didn't let go.

"It's close," he said. "Neil Avenue. Two blocks."

"I know where Neil Avenue is."

"I know. I'm talking because I'm nervous."

"Rule three. How nervous?"

"I cleaned my apartment twice this morning. Before the final. In case."

I laughed so loud a guy on a bike looked back.

"You cleaned in case."

"I cleaned in case," he said. "And then I cleaned again because I thought I was being arrogant, and I wanted to be arrogant in a clean apartment."

His place was the second floor of an old brick house with a sagging porch.

The stairs creaked on every step.

He unlocked the door, then stood back so I'd go in first.

It was one room and a little kitchen and a bathroom the size of a closet.

A desk with two monitors.

A bookshelf of engineering textbooks and one battered cookbook.

A bed under the window with a gray blanket, made very tight.

On the kitchen counter was a plate with a dish towel over it.

I lifted the corner.

Lemon bars.

Second edition.

The crust was pressed thin, with a glass.

"You made these this morning too," I said.

"Also in case."

"Rule four. No lemon bars at practice."

"This isn't practice."

I put the towel back.

I stood in the middle of his apartment in my team shirt, the black one Betsy had printed with FREE TO A GOOD HOME across the back.

My hands didn't know what to do.

He stayed by the door.

"Callie."

"Yeah."

"You can change your mind. At any point. Even in the middle of something. You say it, and it stops."

"I know."

"I need to say it out loud anyway."

"I know you do," I said. "That's why I'm here."

I'd thought about this moment for a year.

For a year, in my head, it had been somebody else's apartment, and I'd been thinner, and he'd been telling me I'd finally earned it.

This wasn't that.

He'd seen me first.

He'd never once asked for a picture.

I walked over to him.

I took hold of the front of his hoodie the way I had on the arena steps.

"I'm sure," I said. "I'm not tired, I'm not drunk, it's not because we won. I picked this. I want you."

His hands came up to my waist.

Then I pulled, and he came.

I pulled him by the hoodie all the way to the bed, and he let me.

He let me push him down onto the gray blanket.

I climbed over him and sat on his hips.

He looked up at me with his hands flat at his sides.

"You planned this," he said.

"I planned this for a year in my head," I said. "But the ending was wrong."

"What's the ending now?"

"I take your hoodie off."

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