Bittersweet by Sareeta Domingo Page A

when they say someone falls hard?” he asks quietly, and I nod. “I fell. I’m still broken on the rocks from the last time, Cathy.”
    I stare at him. Does he mean he’s afraid he’ll fall for me like that too? Does he mean he’s still heartbroken? I want to ask him everything—about his life, about his family, about who was calling, about the first person he kissed, how many other girls he’s done what he just did to me with. Like a masochist, I want to know it all. I think he can tell, too, from the way he’s looking at me so expectantly. But I just can’t bring myself to probe. Not tonight. It probably shouldn’t be the message I’m taking from what he told me, but the idea that he’s already so affected by me… It feels like the start of something, like the sun just beginning to rise. So I say nothing, and let my own eyes close. I’m vaguely aware of him switching off the lamp, and jostling to get comfortable on the bed. I turn over, away from him, and I wonder if he’d really rather I just left.
    But a few moments later I feel his arm snake around my waist, his body nestle close to mine. I feel him sigh into my hair. My muscles relax. His breathing slows down, and a short while later he’s asleep. As I close my eyes again, I think about what we’d talked about before—about him being unexpected.
    I really had no idea just how true that would be.
    * * *
    I wake up with a headache that seems to be fighting to break out of the confines of my skull. Each pound of the blood in my temples reminds me of one of the drinks I sank last night. But it begins to ease as I remember more: Greg, this bed, his mouth on me… I turn around under the tangled sheets—but he’s not here.
    He’s not even in the room .
    I sit up, wincing, and see a note lying on his pillow. The fear that had begun to rise in my chest sinks back down. He must have gone for coffee or something. Much as I had convinced myself this was all a one-night-stand, no-big-deal thing, the vulnerability he showed me, and the way he’d held me while we slept, the way he looked at me when we lay here without saying a word… And before that, the way he made me—
    I press my legs together, suddenly very aware that all I have on is his T-shirt. Could this maybe be something ? I pick up the folded note with my name on it, written on hotel stationery. His writing is neat and surprisingly legible for a boy.
    I kind of wish it wasn’t.

    Cathy,
    Thank you for last night. It was fun, but I think it’s better if we leave it at that.
    I’m going to be out of town for a couple of days, but I’m sure I’ll see you in the
    restaurant or whatever sometime—the room service here is only so-so. But order whatever you like if you wake up hungry. Charge it to the room.
    Greg

    I stare at it, open-mouthed, for a good few minutes.
    “What the fuck?” I mutter out loud. I scramble out of the bed, and look out the window toward the station, as if I’d somehow be able to see him down there and telepathically tell him that this is bullshit. “The restaurant or whatever”? “Charge it to the room”? “Out of town”?
    “What the fuck ?”
    My mind lurches rapidly between angry and upset. I swallow hard, and settle on angry. I rip off his T-shirt, throw it on the floor, and get dressed quickly, noticing he’s taken his duffle, aside from a few shirts and dirty underwear left in a pile on the floor.
    He really has just left . I can’t believe that asshole just—
    Tears threaten. I swallow them back again, trying to ignore the used, foolish, awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I grab my jacket from where I left it on the chair last night, which feels like a lifetime ago in the cold light of day, but as I do, I notice the paper scrunched in the wastebasket—several pieces of the hotel stationery. Maybe he tried a few different versions of his kiss-off note? I stare down at the basket for what seems like an hour, trying to decide. Should I read them?
    No.