She didn’t look up after she passed it to him. She was sure she wouldn’t look up, no matter whatbut then he just took so much time to reply. There were no scratchings of his pencil, no curses as he stopped and started over. Just a long, endless silence as he processed what she was saying: if we are together like that, our inevitable break-up will put me right back where I started.
Though she wondered if he’d gotten the extra kick in the teeth there.
The one that left her mouth bloody the second it occurred:
Only now I will also lose a friend I care for deeply.
Too deeply to stand it, she knew. It was one thing to be taunted by an enemy. Quite another to be taunted by someone she had grown so close to. That would be bitter indeedand she hoped he knew it. She hoped he at least understood, no matter how angry it made him.
Or how much it tore him in two.
She stole a glance at minute three, and he was just looking at her. His gaze shot through with pain so obvious she couldn’t deny it, that muscle in his jaw working and working. In fact, it was more than his jaw. The tension seemed to ripple right up to his temples, as though he was dying to let loose.
She just wasn’t sure what with, until he started writing furiously.
Until he passed it to her, mistake free and so quickly written most of the words flowed together.
No matter what happens between us, I will never make your life hell again. Mess with my head, turn me upside down, fuck seventeen guys behind my back, humiliate me in the middle of the cafeteria…it won’t make any difference. I am yours now. And nothing you say or do will ever change that.
She paused, before replying.
But only because she had to fight back tearsbecause of the underlined never, for the anger that was only at himself, for the way he kept proving her wrong whenever she was sure their whole paper house was about to be blown away or burned to the ground.
That was a really cool thing to say, she wrote.
Keep it. Keep it as a reminder.
Like you kept the piece of paper where I wrote that you were my friend?
Yes exactly like that. Oh, did you think I would deny it?
Maybe, she started, then gave in and crossed the word out. Wrote the truth, to match what he had offered her. Yes. Yes, damn it.
How I feel about you is not a secret.
It is to me. Can you not see why it would be to me?
No, I really can’t. I know I make it obvious every day.
You do you do you do. But this is pretty obvious every day to me, too.
She didn’t intend to grab his hand to show him. She was just going to lift her hairyou could see the scar without a ton of effort. Yet when it came to it, somehow seeing didn’t seem like enough. She wanted him to touch it, to really feel it, to know right down to his bones that it was there. Here was the evidence, and to hell with whether it made him uncomfortable.
Or whether it didn’t. At all.
Not even a tiny little bit.
She closed his fingers over that curving knot around her ear, and he just stayed there. He stroked his thumb over it, so tender and direct she wasn’t sure what to do for a second. This was not the way she’d imagined it going in her head. He was supposed to pull away sharply and tell her to get over it, and instead he just went ahead and doubled down. He put his whole hand over that terrible place, like the slight touch she’d encouraged wasn’t enough.
And even that fell short.
He needed words, to go with it.
“I know there’s nothing I can do to erase this. I wouldn’t want to erase it, or act like it never happened, or pretend that it’s not in your heart as well as right here under my hand. I get that this is always going to be there, saying you should doubt me. But I’m gonna work every day on making it easier for you to ignore. I want you to believe in me, and I got all the hours in the world to help that happen.”
This time, she couldn’t fight the tears.
One just streaked down her left cheek before she could stop it. And when she went to swipe it away, he got there before she could. He swiped it for her, with his thumb. Held her gaze, as if he never wanted to let it go. And in that moment, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to.
This was as good as life got, and she knew it.
“That was even cooler than the whole humiliate-me speech.”
“I could write this down for you, too, if you want.”
“No, no that’s okay. I now have it burned into my brain forever.”
He grinned then.
He grinned so wide it warmed her insides.
“Well, that sounds like a start to me.”
“As starts go it was pretty fucking good.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Instead of answering right away, she took his hands in hers. Maneuvered them slowly away from her head and her hair, until they were spread beneath hers over her open books.