My second instinct was to call Lydia and ask her to come back, but I didn’t know what I’d say to her. How do you explain that you like someone so much that it paralyzes you?
Then I got to my third instinct, which was strongest of them all. I wanted Maritza and JaKory. I wanted to lie down between them and sob my heart out and listen to them tell me that it would be okay. For the first time all summer, I desperately missed my best friends. I had been so hurt and angry and resentful, but clearly they had been right about me all along.
Maritza would be practical and scientific about what had happened; she’d use facts to make me feel normal. You said your heart was beating super fast, right? So your body was in fight-or-flight mode. You thought the situation was dangerous because it was new and unfamiliar, so your instinct was to get out of it, that’s all.
JaKory would be empathetic and rallying. I’d probably do the same thing, if not worse. It’s petrifying to have your feelings out there like that. You were feeling intensely vulnerable, but you’ll learn how to move past that. You’ll get another chance.
I threw my phone on the bed so I wouldn’t call them. It wasn’t an option—not when I’d been lying to them for weeks. How was I supposed to tell them about Lydia when she was just the tip of the iceberg of everything I’d been keeping from them?
I lay on the floor for ages. My heart was now quiet and dull, almost numb. I closed my eyes and took myself back to the swings, rewriting that moment over and over again to a version where I didn’t choke.
Finally, I got up and shuffled out of my room. The house was sleepy and quiet, but there was light beneath my brother’s door. I knocked and stepped a foot back, listening to his desk chair swivel on its plastic mat.
He looked guarded when he opened the door. “What?”
“Do you wanna watch something?” I croaked.
He could have said no, the way I’d done to him a million times in the last few years; or he could have asked why, because I knew he could tell I was sad about something; but all he said was, “Yeah, okay,” and followed me down to the family room, where we collapsed on the couch and watched Brooklyn Nine-Nine until we fell asleep.
15
The moment I woke up on Sunday morning and remembered what had happened, my stomach roiled. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more than brush my teeth before going to work. My shift passed in a slow haze and I was so irritable that I snapped at some preteen boy who kept badgering me about crocodile bandanas. Tammy suggested I reorganize the stockroom after that.
I managed to send Lydia a single text, and that was after two hours of deliberating in the stockroom.
Thanks for dinner last night. I had a lot of fun.
Her response came an hour later, and it lacked her usual smileys and emojis.
Lydia Kaufman aka Jason Waterfalls: No problem codi.
I wanted to take her for coffee and ask if we could try again. I wanted to swing by her restaurant with flowers. I wanted to drive her to the river and kiss her in the back seat of my car, but I did none of those things, because I felt stuck and stupid and ashamed.
By the time I got home from work, it felt like my whole torso was locked up with emotion. I wanted to talk to someone who could soothe me, someone who could tell me everything was okay and that I would get another chance even if I didn’t feel I deserved it. I texted Ricky and asked if he wanted to go for a drive.
He pulled into my driveway fifteen minutes later, still in his church clothes and looking preoccupied about something. He barely smiled when I climbed into his truck, and I noticed he wasn’t playing any music.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
We drove to the river and parked beneath a cluster of trees whose branches reached over the car, draping us in shade. Ricky shut the engine off and tossed his keys into the cup holder, then drew a hand down his eyes like he was utterly exhausted.
“So,” he said half-heartedly, “what’s up with you?”