much. I get the urge to run, to hide, like always. But there’s no avoiding this.
Play it casual? I chide myself. I am the least casual person on this planet.
The temperature spikes. I coach myself through shallow breaths. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat sign. D.S. al Coda until my lungs cooperate.
“Hey, Marty. Look, I’m sorry—are you okay?”
I’m exaggerating. I’m making a scene. But I can’t help it; anxiety’s fingernails scrape at my chest. I open my mouth, but the words don’t come out. My brain’s a combination lock, and I need a different code to get out each word. God, I need some air.
“It’s nothing. Really. But I mean, we held hands? I know it sounds immature, but we did and it felt like something more than just being buddies, you know? I’d never done that with anyone before where it could mean anything.”
“Ah, sorry, mate,” Sophie says. “I didn’t know there was something already brewing there.”
“He took me to Big Ben and said nice things and was being really cute, and I believed him.” I wonder if this is why Shane continues to be weird about him. He has to know the story of this boy who was so heartbroken he dropped out of the program.
I suck in my stomach to protect myself from embarrassment. The temperature’s skyrocketed, the noise in the pub is unrelenting, and I don’t know which is affecting me more. To Sophie, it must seem like I’m being overly dramatic about a boy I like. But how do I explain that it’s like the wind’s been knocked out of me?
I know the air’s all around me, but I can’t find it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I feel like an idiot. I have to go.”
I take a few steps toward the front, but all paths are blocked. People are everywhere, just like around Westminster, only I’m inside and trapped. Breathing turns to panting, and the burn sets into my lungs.
I squeeze through two people, step around a third, and trip over someone’s bag. But I see the door, and if I can hold it together for a few more seconds, I’ll be okay, so I take a step and I take a breath and I tell myself it’ll all be okay, and—
I stumble out of the pub and into the night. My lungs fill with much-needed air. I’m alone, and I’m on my own.
And it’s already so, so hard.
I’ve been sitting on a bench outside the pub for about ten minutes now. I’m a little calmer, and I can breathe, and I take the time to process what Sophie said while I wait for Shane to come out of the pub. They’ve only been in this program for a few weeks, and Pierce’s already dated someone, dumped them, and made out with somebody new?
I mean, wanting to have fun and not be tied down is not a bad thing. But with how things went down with the flutist, it seems like they were not on the same page about what their relationship actually was. And whose fault was that?
I don’t have enough information to freak out. And it’s not like we really even did anything. My feelings for him aren’t that strong.
“Marty,” a voice says in front of me. “Hoped I’d find you out here.”
Pierce’s eyes glow in the pub’s soft outdoor lighting. Passersby keep up their chatter, but it all gets muted when my gaze meets his.
He holds my oboe case out to me, his expression unreadable. “You left this inside. Shane said he’d take it back, but I figured I could catch you.”
There’s room on the bench next to me, and he takes a seat. He goes to put his arm around me, but stops halfway, resting on his elbow and draping his hand next to my arm.
“Need to chat?” he offers, and I shrug.
I don’t know what he wants from me, from whatever’s going on between us. And it’s becoming clear that all warning signs are saying that he doesn’t enter any relationship if he doesn’t want something out of it.
“Not really.”
“Understood. Is it okay that I’m here? Or should I leave?”
I pause, considering the question. If you remove everything I’ve heard about Pierce from others, all I’m left with is a slightly obnoxious but super passionate guy. A guy I like, who’s maybe even the first guy who likes me back. A guy who knows how to respect the boundaries that matter, while pushing me out of the ones that hold me back.