open to a page covered in Jane’s messy handwriting: Overwatch. Frank Ocean. Easy Mac. Apple vs. PC. Postmates. Barack Obama. The Golden Girls. Instagram. Jurassic Park. Gogurt. Jolly Ranchers. Star Wars. What is a prequel?
“What is this?”
“It’s a list,” Jane says. “Of things and people you’ve mentioned, or Niko or Myla or Wes, or people I’ve overheard on the train. There’s a lot I have to catch up on.”
August pulls her eyes up to search Jane’s face. She looks … nervous.
“How long have you been making this?” August asks.
She rubs a hand over the short hairs at the back of her neck. “A few months.”
“You—you want to know all this stuff? You never asked. I thought you didn’t want to know.”
“I didn’t, at first,” Jane admits. “I wanted to go back, and I was so determined to get there that I didn’t care about anything else. I didn’t want to know anything that might make it harder. But then there was you, and I wanted to know what made you you, and I—I don’t know.” She kicks the toe of her sneaker against the floor. “At some point I guess I decided … it wouldn’t be the worst thing if I had to stay. It could be okay.”
August clutches the Moleskine to her chest. “I—I know I said—but I didn’t think you’d actually want to stay. You really mean that?”
“Part of me, yeah. You were right. There’s a lot more to it than going back to where I started. I mean, I ride this train every day, and I see gay people just holding hands in public, in front of everyone, and most of the time, nobody fucks with them, and that’s … I don’t know if you realize how crazy that is to me. I know things aren’t perfect, but at least if I stayed, it’d be different.” She’s been studying her cuticles, but she looks up. “And I could be with you.”
August’s mouth falls open.
“With me.”
“Yeah, I—I know what it would cost me, but … I don’t know. All this—this whole mess—it scares the shit out of me.” She swallows, sets her jaw. “But the thought of staying with you doesn’t scare me at all.”
“I didn’t—I thought this was just a good time to you.”
That earns her a short, quiet laugh.
“I wanted it to be, but it’s not. It hasn’t ever been.” Her eyes have this way of swallowing up the grimy fluorescent light of the train and transforming it into something new. Right now, when she looks at August: stars. The goddamn Milky Way. “What is it to you?”
“It’s—you’re—God, Jane, it’s … I want you,” August says. It’s not eloquent or cool, but it’s true, finally. “Whatever it means, however you want me, as long as you’re here, that’s what it is to me, and maybe that sounds desperate, but I—”
She never gets to finish, because Jane’s yanking her in and kissing her, drinking down the rest of her sentence.
August touches her face and opens her eyes, breaking off to demand, “What does that mean?”
“It means I—you—” Jane attempts. She leans down for another kiss, but August holds her stubbornly in place. “Okay—yeah, I want that. I want what you want.”
“Okay,” August says. She licks her lips. They taste like a clean room and a full house and a 4.5 GPA. Like her own specific heaven. “So, we’re—we’re together until we’re not, if that’s what it comes down to.”
“Yeah,” Jane says.
It’s as simple as that, one syllable dropping off Jane’s tongue, two pairs of sneakers tucked between each other, this long career of wanting but not having and having but not knowing folded up into a word.
“Okay,” August says. “I can live with that.”
“Even if I end up leaving?”
“It doesn’t matter,” August says, even though it does. It matters, but it doesn’t make a difference. “Whatever happens, I want you.”
She rises up on her toes and kisses Jane, short, soft, a flashbulb burst, and Jane says, “But in case I do end up staying … you have to teach me about my list.”
August opens her eyes. “Really?”
“I mean, I can’t just jump into the twenty-first century without knowing how the wifey works—”
“Wi-Fi.”
“See!” She points at August. “Tip of the iceberg, Landry. You’ve got so much to teach me.”
August grins as the train stops at Union Square and commuters start piling off, freeing up a few spaces on the bench. “All right. Sit down. I’ll tell you about the Fast and Furious franchise. That’ll be a good hour.”