Roomies - Christina Lauren Page 0,104

different way; loss is tinged with pride, and I can go back out and wait my tables and earn enough to pay my rent all on my own for the first time in my life.

At one in the afternoon on a Wednesday, I finish the essay.

The cursor blinks at me, both patient and expectant. But there are no more words for this particular story. I haven’t gone back and read it in its entirety, but when I do, I realize that it’s more than just about music—it’s about Calvin specifically, and my own journey after meeting him, and how pure, sublime talent transcends everything else, no matter where you find it. It’s about how the clatter of trains and sour smells of the station dissolved away when he played, and the way the audience similarly disappears now when he’s onstage. It’s about the pride in having discovered someone and done something to make sure his talent didn’t stay hidden forever.

It’s a love letter—there’s no hiding that—but the oddest thing is that I’m pretty sure it’s a love letter to myself.

Like firing a homemade rocket into the sky and hoping it reaches Jupiter, I send my essay off to the New Yorker. In fact, I laugh when I put a stamp on it because the idea that I could be published there is hilarious—but what do I have to lose? I’ve never been published anywhere close to this level of prestige. It’s easy to imagine an editor—a man so cerebral he cares nothing about appearances, has tea stains on papers all over his desk, and uses words like hiraeth, sonorous, and denouement in casual conversation—opening my submission and tossing it with a dismissive groan over his shoulder, where it lands in a pile of other delusionally ambitious essays. I say a quietly sarcastic “Go get ’em, tiger!” when I drop it in the mailbox.

But then, three weeks later, I think I stop breathing for a full ten minutes when I receive a letter saying that it’s been accepted.

I walk around my apartment, holding the editorial letter, rereading it out loud. I want to call Jeff and Robert, of course, but I have to push past the Calvin cobwebs in my thoughts to get there. This article is about us, and not only do I need to get his permission to publish it, I want him to read it, simply because I want him to see.

To see me.

But strangely, I think he always has. And calling him after five weeks of silence is easier said than done.

I go for a quick run to work through my excited/nervous energy.

I call Davis, who makes me deaf in my left ear with his enthusiasm.

I take a shower, and make a sandwich, and do some laundry.

Step up, Hollsy, Jeff says in my head.

When I look at the clock, it’s only three. I haven’t wasted the entire day, and I can’t procrastinate any longer: Calvin should be free.

The phone rings once, twice, and he picks up halfway through the third.

“Holland?”

The sound of his voice on the phone sends static along my skin, a low-frequency hum of nostalgia and want.

“Hey,” I say, biting my bottom lip so I don’t grin like an idiot. It is so good to hear him.

“Hey.” I can hear the smiling lean to the word, can practically imagine how he’s flipped his hair out of his eyes, how his happiness reaches every part of his face. “This is a nice surprise.”

“I have some good news.”

“Yeah?”

I nod, swallowing down my nerves and looking again for confirmation at the letter in my hands. “I wrote an essay about . . .” I don’t even know how to describe it, really. “About you? And me. Music and New York. I don’t even know . . .”

“Th’ one you were working on before . . . ?”

Before we split.

“Yeah. That one.”

He waits for more, finally prompting, “And?”

“And . . . I sent it off to the New Yorker.” I bite back a grin. “They accepted it.”

He pauses, and I hear his breath come out in a gust. “No way.”

“Yes way!”

“Holy shite!” He laughs, and the sound of it punches me right in the face. I miss him so much. “This is amazing, mo stóirín!”

His old nickname for me. There it is, and my heart goes boom.

“Do you want to read it?”

He laughs. “Is that a serious question?”

“I can trade shifts with someone on Monday, if you wanted to have dinner?”

Dinner, with Calvin, and this glow inside me that