“Textbooks can tell you what order to write your sentences and where to put certain scenes, but they can’t explain to you the feeling of a little girl clapping over a game she’s set herself up towin.” I point to Clem, who finally knocks her ball into the orange building’s tube. It sends her back to the start, but she’s excited anyways. “Textbooks don’t tell you what colors you see in the sky when you’re finally away from the Boston skyscrapers. Only you can see that.”
Liliana looks towards the stars, mesmerized by a view that not enough people think to appreciate.
I swing my white and beige argyle cardigan over her shoulders, wrapping it around her.
“Nothing, and no one else, knows what happens when a guy who thinks you’re beautiful gives you his cardigan and says he wants to help you. To take care of you. You’re the only person who knows what you’re feeling in that moment.”
I pause. I let her soak up what I’ve said.
I’ve never hidden my feelings for Liliana. I don’t think it’s possible to, when a woman like that walks into your life and cements herself into your thoughts. But this is as explicit as I’ve gotten to voicing it aloud.
This wasn’t part of tonight’s plan. Hole ten was my segue into creativity and inner thoughts, sure, but not with the intention of telling hermyinner thoughts. I just can’t help myself when I look at her.
My heart is beating into my ears. That was an unintentional risk. In undergrad, I was confident our feelings were mutual. Our connection was too strong not to be shared.
With everything that’s happened since, Liliana having romantic feelings for me is purely chance. I cling onto the small signs of blushes and side glances, but those could be fabricated by my want for her. I hope they’re not.
Her frame rises and falls in quick breaths. Her hazel eyes are wide.
If she tells me I’m overstepping, then I’ll accept it. I’ll be crushed inside for the unforeseeable future, but I’ll apologize and continue helping her purely as a friend.
When her arms move, painstakingly slow, every part of my body stands at attention.
Her hands reach up to grab onto either side of the cardigan. She bites her lip, sends heat rushing through me, and tightens the sweater around her body.
I listen to Liliana, even when she’s not speaking. This means something.
Everything has changed.
Clementine runs to us and starts excitedly pointing at her golf ball, purely unaware of what she’s interrupted. I try to focus on congratulating her, but I can barely go five seconds before looking back at Liliana’s red cheeks.
My niece high fives the both of us before spotting a ladybug on the bench nearby. An easily distracted kid, she immediately forgets anything about the golf course and focuses her attention on the bug.
It’s the perfect time to initiate what we came here for.
Squaring my shoulders, I tip my chin at hole ten.
“What do you see?”
“Um.” Liliana takes a moment to get her bearings together. I don’t blame her. Staring at her, wearingmycardigan, atmyfavorite spot in the world, I feel like I’ve just won the lottery. “Mini golf?”
The laugh that escapes me is instant. Fueled by the high and adrenaline of realizing that Liliana might reciprocate my feelings, my laughter won’t stop. I’m afraid she’s going to think I’m weird, but her high-pitched laugh meets mine and we egg each other on over a joke neither of us understand.
It’s bliss. Mindlessly laughing over nothing with her because I can. Because I get to.
When we calm down, I manage out, “Yes, Liliana, thank you so much for that eye-opening, detailed description.”
“You’re so welcome. I’m a writer, you know?”
She laughs again, but I’m too busy smiling. She called herself a writer. And when I’m done explaining this to her, it won’t be said sarcastically.
“You are.” I point my club at the Boston replica and repeat my question. “So, writer, what do you see?”
Her head tilts, focusing on every physical detail. She’s searching for an answer I didn’t ask for. But I give her the few minutes while glancing over her frame, noting that she’s slipped into the armholes of my cardigan and fastened the top button. The sleeves fall over her hands, and my cardigan nearly covers the edge of her skirt, but it looks perfectly fitted to me.
“I see...” she says, “Someone’s misguided perception of what Boston is. It’s the diverse people and bright minds that make our city what it is, not its landscape.”
What she says is poetic and beautiful and so Liliana-coded, but not at all what I was hoping for.
