It’s so sweet and unexpected. It’s the first time I haven’t been home at the time I take my meds since Lennon moved in. My mom, Tank, and Georgie message me all the time to remind me to take them. I’m pretty sure Tank has a reminder set on his phone because he hasn’t missed a day—morning or night—since I got out of the hospital.
“It’s the first time he’s done something like this,” I say. “It feels kind of, I don’t know, special, coming from him.”
Georgie puts her straightener down, balancing it on one of her brushes so the hot part doesn’t touch the carpet. “I know exactly how to handle this,” she says.
My insides clench in vague apprehension when I hear that. It’s not that she doesn’t have good judgment. It’s just that she’s still in hair-taming mode, and it’s a mode that makes her very, very decisive.
It turns out, my apprehension isn’t misplaced. Before I have time to react, she taps the top right of my screen and clamps my phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?” I hiss. “Who are you calling?”
“Lennon,” she says, shooting me a look that says something along the lines ofrelax, I’ve got this. “Hi, it’s Georgie… No, Connor’s fine. He’s here, we’re at my place… I’m just calling to let you know that you’re coming out with us tonight. Yeah… Yeah, we’re swinging by in five minutes to pick you up…”
I asked Lennon if he wanted to come out tonight, and he said no. I asked him a couple of times, to be honest. The first time he said he couldn’t make it because he has work tomorrow, and the second time I asked, he said something about having to mentally prepare for a team-building event that’s happening the week after next.
He must be giving Georgie the same spiel, but she’s not having it. “Oh, you need fifteen minutes to get ready?” she asks, smiling brilliantly at me. “’Fraid the best I can do is ten.”
“What are you doing?” I demand when she ends the call.
She bats her lashes innocently. “What do you mean,what am I doing? I’m getting your man for you. I’mhelpingyou, Con.”
“That’s what I was trying to do with Griff,” Tank points out.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Georgie says, yanking the plug of her straightener out of the outlet. “What you did wascompletelydifferent.”
Tank calls a Lyft while Georgie and I huddle in front of the bathroom mirror, eyeing our reflections critically. “I’m nervous,” I whisper.
It’s silly, but I am. I see Lennon all the time. Every day. Every morning, every night. We literally live together. I have no idea why I’m so nervous at the thought of seeing him out.
“Me too,” she replies.
“Why am I so nervous?” I don’t usually get like this. Not anymore.
“It’s because you really like him, and it’sawfulto like someone.”
She’s right. It is awful to like someone. It’s a stomach-churning, spluttery, self-doubt-ridden experience that makes everything matter. It makes you second-guess yourself. It makes you replay conversations, cringe at what you said, and replay them again. It makes you read things into them that probably aren’t there.
It’s awful. It is. It’s terrible. We’re only a few minutes by car from my building, and from the second the driver pulls out, my heart clenches and spasms in my chest. It doesn’t beat so much as it flaps erratically. Dusty wings unfurl and make my ribs ache. Flight feathers test their dexterity, extending well past what my body can contain.
As we slow to round the final corner, Lennon appears in my window. The glass is slightly fogged up from the night and the cold. Streetlight hits particles of water vapor and makes them glisten.
An ordinary scene morphs into something extraordinary.
He’s standing on the curb, waiting for us. His chin is dipped into a scowl similar to the one he was wearing when we met. His hands are buried deep in his pockets. His eyes are narrowed like he’s looking into the wind.
He raises his hand when he sees me. A careless gesture that makes my pulse slow.
The wings in my chest expand to full wingspan. There’s a microscopic shift, a change in angle.
Air is deflected.
Lift is achieved.
Gravity is defeated.
Instead of flapping wildly, my heart soars.
So yes, it’s awful to like someone as much as I like Lennon. It’s terrifying and vulnerable and nerve-racking as hell. It’s life on the edge. On the cusp, with no safety net. But when my heart beats like this. When there’s wind beneath my wings with no drag, no resistance. When my heart slots into place and feels at home in my chest, it’s the best.
