I interrupt him. “I went kind of wild after high school.”
“Everyone does,” he says, visibly frustrated. Why is he frustrated? He’s the one who said it. “Letting a bunch of freakin’ eighteen-year-olds out into the world on their own for the very first time will do that.”
“But most people are safely contained doing keg stands on campus. I was out doing itallin the middle of the wildest city in the world.” I shake my head. “And it didn’t stop after college. It got worse, in fact.”
He drags his fingers through his hair. “You looked comfortable last night. At least in the beginning.”
I nod. “That was nothing. That was just like a regular Tuesday night in the East Village when I was twenty-one. But Nico, I did itall. Warehouses, raves, clubs, sex clubs, alcohol, drugs. People.Dubiouspeople.Groupsof people.Groupsofdubiouspeople.”
He frowns at this. “Like Mark.”
“There were a lot of Marks, but he was like a monk compared to?—”
Nico holds up both hands. “All right, I get it.”
I lean my head back on the tree. “It got to be a big issue,” I say quietly.
His handsome face is the perfect picture of concern.
“Not in like, an addiction way, but more in like, a sad Peter Pan way. Or actually, maybe in an addiction way—addicted to doing whatever the hell I wanted to do, and fuck everyone else. It was my say. Blacking out and waking up in my sister’s bed at two in the afternoon with a random person. Dating a coke dealer for free cokeandfree tattoos, while he used me to be the hot little thing on his arm at parties.” I let Nico see this ugly side of me, like the forest wants me to come completely clean.
Understanding shines in his eyes. He’s starting to get what happened last night. He doesn’t say anything, but it’s flowing out of me now.
“One night—or morning, I guess, I was at this stranger’s apartment in Williamsburg, in their living room, and I looked around and realized the person that I had come there with was gone and I didn’t know anyone there. But we were all so messed up it was like we were all the best of friends.”
Even through the emotional blunting, I found it strange to be squished onto a strange couch between strangers as the sun started to peek up over the horizon. I was sitting on someone’s lap, his arm wrapped tightly around my waist. We were debatingthe twin telepathy thing. The impersonality of this seemingly personal moment was jarring.
“I didn’t have any real friends. Everyone I surrounded myself with was someone I could use for something. But the worst part was that anyone else I actually did care about—and let me tell you this included maybe three people, one being May—I was so, so cruel to.”
May finding me in her bed, in the bathroom. Once, in the lobby of our apartment building in Chinatown. Not showing up for countless Sunday dinners at my parents’ house. Not showing up for my grandmother’s grave sweeping because I was out until six in the morning. Not showing up for my mother’s birthday several years in a row.
I look at Nico, who would never miss his mom’s birthday party. “I don’t think you’d get it. You’re like the Bensonhurst golden child. Valedictorian, Duke, PhD, postdoc, doing… whatever you’re doing now. Clearly like rich and successful?—”
“I told you I’ve made some pretty fuckin’ dubious choices myself, Annie,” he interrupts.
I sigh, unwilling to pop this magical forest bubble of uneasy truces. “Okay,” I say simply. “Anyway, there it is. Some of Annie Li’s serious issues.” I confess this, and it’s out there.
Why did I just tell him that?I think, and then,I’m glad I just told him that.
Like a weight lifted off my shouldersis another one of those trite phrases from influencer Instagram, but I feel it here in this grand forest with this terribly handsome man who is currently radiatinggenuine care and concern. Looking at me like I’m delicate, like I’m something to be treasured, tragically beautiful. Maybe not a serious fucking hurricane of issues or a giant pain in his ass. I smile despite the topic of conversation; let out a big breath.
“It felt good to tell you that,” I admit.
Something shifts with that confession. The air grows thick here in this sun-dappled clearing, surrounded by trees and wildflowers and the buzz of insects. The atmosphere hums with a low vibration, and time becomes suspended.
His answering smile is soft and careful, his eyes and body lazy. The entire effect is ruinous, and I find that I can’t pry my eyes off him. When did Nico Giannuzzi get this hot? Did that just happen? Did he buy that shirt yesterday, pre-dampened with sweat, knowing it would drape over his chest like that? A chest that seems even broader than it was two days ago, when I was on it? Did it rise like proofing bread dough? I want to take a bite out of the meaty flesh over his heart. Really sink my teeth into it.
“What kept you doin’ all that for so long?” he wants to know.
I shake myself out of an image of worshipping the veins in his forearm using only my tongue. “I don’t actually know.” I’m not willing to get into high school right now; that’s a whole other emotional vomit, and I don’t think that’s what he’s asking, anyway.
Nico takes a step towards me. “I mean, something about it had to feel good.”
I trace the dips of his cupid’s bow with my eyes. Something about it makes me breathless. It’s hard to think. “It did feel good,” I admit.
“What felt good?” He’s a few inches closer.
“I guess… the adrenaline rush, maybe? The loss of control,” I say, heart starting to flutter at his proximity, increasing exponentially in beats per minute.
