Seven
Alex textedback Saturday while I was on the bus home from Thirteen Candles.
Alex: Got your message. We’ll talk Wednesday. Galentine’s dinner.
That was it. No I forgive you. No I love you too. Just... logistics.
Monday she came home from Nikko’s—worked from his house all day to avoid me, probably—and walked straight to me. Pulled me into the longest hug of my entire life. Her arms tight around me like she was holding me together. My face pressed into her shoulder, that jasmine perfume making my eyes burn.
Neither of us said anything. When she finally let go, she went straight to bed.
Tuesday we kept missing each other at work. Her early meetings. My Marcus crisis. Ships passing in corporate. Or maybe Alex was still deciding if I deserved actual conversation yet.
By Wednesday, my skin felt too tight for my body. Every time my phone buzzed, I grabbed it like a lifeline. Every blonde head in City Hall made my heart stutter.
I missed my bestie. It was that fucking simple.
So here we are. Villa di Roma.
South Philly. Red sauce. Breadsticks that could feed an army. Wine in actual glasses, not those sad plastic cups.
The restaurant smells like garlic and basil and decades of marinara soaked into the walls. Red checkered tablecloths. Frank Sinatra crooning about doing it his way. Families crammed into booths, talking with their hands, laughing too loud.
This year the comfort feels like a lie. Like we’re here for surgery, not celebration.
We’ve demolished half the breadsticks. My carbonara’s almost gone. The wine has made my tongue loose. A box of Beiler’s donuts waits on the chair beside us because Villa di Roma doesn’t do dessert but we do.
I grab my second breadstick. Open my mouth to beg?—
“I accept your apology.” Alex points her breadstick at me like a weapon.
My shoulders drop. Actually drop, like someone cut the strings holding them up. The knot in my chest that’s been there for over a week unravels all at once.
“Wait.” I dig in my bag, pull out the tissue-wrapped package. Purple-blue-pink paper, the colors of twilight. “Happy birthday.”
She sets down her breadstick. Takes the gift with both hands, fingers careful on the paper.
“Dylan...”
“Just open it.”
She unwraps it like she’s defusing a bomb. The way she opens everything, preserving even the tape. The dandelion suspendedin resin catches the overhead light, throwing tiny rainbows across the red tablecloth.
“Oh, Dylan.” Her eyes go glassy. “It’s perfect.”
“The woman at the shop said—” My throat closes around the words. “She said dandelions grow through impossible places.”
Alex clips it around her neck immediately. The resin pendant settles right at her heart. Not just a necklace. Not just a birthday present.
Proof that I believe now. That a shop woman knew I was coming before I walked through her door. That Alex has been seeing things I’ve spent years calling delusion.
And I’ve been the blind one. Calling my blindness logic.
“Like us,” she says, fingers touching the pendant.
“Like us.” The words scrape past glass in my throat.
She traces the resin edge. Once. Twice. Then those Alex-eyes lock on mine.
