“Saturday night, when I said I skipped all the years when people figure stuff out? This is what I meant. This is what I couldn’t say.”
The pieces are starting to click into place, but my brain is resisting. This doesn’t match the story I’ve been telling myself—the story where I was the problem. Where I’d misread the data. Where my awkward, analytical self had finally been weighed and found wanting.
I’d built an entire narrative around my own inadequacy. Moved to another continent because of it. Reinvented myself from the ground up.
And the whole time, the answer was this. Something I never could have figured out because I didn’t have the data.
“So when I tried to kiss you...” I start.
“That would have been my first kiss.” His voice drops. “And I wanted it. I wanted it so badly, Audrey. But I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I’d never done it before. And instead of telling you that, I just—” He mimes the hand block, wincing. “My brain short-circuited and my arm moved, and I ruined everything.”
Oh my god.
Oh my god.
I sit back down. I don’t remember standing up, but apparently at some point I did, because now my legs don’t seem to want to hold me.
“I thought you found me repulsive.” The words come out cracked and small—smaller than I want them to, smaller than the cool Swedish Audrey would ever allow. “I thought you were disgusted by me. That I’d finally put myself out there and you couldn’t even look at me. I thought?—”
My voice breaks. I hate that it breaks.
“I thought being smart wasn’t enough. That I wasn’t enough. That I’d never be enough for anyone.”
“No.” The word is sharp. Almost angry. “No. That’s not—Audrey, I have never wanted anything the way I want you. Jesus. I’ve been obsessing over you formonths.”
I can’t breathe.
“You’re so smart and beautiful, and all I’ve done since that night is play that moment over and over. Wishing I could go back and justbe normalfor once. Instead of freezing. Instead of ruining everything.”
I can’t process anything beyond the phraseobsessing over for months.
Obsessing. Over me. Formonths.
Not tolerating me. Not finding me useful for collaboration and mildly entertaining as a person.Obsessing. The way I’ve been obsessing over him, apparently, despite my best efforts to pretend otherwise.
Wait.
He thinks I’m beautiful?
I don’t think a man has ever called me that before. Cute, yes. Quirky, sure. But beautiful?
Something cracks open in my chest.
Oh my god. We’re idiots. We’re both complete idiots.
He sinks into the chair across from me, elbows on knees, head hanging, hands lacing and unlacing.
“I know this doesn’t fix anything. But I wanted you to know I wasn’t lying when I said I never meant to hurt you.”
“I didn’t think you were lying at all.”
He looks up, so desperate and unguarded, I want to reach across and touch his face. I don’t. But I can’t stop myself from taking in every detail. How hard he’s breathing, the pink in his jaw and up his neck, the faint shine of panic behind the glasses.
“So you just put it down to me being a malfunctioning robot?” The self-loathing in his voice makes my heart squeeze, and I shake my head.
“You’re not a malfunctioning robot,” I say softly.
“The evidence suggests otherwise.”
