“Anyway, the store was for western-style clothing. Boots, and clothes, and those—you know those ties that aren’t ties? With the . . . leather, and the thingy.” I gesture at my neck.
“Those don’t sound like something I’d wear.” He seems disgusted by the very idea, and I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
“The point is,” I say, once I’ve got it under control, “the store is sort of . . . odd. What it sells, in this city, in that neighborhood—you wouldn’t think of it, would you? So the sign, the letters—they should feel that way, too. Unexpected.”
“Okay.” Somehow he makes it sound likeGo on.
“And March, that’s definitely the most unexpected month. So ithadto be March.”
He looks down at the word, then back up at me. “I don’t get it. It comes every year. Right after February.”
“Yes, but it’s, you know—every year, you’re all, ‘March! This is going to begreat! Start of spring!’ But it’s definitely not, right? Because there will be a weird, freak snowstorm, and it’s like winter’s started all over. Unexpected things happen in March.”
He stares at me, and I think he might argue. He might say, for example, that if one feels this wayeveryMarch, then it can’t be truly unexpected. Which would be a good point, but I’m telling you. MyM-A-R-C-His making the case.
Instead he says, “You match the lettering to the”—he turns his teacup—“the feeling.”
“Yes,” I say, relieved. I take a sip of my soil-flavored tea. The warmth I feel—it’s not from the drink. It’s from this evening, these games, this moment. This understanding, or at least the attempt at it.
But then Reid says something that makes everything turn cold again.
“Avery,” he says, his voice steady. “I can see why you picked those letters for her. The ones on our . . . on the wedding things.”
“Oh,” I say, stunned. Reid is so—direct, really. Being with him sometimes—it’s as if I’m learning a whole new language.
“The fairies, those suited her. She was—” He pauses, looks down at the notebook between us. I don’t remember doing it, but at some point in the last few seconds I’ve closed it. My right hand is resting on top, palm flat, bracing myself against everything about this that is uncomfortable.
“Unreal, in a way,” he finishes. “Beautiful, and powerful.”
The only thing I can seem to do is nod. Shewasthose things. Even I thought so, and I barely knew her.
He looks up at me, that trace of sadness in his eyes until he seems to see something in mine. His gaze sharpens, and he straightens in his chair. “I apologize.”
“No!” I say, too hastily. “I’m the one who . . .”
I trail off, pressing that hand flatter against my notebook. I doubt I’ll open it again tonight. Theathat Reid chose—right now it doesn’t feel all that unexpected. It doesn’t feel like he chose it because he was curious about what I’d do with it. It feels like he chose it because it’s a way into this—this constant, looming confrontation between us. What I did. What I put into those letters.
It’s sohardto have that confrontation looming there.
The tower we started building—it’s near collapse.
“It’s getting late,” he says, seeming to know.
Quite late, is all I can think. I nod, but don’t move to pack up.
“Shall I walk you to the train?” Those starchy, lovely manners. I wonder if he knows how unexpected he is. How unreal, in this city.
I smile up at him. My truest talent, this feigned lightness, no matter what this book of sketches resting underneath my hand contains. “I’m going to stick around. I’ll call for a Lyft in a while.”
He tips his head in a nod, but he seems disappointed. “I hope you”—he gestures at my notebook—“I hope your work goes well.”
“Thanks.” I still feel shaken, as if I’m the tower now, wobbly and uncertain.Game over, I see in my mind, blinking and computerized, not a hand-drawn letter in sight.
Then I think Reid takes a risk of his own.
“I had fun,” he says, as serious as ever, and I look up at him. The severity in the lines of his face now looks to me like sincerity.Hope.
“Me too,” I say honestly, the memory of all those photos on my phone a blinking, deleting cursor, backspacing over thatGame over.
