“I didn’t mean that!”
“Are you saying that if we have sex again and it’s not perfect, you’re done?”
“No! But we don’t need to worry about that, because it will be great. Like sushi.”
He squinted at me, brow lowered.
“The wasabi burned my nose and I wanted to spit it out, and then I tried it again, and it was really good.”
“I see.” He was quiet long enough to make me squirm and then said, “I confessed a really big part of my past to you yesterday. I’ve been sitting around, waiting for you to absorb it. Worrying that you would decide I wasn’t worth the trouble. Hoping that you wouldn’t. And now I’m not sure, but I feel like you want both of those options. You want a way out.”
“That’s not what I want!”
“Are you positive?”
“I’m just saying that maybe if we relax and have fun together, then neither of us will get hurt.”
“So you want a friends-with-benefits sort of thing?”
“No. Maybe? No!” I threw up my hands. “Honestly, I don’t know what I’m doing. Everything you told me yesterday scared me a little, and it shouldn’t. So, I thought the problem must be me. That if I lived in the moment and quit being so cautious, that everything would work out. But the truth is, I don’t know how to have a relationship. Not friendship, not friends with benefits, and not anything else. I feel like you’re light-years ahead of me, and it probably wasn’t like this with other girls.”
“Jesus, Birdie. How many other people do you think I’ve been with?”
“I don’t know. I just assumed—”
“One.”
“One?” I repeated, not quite believing him. He was Daniel. He was beautiful and charming. Talking to people was as easy as breathing for him. He only had one girlfriend? How?
“Her name was Emily. And what do you want to hear? That it was great? It was—” He stopped. “It was someone I had a crush on before the incident. Afterward, she felt sorry for me. I’m not saying she wasn’t attracted to me, but her need to... comfort me was greater, if that makes any sense. I didn’t understand that at the time. I thought she liked me. Imagine my surprise, after we saw each other for a couple of months, when she moved on to someone who had their shit together, and I had to sit around with my heart broken, trying not to fall into another black hole.”
Oh. I didn’t expect this.
Maybe we weren’t as different as I thought.
Maybe we’d both been let down by other people.
After a long silence, I said, “I’m sorry you went through that. I guess I assumed my life was more messed up than yours.”
“It’s not a competition.”
“I’ll see your overdose and bet you the death of a parent.”
For a moment I was scared I’d been too jokey. Then his shoulders relaxed, and he smiled the sort of smile that made me feel like I was receiving the queen’s blessing. “Who needs normal?” he said, eyes twinkling. “Not us.”
“Normal is for the weak.”
Warm fingers clasped mine and held tight. “Forget all this stuff. Remember what you told me in the van? I want that too. All of it. And I think we can. But I can’t guarantee it, and I don’t expect any sort of guarantee from you, either. I just need acceptance, that’s all.”
“ThatI can give you. But I need you to try not to die on me, because I’m getting really tired of that happening.” I was trying for light and jokey, but a wave of emotion caught me off guard, and my eyes brimmed with tears. I blinked them away, wanting to smile and cry at the same time.
“Hey,” he said, looking back at me with glossy eyes. “I’m pretty sure I can manage that.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he agreed.
He softly stroked his thumb over my knuckles. I couldn’t stop my fingers from clasping his. Such a little thing, holding hands. But a warm, electric current flowed between us where we touched, and it suddenly felt as if things were going to be okay somehow.
