Elliot.Elliot.
That was the single word running through Birdie’s mind. She had to get to Elliot. She forgot that she was onstage in front of two thousand people. She forgot that every one of those two thousand people had their cameras trained right on her. She forgot that Kai Carol was standing just a few feet away from her with an elephant-sized diamond ring still in the palm of his hand.
She spun out toward the auditorium.
Elliot.
Birdie bit her bottom lip, then allowed herself to give in to this moment, this ridiculous turn of events that had cost them both so much time together but maybe was exactly how it should have been written.
She took one long, cleansing breath and realized that the crowd was absolutely losing their minds, screaming at a decibel reserved for rock royalty. Then her face split open into a smile that was so wide, it would have hurt under different circumstances. But now it felt hard-won, and it felt glorious. Birdie feltglorious. Through the glare of the lights, she managed to find Elliot’s eyes, and he found hers, and she nodded, so he nodded, and then she watched him bound—literally leap like an actual superhero—over the first two rows of seats, and then he was taking the steps two by two, and then he was in front of her.
“Birdie,” he said, and she couldn’t really hear him over the shrieking, but she didn’t think she needed to.
“Elliot,” she said, and she knew he couldn’t hear her either, but no one cared.
“I can’t believe you did this,” he said. “It’s brilliant.Youare brilliant.”
“Well,” she said, “this wasn’t exactly how I planned it.”
“Close enough,” Elliot replied.
“Close enough,” she agreed, because it was.
“I have so much I need to say to you,” Elliot said.
“But maybe not now,” Birdie replied. “In front of two thousand people?”
Elliot turned to look out to the theater, like he only just realized they had an audience.
“Oh my god,” he said.
“Welcome to my world.” She smiled.
“Can I stay for the rest of my life?” he semi-shouted so he could be heard above the ruckus.
“Yes,” she shouted back. “As long as you know you’re about to be thought of as my plus one.”
“I couldn’t dream of a better title in my life.”
The noise of the crowd was earsplitting, and because words were pointless, they stared at each other for a long beat.
Then: “I would really like to kiss you now,” Elliot mouthed.
“I would really like you to kiss me now,” Birdie mouthed back.
And he took a long glance at her, like he couldn’t believe thiswas actually happening, and Birdie wanted to tattoo his adoration onto her insides, hold it close to her chest forever. And then he tipped forward, and the roar from the audience was deafening, but all Birdie could hear was her breath, and his breath, and the rush of blood that made its way to her ears as his lips met hers, and hers met his. Birdie sunk into his chest and kissed Elliot like she’d never kissed anyone before, and to be fair, she’d had a lot of practice. Screen kisses, air-kisses, faked kisses, and yes, some real kisses too. But it felt different this time, with her first love, with, she suspected, her last love too. She felt the urgency of his mouth, his tongue, his hunger, and she lost herself in the headiness of how he smelled, how he tasted, how he felt against her.
After some time, long enough that every part of her was tingling, and she mostly wanted to hustle offstage and take Elliot back to her room, he pulled back.
“You wrote the perfect ending, you know,” he said.
“You’re the writer here,” she replied. “Not me.”
He shook his head. “This one was all you. I’m too dark and twisted to write something like this.”
Birdie laughed, out of both disbelief and utter joy. The thing was, she thought, maybe she had been too.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” Birdie said. “Just so I’m certain this sticks.”
