“Just get in here,” she said.
But god, he was relentless.
“I can’t. I’m wedged. I’ve been wedged for the last thirty minutes. I think I might have to live here now,” he said, and just as she was about to laugh, he added: “Not so bad, really, at least I might get to see you every day.”
And then after he had, her face did the thing.
The crumpling thing.
“Oh Christ, I thought that would go down well. See, I’m so bad at this.”
“You’re not bad at this—it did go down well. These are happy tears.”
“They look completely indistinguishable from theones you were crying on that stage,” he said, probably just to explain himself. Though of course it didn’t hit like that for her. She didn’t take it practically.
She took it by clutching at herself.
“So you saw it, then.”
“I saw it.”
“I didn’t intend it as any kind of pointed message to you.”
“No, I know. Hey, hey, hey, I know. There were just things in it… there were things you said that… well, they made me think—they made mefeelsome kind of way. About how things are for you inside. How lonely you—” he started, obviously intending to finish onseemorare.Only he couldn’t. His voice cracked before he got there. He had to stop and compose himself, and then start again, like a man fumbling in deadly darkness to save something that would kill him. He knew it would, but he carried on anyway. “How lonely you sounded. How sad you sounded about the way the world is. The way people are, you know.”
Then on the end he met her eyes.
And they were so full of worry for her she could hardly get out the words she wanted. The ones she needed to, so he wouldn’t keep doing this to himself. Forcing himself to say things that were hurting him. “It’s all right. I’m okay.”
“But you’re not, Daisy.”
“Even if I wasn’t, you don’t have to do anything.”
“I do, though. I need to tell you that—that I don’t want things to be that way for you. I want you to have the other world, the one where things work out, and itturns out you aren’t too much, and you’re loved, very loved, and you know. Even though I’m not the one good enough for you to love me back. I want to try and—” he said, and this time the crack down the middle of his sentence wasbad. Oh, it was really bad. He couldn’t compose himself this time. Instead, he made a sound of pain. He had to press his lips together, and it was obvious why.
She could see the tears standing out in his eyes.
It was too much. It was too much. She took a step forward.
But he stopped her with one wavering, held-up hand. “No,” he said. “Let me feel it. Iwantto feel it. I want to know myself, I want to know you. And honestly, just be there for you. If you reach out for a lifeline, I don’t want you to come up empty. If you’re not waving but drowning, I want to see it from the shore. I want my hand to be ready for you to grab. You were too far out, all your life—enough. Enough.”
And all she could think once he had finished waspoetry. The same poem, in fact, that he’d refused to read out in class.Did you read it in secret and keep it close to your heart, she thought.Did you think of me when you read it, she thought, and knew she was just silently shedding tears now. They were streaming down her face. They had wet her collar.
Though part of her understood it wasn’t because he had thought of her.
It was because he had most likely thought of himself.You were too far out all your life, she thought, then swiped her face with the back of her hand. Steeled herself.
“All right,” she said. “But you, too.”
“What do you mean, me too?”
“You have to accept the lifeline I throw out. You have to accept that you’re not waving, but drowning. You have to come with me, okay? I can’t just leave you, I can’t, no matter how much you think everybody should.”
“Daisy, you have to understand that I’m right to think—”
She shook her head.
Drew a line through the air with a hand.
