“It’s been an honor,” I say. “I’d seen her work before, and when she asked me to be her business partner, I was flabbergasted. Just completely astounded that she’d trust me enough to bring me in to this thing that she built by herself, that she was so amazing at. And since we’ve been working together—I mean, I was working as a video editor. I liked my job. So that should put it in perspective when I say that I’ve never had so much fun working on any project in my life, and most of that’s because of Su-Lin. She makes everything better.”
A softawwwemanates from the crowd, and my cheeks grow hot. Su-Lin doesn’t look particularly thrilled with me as she takes the mic back, which is completely fair.That wasn’t a very casual thing to say, but it was the truth.
“Well, that’s all the time we have,” Su-Lin says. “This episode will be up today, and we’d love if you’d share it! We can’t wait for you to see the rest of the run, so subscribe to our YouTube channel, mmmkay?”
The crowd claps and cheers and there’s a scream of “Hell yeah!” and then the whole thing’s over. Su-Lin and I sit down at the edge of the stage and sign t-shirts and cell phone cases and sock puppets and a few people’s arms.The whole time I’m trying to catch Su-Lin’s eye without making it obvious to the fans—we have fans! Who are now fans of both of us! My brain is not sure what to make of this.
When the whole thing is over, I unplug our laptop, and Su-Lin says thank you to Kira, our con liaison. Su-Lin walks toward me, looking utterly deflated.
“That went well, yeah?” I say.
“Yeah,” she says. “I think so.”
The anxious rush of the event is starting to wear off, and now that I’m not trying to avoid her, I can plainly see that the usually blinding Su-Lin light is running out of batteries. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she says, waving me off. “I’m just tired. I think I’m going to go lie down.”
I could stand to get somewhere quiet myself, after all that. And it’ll be better to talk in the hotel room than in the exhibition hall where we might be ambushed by fans at any moment. “I’ll come with you.”
“You don’t have to,” Su-Lin says, still not looking at me.
Yes, something is definitely very wrong. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own fears and failures today—how long has she been like this? Was it the launch, or the awkwardness this morning? I’d thought that was all about me and my issues, which I now think was pretty self-centered of me.
“Obviously,” I say. “But I want to. I need some down time, too.”
Su-Lin nods and heads back to the hotel. It takes all my self-control not to beg her to tell me what’s going on in her head as we take the elevator up to our room, but a gaggle of teenagers in cat ears climb in with us, and I don’t want to start this in front of them.
The door barely clicks shut behind us before I sit down on the end of her bed. “What’s wrong?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Su-Lin says, heading for the bathroom. “Just tired.”
“Stop that. I know you when you’re tired.This isn’t it. What’s wrong? Is this about the launch? Or last night?”
She freezes in the doorway and slowly turns around. When she looks up at me, I see fear in her eyes.
It is about last night. I walk over to her, putting my hands on her arms. “Hey,” I say. “I freaked out. I’m sorry. Can we talk about it?”
“You didn’t seem like you freaked out. You seemed like you just didn’t want it to have happened.”
Oh,god. Is that what she thought?
“No,” I say. “I really wanted that to happen.”
Su-Lin rolls her eyes. “Yeah, last night. But you clearly regret it today.”
I wrap my arms around her, relieved that she lets me. She feels so small in my arms, like she’s shrinking in on herself from worrying about this.
I am an asshole.
“I’m scared today,” I say. “And angry with myself. But that was the best night of my life, and I don’t think I could bring myself to regret it.”
Su-Lin’s eyes widen. “Really?”
I brush a strand of her hair that has fallen out of its braid back out of her face. “Yeah, really,” I say. “If I regret anything, it’s that I let it happen before I could be the person you deserve me to be.”
Su-Lin squeezes me tight, and I hold her back, still wishing I could pour my heart out, tell her that I want her to be my girlfriend and marry me and be with me forever and ever.
The words catch in my throat, and my whole body goes weak at just the thought of that one word.
