Dustin paused, staring at the bench but not sitting down.
“Do you want to sit somewhere else?” Rae asked.
“This is fine,” he said. “I was just reading the inscription.”
She noticed a small silver plaque on the center of the bench.
In memory of Tate and Lena Olivares, who found true love in this city of dreams in the summer of ’49.
Rae did a rough calculation of how many thousands of park benches she’d walked by in her life without pausing to read the inscriptions.
This was what drew her to Dustin—how he observed and contemplated life rather than just going through the motions. She wasn’tsure if she was supposed to let herself think this, but her guardrails had shattered at the wordtreatment.
Dustin left space between them on the bench, but Rae slid toward him.
The stocky brick walk-ups of Greenwich Village bordered Washington Square Park, shielding Midtown’s glass skyscrapers. The spire of the Empire State Building poked through, stubborn or defiant, Rae couldn’t tell which, or if there was even a difference.
“I’ve always been prone to it, I guess,” Dustin said. “High highs and low lows. My mom said I locked myself in my room as a four-year-old, asking why God created ‘pain right here.’” He pointed to his heart.
Rae wrapped her hand around his, like a bandage.
“I was on meds in college, but it felt like they muted my emotions, blocked the deepest human parts of me,” he said. “So I went off them and was okay for a while. But last year was a new kind of low. I don’t know why.”
She could sense how hard he’d tried and failed to complete theX + Y = Zequation.
“I took medical leave at work,” he went on. “Went to my parents’. Laid in bed, barely ate. A therapist came every other day, but I didn’t talk much. I was so stuck I couldn’t even hold a book, let alone read one.”
Rae’s phone buzzed from her pocket. It would be the Scramblettes asking for updates, or Ellen debating what she should wear to dinner. It felt like another world, irreverently weightless.
“I came back to work in September,” Dustin continued. “Thought I was doing better. Thought I could date …” He looked apologetically at her, and Rae hated herself for ever thinking he owed her an apology. “But I spiraled again on New Year’s Eve. Drinking makes it worse …”
Rae wanted to ask about theit, what it made him feel and think and not feel and not think. She wanted to ask if he’d ever consideredtaking his life. She wanted to tell him his unfiltered parts made him exponentially more beautiful.
“What can I do?” she asked instead, mind racing ahead to potential solutions. She could help him find a new therapist and cook him some superfood scramblettes and read books out loud if he wasn’t able to himself.
Her whole plan to keep swiping through the dating app until her husband showed up felt so juvenile, so misdirected. Dustin was the only man she wanted to lock down, but even more than that, she wanted and needed to help unlock him from himself.
He smiled weakly, sad stories written in the premature lines around his eyes. “I’m not dragging you into this. It’s better if I keep my distance.”
Rae’s body tightened. She moved away from him on the bench.
“What’s wrong?” Dustin asked.
“Don’t go,” she whispered, just softly enough that if he ignored her, she could almost believe he hadn’t heard.
“Rae, I just need to get myself to a better place.”
All she heard wasI don’t want you. She pulled her hood up over her eyes. The fabric wasn’t as soft as the Santa hat, but it blocked the light better.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Dustin said.
“Too late.” She was aware that she was making it all about her, but she couldn’t stop the habit and she couldn’t stop the hurt, so she just kept sitting there in the January air, next to another guy who was about to walk out of her life.
They sat in silence until Rae was certain he’d left. She was so convinced she was alone on the bench that she flinched at the sound of his voice.
“Be my friend?” he asked.
Rae peeked out through her hood. He was still there, right beside her.
