“You’re here,” she said.
“’Course I am.”
Holding in a reply that might put him on the defensive, she kept her tone light. “Be warned, if you mention the termsrecurring revenueorfee structure, I’m dumping this beer straight on your head.”
He smiled beneath his lips. “But those were both of my go-to conversation topics.”
“Don’t worry, there’s still monetary policy to debate,” Rae said. “What would you say the odds are of a twenty-five basis point rate cut at the next Fed meeting?”
Dustin groaned, vocalizing the sound that Rae had been feeling for the past two hours. “I was on the phone for ten hours today with clients asking me about that,” he said. “I’m all talked out.”
“Same here.”
They stood in shared silence, staring out over the railing. Rae leaned on Dustin’s shoulder, preferring the skyline from this angle. She dropped a kiss on his collarbone.
“Rae,” he said, tensing. “We can only be friends.”
The words didn’t hurt this time. They just reminded her that theirone dayhadn’t arrived yet. But they were closer to it tonight than they had been this morning.
“Onlyis for phrases likeonly 99 centsandone night only,” she replied. “There’s nothingonlyabout friendship.”
“You know what I mean.”
She did know what he meant, all too well. He still didn’t feel like he was in a solid enough spot to give her what she needed in a relationship. From how he continued to disappear on her without rhyme or reason, she knew he was probably right, even though she felt in her soul that she’d rather take him exactly as he was, beautiful shards of a delicate heart, than wait for the cracks to seal. She wouldn’t love himany more or any less once he recovered. But he would love himself more once he beat the depression. He’d be able to see that he was worthy of her love, and that was what mattered. That was why it was so important for her to keep waiting patiently and not pressure him to move faster, not give him any reason to feel like he wasn’t enough for her exactly as he was.
“Relax, Dustin,” she said, trying to give some levity to the evening, some levity they both needed. “I’m not trying to date you. I’m just trying to love you.”
“Oh, is that all?”
She could feel him smiling in the way his breath rose higher than it fell. Their exhales synced.
“Yup,” she said. “That’s all.”
She waited for him to nudge her away, invent some excuse about needing to use the bathroom or get a drink, but after a moment, he rested his head on top of hers. They stared sideways at the straightened city.
“I love you too,” he said, almost a regret, and Rae felt more confident than ever that she would always want to be his only, whatever type of only best fought his lonely.
Tonight, only friends was just right.
PART 2
1,215 DAYS TO GO
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE HEART MARKET CRASH
“Dustin?”
Rae turned the lock of the Lorimer Loft. It was the following summer, late on a weekday night. Rae had tripped into twenty-six before she was ready, and her life looked disconcertingly similar to how it had at twenty-five. The same job, the same apartment, the same procrastinated poems, the same L train subway rides after work to see Dustin and try to lift him out of whatever color mood, or colorless mood, was clenching him that night.
Their friendship had deepened with time, in the shape of the crevices made by Dustin’s lowest lows. But it hadn’t risen in the way Rae pictured it might—that’s to say Dustin hadn’t been cured and proclaimed he was ready to be with her in every way.
His emotions were still muted, blocked by that invisible wall. Some days the wall stood between the two of them, and other days Dustin let Rae stand on his side of it, so the wall barricaded the two of them from the rest of the world. Those were the good days, Rae thought, though she still hadn’t given up on removing the wall or at least transforming it into a gas or a liquid, something penetrable.
Progress wasn’t linear, but Rae thought she saw some improvements. When Dustin sank now, he didn’t stay sunk for as long, disappearing only for days at a time rather than weeks or months. He always resurfaced as if he’d never vanished at all, and Rae would be too relieved to grill him on where he went, physically and emotionally, during those dark stretches.
But the city had started closing in on him again—too many incompetent people at work, too many gridlocked cars in the streets, too many tacky buildings cluttering the sky. He’d gone back to his parents’ house in Connecticut for the past couple weeks to get a breather. Rae had hoped he might invite her up there, but he hadn’t. He’d given her a key to the loft to water Phyllis while he was gone, though, so that was something. Through all these months, the little green plant had stayed stubbornly alive. As far as metaphors went, Rae found it an encouraging one.
