Eitan’s hand raises, grazing my neck and settling around my jaw. Every nerve ending in my cheek sparks, and I want nothing more than to close my eyes and nuzzle into his palm. It’s a bulldozing of boundaries, but I can’t step away. He’s reminding me what it’s like to be touched.
The sensation is euphoric, and if he’s not careful, I’ll get hooked.
“You say that your life isn’t a tragedy, but it doesn’t always have to be a comedy either. You don’t need to hold the world at arm’s length with jokes for the rest of your life.” His thumb strokes the apple of my cheek while my brain parses through what he’s saying. I try to remember what the wordfriendmeans, if it can include a moment like this. If this is complicated, or the simplest thing in the world. Touching, and being touched. Connecting.
Our lips are only an inch apart. What’s stopping me from leaning in? Why does it have to be so complicated? Maybe the thought of not being able to do this is scarier than the thought of doing it.
I lean in.
My lips brush his, and his breath stops.
He doesn’t kiss me back. His hand jolts away from my cheek.
I scramble back, my palms hitting the scratchy movie theater carpet. “Oh my God,” I say, panicking. “I can’t believe—I’m so sorry.”
“Ruby—” He looks confused. “It’s okay.”
Did I imagine the moment? His hand stroking my cheek? It had to have been real. Even my overactive imagination couldn’t manufacture the feeling of sunlight reaching out to touch me.
“You just took me by surprise,” Eitan says, standing up too.
I pause and wait for him to say more.
“I’m not really—” His hand scrubs behind his neck. “I’m not in a good spot to…” He sighs. “I’m not the kind of person you should?—”
I shake my head, every one of his words hitting me like buckshot. “If you’re going for theI’m no good for youroutine, you can save it. I get it, okay?” I hold the back of my palm to my forehead, desperately trying to cool myself down. “Message received, loud and clear.”
“This is not a routine,” Eitan says, voice gravelly.
Thank God I brought my purse with me. This is a conversation I don’t need to have. I thought, for a moment, that there was something happening between us. But apparently Eitan just strokes the cheek of every girl in his life. And it doesn’t mean anything. I might die of embarrassment. Signals have never been more egregiously misread.
I stand up in a flurry.
I’m no good for you. It’s for the best.All different ways to say that you are better off alone. Who’s ever actually better off alone?
Unbidden, the memory of the last time I was brushed away showers me like tiny pellets of hail.
“It’s for the best,” Grant said, holding my hands.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I just finished chemo, finally had my second surgery. This was the part where things were supposed to go back to being good. I’d grow my hair out, build out a wardrobe that suited my new body.
“You know I love you.” He put a hand on my shoulder.
“I love you too,” I said back, a reflex.
“I just don’t think we’reinlove anymore.”
“I’min love withyou.” My voice wobbled. Threatened to give out completely.
“You don’t even know what you want,” Grant told me.I do! I want this,I thought instantly. “How can you? After everything you’ve gone through.”
“I’m still the same person?—”
“Look, Ruby, I’m so glad I could be there for you during this, but this hasn’t been working for me for a long time.”
It hasn’t been working foryou?A voice in my head parroted.Exactly how many infusions did you come with me to? How many surgical drains did you empty? How many follicle stimulation shots did you inject into my belly?
I shook away that indignant voice.
