I type.
Me:Can’t sleep.
I stare at the message after I send it. Then I type the second one before I can talk myself out of it.
Me:You up?
I stare at the small Delivered under the message and my stomach does the slow heavy turn it has been doing all night, and I almost take it back. I almost actually pick up the phone and unsend the message and put it under my pillow and call this whole thing off. I have not sent a girl a you up text in my entire life. I have received them. I have never sent one. The not-sending of them was one of the small private things I was quietly proud of about myself.
Then dots appear, and my stomach sinks. She’s up.
Melly:Yeah.
Melly:I can’t sleep either.
I grin because I’m not the only one awake. The knowledge does something to the inside of my chest. It’s the second time tonight she has done something to the inside of my chest, and the night’s not over.
I stare at the screen.
I cannot take too long to write back because if I take too long, she is going to know I am churning. And I am churning, and the time is going to give me away. I start to type. I erase. I start to type. I erase. Another minute passes and the Delivered underher message is staring at me like a coach with his arms folded waiting for me to make a decision, and I think — fuck it, fuck it, what is the worst thing she can say, the worst thing she can say is no, I have said no to her a hundred times and she survived it, I will survive it, I think, no, I probably won’t, but fuck it.
Me:Can I come over?
I send it before I can think about it.
I want to punch myself.
I drop the phone on my chest and look at the ceiling and I think — Blue, you fucking idiot, you absolute fucking idiot. It’s past midnight. She has a roommate. She has a whole life she has built here, and the life does not include me showing up near midnight at her apartment door because I cannot sleep. The life has very specifically not included that. The life has been a careful well-constructed thing made of distance, and I just took a sledgehammer to it because I want to talk to her again.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
I have never asked a girl to hang out before, and this is agony. This is genuine bodily agony. This is worse than my chin throbbing. No wonder I have spent my entire life avoiding it.
I pick the phone back up.
She has answered.
Melly:Yeah.
I fucking panic.
Blue:Now?
The dots come back instantly.
Melly:I thought that’s what you meant.
I am out of bed before I finish reading the sentence.
Me:Address?
She sends it. I throw on the only hoodie I own, and a pair of sweats. I look around my room like a man who has misplaced his entire life, and then I remember — mouthwash. Mouthwash, Golding. Genius. I make it to the bathroom in three long strides.I rinse, I spit, and I look at my own face in the mirror for one full second, hat backward, bruise rising on the underside of the jaw. This is the face she is going to open the door to, and then I think, she has already seen worse, get in the car, Goldie, get in the goddamn car and go, do not change your mind — and I am down the stairs.
I walk down the stairs to an empty house. It’s fucking sad in here without the livelihood of the Hawthorne House boys. When I reach the front door, I hesitate for a second.Is this the dumbest thing I’ve ever done?
Probably.
I pull out my phone and text her.
