“Junie, please.” I laugh.
Another big bite isn’t enough to keep her from talking more shit. “He’s going to tear that kitty up, girl, and you deserve it.”
Idodeserve it, but that’s not the point. I just want to be near him again and make sure he’s okay before I get my hopes up that we’ll have sex again.
Liem: I get to see you tomorrow :)
“He texted you, didn’t he?” Junie asks, wriggling her shoulders as if she knows she’s right. “Got you grinning and shit.”
“Shut up and eat.”
“That’s what you’re gonna tellhim.” I toss a piece of corn at her. “Why can’t you move to Seattle and find a job out there? It’s expensive and hard everywhere, at least you could live with him while doing it.”
“Youwant me to chase after a boy?”
“I didn’t say that.” We stare each other down over our bowls. “Have fun this weekend. You deserve it.”
Do I?
~
People are taking their sweet time getting off this damn plane.
I’ve been counting down the minutes since I finished packing last night. We should be at zero, but these people are taking forever. In all fairness to them, I’m in the inconvenient part of my cycle where I stop hurting and start yearning. Patience does not exist for me right now. I want everything, and I want it immediately. I need to be near him again, to feel something other than the disappointment radiating from everyone around me. To say I don’t want to touch him again would be a bigger lie than everything I told Junie before I came here.
Finally off the plane, I follow the signs to the exit, gripping my phone tight in my hand in case I get lost and have to wait two additional minutes to find him.
But there he is. Waiting for me at the bottom of the escalator, wrapped in a black hoodie, smile splitting his cheeks.
Warmth washes over me, like I had been holding my breath under cold water for nearly a month, now finally coming up for air on a perfectly sunny day. I’ve missed him—the camaraderie we have, the absence of looming dread for a weekend. I run to him and nearly leap into his open arms. Barely on the ground, I hang from his neck, my energy recharging more every second he is against me, breathing life back into me like I’m regaining a missing piece of my soul.
“I’ve missed you so much,” he says into my neck. His grip hasn’t loosened one bit. I don’t want it to.
“I’ve missed you more.”
As much as my body wants the opposite, I try not to remember what happened the last time we touched in an airport. The kiss I couldn’t resist while thinking I wouldn’t see him again. Had the suitcase exchange not happened, that kiss could have been the end of everything.
Finally, we let go. I look into his eyes, and for a moment, it’sthere—the hesitancy, wondering if a kiss is appropriate. It’s not.
“Ready to show me your hospital room?” I joke, tapping his chest to gently force myself away from his gravitational pull.
“Yes. Please don’t laugh when you see it.”
My arm around his waist, his around mine while he pulls his suitcase in his other hand. We’re glued together again, and it feels so right.
But I’m sad. Because it’s going to hurt like hell when I leave him again after this weekend.
Twenty-five
Liem
Having Bri with me again, I can finally breathe. With her, everything is sunnier, warmer, more complete. Bringing her back to my apartment gives me the same feeling as when we went to the Brooklyn apartment for the first time. Like stepping into the awkward unknown while somehow knowing it will be amazing.
When her lips make a little O, the rose-colored glasses evaporate and reveal my gray, lifeless box of concrete. Have I really been livinglike this? The only signs of life in the space are my fiddle-leaf fig in the corner and the sofa and bed frame she ordered prior to her arrival.
“It’s bad, isn’t it?”
She chuckles. “It’s . . . something.”
