We all know the story. We all lived the story.
“That seems like it would only work until the first time you decided you wanted M&Ms so much that you’d risk it,” Thalia’s voice says. “And it’s not like kids have good judgement.”
“No, they do not,” Seth says, though I can hardly hear him over the sudden pounding of my heart, and several thoughts crash into each other, all at once.
Did I shower today?
He didn’t warn me.
What day is it?
She’s here. She’s here. She’s here and I’m not ready. I haven’t figured anything out, I don’t know what to say, all I’ve done is build a really big bookcase.
Then they both come around the corner, into Seth’s living room, and Thalia stops.
“Oh,” she says.
“I thought you were at Levi’s,” Seth says, walking past her and toward his kitchen. “Do either of you want anything to drink?”
“No, thank you,” calls Thalia.
“Same,” I say.
“Well, I’m just parched,” Seth says, his voice echoing from the next room over the sound of his fridge opening. “It’s been a whole Friday, you know?”
“Is it really Friday?” I ask Thalia, sotto voce.
“It really is,” she confirms. “What day did you think it was?”
I sigh, run a hand through my hair, because I’m very much not the kind of person who loses track of days, though apparently I am right now.
“Maybe like… Wednesday?” I say.
Seth comes back out of the kitchen, drinking a glass of water, and looks from me to Thalia and back.
“Right,” he says. “Let me just grab something from upstairs and text Levi that we’re not coming over, and I’ll go… somewhere that isn’t here.”
Thalia’s already blushing.
“We could go —”
“Nope,” he calls, already heading up the stairs of his townhouse.
“ — somewhere less intrusive,” she finishes, even though Seth’s long gone.
“It’s fine, he once stabbed me in the hand hard enough to draw blood because I tried to take one of his french fries,” I say. “He owes me.”
“How are any of you alive?” Thalia says, half-laughing and half-horrified. “On the way over here he was telling me about Levi convincing Eli that eating dandelions made you capable of flight.”
“That ER trip is one of my earliest memories,” I tell her.
“All right, I’m out,” Seth says, coming back down the stairs, putting something in his pocket, then grabbing his coat and swinging it onto one arm. “Getting drinks and then seeing a movie with, uh, a friend. I’ll call before I come back.”
“Have fun!” Thalia says.
“Thanks,” he says, and then turns and walks backward, pointing at me. “Don’t fuck this up. I like her and I’d like for us to keep her.”
“Bye,” I call, and then he’s gone and his door opens, closes, and suddenly it’s very, very still in this living room, the smell of freshly cut wood permeating the air and Thalia and I looking at each other.
There are a thousand things I want to say to her, but I can’t find words for any of them. I missed her and I love her and I spent nights roaming the darkness of Seth’s living room, feeling like a thousand tiny cactus spines were working their way into my skin, too agitated to sleep and too tired to do anything but pace.
Sometimes I feel like I’m staring into the void, the sudden blankness that’s the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel like I’m staring into the blue sky, endless possibilities. Which it is depends on the day.
“I didn’t mean to stay here a week,” I finally say. “I guess I got really involved in making Seth the bookshelves I promised him a couple years ago when he moved in here.”
“They look good,” Thalia says, her gaze roving over them, then coming back to me. “I was afraid you’d gone off to hike the Appalachian Trail again when you weren’t home by yesterday.”
“It’s the dead of winter,” I point out.
I did a deep dive into what equipment I’d need and how feasible it would be, what my route would look like, whether I could make it if I started in Georgia now.
“That’s why you didn’t go?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t go because I don’t want to escape you. I didn’t go because it’s a long time and I’d miss the hell out of you.”
I pause. We look at each other, something tense and unspoken between us, something that needs words I can’t find. I’ve spent the last week mostly silent, mostly alone: making these bookshelves, hiking solo through the forest, doing a thousand chores at my mom’s house.
I spent the week trying to untangle the sudden mess of my life, trying to find the right words to take back to Thalia, but I still haven’t.
“I miss the hell out of you now,” I say.
She looks at me steadily, unblinking, and then she takes a deep breath and closes the distance between us. She looks up at me, her hands in the back pocket of her jeans, her elbows splayed.