I Did Something Bad

Seventeen

In the carpool back to my place, something is way off. May and Tyler stick to strict work talk, neither of them making eye contact with me or letting me too deep into the conversation. It feels, frankly, like I’m third-wheeling while they’re talking in secret best friend code that I’ll never decipher. Eventually, I stop trying to. Whatever it is they’re buying time to attempt to break to me, they’re going to have to say it outright anyway when we arrive at mine.

Despite my fears, there’s no crowd at my building, and we park and make our way up without any of the other residents spotting them. I fish out my keys, unlock my door, take a step inside, and, conscious of how quiet both of them have gone behind me, flick the light switch. Let’s get this out of the —

“Surprise!” Nay and Thidar leap out of the storage closet a few feet away.

“Aaahh!” Eyes squeezing shut, I stumble back. I miss a step and get that sinking feeling when you know your butt is seconds away from making contact with the floor. Except it never does. Instead, my butt makes contact with Tyler’s waist as one of his hands wraps around my stomach, and the other, my arm.

“I got you,” he says.

“Thanks,” I say, rapidly readjusting myself when I see the way Nay and Thidar are smiling at each other. “What the hell was that?!” I yell. When I glance back, May’s and Tyler’s faces are lit with giant grins.

“It’s your surprise housewarming!” Thidar says with glee. She points over my shoulder. “I texted Tyler an invitation. And also to make sure you came straight home after work. And also to find out what time you’d be home from work.”

I try to purse my lips in an incensed manner at Tyler and May, but I’m smiling too hard to even remotely succeed. “You guys are such liars!” I say.

“Hey, we’re not Oscar-nominated actors for nothing,” May says, opening a palm that Tyler, still grinning, slaps.

“But surprise!” Nay throws out her hands in a ta-da! gesture. “Do you like it?”

I step inside and motion at Tyler and May to join me. “Like wh—” I start, but a flash at the end of the hallway where it opens up into the living room catches my eye. Strung across the floor-to-ceiling glass windows is a banner with gold glitter letters that say I LIKE TO MOVE IN MOVE IN . Next to it, I count precisely four transparent helium balloons filled with confetti floating about. To be honest, the balloons look sad in the shadow of the giant glitter banner.

“You guys!” I laugh. “Why are there four balloons?”

Thidar chances a glance at Nay before widening her eyes at me to warn, Don’t get her started .

With an exasperated sigh as though she’s had to answer this exact question multiple times already, Nay explains, hands flinging about in frustration, “I told the store forty over the phone. However, it turns out the connection was spotty and they heard four. And when I got there, I was like, Where’s the other thirty-six? And they’re like, What thirty-six? You said four and gestured at these—” She points at the balloons bobbing around. “—like, Duh. Can’t you count to four? And I asked, Why would I want four balloons? And the woman was like, I dunno, maybe it’s for a toddler’s fourth birthday party, and I asked, Do I look like I’m dressed for a toddler’s fourth birthday party? ” She stops to gesture theatrically at her lilac pantsuit. “So then I told them I specifically asked for forty and—”

“It’s perfect,” I say, seizing her by the shoulders.

“Really?” Nay asks with a small smile.

I nod. “Really. Three for each of us, and one for extra luck.”

“Awwwwww.” Thidar leaps forward and throws one arm around each of us. “So? Were you surprised?”

To be honest, part of my brain is still somewhat distracted by Dipar’s call and what Yasmin revealed, but my friends’ faces are so buoyant that it positively melts me. I push away everything else, because this is what I want to focus on right now. “Yes. Thank you. Just… thank you,” I say, pulling them in closer to me, wanting to permanently print this moment, this feeling, on my heart forever.

“Mwah!” they say simultaneously, and the switch clicks in tandem with them placing a kiss on either side of my cheeks.

All this stressing and scheming and hiding is piling up like a giant mental Jenga tower, and as much as I’d like to keep pretending that I’m on top of things, I know I am a handful of moves away from the whole tower collapsing. My gaze catches on the pile of shoes by the door, and it occurs to me that I can’t remember the last time I had so many shoes gathered there. I’ve missed all of this more than I’d let myself acknowledge—being with my friends, throwing parties, having fun . Not being on the run every minute of every day. Remembering how to just… be .

I want it back.

And there’s only one way I can do that.

This secret of mine has cost me so much already, and it will only continue to drain me until I am a shell; I can see that now. But that’s not all. If this tower does come crashing down, I’m not the only one who’ll be buried underneath. It’s already prompted Dipar to lie to the police. The whole movie—this movie that I know means so much to Tyler and May and Yasmin—is on the verge of being shut down. It feels wrong to keep any secret, but especially one this big, from Nay and Thidar, but if I tell them, I have no doubt they’ll lie for me, too. They will put everything on the line, too. All for me. All because of me.

The sight of my office door out of the corner of my eye sparks a memory, and I immediately look over at Tyler, who’s whispering something into May’s ear, both of their faces still creased with glee. You are a good person, I think as I remember the whiteboard in that room—and now, I feel like a fool because I can’t believe that I ever considered he could be anything but good. That at one point, I viewed him as just an actor whose secrets I could use as stepping stones to a glamorous Vogue job. I mentally wipe the whole board clean, all those little threads that I wanted to pull at and unravel to discover who Tyler Tun really was. I know who he is now. I’m not printing his secrets, which I also know means I’m not getting the Vogue job this time. In fact, I know with certainty that after tomorrow, I’m not ever getting this job—or probably any other full-time media job again, for that matter—but that’s okay.

The epiphany doesn’t feel like an epiphany, because epiphanies are meant to be sudden, unforeseen. I’ve seen this one coming for a long time in my peripheral vision; I just didn’t want to acknowledge it. But I know how this movie ends now.

“Hey, are you… tearing up?” Thidar asks, a frown tugging her brows together.

“I’m PMS-ing.” I dab my eyes before she can turn it into A Thing, and, remembering something, stretch my neck to look around. “Wait, where’s Pa—”

“Out of the way, people, fresh lasagna coming through!” Patrick says, rounding the corner from the kitchen, my turquoise Le Creuset baking dish in hand, and we all part for him.

“Hi!” Nay bares her teeth at the two newcomers by my side. “I’m Nay! We haven’t met!”

Tyler’s face splits into another grin. “No, we haven’t, but I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m Tyler.”

“And I’m May.” May waves at the two of them. “I haven’t met either of you.”

The beginnings of a squeal leave Thidar’s mouth, and she covers it up with an un-coy cough. “Hi, May,” she says. I can see her hands shaking. “We’re big fans. My fiancé and I. Oh, that’s him,” she says, tipping her head over at Patrick, who is singlehandedly laying out the table like he’s plating in a MasterChef finale.

“Hi,” he calls as he straightens out the knives and forks against an invisible ruler. “I’d come over and say hi but I was put on food duty and told that if I fuck this up, I can find someone new to be engaged to, but the bad news is I’m hopelessly in love with my current fiancée so I can’t afford to be distracted,” he says in one rushed breath.

“Don’t listen to him, he’s always cracking weird jokes,” Thidar adds with an embarrassed laugh. “None of us really get them. Shall we eat?”

“I’ll get the beers,” I say, starting for the fridge. “I’m sticking to water because I have to drive May and Tyler back. But is everyone else drinking?”

“Not me,” Patrick says.

“Me neither,” Nay says. “But you have to drink! It’s your housewarming!”

“We can take them back!” Thidar says. “We’ll take Tyler, and Nay can take May. Hey, that rhymes!”

“Khin, you’re not going to be on designated driver duty at your own housewarming!” May says.

“Fine, fine,” I relent, realizing May’s actually just as pushy as Nay and Thidar.

While the rest of the group diverts toward the table, Tyler follows me into the kitchen. “I’ll give you a hand,” he says with a smile that feels more flirtatious than it should.

I crouch down in front of the fridge and reach in to wrap my hands around two bottles when my body tenses, a relaxed soldier instinctively snapping to attention. He’s pushed the door a bit farther and now we’re hidden by it. He bends over beside me so we’re at eye level, our cheekbones barely skimming. “Hey,” I say, already feeling my brain start to unravel and forget the entirety of the English language, or, really, any language.

“Hey,” he says.

“Thanks for this.”

“I played a very minor role. And anyway, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he says, and somehow, somehow, I know he means it. That even if the Oscars or Grammys were happening right now, he would still choose to be here.

Because he stays.

I turn a mental dial and lower the sound of laughter from the other room so I can focus on this. Right here. And for a minute, I let myself dream, like a young, wide-eyed actress who’s just landed in Hollywood with dreams bigger than anything she’s ever known.

I bet, I catch myself thinking, I would actually like hiking if we hiked through a forest that smelled like your cologne.

I bet, I catch myself thinking, if the timing had been slightly different, this would’ve been something so incredible, even we wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to us.

And I bet, I think, breath shaky, eyes dangerously close to filling up with tears that I do not want him to see, a warmth whose intensity is so blistering it hurts as it surges through my body. If I loved you any less, I could bring myself to be selfish enough to keep you. Because I do, I realize. I love him already. Not that I would ever tell him.

I thought I would be mad at May for wanting to turn me in, or even for wanting to get me to turn myself in; I definitely tried to be—but I can’t. Because I understand. All she wants to do is protect him, because if she doesn’t, then who will? Golden boy with an actual heart of gold, I think ruefully.

“What is it?” Tyler asks, lips so close to mine I can smell the mint.

“Stay.” I say it without hesitation, but also without regret.

He studies me, exactly the way he did at our first meal—like knowing me is the easiest thing in the world for him. Maybe it is.

“Okay” is all he says before grabbing another two beers.

Dinner is good. More than good, it’s fun . Ben and I used to host dinner parties at our place all the time, and no matter how tired I was, it would be the highlight of my whole week. Ever since I moved here, dinnertime—or any meal, for that matter—has merely been a case of me shoving enough food into my mouth to keep myself alive. One plate, one spoon and fork, one cup: minimal food, minimal company, minimal dishwashing.

But tonight, I don’t mind that I can already see the tower of cutlery and plateware in the sink from here. I don’t care that more than one piece of food has been dropped on the ground, more than one drop of the boys’ disgusting beer-and-champagne concoction spilled. I could burst with the joy that stems from remembering that I am not alone, that I have never been alone, that if all of these people—these people who are the best people I know—have shown up here because they love me and want to celebrate me, then I cannot be as big of a disappointment of a human being as I thought. And the least I can do is try to live up to this incredible version of myself that they see.

When the banana and chocolate roti are brought out for dessert, I stand up and clear my throat.

“Yessss, speech!” Thidar whoops.

“Only if you don’t turn this into a thing,” I warn. She and Nay make matching zipping motions across their mouths.

“So—” I try to begin, only to make the huge mistake of making eye contact with my friends, and then I feel the corners of my lips dragging downward.

“Are we still not allowed to make this a thing?” Thidar mumbles out of the corner of her mouth.

“I don’t know,” Nay mumbles back, voice high-pitched. She grabs two tissues, handing one to Thidar. “But I hope she does this quickly because my nose is already getting stuffy.”

Despite my attempt at staying stern, I laugh at my ridiculous, wonderful, absolutely bonkers best friends. “I put off this housewarming because when I first moved here, I didn’t want to accept that this was my home now,” I say, this time embracing the stinging tears. “Living alone again wasn’t part of the plan. I was embarrassed and bitter and, more than anything, lonely. I didn’t want this place”—I gesture at the space—“to be warm or even a home, because I was like a petty child, adamant that this wasn’t my home. But I also didn’t have my old home anymore, so I thought of this merely as… a shelter. A shelter during a really terrible, shitty storm. Just a life raft to cling to while I waited for the shore to reappear.” I swallow, not realizing how fully I’d feel the weight of my words.

“But you know what?” I shoot Nay and Thidar a wry smile. “It turns out that despite all of my pouting, you guys have already turned this place into my home. Because it’s true what they say. A house is only a home because of the people in it, and how can I stand here and look at all of you and still insist that this isn’t home? You are my home.”

“Oh no, there I go,” Nay whimpers right before a loud sob claws out of her. “Sorry,” she says, sniffling as Thidar shoves another tissue at her. “Continue. We are not making this a thing, we promise.”

“You are , though,” I say as a wet laugh bubbles out of me. “Home, I mean. And making it a thing, but mainly home. And you’re the best, sturdiest, safest, most loving, warmest home I’ve ever known. And no matter what happens, no matter where I go—” My voice breaks, but I don’t bother to fix it. These are my people. My people who have seen me at my lowest, and still chose to remain my people. “You will always be my home. Always.”

The rest of the night is a jumbled collage of drinking games and non-drinking games, of outdoing one another to see who can add the weirdest song to the playlist blasting on the speaker (thank god for soundproof walls), and, for some reason, trying to attempt the world’s highest ice-cream sundae. Tyler and May suck the helium out of the balloons and have a Tina Turner–themed sing-off, and I’m accused of being biased when I crown Tyler the winner.

After my first beer, I inconspicuously keep topping up my champagne glass with soda water—an old college trick—because I want to remember everything about tonight.

“Hey,” Nay says and lifts her head while in the middle of trying to plank on the back of my couch. “This isn’t a weird song. Who ruined the vibe?”

At her comment, my ears perk up and my gaze lands on Tyler, who gets up, walks in a remarkably straight line for someone who has had a lot of alcohol, and extends a hand.

“Why?” is what my fuzzy brain and roti-stuffed mouth ask as I stare at his hand.

He steps closer, close enough so that to everyone else behind us, it looks like he’s simply leaning in to brush my hair behind my shoulder. “Because,” he whispers, voice holding a million watts of energy that make me shudder, “it sounds like falling in love.”

He escorts me several feet away, and there, in front of the faraway Yangon skyline, under a giant gold glitter banner that says I LIKE TO MOVE IN MOVE IN , against the sound of fake retching and “Get a room” jeers from our friends, I have my first dance with Tyler Tun.

“Blame it on the alcohol tomorrow?” I ask as I sway in his arms, feeling safe and happy and free.

He nods. “Absolutely the alcohol.”

No one asks twice when Tyler says he’ll stay behind to “help with the cleanup,” but no one leaves without shooting us sky-high, Could you guys at least pretend to be subtle? eyebrow raises either. Maybe it is because of the alcohol in their case, or maybe because I haven’t been able to hide my splitting grin the whole evening, but even Thidar and Nay give me short, approving nods as we hug goodbye.

And then we’re alone.

I spin around and flatten my back against the door. “Hi,” I say. Heat circulates through me like I’m a closed-circuit loop, making me scared and exhilarated and sweaty and dizzy all at once.

Smiling like he has the whole night, smiling at me like he has the whole night, like I am just the most mesmerizing thing he’s ever seen, Tyler approaches me with long, deliberate steps. “Hi,” he says.

“You stayed,” I say.

“I did.” Then, “I said I would.”

“Do you always keep your word?” I ask.

He closes the distance, and braces his hands against the door, around my shoulders, but doesn’t touch me. “Yes,” he says.

“Tyler—” I breathe.

At the same time, he asks, “What are we doing, Khin?”

I swallow. “What do you mean?”

“I thought we agreed that we can’t do this.”

“We did,” I confirm.

“Then why—” He tilts his head and smiles, as though now he’s got a better angle of my face. “Did you ask me to stay?”

“Why”—I lift a challenging brow—“did you agree to stay?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. I know why he stayed, just like he knows why I asked.

I bet, I think as he lifts my chin up with one finger so I have to look right into his eyes. You would be the best sex I ever had.

“Can we… go to bed?” I ask, not recognizing my own voice. When hesitation flickers across his eyes, I give him a reassuring smile. “I mean just… go to bed. Can we change into pajamas and crawl under the covers and maybe put on SVU and you… hold me until I fall asleep?”

Can we pretend for one night? is essentially what I’m asking.

And in spite of his obvious wariness, he nods with a gentleness that tells me he understands.

I don’t bother with sexy lingerie, instead emerging from my wardrobe in a pair of gray silk sleep shorts and a giant white T-shirt with several toothpaste stains on the front. But the speed at which Tyler’s mouth drops, and the visibly uncomfortable way in which he fidgets as he sits up and pulls back my side of the covers to motion at me to join in—it sets off a sharp yet delightful pain behind my solar plexus.

He’s stripped down to his boxers, and as I place my cheek against his warm bare chest, hand grazing against his stomach when I reach for the remote, so many jolts zing through me that my mattress might as well be covered in electric fence netting.

“Hey,” I say into his chest as I pick an episode. “Tell me a secret.”

He considers it for a long time. “I cried at the end of Moana .”

I bark out a surprised laugh and pull back so I can see his face. He’s grinning, and when he grins like this with his full face, he looks nothing like the next 007 and everything like who May was talking about: the boy with the big, unrelentingly soft heart. “That is not a secret,” I say. “ Everyone cried at the end of Moana .”

“Hmm,” he says. His thumb slides under my shirt and makes a sideways swiping motion just above my waistband. “I… am worried you wanted to sleep with me tonight but then you changed your mind, but you’d already told me to stay so you felt bad about—”

“Tyler.” I stop him by placing a finger on his lips. When he kisses it, I all but let out a moan. “None of that is true.”

“You didn’t want to sleep with me tonight?”

I mean to say No, but what comes out is “No?”

Of course, he catches the inflection at the end. “Liar,” he says. Then, smile easing, “So why did you ask me to stay?”

Instead of answering, I trail my finger up and across his face. At one point, it’s like it takes on a life of its own, achingly tracing every single one of his features before returning to his lips. “Isn’t it obvious?” I ask, and his face scrunches up in a way that is so cute I want to grab it and kiss it.

His smile expands so wide, it looks like it’s going to hook onto his ears. “Wanna play a game?” he asks.

“Always,” I whisper deviously.

“If this —” He tilts his chin at me, and then tucks it back toward himself. “— could be possible, what kind of couple do you think we would be?”

“Oh, the kind that makes out literally everywhere . Have you seen us? We’re hot .”

He laughs, then asks, “In a booth, would we sit across or next to each other?”

“Across,” I say immediately. “Tyler, we’re not sociopaths.”

“Would we… have nicknames?”

“No. I don’t do nicknames. The occasional ‘sweetheart’ or ‘honey’ is fine, but no cutesy inside-joke nicknames. I don’t like them. I’m not a toddler.”

He nods like he’s taking this seriously. “Noted.”

“Where would we go on our first vacation?” I ask. I know we’re way beyond playing with fire now; we’re in the middle of a several-miles-long burning coal walk. And it should hurt, the pain should be making every single one of my nerve ends scream with delusion—but Tyler’s still here beside me, and so it doesn’t.

“Somewhere quiet,” he says after a thoughtful pause. “Maybe a small village in Vietnam, by the mountains or—”

“Woah there, buddy.” I shake my head, horrified at even the thought. “I don’t do villages.”

He flashes me the half smile. “You don’t do villages?”

“Nope. No villages, nothing nature-y. And god, definitely nowhere quiet. I like cities. The bigger, the better.” I study him more closely. “Is this going to be a deal-breaker?”

“Khin,” he says through a laugh. The hand on my back sprawls out so he can draw me closer to him. When I throw one leg across his, he makes a grunting sound. Recomposing himself, he says, “ Nothing would be a deal-breaker. No villages.”

“Is that what you want?”

“Huh?”

I hitch a shoulder. “Quiet. Is that what you want? Do you want to move somewhere quiet? Do quiet things?”

“Honestly?” His hand resumes drawing horizontal lines on my skin. “I… don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s what I want.”

He doesn’t know what he wants, May had said. Truthfully, a part of me is glad to see she was right. That makes this easier. I can’t break his heart because no one, including me, can even have it in the first place.

“But my parents live here,” Tyler goes on. “And I have to look after them, and after Jess, and then there’s also May. I can’t just unplug and go be a hermit for the rest of my life.”

“Right,” I say.

“Hey,” he says, shifting in response to my own mood shift. “What is going on here? Not that I’m necessarily complaining,” he hurries to clarify. “But… why are we doing this? Will this not…” He winces before he speaks again. “Make things worse in the end? Harder?”

I smile, the tears in my eyes thickening. “We can pretend for a night, can’t we? Besides, we never know what’s going to happen in life, right? So whenever you have something wonderful, you should make the most of your time with it. And you, Tyler Tun, as exasperating as you might be from time to time—” I twist my body and hold his face in both hands. “Also happen to be the most wonderful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

And I will keep you safe, I silently think, right before I kiss him first this time. Soft mouth that betrays far too quickly and easily just how soft his core also is. The same mouth that says things like, Do you have any idea how much I want to kiss you right now? and I’ve got you over and over until you believe it, and belongs to a good man who does way, way more than simply talk the talk.

Do you have any idea how much trouble your mouth could cause? I want to ask. Do you have any idea how much trouble it’s already caused?

Because look at us now, touching and kissing like the other is the first and only person we’ve ever done this with. Then again, I suppose in some ways it is. Because it’s never been like this, not for me. I don’t think it has for him either. Everywhere his fingertips make contact with my skin melts me like a blowtorch melting sugar.

Our first kiss had been fast and hungry, like we didn’t know whether we’d ever get to do that again, two kids quickly sneaking one in while no one was around. This one, though—this one feels like the rest of the world no longer exists outside of this apartment, and now we get to take our sweet, sweet time doing whatever we want for as long as we want. It’s just us. It’s just us, and god what I would give to have it be this way forever.

I ignore how hard he feels, how wet I already am. We pretend not to hear the moans that sneak out of our throats. I cannot have—will never have—all of him, but when it comes to Tyler, having even a specifically measured, delicious increment feels like having the world. Maybe, I think, it’s better that I can’t have him wholly ; love that big could ruin me for the rest of my life.

I force myself to savor this moment, memorizing how even though he still smells like pine trees, he tastes like red bean and egg tart and chocolate—and also mint and deep laughter and making out late into the night and every single splendid thing I didn’t even know I was looking for, which shouldn’t make sense, but with him, it does. Of course with him, it does.

You, I think as I nip on his bottom lip, the act drawing a low groan out of him. Always you.

“I want to take you out on a date,” he says after the most delicious kiss of my life.

I smile even though hearing that just makes it all hurt more. “Where? Going to whisk me away to Paris on your private jet?”

He rolls his eyes. “Okay, I get it, my private jet and I are single-handedly responsible for global warming.”

“Glad to have it on the record.”

Shaking his head, he buries a kiss into my hair. “There’s this great Indian place around the corner from my parents’ house,” he says. Despite the innocuousness of the sentence, it’s the way he says it, low into my ear like it’s a promise he’s intent on keeping, that makes a tremble zig and zag through me.

“And LA?” I ask, more tears filling the cracks in my voice.

“What about LA?”

“How—” I swallow. “How do we keep this going? What happens after this hypothetical date? When you go back to LA?”

His face is still buried in my hair, but I hear the way his exhale shakes. “We’re pretending, remember? In this scenario, I don’t go back to LA. Instead, I stay, and we have coffee together every morning out of one of those famed generic mugs of yours.”

“Oh,” I say, eyes prickling once more. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats, like we could actually have this.