38. Chapter Thirty-Eight
Penelope
It’s Friday morning, and I am standing in my kitchen smiling at a kettle, at the memory of a boy in my room last night with his hands careful in my hair like I’d come apart if he did it wrong, and I cannot stop replaying the whole night.
I’ve tried. I did my workout, I’ve made tea, and I even sat down at the drafting table, but the smile just keeps coming back.
I keep having to press my lips together to make it stop, and it doesn’t.
This isn’t like me. I’ve never felt this way before.
My whole body’s lit, humming, which is ridiculous.
There’s a part of me watching the rest of me with genuine alarm, because I don’t recognize her, this giddy girl in my body.
I don’t know how to make her behave, but even if I did, I’m not sure I would want to.
My phone buzzes on the counter, and I snatch it into my palm before another moment passes.
Percy: Good morning.
My smile widens. I feel it in my cheeks. A month ago I’d have bet my life he’d never be the one to send the first text of the day, and here it is, sitting at the top of the screen with his name on it. I tap away.
Me: Good morning. Did you sleep?
Percy: A little. I’m leaving soon.
Percy: I keep thinking about last night.
I sit down on the couch and let the butterflies fill my stomach instead of resisting them.
I press my lips together again as if that would stop the blush in my face.
And on the fifth time reading his text, I understand that the withholding, the discipline, the wall — it’s down, and what’s on the other side of it is a man who thinks about me and now tells me so.
All that patience, all that learning to want nothing out loud, and the reward is a text on a Friday morning that says he can’t stop thinking about me either.
Me: Me too.
I carry the phone into the day. I usually put it face down and answer things when it’s convenient for me.
I watched Ivory live and die by hers since I’ve known her, and today I’ve got it in my hand at my internship, in my lap, face up on the desk beside the Halvorsen sheets, and I keep glancing at it between drawings.
Renata’s got me on the setback problem — the north elevation, the way the upper floors have to step to keep light in the units below. Renata looks at my markup and grunts, which I’m used to now. Today, I don’t read into it. I get back to work and check my phone.
Percy: Wear a coat out. It’s cold today.
I have to bite the inside of my cheek, so I don’t grin at the drafting table like a crazy person.
When I get home, I finally text back.
Me: Good luck at your game tonight.
Percy: I’ll be on the bench.
That’s the last text from him for the night.
Saturday is excruciatingly long in a way I’ve never noticed before.
He’s unreachable for most of it, and I watch my phone like a hawk anyway.
This is new and ridiculous. I have spent my life being very good at being alone.
I like my own company, and I don’t reach for people.
And here I am, drawing at my table, and the drawing keeps drifting.
I keep thinking about him on a bus, in a hotel, in a room I can’t picture, and I miss him.
I draw. I go for a walk. I reorganize the shelf in the living room. I don’t know how anyone can be in a relationship. He’s not here, and it’s a physical ache.
Gianna makes us all watch the stream at her place Saturday night.
I sit on her couch and watch a hockey game on a laptop with the sound low and the picture bad, and for the first time in my life, I am watching a sporting event on purpose, for a reason.
And nobody can ever know this reason. The camera catches the bench once, and I see him.
My heart takes flight, but I hide it. I didn’t know being into an athlete would make me feel so — proud. Even if he’s just on the bench.
“Why do they show the bench?” Mara mocks. “They’re not even playing.”
“Backups are important,” Gianna says.
Lucy and I laugh at the face Gianna makes to mock her.
This is the first time it chafes. Sitting on Gianna’s couch with this enormous, ridiculous, luminous feeling, and not one person in the room can know.
I’ve got a man on that screen, and I can’t say his name.
Gianna is one degree from him, she lives half her week in his house, and I have to sit here, not tell her, and let the joy stay locked in my chest where it presses against everything.
They lose, and Gianna’s furious about it. I gather my things to leave, and my phone stays quiet the whole ride home because he’s still on the ice, or in a room, or on a bus.
It buzzes at eleven-forty, when I’m already in bed.
Percy: We lost.
Me: I watched.
There’s a pause, long enough that I picture him in the dark in his hotel room.
Percy: You watched?
Me: Yes, at Gianna’s. The camera showed the bench once. I saw you.
Percy: Wish I could see you.
Percy: The hotel’s quiet. I can’t sleep on these things.
I stare at the screen, and my heart warms knowing that he’s staring at his, waiting for my reply.
Percy: It’s late. You should get some sleep.
Percy: I’ll see you tomorrow.
Me: Sweet dreams.
I fall asleep with the phone in my hand.
The next morning, I have a cozy YouTube video on the TV. Someone is traveling through Europe and visiting bakeries. Ivory comes around the corner mid-yawn while I’m rolling up my yoga mat and stacking the weights. She closes one eye and watches me.
“Good morning,” I say, feeling light.
“Okay, what is going on with you?” She rubs her tired eyes and yawns again. She walks over to the kitchen. “You’re glowing, and usually you’re so uptight.” She walks to the sink. “You left dishes in the sink from last night. You never do that. Okay. Seriously. Who is he?”
“What?” I ask, picking up my water and taking a sip.
“Oh,” she mocks, narrowing her eyes at me. “There is absolutely someone.” She points. “Who is he?”
“I’m just in a good mood. It’s Sunday. You know how much I love Sunday resets.”
“You know, you’re actually never in a good mood per se, you’re just always together.
Right now I can tell something’s going on.
” She exhales, turning to the fridge. “Fine. Don’t tell me, but when you finally do, I want the whole thing from start to finish, and I want to know why you’re being secretive about it. ”
“Okay,” I say, but I know I can’t tell her any of it. I’d lose him if I did.
She lets it go easily. She’s Ivory. She respects boundaries. She’s already onto Drew. But the reality of my situation makes me feel a little down. If something feels this good, shouldn’t it be okay to share my joy?
I sit with that longer than I mean to. Because everything good in my life has always been something I could show — a grade, a project, a firm with a name people recognized, clothes my mom buys, a nice car.
My mother built me to be seen, to be held up, to be the daughter people asked about at dinner.
And the first thing I have ever wanted with every part of me is something I have to keep to myself.
Hawthorne would take him from me if they knew.
I can’t have him where anyone can see, and I didn’t understand what that meant until just now.
Then my phone buzzes, and I forget all of it.
Percy: Back tonight. House should be down by midnight.
The butterflies come back, and so does my smile.
Me: Come over?
Percy: Yeah.
Percy: I can’t wait to see you.
I have to put the phone down for a second, because my heart is skipping around in my chest at his words. The quiet man who doesn’t put himself out there is telling me sweet things like I can’t wait to see you.
My day moves on, and I busy myself with my little Sunday reset.
I grocery shop, meal prep, start laundry, and do some homework.
It doesn’t occupy me enough to free my mind of Percy coming over tonight.
I’m nervous, and it’s not the kind of nervous I expected.
I didn’t know I’d be his first kiss, and if I was his first kiss, then that means he hasn’t slept with anyone before, and that makes me nervous.
This isn’t about me. It’s about him, and if I’m going to be the person he trusts with that, if I’m going to be the person he’s decided to let his guard down around, then I need to make sure my head’s in it for the right reason.
And that’s the disconnect. I want it so much that I can’t concentrate on a single thing.
But under the wanting, there’s a tenderness that’s almost frightening — the responsibility of being someone’s first, of being trusted by a person who does not give his trust to anyone, of doing right by a thing that’s going to matter to him more than he’ll ever say.
I think about last night. His fingers in my hair. How gentle he kisses. How careful his hands are.
Tonight, I’m going to have to be that careful with him.
The afternoon stretches out long and unbearable.
I draw and can’t stay in it. My hand keeps wandering, my mind keeps sliding forward to the night.
I take an everything shower. Then I stand in front of my closet and change my mind about what to wear three times, which I never do — I dress with intention always, but I’ve never stood dithering in front of clothes like a girl waiting on a boy, and here I am, on my third change, because I can’t decide how I want him to see me.
The time crawls. I’ve tried everything to distract myself and there’s nothing, there’s just the wanting, so total now I can’t hold a thought for more than a few seconds before it slides back to him — his weight, his quiet, the careful hands, the fact that in a few hours he’s going to be inside my bedroom, and all I’ll want to do is feel him against me again.
I’ve never wanted anything the way I want him.
I sit at my window as the sun goes down, and I wait for it to be midnight.