25 Ginger
25
Ginger
I was nervous. I always am on my birthday, plus I was expecting a package from Rhys. That’s why I’d woken up at 6:00 a.m. and hadn’t managed to get back to sleep despite hours of tossing and turning. I finally got up, trying not to make noise because I didn’t want to bother Kate, and I had a weird feeling in my chest as I reread our last couple of emails.
I felt like something wasn’t right.
Like I was backsliding.
That first semester, I’d been so busy thinking of my final project, my classes, and my future plans that I hadn’t devoted much time to myself. I was just someone who would settle as soon as I found a warm, comfortable nest, and that was what the nest I had built with Kate bit by bit over the past few months was: safe, stable. And so once again, I was turning in on myself.
And once again, there he was, reminding me of all the things that were out there. Other places, other countries. An entire world.
Part of me was bothered by it.
Another part of me liked that he was trying to shake me up.
Kate awoke sometime after nine and tackled me into bed, singing the happy birthday song while we laughed. Then she hopped in the shower, and I ate an energy bar and looked out the window at the leaden sky. It looked like snow. For a moment, I thought about how nice it would have been to celebrate my twenty-second birthday somewhere warm and far away, where there was no such thing as routine.
“You coming to breakfast?” Kate asked on her way out.
“No. I had an energy bar.”
“Are you really going to wait here for your present?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Kate. If I leave, and the mailman comes and I’m not here, I won’t get it till after Christmas vacation. I can’t wait that long.”
“Fine. Tell me if you change your mind. I’m going to have a coffee with the girls, and then we’re going to the same pub we were at the other night. Claire left her keys there.”
When I was alone, I grabbed two textbooks I hadn’t packed yet and looked back over some notes, trying to do something useful. I kept getting distracted though, looking out the window, watching some students laughing against the wall of the dorm building while they smoked. First-year kids, second-year, maybe. I had to remind myself that I was nearly done here. I still couldn’t accept it. Worst of all, I wasn’t especially excited.
Someone rang the doorbell.
I got up so quickly, I hit my knee on the corner of the table and cursed. I took a deep breath and didn’t bother putting on my shoes, thinking the mailman wouldn’t really mind if he saw me in my reindeer pajamas and a different-colored sock on each foot.
But when I opened up, it wasn’t the mailman.
There was a young man with messy hair and a lazy smile leaning on the doorframe like he owned the place, as if he knew it like the back of his hand. I felt butterflies in my stomach. He looked at me. I looked at him.
“Happy birthday, Ginger Snap.”
“Rhys…” I could barely speak.
“Try to be a little more enthusiastic.”
“No, dammit, it’s just that… I just didn’t see it coming! Rhys! You’re here!” I reached out and touched him without thinking. I rested my hands on his chest, and he laughed just as I remembered him doing, with crow’s feet in the corners of his eyes. “Rhys!”
I hugged him so tight I was almost hanging off his neck.
And we remained there, breathing, silent, together.
He still smelled like mint. And also like him. Which meant like no one else.
“That’s more like it,” he whispered in my ear, and he pulled away, following me into my room and closing the door. I felt him there, in every corner, between walls I thought would never hold him.
“You caught me by surprise. I mean, I was hoping your gift would come today, and I just assumed it was the mailman when I heard the doorbell ring. If I’d known it was you, I would have combed my hair and gotten dressed. I mean, this is the second time we’ve ever seen each other, and I’m wearing pajamas. With reindeer on them. Donna gave them to me for Christmas a couple of years ago, and… I’m talking too much again. Rhys, please, do something to shut me up. I’m nervous!”
He just smiled, standing in the middle of my room, stroking his chin, and looking at me with his eyes intense, warm, gleaming. “I’m not going to stop you. I missed hearing you talk.”
“You’re…you’re…” I took a deep breath, still confused.
“The best friend in the world, I know.”
He didn’t ask permission as he walked over to what he immediately knew was my side of the room. He could just tell. My heart was pounding as he bent over the desk and looked at everything, curious, calm. Since he wasn’t talking, I watched him, focused on his blond hair, a little longer with a few curls touching his ears; his sun-toasted skin; his gray eyes, looking more intense now that his face was a deeper color. He was wearing pale jeans and a black sweater under his leather jacket. And he had two braided bracelets on his right wrist.
“Let me know when you stop staring at me,” he said.
Then he lay down on the bed. My mini bed. Unmade. On top of the pile of blankets, he laid an arm behind his head, and his sweater climbed up, revealing a few inches of tan skin. He raised an eyebrow as he looked at me.
“You weren’t so arrogant the last time I saw you,” I replied.
“You were just as sexy. Nice pajamas.”
I sat on the bed and observed him. He stopped smiling. I guess it was because he could see how serious I looked after those first few minutes of confusion. I’d only seen him once in my life. Once. Fewer than twenty-four hours. And yet, he knew me better than anyone. He knew everything about my day, my routine, my fears, my worries, my weirdest thoughts. It was crazy. I reached a hand out toward him.
His eyes held my stare.
I touched his cheek.
“I can’t believe you’re here.”