Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
By the time we make it back to Miles’s apartment, it feels like a year has passed, but it’s only eight-thirty. We took a cab because I didn’t think Miles was physically capable of managing the stairs down to the train. Luckily Emil met us at the cab door and helped me drag Miles into the elevator.
Right now his body has the same basic structural integrity as a bag of hot soup. I lodge my shoulder into his armpit and scrabble at the lock on his front door. I can’t help but notice that every second the door stays locked we sink about six inches toward the floor. By the time the door handle finally turns, I’m eye-level with it and we pretty much crawl inside on all fours. He drags his ass over to the couch and collapses.
“I think…” he says. “I think grappa hits in stages.”
“Grappa is basically rubbing alcohol.”
“Am I Italian yet?”
I laugh and go into the kitchen to collect him a glass of water.
“Your parents do that every week?”
“Only when they have company. And there’s not usually quite so much grappa.”
He groans. “Don’t say grappa.”
“You were saying it like five seconds ago!”
He groans again. “The tides have turned.”
“You need to sleep.”
“Yes. Let’s go to bed.”
I ignore the lurch in my gut at the idea of going to bed with Miles. It’s ridiculous to feel this way. Miles and I have slept beside each other a handful of times and it’s never made me giddy-sick before.
He slumps sideways onto the couch and closes his eyes. And then he abruptly rolls off the couch and lands on the floor in a shocking heap.
“Are you okay?” I rush over to him.
“That was a preemptive strike,” he grumbles into the floor. “I figured if I was sleeping on the couch and you were sleeping on the floor, I’d roll off and crush you in the night. So I did it first.”
“Good point.” It’s not a good point, but he’s too drunk to argue with right now. I’m calmer now that I fully realize he meant “let’s go to bed” on the couch and floor. Of course he did.
I help him onto a floor bed I’ve just made and take his pre-warmed spot on the couch. His head is on his pillow and his eyes are closed, so I guess we’re going to sleep now. But then there’s a poke-poke on my shoulder.
“Hm?” I lean over the edge of the couch and peek at him.
“Are you going to tell me?”
“Tell you what?”
His eyes come open. “What’s been going on with you.”
“Oh.” I shift and the locket falls out of the collar of my shirt, hanging suspended between us. Miles lifts one big finger and taps it, makes it swing.
“Should I not have given that to you?”
“What? No! I love it.” I tuck it back into my shirt and roll back onto the couch where he can’t see me.
“So, what is it?”
How can I explain this to him without actually explainingit?
I’m racking my brain, trying to think of a way, when there’s a long, low rumble coming from the floor and I realize the poor sucker’s already snoring.
Which is a good thing because what would I have said? I just realized I have feelings for you and for some reason it’s making me feel like a humongous bag of trash?
Yeah, that’s probably something one should keep to oneself.
I get up off the couch, because it’s only nine p.m. and I’m not tired. I make my way to his desk under the window and look out at the silvery moonlight. I can’t get close enough to the sky, so I crawl on top of the desk and lean against the glass. From this vantage point I can see a sliver of the Hudson, the hulking stalagmites of the buildings, the glowing orange squares of everyone’s unique and common lives.
I’m still curled in that position, knees to my chin, head against the glass when, a few hours later, Miles stirs, groans, and goes to the bathroom.
He washes his hands and emerges, heading toward the darkened kitchen, probably for water.
“Hungover yet?” I ask from my dark corner.
“Whoa!” He spins to face me. “I thought you went home!”
He pours a glass of water and pads over to me, free hand in his pocket.
“I was just about to call you to make sure you made it all right,” he says.
“I won’t leave without telling you.”
He stops in his tracks at my words, as if I’ve just said something very important, and even though I’m still looking out the window, I can feel his eyes all over my face. He clears his throat. “The hangover hurts like hell. I’m never going to your parents’ house again.”
I laugh but then pause. “Wait. Really?”
He gives me a friendly smirk. “Of course not really.”
“So you’ll come with me if I ask?”
His eyes pierce me in the shadows of the kitchen. “Lenny, I’ll do anything you ask me to.”
I’ve never had anyone say anything even a tenth this passionate to me and I don’t know how to handle it.
His words have softened whatever gate I’ve been putting up. I can’t hide it anymore. The truth pours out of me.
“Miles, have you ever felt terrible about something you should be happy about?”
He blinks. “Well. Sure.”
He approaches slowly and pulls the desk chair out to sit below me. When I don’t say more, he hands the rest of his glass of water over to me and I polish it off.
“You gave me this…” I pull the locket out of the collar of my T-shirt, and his eyes fall to the glint of silver. “And Miles…I felt joy.” And love. “Real joy. And I didn’t know I was capable of that feeling anymore. But there it was.”
His eyes are soft and sympathetic. I think he might already know where I’m going with this. Which is amazing because I don’t even know where I’m going with this.
“But along with that joy,” I try to explain, “came a horrible feeling. Something so…”
“Guilt,” he whispers.
All the air leaves my lungs. “Guilt?”
“I wonder if…you felt guilt because Lou is gone but you were still able to feel joy in spite of it.”
My wheels are spinning viciously as I try to understand. “You think I’m beating myself up for—” Falling in love?
He lets out a long, slow breath. “Sometimes, when grief recedes, even momentarily, there can be a kind of disorientation or, yeah, guilt that comes along.”
I understand all at once and it makes me panicky. “Recedes? No. Ha. No. Miles. Grieving…that’s the only thing that I can…I can’t just get over her death, Miles. I can’t…I have to feel the grief. How could I ever get used to her being gone? It makes me sick. How could I do that to her?”
I hear my own words in my own ears and I didn’t even know, until this second, that I’ve been protecting this untenable pain, because it’s all I have left of her.
I’m gasping and reaching out for a handhold, anything to keep me from plummeting. I find his hands and then his shoulders. He leans forward in his chair, and with a strong grip he circles his arms around my hips.
“Grief,” he says in a low voice, pinning me to him, holding me in place against him, “becomes your companion, Lenny. As awful as it is, it’s your constant. And so when it starts to leave…when you start to heal—”
“I can’t heal, Miles!” I’m gripping him with claws, inconsolable. What a horrific concept. So sickeningly backward. Lou wouldn’t have wanted this for me, but…“Grieving her…it’s the only connection…it’s how I hold on to her. It’s—” I break off and fight for breath.
“It’s not,” he says, and holds me even tighter. “I swear it’s not. Listen to me, Lenny. This does not mean you are forgetting her or losing her all over again.”
My choppy breaths dissolve into tears. I sob and cling to him and he clings to me right back.
“Grief is a relationship,” he continues. “It’s the way we figure out how to keep loving them even though they’re gone. And in order to do that we have to keep on going. And going and going.” His hold is tighter and tighter and mine is tighter and tighter and I’ve slid off the desk and into his lap. “You are not betraying her by healing,” he whispers directly into my ear. “You are honoring her. You are learning to love her exactly as she is. As someone who isn’t here anymore…That’s who she is now. And this journey through grief…It’s what we do for the great loves of our lives.”
The fact that he knows me well enough to call Lou a great love of my life has me clinging to him while I shudder through this new and terrible idea. It’ll take years to process. I’m so tired and so tired of being awake in the middle of the night. I want cool sheets and huge pajamas. I can’t take much more of this.
I’m about to slide off him when his arms tighten so slightly around me I think I might have imagined it. It’s the softest resistance imaginable, but it’s enough to still me, to keep me from going anywhere.
Some things are okay because it’s nighttime. Because one of us has recently been sobbing. Because he and I…we haven’t found the limits to what he will or won’t do for me.
So it feels natural —admittedly new—when he reaches up and presses one palm to my cheek. I don’t blink or move. His hand shifts and his movements become light as an eyelash. Long moments pass while he methodically brushes my hair back from my face. I tip toward him to make it easier. He’s calm and fond.
He’s both with me and not. I can see in his eyes that he’s reflecting, mulling, going over the night we’ve just had. There’s a sudden flash of white from his quick smile. “So the locket made you feel joy, huh?”
I give a watery laugh. “Miles, the locket made me feel…” The buttons on his new fancy flannel catch my eye. I reach down and fix one that’s gone crooked through its brave attempts at doubling as pajamas. “You giving me that locket…” I try again and then huff with frustration when I can’t generate the words.
“You don’t have to figure it all out right now,” he says in a low voice.
My body informs me that I’m about to do something really risky, because suddenly I’m all adrenaline, shaky with nerves and ecstatic promise. “I think I already do have it all figured out.”
I glance at his dark, patient gaze and then away. It’s too much to look in his eyes right now. “You’ve been…these last few months…there’s been nothing I can’t talk to you about.”
His hand leaves my face now and clasps his other at my back, encircling me again. “And it feels weird, ” I say in almost a whisper, “to have had this gigantic thing happen to me that I can’t tell you.”
His brow furrows. “Gigantic thing?”
“You’ve probably noticed that I’m not good at holding my feelings in.”
He laughs a little but doesn’t agree or disagree. I pluck at his now-familiar button. He slouches down some to get back in my eyeline.
“I have no experience with this,” I whisper.
“With what?”
“It’s never happened to me before—I mean, I’ve never told anybody that I—” I put a hand flat over the locket and realize belatedly that that hand is also flat over my heart.
This time my eyes get stuck on his and I just can’t say any more. But maybe I’ve already said enough because his face, just a foot from mine, goes from attentive listening to surprised understanding. His eyes bounce-bounce between mine. His eyebrows raise.
We’re both stock-still. I’m suddenly extremely aware of the fact that we’re tangled together and he’s warm and strong and I’m definitely staring at his mouth, which I realize because he licks his lips and it makes me lick mine too.
My heart is hollow, tripping down an incline. I’ve got one hand on his collar. My thumb traces a circle against hot skin and I feel him swallow. I’m pulled into his gaze. There are no words, just a buzzing cloud of adrenaline and warmth.
I’m suddenly two inches away from his mouth and I’m not sure how I got there. I’ve got a hand on either side of his face and it’s just so dark and lovely in this room. So quiet except for our breaths. His hand comes up to grip my wrist.
“Lenny.”
“Hm?” I’m stuck in his eyes, awash in his warm breath, melting into his lap, leaning close. Now I’m an inch away. I can almost taste him.
Clop. His hand shoots up between us and claps over my mouth.
“Mmfff!” My gaze flings to his.
“Lenny,” he says with a little smile on his face. “Wait.”
I struggle back from his hand. “If you don’t want to kiss me, that’s fine, but you don’t have to muzzle me!”
He strong-arms me from wiggling off his lap and puts one light finger under my chin, holding me in place.
“I didn’t say no,” he says, and I’ve never heard his voice rumble low quite like that before. His eyes drop to my mouth. Then his hand slides back up and his palm covers my lips again. He leans in slow, eyes on mine, and presses a soft kiss to the back of his own hand, directly over where my lips are. “I said wait. ”
He pushes the chair back, sets me on my feet, and then leans forward, elbows on knees. He lets out a long breath. I must breathe it directly in because I’m gasping for air.
I grip the locket with both hands and stare at him as he unfolds himself from the chair and comes to a stand in front of me.
“Wait for what?” I ask in a hoarse voice. “Is this about the list? You want to wait until it’s finished or something?”
“No.” He clears his throat. “No, not exactly.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
He takes a skein of my hair; he traces it all the way down to the ends before he lets it fall. Then he slides his hands into his pockets, his face tipped down first to the floor and then back to me. “We’ll know it when we see it.”
“ What? ” But he’s already gone to gather our shoes and coats.
“I’ll walk you home.”
“Hey.” I’m scrambling to intercept him at the front door.
He pulls on his black sweatshirt and tosses me my coat so that it lands on my head. My shoes arrive in a heap at my feet.
“Hey!” I say again as we toe into our shoes simultaneously. “Miles!”
He pauses at his front door and turns back to me, one hand on the doorknob.
I stalk over to him and bat his hand off the doorknob because he’s rushing me. “You’re saying you’re not ready for—you’re not ready to—you’re not ready?”
He laughs and I think I detect a touch of exasperation, but it melts into something soft. “No. I’m not saying that.”
I translate this with fierce and aggressive vim. “Wait. You think I’m not ready? I was the one who made the move! That’s the definition of ready!”
“Sure.” He’s got me by the shoulders and is steering me out into the hallway.
I jump around and point a finger at him. “But you wanted to, right? I’m not…the only one…”
I’m suddenly swamped with embarrassment. I cover my face with two hands and crouch down like a frog. “Oh, my God. ”
His knees bump into my knees as he crouches down in front of me. “Lenny, you gotta listen to me, okay? I…I have a grand plan and I think it’s a good one.”
A grand plan? About…me? Him and me and kissing and waiting? My blood is pure fizz.
“But you won’t tell me what the plan is?”
“The plan is we wait.”
“For something you won’t tell me what it is.”
He sighs again. “If I tell you then it won’t count when it happens. I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Just wait. ”
For what? I’d really like to shout again, but it didn’t get me anywhere the first time.
I unfold from the floor and follow him to the elevator. We make it out of the lobby and into the fresh night. We walk toward the studio apartment in charged silence.
When we get to my stoop I walk up to the door and he stays on the sidewalk below. I turn to him, ornery and determined.
“Answer me this.”
“Yeah?” His voice is gravelly and expectant as he looks up at me. I’m nearly sidetracked by the set of his shoulders, his black sweatshirt pooled against the strong line of his neck. But no. I need answers. If not just to save my pride.
“You’ve thought about kissing me? Before that moment just now, I mean?”
He goes still. It doesn’t matter that there’s eight feet of free fall between us, my blood is racing like he’s inches away and leaning in.
“Yes.”
My hands in my coat pockets reflexively tighten. That single word instantly reminds me of sitting around the campfire, Jericho whispering a mystery question to Miles. His one-word answer, clear and concise and certain. And now he’s handing me that same yes.
I should take it for an answer and just go to bed happy. But I’m anxious and trembly and elated and nervous. I know that I won’t sleep unless there’s nothing left for me to panic over. So I push just a little harder.
“And when you were thinking about it…it’s because…you’ve been wanting it?”
There’s a long pause, his dark eyes staring up at me.
“Yes.”
“Okay, cool!” I chirp. His answer has snapped me like a fishing line and I scamper through the door, barely making eye contact with him. “Have a good night!” Slam.
I wait twenty seconds and slide the door open a crack.
He’s walking back down the sidewalk, laughing and shaking his head like WTF, Lenny.
I watch him until I can’t see him anymore.