Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
The first week back together, we moved with precision. Too much precision, maybe. Two people handling something they’d already broken once, terrified of shattering it again.
Ellis came over Thursday after work. Stood in my doorway with Thai food and an expression I hadn’t seen before. Something between nervousness and determination, something he’d no doubt practiced the whole subway ride and was still terrified he’d forget his lines.
He set the containers down. Lined them up. Straightened the chopsticks parallel. His hand rested there a beat too long, something he needed to anchor to.
“Dr. Osei had me do an exercise.” He didn’t look up. “Pick a specific moment. A real one. Don’t generalize.”
“Your therapist gives homework?”
“Dr. Osei gives homework.”
“Dr. Osei sounds intense.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. Didn’t quite make it. He uncapped the pad see ew and set it aside, uncapped the green curry, paused with the lid still in his fingers.
“August twelfth.” His voice stayed quiet. “You remember?”
I didn’t, right away. Then I did. The Sunday after Calliope’s birthday.
He’d been weird all morning, answering texts in one-word bursts.
I’d shown up at his apartment with a bodega coffee and a bit I’d built on the train: Calliope’s birthday DJ had played four Coldplay remixes in a row, like the man had lost a bet.
Raven had threatened to walk into traffic by the second one.
I worked it for ten solid minutes. He’d laughed in the right places. I’d taken that as a win and left.
“You remember what I was going to tell you that day?”
“Ellis.”
“It’s okay.” He finally looked up. Blue eyes, serious, nowhere to hide. “Your routine was good. Genuinely funny. I laughed. And I was so relieved not to have to say the thing I came home to say that I let you leave.”
My stomach dropped. Not because he was accusing me. Because he wasn’t.
The smell of basil and coconut milk. His hand still curled around a takeout lid like a prop he’d forgotten how to put down.
“What was the thing?” My voice came out smaller than I had meant.
“My dad had called. Said something about hoping I’d ‘figure myself out.’ And I was going to tell you. And then you did the Coldplay bit, and I thought, He’s giving me an out, take it.” Ellis set the lid down, careful, silent. “I took it, Jett. That wasn’t on you.”
I opened my mouth. The joke was already loaded: a line about the Coldplay bit being too good to waste; Dr. Osei would understand. The joke sat right there in my throat, and it was the easiest thing in the world.
I swallowed it.
“I knew something was wrong that morning.” The admission scraped on the way out. “I brought the coffee because I knew. And then I got there and I could feel it in the room, and I just… filled the air.”
“Yeah.”
“Because if I filled the air, you didn’t have to.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us moved. The Thai food steamed between us, untouched. All the other mornings landed at once. The bodega coffees. The DJ bits. The thousand little performances I’d staged to keep the silence from doing what silence does.
“I don’t know how to be with you without a bit.” The words came out before I could translate them into something wittier.
“You’re doing it right now.”
I laughed, which was apparently involuntary. He caught it, keeping his face careful.
“Try again.” He said it like the gentlest thing I’d ever heard him say.
I took a breath. Put my hands flat on the counter where his had been.
“I’m scared if I stop being funny you’ll realize I’m not worth the work.”
The kitchen went very quiet. His hand covered mine, palm warm and calloused, his thumb finding the knob of bone at my wrist.
“Okay.” He accepted it like a gift. “So here’s what Dr. Osei actually asked.
Not a rule. A question. Next time you feel it coming, the bit, the deflection, can you tell me this is the thing?
You don’t have to stop. You just have to flag it.
And when I feel myself going quiet, I’ll tell you I’m going under.
We don’t fix it in the moment. We just name it so the other one knows. ”
“That’s it? That’s the whole homework?”
“That’s it.”
I turned my hand under his, palm to palm. “This is the thing.”
“What?”
“I’m deflecting by asking if that’s it. Not a big deflection. Baby deflection. Practice round.”
His laugh broke through then, real and startled, and the relief of it hit me behind the ribs.
“Baby deflection is allowed.”
“I’m a beginner.”
We ate on the couch with our knees touching. Pad see ew for me, green curry for him. Some things hadn’t changed.
“Dr. Osei also suggested love languages.” He bit into his curry.
“The five love languages thing? Baby, I already know mine. Physical touch. Obviously.”
“Shocking.” He nudged my knee with his. “Mine’s acts of service.”
“I know.”
He blinked. “You know?”
“You fixed my garbage disposal without being asked. You reorganized my closet by season. You replaced three lightbulbs in my bathroom before I caught they were out.” I twirled noodles around my fork. “You show love by making things work better. I’ve always known that.”
His face shifted. I’d never seen him like that.
“And yours is physical touch.” His voice softened. “Which is why it hit you so hard when I pulled away. Every time I withdrew, it wasn’t emotional distance. It took everything.”
“Yes.”
He set his curry down. Reached over. Pressed his palm against my chest, right over my heart.
“I’m going to be better about that.”
“You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to stay.”
“I’m staying.”
We talked about the harder things too. His parents. My mom. The way outside voices had crept in like water through cracks we didn’t know we had.
“My dad called last week.”
My whole body went still. “What did he say?”
“He asked how I was doing. Just… that. How was I doing. And then he said he’d been reading some things. He didn’t say what, but,” Ellis turned his fork over in his hands, “he asked if I was happy.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I was getting there.”
I wanted to ask whether “getting there” meant me, or meant us. But I already knew the answer from the way he’d shown up at my door with two containers of food and a willingness to be cracked open on a Thursday night.
“My mom still hasn’t called.” I put it out there, flat and undecorated. No joke attached.
Ellis reached for my hand. Held it.
“That’s her loss.”
“I know. But it still hurts.”
“I know.”
We sat with that. Not fixing it, not running from it, not making it funny. Letting it be a wound that existed between us, acknowledged and hurting and ours.
Later, in bed, Ellis traced the line of my jaw with his thumb.
“I want to meet them.”
“Meet who?”
“Your friends. For real this time. Not hearing about them or seeing pictures. I want to know the people you love.”
I’d been keeping those worlds apart for so long the separation sat structural, load-bearing. Move that wall and everything collapsed.
“What if they don’t…”
“Jett. You’ve told me about these people for months.
Sierra, who hauled you through breakdowns at 3 A.M. Calliope, who once threatened to curse a barista for getting your order wrong.
Raven, who apparently predicted we’d get back together based on a tarot pull.
” He kissed my forehead. “I’m not afraid of them.
I’m afraid of being the reason you keep them at a distance. ”
He wasn’t wrong. Keeping Ellis separate from The Inner Circle had never been about protecting them. It was about protecting me. If those two worlds collided and it went badly, I’d have nowhere left to hide.
But I was done hiding. We both were. That was supposed to be the whole point.
“Okay.” I smiled. “But you should know, Calliope really did threaten to curse someone once. She carries crystals in her purse that she claims are ‘charged.’ It’s a whole thing.”
“I’ll bring protective amulets.”
“You’re mocking my friends.”
“I’m mocking their witchcraft. There’s a difference.”
I laughed. He pulled me closer. We fell asleep tangled and talking, choosing to build something out of the mess, anyway.