Chapter Twenty
From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning, I knew two things. First, it was too early. Danny’s living room was dark, but dawn was casting shadows, allowing me to make out the shapes and outlines of my surroundings. Two, my back wasn’t going to forgive me for falling asleep on the couch.
I moved to get up when Danny’s arms cinched around my waist.
“Go back to sleep,”
he grumbled, nuzzling his face into my neck, reminding me of the other sore places on my body.
I patted Danny’s hands to let go. “I need to get up.”
“Why?”
Danny tightened his hold. “It’s Sunday.”
“I should go home,”
I said. My parents knew not to wait up for me anymore, but they were going to freak out if I wasn’t there before they woke up. It didn’t matter how old I was. If I was under their roof, I was always going to be their child first and foremost. That meant I still had to follow their rules. “What time is it?”
Danny lifted his wrist to my face so I could look at his watch. It was five thirty. I could spare a few minutes before I had to get up. My parents’ house wasn’t that far away.
“I had a great time last night, minus the cactus,”
he mumbled sleepily into my hair. “That scarred me for life.”
“Send me your therapy bill.”
I laid my arms on top of Danny’s. I couldn’t stop touching him. “I had a good time too.”
Danny and I were back on good terms, so in that way, I met my goal last night. Going to the reunion had brought not just a sense of closure to a period of my life but also the beginning of something new. Danny and Rachel 2.0.
But even with this shiny, brand-new optimism, there was a voice lurking in the back of my mind, telling me to be cautious. The new day brought me back to reality. It wasn’t going to be as easy as seeing each other every day after school and holding hands in the hallway. We both had failed relationships and careers to consider. And the way my life had been going, I couldn’t ignore this itchy feeling that I was going to say something stupid and ruin things again.
I slipped out of Danny’s arms and searched for my phone to work off my nerves.
“It’s on the kitchen counter,”
Danny said as if he read my mind. He yawned as he sat up. His hair looked like a ball of fire. “I charged it for you last night.”
“Thanks.”
I couldn’t even look at Danny when he was being so thoughtful and cute, whereas my mind was filling with doom and gloom.
I spotted my phone charging next to his on the counter, right where he said it’d be. Danny’s kitchen was nice and cozy. I could tell he used it. His coffee machine had a timer set to brew at six thirty, and there was a small sauce splatter on the foil that lined his stovetop. It was very homey, not a place where Danny just slept and kept his belongings but where he was settled, where he’d made his life.
“Can we meet up after you get back from Austin?”
Danny asked from the sofa.
He wants to see me again. More impressively, he remembered. He remembered a lot of things. I didn’t know why I was collecting these observations like I was storing them away for a long winter. I guess I needed some extra assurance to hold on to.
“Let me check my calendar,”
I said as my phone powered up. As soon as the home screen appeared, it was littered with notifications from last night.
unknown number: it’s Mariana. if you’re still in town, you can drop off the award at CHS
I was close to replying with a middle finger emoji, but switched it to a thumbs-up. Mariana had no space in my life anymore, so I wasn’t going to waste my energy on her. If she wanted the award back so badly, she could have it.
Nat: Rach, there’s a hot guy at Tao’s. I need to know who he is.
Oh no. Not Bo!
Nat: Don’t wait up for me.
Noooo! I didn’t warn Nat in time! I texted Nat to call me back. I swiped over to the next notification from my family group chat.
Mom: Rachel
Since I didn’t respond right away, my mom resorted to using my childish nickname.
Mom: 妹妹
Mom: 幾點回來?
Angela: Mom. Leave Rachel alone
Angela: 她已經長大了. 不用提醒她
Dad: 大人還要提早回家
If they wanted me home early, they should’ve given me a curfew. Nagging is their love language, I reminded myself, repeating it in my head as I looked at my next notification. It was from TMZ, which I normally would’ve ignored, except Nat’s name was in the headline.
NATALIE HUANG LEAVES BTD SET AMID CANCELLATION RUMORS
Shit. Even if it was reported as a rumor on TMZ, readers were going to take it to be as good as true. I quickly googled Nat’s name. Deadline reported the official cancellation news thirteen minutes ago. Nat’s agent and publicist were probably calling her right now.
Danny tapped my shoulder, startling me. “Rachel?”
I put my phone face down on the counter or else I would have kept looking at it. His face softened as he smoothed my hair. “I can take a rain check if you’re busy.”
“I’m sorry,”
I said, dragging a hand down my face. “Something came up. I need to find Nat.”
I had to find her and get back to our apartment so we could square out all her talking points. It was going to be tough on her to promote her movie when journalists were most likely going to bring up the cancellation. I left for the bathroom, where my clothes were hanging to dry. The cream suit was still damp in some spots, but it would have to do.
My phone rang as I changed into my clothes. It was Nat.
“Rach.”
Nat had left her carefree attitude at Tao’s too. She sounded tired. “Where are you?”
“I’m at Danny’s.”
My eyes snagged on my reflection in the mirror as I zipped my pants. There was a nice glow to my skin, offset by the dark circles under my eyes. I was low on sleep but high on anxiety. “The perfect combination,”
said no one ever.
“You need to come home. I have too many people in my ear right now, and I’m too hungover to deal with this.”
Nat groaned. “What were in those damn drinks?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Maybe my mom would let me borrow her car, if I could get my ass back home before she woke up. I spread a line of toothpaste on my finger and did my best to brush my teeth. It was a desperate reach at my normal routine to try to calm my nerves. There was so much to do. When I opened the door to leave, I came face to face with Danny.
“I can give you a ride,”
he said. He had changed his outfit. Now sporting a dark gray cardigan over his white T-shirt, he’d traded his pajama pants for jeans. He looked nice and fresh while I looked like I washed ashore.
“Okay. Thanks.”
I wasn’t in a position to refuse. I had no other mode of transportation available. I stopped at the front door to double-check that I had all of my things while silently dancing around the fact that I hadn’t answered Danny’s original question. Last night was a nice break from my real life, but I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
“Here.”
Danny placed a pair of flip-flops by my feet. “You’re going to need these.”
Oh right. My shoes were at the bottom of Tao’s pool. “Thanks,”
I said as I slid my feet in. The sandals were too big, but I wasn’t going to complain. Beggars couldn’t be choosers. “I’ll get them back to you.”
“Okay. Bring them the next time we see each other,”
he said as we walked to the car.
“Are you sure?”
I wasn’t sure when we could meet again. I wasn’t planning on being Nat’s personal assistant forever, but I couldn’t quit now that the Beyond the Dark cancellation was blowing up.
“I have other sandals,”
he replied breezily, misinterpreting my worry. He’d been so kind to me throughout last night’s unpredictable events. With Nat’s schedule and my unforeseeable future, it didn’t seem fair to Danny to start something I couldn’t give 100 percent to.
While Danny drove me to my parents’ house, I rehearsed all the things I wanted to say in my head. I didn’t have grand expectations for a sweeping romance. Danny had said himself that there wasn’t any rush and we could take our time. That sounded perfect while I worked on getting my life in order. I wanted to be in a better place so that I could be the best partner I could be. Once Danny parked the car in my parents’ driveway, I recited my speech, word for word.
“I had a great time last night,”
I reiterated. “I’d love to see you again, but I don’t know when this shit with Nat is going to settle down. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next week or month or year. Everything in my life is in the air, and no matter how hard I try to grab something, it slips through my fingers. I think I need some time to get my life back on track before jumping into this . . .”
Relationship? Courtship? Some other word that ends with -ship? Damn it. I need some coffee.
“. . . this thing with you. Is that okay?”
Danny nodded as he took in everything I was saying. As I braced myself for a yes or no answer, he posed a question instead. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. Do you remember Awards Night?”
I thought we were going to have a conversation about the future, but we were still rehashing the past. “What does that have to do with this?”
“I think we both have different memories about what went down.”
I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. I remembered it very clearly. After our failed hookup, I couldn’t look him in the eye without blushing really hard. It was like my body was announcing to the whole world that I almost had sex with him. It was unbearable.
Awards Night had happened a few days after. I didn’t remind my parents to go because Awards Night was a bragging competition for top students to tout their scholarships and other high honors. I wasn’t going to make them sit through a long ceremony where I wouldn’t even walk onstage. The only reason I went was to see if I won Student of the Year.
When our principal invited Mariana to come up to the stage to accept her award and share a few remarks, she had walked up confidently, without any hint of surprise. Her speech was delivered perfectly because she had time to prepare and rehearse for it. I held out hope for nothing.
By the time I saw Danny afterward in the hallway outside of the auditorium, I was a dangerous mix of feelings, ready to explode.
“I was crushed, and I took it out on you. I said some things I didn’t mean, like that I never wanted to see you again,”
I replied with my summary of events.
“That’s not all you said.”
I closed my eyes. I’d said a lot of things in a fit of rage, and it couldn’t have been pretty. “I apologized for being late,”
Danny continued, “and then you said something I never forgot. You said, ‘Danny. You always have excuses, and I never said anything because I thought we were friends. But I don’t know what’s going on with you anymore. I thought I was the smart one in this relationship, but I’m the dumb one waiting for you to try harder.”
I didn’t remember things quite as clearly, but that sounded about right.
“Do you know why I was late?”
he asked. I shook my head. I never gave him a chance to explain. “After school, I went to work at my brother’s stall, like usual. I was going to ask if I could leave early. Except, it wasn’t there anymore. It was gone. I looked everywhere for Jimmy. I went back home, and none of his stuff was there. He left without telling anyone.”
“I didn’t know that.”
If I had, I wouldn’t have been so harsh. Or maybe I would’ve. I wasn’t great at containing my emotions like Danny was.
“I didn’t say all of that to make you feel bad,” he added.
Too late.
“Don’t get me wrong, I was hurt. But over time, I understood where you were coming from. I wasn’t a good friend to you. I wasn’t doing well in school. I wasn’t putting my energy in the right places. I didn’t handle things well, and I paid for it.”
I was stunned into silence. We’d been apart for twenty years, and not once had I ever expected to hear Danny say all of that.
“What I’m trying to say is that I want to do this ‘thing’ with you. I’m walking into this with eyes open, Rach. I want a chance to do things right. You might be worried, but I’m not. I know you. You’ve always had high expectations for yourself. You don’t just reach your goals. You want to smash them. When you have your sights on something, I think the best thing I can do is step aside and get out of your way. So if you need to get your life in order first, I can wait. But I want to be there for you too, if you’ll let me. Don’t push me away.”
I’d been doing that, hadn’t I? How many times had I tried to run away when things didn’t work out the way I wanted? I’d search everywhere for answers. Everywhere and anywhere, except within myself. “So what do we do now?”
“How about we start with exchanging numbers?”
Danny held out his phone, urging me to take it. “I don’t want you sending me a message on Facebook. I only used it to invite people to the reunion.”
Danny watched me as I typed my information. “Fill in all the boxes while you’re at it,” he added.
In that case, I entered my apartment address, my parents’ address, and my birthday too before I returned his phone. I was nothing but thorough. “And now what?”
“What do you mean, ‘now what’? Do you want a detailed plan for dating?”
That didn’t sound half bad, even though he was joking.
Danny saved my information and sent me a text, so that I had his number. “There’s this thing called texting? You may have heard of it. And then . . .”
“And then what?”
I egged him.
Danny smiled with a little twinkle of mischief in his eye. “And then let’s see if you can stop yourself from falling in love with me.”
“Ha!”
I laughed facetiously, though I couldn’t help the bubbly feeling in my stomach. As if I’d accept a challenge like that. I wasn’t trying to set myself up to fail.