Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
M y grip tightens on the motorcycle handlebars because I kind of hate coming to this Chinatown. It reminds me of the other Chinatown. My Chinatown. And when I think of that Chinatown, it reminds me I can’t go back—can’t go home because it’s not home anymore. Right now, it’s kind of like Mei and I don’t have a home. The cottage is fine, but it doesn’t feel comfortable like home should. Maybe that’s because we’re not comfortable. Haven’t been in weeks. Not since the hut where I said too much about some things and not enough about others, then lost my mind when I felt her against me. Made it all physical, even though I promised myself I’d give her space and prove I want her for all the right reasons. I slipped up, let my hormones drive, and they slammed into a brick wall in the form of a stiff, traumatized Mei who wouldn’t talk about it. She still hasn’t. I clench my jaw. I will never do anything that makes her stiffen like that again, like my touch reminded her of Nick.
He left marks on Mei that go deeper than bruises. I’m not sure she’ll ever fully heal from what happened, and I wanna give her the space she needs. But after reading her text, maybe I gave her too much space. I don’t know. Don’t know what’s going through her head since we haven’t really talked about much of anything important, using words or eyes. I’m terrified I’ve changed things permanently by not asking questions that need to be asked. I asked questions and said things once, and next thing I knew, I didn’t see her for two weeks. Never thought I’d see her again, and now we’re here together, yeah, but we’re still such a mess.
I’m still dying to take the next big step with her, but also kinda not. Going there has been the end of relationships for too many people I know, and at this point, I’ll do anything—or not do anything—to keep Mei with me. I wish I could ask Dad exactly what he did wrong with my mom so I could avoid all of it. But that’s not gonna happen. What I need to do is be honest with her, even if she runs from me. I did a decent job with honesty at the hut until testosterone took over. I thought things would just naturally go back to normal, but I think we left normal in San Francisco. In the space we created between us the night we fought, and Meemaw walked in, and Mei ran. Meemaw’s not here, but that doesn’t mean Mei won’t run if things stay uncomfortable.
My hands haven’t stopped shaking, and my appetite found a great hiding place after I read her text earlier today.
I veer the motorcycle into the alley behind the restaurant and park at the back entrance. Jerry and Wen told me I could come in this way since Mei and I are family. It’s been comforting, having them in the house just up the path from the cottage. Even if Wen asks me every day when Mei and I are getting married, like she’s the Seattle version of Guo. She’s old school and doesn’t like the idea of us living together. Dad would hate it even more, even if nothing’s happening. I always give Wen a made-up date because the truth is, I’d marry Mei today if I knew what tomorrow was gonna look like. Just don’t have anything to offer right now, and I’m not sure what she wants. Most likely something way better than what she’s currently getting: a scared, confused, clueless guy who doesn’t know how to be in charge of his own life, let alone hers or ours or whatever this is. I once thought I could be enough for her, back when everything had logical next steps and real life was theoretical. Now…I’m not so sure.
Letting out a breath, I pop my knuckles, open the back door, and step into the restaurant’s storage room. I weave around shelves filled with weird-smelling boxes and spices and push aside the drape to the break room.
The three times I’ve been here, it’s always been empty, but tonight, a girl’s standing in front of a big whiteboard. She looks over when I come in, and I lift my hand in a half-wave.
“Hey. Just waiting for Mei.” I throw my thumb over my shoulder toward the back entrance. “Jerry told me it was okay.”
She holds a dry erase marker, clicking the cap on and off, and turns toward me, her eyes sweeping my face before doing a quick full-body scan. “Definitely okay,” she says in perfect English. “Please tell me you’re her adopted brother.”
I laugh and jiggle the motorcycle key in my hand. “Uh…that would be…bad. And illegal.”
She smiles. “So, driver?”
“Boyfriend.” I nod. “Definitely boyfriend.” Seems like I should be way more than that by now, though.
“Ah, the infamous Marcus we’ve all heard so much about.” The girl tilts her head. “If you’re ever not her boyfriend, let me know.”
“Oh. Yeah… ummm…looks like there won’t be an opening anytime soon. Hopefully never. She’s kinda my favorite thing.”
“How did she land that spot?”
“By being Mei.”
“She’s that good?” The girl tilts her head to the other side.
“There’s not even a word.”
“Wow. Lucky her and all that.” She stares at me a little too long for comfort before moving away. “I’ll go tell her you’re here, Lover Boy.”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
She leaves the room, and I ease into a plastic chair, grateful to be done with that conversation and her visual x-ray.
The break room smells like grease with a dash of shrimp, and I lean my elbows on my knees, putting my head in my hands. I rehearse what I’m gonna say to Mei. Wonder what her face will look like when she sees me. Lately, her eyes have been completely locked down, and when I catch them and try to read the thoughts in them, they’re skittish and won’t land. I just need her to know how much I want this, but how much I don’t know how to do it. And that I’m so scared of losing her, I’ve paralyzed myself. I haven’t touched her like I want to since we got to Seattle, and it takes way too long to go to sleep every night because all I wanna do is climb in bed with her. I usually let myself think about that until the fear creeps in and sends all the what-ifs sprinting around my head.
A door sweeps open at the end of the hall, and I sit up just as Mei rounds the corner into the break room and stops. “Oh. You came.” She looks tired. Or sad?
I stand. “Yeah. And I grabbed takeout on my way. Thought maybe we could go talk. If you want to.”
She watches me, pressing her lips together, her fingers fidgeting with the belt loop on her black uniform pants. “Give me five minutes?”
I nod, watching her for any signs of the old us. They showed up on the beach during the storm, then in the hut, but the adrenaline and hormones drowned everything we couldn’t say. “Yeah.” I nod again. “I’ll just go wait outside.”
She disappears down the hallway. Now that we’ve acknowledged the tension and weirdness, it’s barging into every second, and I don’t know how we’re gonna beat it.
I head for the back door. Mei and I have to figure this out tonight. I’ll tell her everything I’ve been holding back. It’s gotta come out before it breaks us again.
I pull up to the waterfront park, shut off the motorcycle engine, and take off my helmet. Mei’s already off the bike, facing the water as she unbuckles her own helmet. When she pulls it off, I glance at her out of the corner of my eye, still not sure how to start this conversation. I wish she could just see it all in my eyes. We’d be done and back to normal.
I pop the seat and pull out the Thai food I picked up along with the sheet I took off my bed. If all goes as I hope it does, I won’t need it or the top bunk anymore.
Mei hangs her helmet on the handlebar, and I catch her eye, hold out my hand. She looks at it and takes it, biting her lip. But she still won’t look at me, and my stomach drops. Maybe she doesn’t wanna talk. Maybe she’ll say something I really don’t wanna hear. Maybe she’s done waiting for me to figure myself out. Maybe I’ve kept my feelings too close, and she can’t feel anything from my direction. Or she’s got a completely different direction in mind. Or maybe?—
“Where do you want to go?” Her voice is light and timid like she’s barely holding onto it as she scans the area for a place to sit.
“Back to normal.”
She looks up at me.
“I don’t care where we go tonight, I just want things between us to go back to normal,” I say. “So if you know where that is and how to get there, let’s go there.”
“Marcus.” She closes her eyes, shaking her head. “I’m sorry for what I said in my texts. I just don’t know?—”
“No. I’m glad you said it. All of it. It needed to be said, and I was too afraid.”
“Of what?” She waits like she’ll pull the words from me if I don’t offer them willingly.
“To say anything.”
“What do you want to say?”
I glance around, the moment squeezing me. “Can I say it over there?” I point to a grassy spot looking out over the water.
“Sure.” She nods. Too fast. “Yeah.”
I hold onto her hand so tight, like I don’t even want air to come between our palms and risk it sweeping away any of my pathetic courage. I need all of it.
We spread the sheet out on the grass, and she sits down. I set the bag of food down, kick off my shoes, and ease down beside her, leaving enough space for another person. I lean back on my elbows, stretching my legs in front of me, and fill the space with honesty.
“What you said in your text…about me not wanting you…it’s exactly opposite of that.” I squint into the setting sun. “I want you so bad, I’m paralyzed by it. I don’t know my next move, so I’m just not making any. Last time I touched you, your reaction was nothing I ever expected and…the time before that—after Meemaw—things didn’t end well. I lost you. I’m not risking that again.”
She’s quiet for a minute, and I let the words soak in like we’re both sunbaked deserts and the words are rain, trying to find a place to sink in. I flex my feet, curling my toes. Wait.
“What happened, Marcus?” The setting sun lights the right side of her face, making her glow.
“What do you mean?”
“After the hut. I know I made it weird and I’m sorry, but ever since then, you’ve just…pushed me out and kept me out.”
I inhale through my nose, like the reasons inside me just need a little more fresh air to coax them out. I don’t know why this hurts so much to let her into this space. “You were afraid of me. I felt it. And then you just shut down, and I didn’t know what to do because we never talked about why. And we still haven’t.”
She stares at the sheet, her finger rubbing the seam of her pants. “It’s…overwhelming, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to give it air to breathe. But I wasn’t scared of you. I’ve never been scared of you.”
“It felt like you were.”
“I didn’t mean for it to feel like that. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen at all.” Her eyes meet mine. “And now, it’s just…we’ve wanted nothing but to be alone, no one barging in or tearing us apart or telling us we can’t. We’ve had alone-time for a month, but we’re acting like roommates, and I’m confused. We laugh and share things, but it only goes so far, and then there’s this invisible wall between us, and I’ve been slamming against it ever since we got to Seattle. I don’t want you to be scared of me or how I might react, and I don’t want to be your roommate, but maybe that’s what you want.”
I shake my head. “No, Mei. That’s not at all what I want. Not even close. I just…I need to know what you’re thinking, but I don’t know how to bring it up without bringing up bad memories. So yeah—it’s been super weird, and it’s not your fault, it’s mine.”
She rolls her eyes. “Cliché.”
“I know. I know—it totally is, but it’s…I don’t know how to…”
“What?” She throws her hands in the air. “Why can’t you say things to me anymore? When did you become so careful about what you say? What are you afraid of?”
“I told you. I’m afraid of hurting you or scaring you. I have no clue what’s going on inside your head, so then I try to guess, and I get stuck in my head and don’t wanna ask, and I’m going in circles.” I run my fingers through my hair, gripping it between my fingers. “You’ve been abused. Used? I don’t know. You’ve never told me exactly what happened, and I know you don’t wanna talk about it but it’s not just gonna go away if we ignore it.”
She looks down at her lap, the minutes stretching on the breeze before she speaks again. “If it hadn’t been for Su Ling or Nick being drunk, I wouldn’t be here right now.” She closes her eyes, breathing deeply through her nose. “He tried to rape me. In a hotel room. I fought him, but he was strong and would have succeeded.” Another pause. “But Su Ling found us and smashed a vase over his head. We both ran.” She closes her eyes. “Nick told me he always gets what he wants, but that night he didn’t.”
My fists clench, my throat goes dry, and I want to track Nick down and make sure he never has the option of getting what he wants, but Mei’s eyes pull me back from the edge. “ I’m here, and Nick’s not, and that’s all that matters to me. ”
It’s the first time her eyes have talked to me since the day in my apartment.
She smiles. “And now it’s your turn to tell me the truth.”
“About what?”
“About what you’re really feeling.”
I sit up, elbows on my bent knees, my fingers wrestling in front of me. It’s too stupid to say now that she told me what happened to her. I scan the horizon. “I hate what he did to you. But so glad you fought. That you’re here, and that you told me. I know it was hard for you, so thank you.” I watch a speed boat swerve through the waves. “But I’m still afraid.”
“Of…?”
“Losing you.”
She squints at me. “Losing me as a friend? Because that’s what I am right now, and I guess if that’s what you want, then?—”
“No. I definitely want way more than that. But I still don’t know what you want or don’t want or what’s okay and what’s not. But I want to know. I need to because I want…everything. All the things I’ve imagined doing with you since I met you. Since I first kissed you or saw you in your bra.” I swallow the itchy, squirming honesty crawling up my throat, like it’s scared of the light but can’t go back to the dark. “I want way more than just your body, but I’m afraid of taking the next step and you thinking that’s all I’m after. I’d be lying if I said I haven’t dreamed every single day about being with you.” I glance at her, then look away. “I have so many feelings for you, and I don’t know how to show you how strong they are without making things physical, and I promised myself I’d prove I love you for all the right reasons. That I’d never make you uncomfortable or leave you feeling used.
“But that day at my apartment…before Meemaw walked in…everything seemed so confusing. Like all my feelings got shoved aside by hormones, and I was afraid of myself. I’ve heard the stories from all my friends and guys on the team about how things end after they do it with their girlfriends, and I just…I don’t want that. I don’t want that to be us, and I never want to feel you stiffen when I touch you again.
“But I can’t lose you. Can’t even think about it. It’s a dark hole I was in before, and now I won’t go anywhere near it. I made a choice back then, when I thought we were over, that if I ever got another chance with you, I wouldn’t mess it up. I promised myself I wouldn’t have sex until I was fully, one hundred percent committed so you’d know you can trust me forever.”
Mei’s eyes dive into mine. “Like, committed how…?”
“Like married committed.”
A slow smile spreads across Mei’s face. “Then what are we waiting for?” When my eyebrows jump, she laughs to the sky. “Kidding. Kind of.”
I give her a shaky smile because more words are piling up, falling out of me. “I know we’re young, so I’m not saying we need to get married right now. I just know once we go there, there’s no going back for me. I’ll give you all of me. But that doesn’t mean you’ll want all of it. And I’m not willing to risk losing you.” I hold her gaze, trying to pull her into my feelings so she can understand what I’m not saying very well. “I’d rather spend my whole life just holding your hand if it means you’ll stay with me.”
She slowly turns her whole body toward me on the sheet. “Marcus,” she whispers, and her voice wraps around my name, holding it between us like solid ground we can meet on. “I wouldn’t be okay holding your hand forever because it’s not enough for me. I want all of you, too. Including all of this fear and worry and feelings, no matter how big or heavy. Because at least I know this all means something to you.”
I stare at her, looking for any possible scenario in her eyes. Am I stupid to think we’re different than every couple I’ve ever known who didn’t make it through their toughest times? That we’ll last when none of them did? Maybe they never felt like this. “What if you decide you don’t want this? What if you leave?”
“Why would I ever leave you?”
“People leave, Mei. They just do, and sometimes we don’t get to know why, and that’s what scares me. Because if I knew, I’d do everything perfectly. But I don’t think I can, even if that’s what you deserve.”
Her eyes glisten, and a tear slides along her nose, quivering on her upper lip before dropping to the sheet between us. “There’s no such thing as perfect. I figured that out a long time ago, and I like our messiness. Messy is kind of our thing.”
I laugh to my lap. “Uhh, yeah. We’re pretty good at it.” I clench and unclench my jaw a few times, thinking. “So…” I pick at a thread on the sheet, watching it curl between my fingers. “What should we do about all this imperfection?” When I look up, our eyes collide, hover, linger.
Her fingers rake through the end of her ponytail draped over her shoulder. “Maybe we should just stay together forever and see how imperfect we can be.”
“That sounds like the first perfect thing we’ve said in weeks.”
She smiles to the sheet, rubbing a spot on her pant leg. “Now what? Is this our official restart? Leave the past in the past and move forward together as hopefully more than roommates?”
I smile over her head, collecting all the bright spots with my eyes—boat lights, the Ferris wheel on the pier. Streetlamps, emerging stars. Mei. “Guess you’ll have to stick around to find out.”