Chapter 22 #2
The speeches are nice, Patrick’s best man only eliciting a few groans from the audience.
The way Amber and Patrick gaze at each other during their first dance makes my eyes well with tears.
While I still can’t believe any of us are old enough to be getting married, they look wildly happy together.
The dance floor opens for everyone else, and by the time I’m pushing my chair back from my table and walking toward West, I’m already emotionally wobbly.
He makes eye contact as I weave through chairs, his Adam’s apple bobbing. I expect him to drop his gaze with every step I take, but he’s locked in; I’m holding him hostage with my stare.
“Hey.” I stop at the empty chair next to his, placing my hands on the back of it. “Mind if I sit?” I pull out the chair and sit, scooting it a couple of inches closer to him. “Nice suit.”
He yanks on the sleeve of his jacket. “This stupid fucking suit,” he mumbles, looking uncomfortable. I wonder if it’s the first time he’s ever worn one, and the fact that he did for Amber’s wedding makes my chest warm. Not even the groomsmen are wearing jackets. He looks better than all of them.
“No, I mean it. You look nice,” I say. He grimaces, and I feel the urge to lessen the impact of my compliment. “Although…”
“What?” He looks himself up and down.
“Would it have killed you to wear some eyeliner?”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m emo for one year—”
“Two,” I interject.
“Two years of eyeliner and fake nail polish and no one lets me forget it.” He tries to hide his smile, but it hits like a drug. I’ve been in withdrawal this whole time. No wonder everything hurts.
He studies me with guarded eyes, his jaw working. “You look—” He cuts himself off. Pain on top of pain. He tries again. “You look beautiful. How’ve you been?” He frowns like he wants to take back his words, snatch them out of the air and stuff them deep in his pockets.
“Oh, you know…” Tears are imminent. It’s been a hundred years since someone asked me that question and meant it.
How boring for me to cry right now. I was crying the last time I saw him.
I don’t want him to think it’s all I do.
“I’m good, I think? New York is not what I thought it would be, but most things aren’t. ”
Except you, I think with a dull ache. You are so much more than I thought you’d be.
He’s leaning toward me, his elbows resting on his knees, and I’m close enough to see the wince when I mention New York.
“How are you?” I ask, too earnest by half.
He leans back, looking mildly alarmed by the question. “I’m really good. Happy for Amber and Patrick. They’re great together.” He motions toward the dance floor, and I can feel his attention slipping away. The pressure that’s been building in my chest reaches a breaking point.
“Dance with me?”
A host of emotions play out on West’s face, and I recognize them all. Hesitation. Fear. Desire. “Mars—” he says in a measured voice.
“One song.”
“Dance with her, man!” urges a vaguely familiar voice to my left. I don’t turn to see who it is. I’m afraid that if I look away, the moment will dissolve entirely.
We walk toward the dance floor, side by side but not touching, as “YMCA” starts playing. West raises one singular, judgmental eyebrow.
“Maybe we wait for the next song,” I say.
He backs slowly onto the dance floor. “You said one song.”
“I didn’t mean this one!” I protest while he lifts his arms in a Y shape.
He has the audacity to laugh, his eyes lighting with amusement. “Sorry, Jupiter, not my problem.”
It’s the nickname that kills me. That’s all it takes, and my feet are moving in his direction, accepting the excuse to be in his orbit for a little while longer.
Amber sees us and shrieks with excitement, joining us for thirty seconds as we scream-sing and jump and dance before she moves on to another group, but we keep dancing, our arms flailing wildly.
It’s the silliest and happiest I’ve felt in recent memory, and when the song fades and transitions into something slower, I can’t help but feel disappointed that it’s over.
Without meeting West’s eyes, I turn to leave.
He catches me by the elbow. “One more?” This time, I don’t recognize any of the emotions on his face. His eyes are serious, but his voice is casual, like he’s entirely unaffected by his skin on mine.
“Okay.” My pulse trips over itself as his fingers slide from my elbow to my hand, my skin burning with awareness.
He pulls me in to him, his other hand settling lightly on my waist. I touch his shoulder like we’re at a seventh-grade dance, but he inches me closer until you can no longer fit an Oxford English Dictionary between us.
I am breathless. Sweaty. Questioning all my life choices.
West’s eyes are on something or someone I can’t see, his face giving away nothing.
“Am I really the only one who’s dying right now?
” I exhale, immediately showing all my cards.
I spent three years secretly in love with him, but I can’t keep my cool for the length of one dance.
He sighs and looks down at me, heat kindling in his eyes. “I’m always dying when I’m with you, Mars.”
A hot shiver rattles down my spine. We stare at each other about a dozen beats too long.
It’s wonderfully unbearable. Strangers don’t make eye contact in New York, and everyone in New York is a stranger to me.
But doing this with him feels like the most obvious thing in the world.
When West is in the room, why would I look at anything else?
He looks away, the tension intolerable.
“How’s your family?”
“We’re holding it together,” he says, and I worry that means he’s holding it together for them.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Please don’t,” he says tightly.
“It never should have ended like that.”
“It’s fine.” He moves his hand off my waist to pinch the bridge of his nose.
“It’s not, though, and it’s killing me, West. Did you know I can’t write anymore? Of course you don’t, because we don’t know each other. Isn’t that messed up? You’re wearing a suit, and your hair is all short again!”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It surprised me!”
“And? What’s your point?”
“I don’t want to be out of the loop on your life, West! Your hair might be short again because you’re with Beth-any and that’s how she likes it, but I wouldn’t know.”
His jaw clenches, and I realize belatedly that I lost the right to talk about his love life. “I’m not.” He grinds the words out.
“I know, but only because I stalk her on the internet and she posts pictures with her new girlfriend!”
He huffs an annoyed laugh. “What do you want from me, Mars?”
“I want you to forgive me, because I want you in my life. I don’t know what to do with myself in New York. I don’t know how to be an adult. It’s awful.” My eyes well with tears. “I want this stupid nightmare of a fight to be over.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, stopping my meltdown in its tracks.
I freeze, too stunned to move. I blink up at him through wet eyelashes, and he swallows heavily, looking shaken to his core.
“It’s fine, Mars,” he says, his rough voice scrubbing away the worst layer of our history.
I wonder if he downed a shot of whiskey when I wasn’t looking.
“I forgive you. It’s really not that big of a deal. ”
“It’s not?” How could it not be? It’s the reason we’re not together.
He shakes his head. He laughs. “No. We’re good.”
“Oh, thank god.” I let my head fall to his shoulder and my body sag against him. His frame catches my weight; we’re touching nearly everywhere, and it feels perfect. We never should have stopped doing this.
Too soon, West straightens and brings us back to middle school–dance position. His hand stiffly on my waist, our arms held out wide, and a familiar foreboding clings to my skin like smoke. “We’re good? You’re sure?”
“Yes.” He nods decisively, but the warning bells are loud in my head.
“So, we’re friends now?”
His brows crease. His eyes full of pity. “You’re in New York; I’m here. It doesn’t make sense.”
“But you said we’re good.” I hate how small and unsure my voice sounds.
“It was college, Mars.” He shrugs. “Nothing that happened then matters anyway. I’ve moved on. You should do the same.”
It’s only later, after he’s dropped my arm and walked off the dance floor, that I realize I selfishly said all the wrong things.
I want you to forgive me.
I don’t know what to do with myself in New York.
I don’t know how to be an adult.
When what I really meant was You were my best friend, and hurting you is the biggest regret of my life, and you deserve to get everything you’ve ever wanted.
Even if that isn’t me.
I cry every mile from California to New York. The flight attendants exchange worried looks and silently pass me tissues as they walk by. I hoped to fix things with West so badly I didn’t even admit that I wanted it. Like if I kept it a secret from myself, it couldn’t hurt me.
By the time I return to my apartment in Brooklyn, I’m jet-lagged, dehydrated, and exhausted. I haven’t slept in twenty-four hours.
I drop my bag just inside the door and fall into bed with my laptop.
Six days later, I email my editor the sequel to Torched.