Chapter 2 #2
“I guess I still do. Like a couple of years ago, I dated this girl—I date girls and guys,” I added, and he nodded in easy acceptance.
Green flag. “She was so, so nice and she kept talking about wanting to move in together and get a cat, and she was always encouraging and pushing me to be better or whatever.”
Barry didn’t say anything, just sat listening. I looked at the water for a moment, the moon reflecting on the little ripples.
“I told her I thought it was a bad idea and that we should break up even though it was a great idea. And then six months later she moved in with this other amazing, kind, beautiful woman, and now they’re married.
I went to their wedding with this guy that I would also later break up with, and it was so nice and I am so happy for them, but I also felt sort of sick that I was too scared to let that be me. ”
“I can imagine,” Barry said.
I looked down at my hands.
“Sorry, I know that was a lot.” I tried to lighten the moment with a laugh, but Barry just looked nice and understanding. I was starting to think that nice and understanding was his default.
“Alright, my turn,” I said. “Never have I ever been fired.”
He sipped from the bottle. Before he could reply, I took a sip too.
“I lied,” I whispered. “But I wanted to make sure you’d been fired, too, first.”
“Great tactic,” Barry said. “When I was sixteen, I was fired from a summer job at Journey’s, that shoe store in the mall. You know the one?”
“Oh yes,” I said.
“It was their loss. Every store needs at least one teenager that will sit in the back room and play their DS instead of working.”
I laughed and took another sip, not because of the game but because I needed a second. Someone on a bike rode behind us, and I watched as they went.
I should have kept lying.
“I worked for a tech start-up, marketing stuff mostly. They uh—it was last week, actually. And yeah, same reason as you,” I said. “They were always like”—I held my fist up and shook it a bit—“Hannah, stop playing your games for fifteen seconds and do some work!”
Barry huffed an amused noise through his nose, but he looked serious, too.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said when it was obvious I wasn’t going to offer more.
“Yeah, well, I kinda hated the job anyway.” I put down the bottle next to me and shrugged.
“I might have confessed to my manager that I felt like it was evil and wrong to write marketing copy about how AI was going to make the world a better place. Found myself in the first round of layoffs shortly after.”
“Their loss,” Barry repeated, but his voice was softer this time.
And then we stared at each other, and I didn’t look away or worry about my neck blushing red, and there was a light breeze against my skin, and I realized I was totally wrong about New York. It was all magic all the time.
“I want to kiss you,” Barry said.
“Me too,” I whispered, because how could I not want to kiss him?
Kate’s voice was still spouting off in my head every few minutes about herpes and true crime podcasts, but Barry was sweet and handsome and genuine, and I was sad and unemployed and sitting drinking Gatorade with him was the best date I’d been on in a year, or years, or ever.
So, yes, I was going to kiss him, and that would be that.
And then I would sleep with him, and that would be that, too.
I imagined what it would be like if I packed up and moved to New York instead of living in my grandma’s partially renovated house.
I would have to wait to fix it up if I was going to work for my dad again, because no way could he pay as much as my last job.
But at least I liked cleaning. I knew it well enough. I was good at it.
It would be fine.
Even still, I let myself imagine returning to New York to see Barry. As I watched him watch the water, or kissed him on that bench, or when he methodically licked his ice cream cone one side and then the other so none of it would fall on his fingers, I pictured it.
Maybe we’d never start dating if I moved here, but then again maybe we would and the first days would be as cozy as first days always are.
A lot of sitting on the couch kissing or watching each other’s favorite shows and wishing we were kissing.
Little boxes of takeout one of us picked up on the way home from work.
I would find a job, maybe bring Harvey Janitorial out East.
I could imagine dates to his brother’s comedy shows where we would pretend to laugh at his jokes and get ice cream after.
I imagined meeting his parents, posh and rich probably, and I would be nervous, but he would reassure me it was fine and hold my hand under the table.
Then he’d come back home with me and have tamales for Christmas, and my dad would love him because he always helped with the dishes, and my mom would love how sweet he was to me.
Kate would like him too, but she would tease me about him being over thirty, and for once I wouldn’t break up with him because I would be a better, more emotionally mature partner than I had ever been before.
Maybe one day we’d get married and have two kids, no more than that, and for once my family would have to say that I’d done something totally and completely right in finding him.
I knew I’d never move to New York. I had to go home and face the music, and if only I knew just how loud that music would be.
But when I leaned in and kissed him and he kissed me back, I took what I could. I certainly couldn’t take forever, but I could take one night and that would be enough.