Chapter 5 #2
"Fifteen years of unnecessary suffering," he says, half laughing, half something closer to disbelief. "I want to be annoyed about it, but I can't quite manage it. I'm too relieved."
"Relieved is a good word for it."
He reaches out and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear, the same gesture he's made a hundred times, except this time his hand doesn't pull back right away.
This time it stays, cupping the side of my face, his thumb tracing the same spot at my temple he pressed a week ago, except now there's nothing platonic pretending to happen here at all.
"Fifteen years," he says softly. "I'd like to stop wasting them, if you'll let me."
"Barrett Voss," I say, my voice not quite steady, "if you don't kiss me right now, I'm going to write it in your chart."
He laughs again, and then he kisses me, and it's nothing like I imagined it would be after fifteen years of imagining it — it's better, softer and more certain at once, like two people who already know every version of each other finally arriving at the one they'd been circling the whole time.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, both of us slightly breathless.
"So," he says. "That happened."
"That happened," I agree.
"I don't want to go slow," he admits. "I know that's probably the responsible thing to say. I don't want to say it."
"Good," I say. "Because I don't either."
Outside, the harbor is dark and the town is quiet, unaware that two of its most stubborn residents have just ended fifteen years of waiting in the space of one Thursday evening.
I don't know yet what the next chapter of my life looks like.
I just know, for the first time in fifteen years, I'm not afraid to find out.
We stay in my office another hour, neither of us in any hurry to leave, trading fifteen years of unspoken thoughts in the space of a single conversation — every almost-moment we can each remember, every time one of us nearly said something and lost our nerve at the last second.
Barrett tells me about the night of the compound bonfire, seventeen years old, nearly starting a fight over some boy looking at me wrong, not even understanding at the time why it mattered so much.
I tell him about the summer after college, when I almost took a residency two states away specifically to put distance between us, and changed my mind three days before the deadline because I couldn't stand the thought of missing his life happening without me in it.
"We really did waste fifteen years," he says, shaking his head, something between amazement and disbelief in his voice.
"We didn't waste them," I correct gently. "We just spent them getting ready for this. I don't think either of us could have done this any faster than we did. We needed the fifteen years to trust it, I think. To know it wasn't going to disappear the second we said it out loud."
He considers that, threading his fingers through mine on the desk between us. "That's a generous way to look at it."
"I've had a lot of practice being generous about you."
He laughs, and the sound of it — easy, unguarded, entirely without the careful restraint he's carried around me for the last week — settles something in my chest that's been unsettled for longer than I want to admit.
Eventually we walk out to the parking lot together, his hand finding mine without either of us discussing it, like it's the most natural thing in the world, which I suppose, after fifteen years, it actually is.
"Can I take you to dinner tomorrow?" he asks, at my car door. "An actual date. I want to do this right."
"Barrett Voss, are you asking me on a date?"
"I'm asking you on a date," he confirms, grinning. "It's fifteen years overdue, but I'm asking."
"Yes," I tell him, and the word comes out easier than I expected, all the fear of the last three days evaporating in the face of his steady, certain expression. "Yes, obviously yes."
He kisses me again, softer this time, unhurried, and I drive home that night with my hands not quite steady on the wheel and a smile I can't seem to make go away, thinking about fifteen years of waiting finally, impossibly, coming to an end.
I don't sleep much that night, too full of adrenaline and disbelief to settle into anything like rest. I lie awake replaying every second of the evening — the weight of his hand against my temple, the sound of his laugh when we both admitted the truth at the same moment, the particular softness in his voice when he asked to take me on a real date.
It doesn't feel real yet, in the way that the biggest moments of your life sometimes don't, like my nervous system hasn't caught up to what my heart already knows.
I text Piper around midnight, unable to keep it to myself any longer.
Me: I need to tell you something and I need you to not freak out.
Piper: It's Barrett, isn't it.
Me: How did you—
Piper: Wren. Everyone in this club has been waiting fifteen years for this text. FINALLY. Tell me everything right now or I'm driving over there.
I spend the next twenty minutes typing out the whole story, grinning at my phone like a teenager, and Piper's responses come back in a stream of exclamation points and demands for details I only partially satisfy, saving some of it — the private, precious parts — just for myself.
By the time I finally fall asleep, the sky outside my window is already starting to lighten, and I wake a few hours later feeling more rested than the short amount of sleep should account for, some deep, settled peace finally replacing the anxious hope I've carried for so long.
I go into the clinic that morning humming, actually humming, something Dana notices before I've even gotten my coat off.
"You look different," she says, studying my face with open curiosity.
"I feel different."
"Is this a good different or a—"
"The best different," I tell her, unable to keep the smile off my face. "I'll tell you at lunch. I promise."
She doesn't push, though I can tell it costs her, and I spend the morning seeing patients with a lightness I haven't felt in longer than I can remember, fifteen years of quiet, careful longing finally, gloriously resolved.