Chapter 25 #2
The writers didn’t know what they were doing with the main characters, couldn’t she see that he loved her? Why was she written so poorly that she was constantly running away from something that felt fated?
If I was authoring the fanfiction for this show, Dani would have kept her eyes locked with Evan’s during the song.
She would have said yes to the invite backstage.
There would be conversations and confessions and laughter.
Dani and Evan would have gone out into the alley behind the House of Blues, where only VIPs were allowed to linger, and they would have kissed.
Shelby Dawes’ love song would fade back into the scene at full volume, and by some stupid chance of fate there’d be fireworks overhead.
But this wasn’t some half-cracked fanfic written in a haste at two in the morning. This was my own story that I’d lost the plot of in the last nine months. I had to regain control of the narrative before I jumped the shark entirely.
The will-they-won’t-they I was living was far too much to bear anymore. I pretended to be the protagonist, but I was barely more than a side character. Someone with a half-fleshed out story that petered off into nothing.
But for the first time in my life, I could let myself be the lead. I could chase after my happy ending.
“Actually, guys wait,” I stopped walking and frustrated patrons grumbled and cursed under their breath as they had to walk around me.
Andrea and Caroline both skidded to a stop. The train screeched into the station and the crowd flooded inside once the door opened.
I looked at it, making my split second decision. “Go on ahead. Evan told me to meet him backstage—”
They both started yelling at me in jumbles of words that I could barely make out. Andrea stammered and waved her hands around wildly in frustration. Caroline grabbed me by the shoulders and began shaking me. They only fell into sync when they both said, “go back!”
My feet were frozen on the ground. I had a direction I needed to run and my body wouldn’t let me.
I was about to beg for a push from the two of them when I watched their eyes grow wide. The crowd around us fell into hush murmurs and stares began to point in my direction.
Not my direction. Behind me.
I turned on a heel and saw Evan pummeling himself over the turnstile. The MBTA transit police officer was too stunned to stop him.
He jogged towards me, his hair in a tousled mess from running and dodging the Lansdowne Street crowds. He hadn’t even managed to put on his Clark Kent glasses. He ran on instinct towards me. I’d run away from him so many times before it was a pattern that he’d run after me.
“My fucking phone wouldn’t tap—” he started. “Nevermind it doesn’t matter—”
“What are you doing here?” I cut him off.
“What do you think? I’m chasing after you. When you didn’t answer me about coming backstage I knew I had to do something drastic.”
“A big romantic gesture,” Andrea said under her breath.
“Kind of, yeah,” Evan replied, still out of breath from running here.
A phone camera flashed in the distance. This would inevitably be across social media tomorrow. The world would see me under the fluorescent lights of the Kenmore T station, jaw on the floor as I processed Evan standing in front of me.
As I processed the fact that I was completely in love with Evan McLeod, and had been since that week in June.
Sometimes love happens slowly, over time, and this was always the expectation that I had for myself. I hadn’t considered the alternative, a love that happens in a bright burst of light. The kind of feeling that hits someone in the center of their chest so hard they’re knocked off their feet.
Evan knocked me off my feet the moment I saw him on the beach.
Andrea sauntered up towards Evan like he wasn’t an A-list celebrity who’d brought an entire train station to a standstill.
She extended her hand towards, her engagement ring flashing in the light, “I’ve heard quite a bit about you, Mr.McLeod, and I should let you know up front, The Heir of the Mist is one of my favorite movies of all time, Andrea Galecki, by the way.”
Evan obliged and shook her hand, “Oh god, the blatant Princess Bride rip off? I think you might be the first actual fan of that. You should get a Medal of Honor.”
Caroline followed closely behind and put her arms around Andrea. “Caroline,” she waved, “the more emotionally stable counterpart to my lovely fiancée here.”
He shook her hand as well. “Lovely to meet you both—Dani, can we go somewhere more private?” Evan’s eyes darted around at the phone cameras still hovering mid air, the occasional flash going off.
“Shit, yeah, of course,” I answered. He gripped my hand and pulled me out of the station, the sounds of people “whooping” echoing and getting quieter as we ascended the steps into the chilly March air.
Crowds were still milling about, but there was an alcove I followed him into. It was tight. Our backs were pressed against the frigid brick and I could still feel his hot breaths on my forehead.
“I was going to come back to you. I wanted to apologize for freaking out on you—” I started.
He lifted a finger to my lips. “It doesn’t matter now. I’ve tried to play it cool and wait for the right moment.”
“Right moment for what?”
He wringed his hands in front of him. “To tell you that I’ve thought about you every day since June.
And to tell you that every time I saw you I wanted to tell you that I would paddle across the ocean in the back of a shitty canoe if it meant I could be with you,” he reached for my hands.
I let them rest in his callused palms. “You are one of the smartest, funniest, and most interesting people I’ve ever met and the fact that you’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen makes me completely, entirely obsessed with you.
And I promise you, wholeheartedly, no matter how big of a fan you used to be of Evan McLeod, I’m a much, much bigger fan of Dani Grant. ”
“Well I don’t know if that’s entirely true because only one of us had a poster of the other hanging up in their college dorm,” I laughed.
“Any chance you’ve done any poster-sized promotional shoots for the book yet?”
I shook my head. Tears teased in the corners of my eyes.
I knew what I was committing to now. I saw flashes of a future with red carpets and celebrity gossip pages, but when I actually looked, all I really saw was Evan.
Evan was all that mattered. “I’m sorry for making you do this over and over.
I wanted a slow burn between us but fate wanted other plans. ”
He softly smiled. “I wanted other plans too. I like you so much,” his voice cracked. “You could let me love you and I’d love you so, so well, Dani. I want a life with you, I want you. What do you want?”
A pregnant pause hovered between us. Evan spun a piece of my hair in his fingertips as I ruminated on the question.
“I want to write about you,” I said, and I meant every word.
“I want to fill my notebooks with every one of our conversations so I can remember them. I want to write novels just for the two of us. I want to find more hidden places to escape to. I want every one of my mornings to feel like I’m sitting on a porch with you, drinking coffee that is way too strong, staring out at the lake.
I want to go to sleep smelling like a bonfire, smiling, because I’m thinking about you.
I want you, too. I don’t give a fuck about anything else. ”
Somewhere in the distance, somebody started playing a love song over a speaker.
“Sounds like we have our future planned out, then.”