Chapter Seventeen #4
On their way downstairs, they’re silent. Aubrey can still hear the party and someone’s TV from another apartment.
As soon as they step outside, Arthur says, “I can take you home if you’d like.” He looks away when he speaks. It’s not snowing now but there’s a fresh coat on everything, glistening under the orange of the streetlight and the technicolour gleam from houses and buildings adorned with string lights.
This is the last time she’s seeing Arthur before she heads back. That’s what he told her, obviously for a reason, though she can’t decide what it is. Because they stand there and breathe in the winter air and neither of them says anything.
Her eyes are heavy, and her heart too. She sighs and says abruptly, “You know, everyone keeps saying you like me.”
Maybe she shouldn’t do this. The people she likes have grown distant, Maggie, Louise. She hasn’t decided yet whether she’s ready to risk Arthur. But it’s too late now.
He puffs air out of his nose. “Like you? Ridiculous.”
Aubrey says nothing. Arthur quickly adds, more seriously, “Who’s everyone?”
“I don’t think it matters. I just can’t stand this, not talking about it. It’s very weird.”
“Honestly, I like talking about a lot of things, but this isn’t really one of them.” His face has grown hard. He seems tired suddenly. “And I think it matters who’s talking about it if it makes you think less of me.”
The suggestion is so ludicrous Aubrey wants to laugh. She doesn’t bother hiding her offense. “It doesn’t make me think less of you.”
“Okay. Well, good.”
“Don’t you think it’s weird we’re not talking about it?”
“No, I don’t think that,” Arthur says, and this time he doesn’t look away. “I think I feel sometimes—not saying things is fine. I care about you a lot.”
“Okay. That’s it, really?”
“It’s all I have to say.”
This shuts Aubrey up. She opens and closes her mouth and suddenly she’s not breathing. He says it with such force, like he’s thought about it and decided it’s reason enough.
“It’s my thoughts, my feelings,” he adds. “Don’t I get to decide when I discuss them?”
The world feels so overwhelming. Aubrey doesn’t know what to say. He’s right, but she also feels right, and she wants to argue with him but also not. That’s not how they do things, and she doesn’t want it to start now. She concedes, “Okay, yeah. Sorry.”
He softens, just a little, like he’s just realized what he said. His face remains hard but he says almost like a plea, “Just trust me.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” Aubrey’s chest feels so full she wishes the air was colder so it might crack it open.
Arthur looks younger then, smaller. “Things have been fine and nice so far. Let’s not change that.”
“You don’t want things to change.”
He nods, quick and short. “Yes.”
Aubrey takes a breath, hoping it might steady the uneven hand that keeps her upright. Maybe she drank more than she remembers. The world is blurry along the edges and her coat sticks to her skin. “Okay, well, good. Great.”
He starts, like an apology, “Aubrey—”
“It’s really fine. I shouldn’t have brought it up.
I think you’re right—this is nice, and good.
I guess I was just curious. Pretty dangerous thing, curiosity.
” She doesn’t know where to look, where to stand.
Her weight shifts from one foot to the other.
“But I’m okay with nothing changing. I’d rather it stays like this. ”
This time, his agreement is slower, calmer. “Okay. That’s how I feel, too.”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
It doesn’t feel okay, or good, but for now it has to be, she thinks, quietly, to herself. Out loud, she says, “Can we hug?”
They’ve never really hugged. It’s not a thing they do. But right now she wants that, and everything already feels so close to shattering, even though they’re trying very hard to keep it all intact.
She’ll risk the hug.
He doesn’t answer but closes the distance between them in a few steps.
He wraps his arms over her, and she holds her breath and counts the seconds, one, two, three, four, but then she stops.
She doesn’t want to think about anything.
She just wants things to be fine. Suddenly she feels sixteen, maybe fifteen, unsteady on her feet and choked up by the mindfuck of human emotions.
There are so many wrinkles in this scene.
She wants to exhale and say, “fuck,” and she wants to laugh at how absurd all of this is.
How movies got it all so right and so wrong all at once—because movies aren’t real life, not even a little, but in this moment Aubrey knows she’s acting as infuriatingly dense and witless as the characters she grew up watching.
But it’s so hard. What is she possibly missing?
What can she do any different? She wishes so desperately she’d just know.
The hug lasts too long. She knows it, and he must know it, too. When they finally pull apart, she steps back and says, “Merry Christmas, if I don’t get to tell you until then.”
“Merry Christmas,” he echoes. “Happy new year.”
Aubrey says, “You too.”
And she walks home, and he gets in his car.