Chapter 5 #3
“What is this place?” I asked, mouth hanging open as I whirled around to take in Mary Lennox’s wildest dream.
Unlike most of Manhattan’s green spaces, which looked like they had been manicured to within an inch of their lives, this patch of ground was properly lush.
It was about the size of my apartment, which was to say not huge, but it held a few benches set along the walls and a small stage nestled underneath a second-story balcony that bloomed with pale purple flowers.
Wearing the same expression as when we’d first walked into the store, Dash perched on—I’m not shitting you—an actual wooden swing.
He was tall enough that his feet dragged on the ground as he attempted to move.
“I spent a lot of time here when I first moved to New York. I didn’t know anyone, so I would put on my headphones and roam around the city for hours and hours, just looking at everything.
When I stumbled across the store, it felt like coming home a little bit.
I got into the habit of dropping in a few times a week, often enough that I got to know Shy pretty well.
They hold readings back here sometimes—and burlesque performances once a month. That’s where I met Chase.”
“Right, I remember you said Chase was a dancer. He does burlesque, too?”
Dash nodded. “We should come see him sometime—I think he’ll get back from his research trip in time to be on this month’s lineup.”
For once, it was my brain that was going a mile a minute, instead of my mouth. “Do you think he’d ever want to dance as Lord Loving?”
“We’ll have to ask him, but I think he’d be into that, yeah.”
Dash ran a hand through his hair, and for once I wasn’t captivated by its gentle glide. Mostly because my mind was too busy parsing out what he’d said a few moments before.
I went behind him on the pretext of giving him a push, but it was really so that he wouldn’t see my face when I asked, “Are you still lonely?”
“Sometimes. Less now than I used to be.”
“I’ve been wondering if I should stay in the city,” I said, trying to keep my tone casual. “Especially now that I don’t have a job keeping me here.”
Or friends. Or…
Or Milo, but I didn’t want to even think his name here.
Dash seemed to have no problem following the direction of my thoughts, though. He dug the tips of his sneakers into the moss-edged paving stones and twisted around to look at me, making the swing’s chains rattle slightly. “How long has it been since your breakup?”
I shrugged. “Long enough. I just… didn’t think it would be this hard.”
“Getting over him?”
“Dating in general.” I leaned against the trunk of the tree the swing was suspended from, feeling the rough bark tug at the fabric of my dress. “I keep thinking that I’m never going to find someone to click with as thoroughly and instantly as I clicked with him.”
“That may not be a bad thing,” he said, toeing a different patch of moss. “It’s not always about that instant click, you know. Sometimes taking the time to get to know someone can make for a deeper connection.”
It sounded like he really meant what he said, but… “I just… I’ve never met anyone that has made me feel like he did.”
“Maybe there’s someone out there who will make you feel even better.”
“Just one?” I said, with a raise of my eyebrow and a half-hearted leer.
He didn’t take my bait, but continued to look at me with that slightly troubled crease between his brows.
I could have flailed again, I guess. Changed the subject or barreled out of the secret garden with some excuse about checking on our soon-to-be-dry laundry.
But there was something about this place, so quiet and hidden and lush in the middle of so much bustle, that invited, I don’t know, whispered confidences like the kind you’d share in a darkened bedroom.
Or maybe it was just Dash’s expression, expectant and somehow concerned, like he was genuinely upset at the thought of me never meeting someone again. My breath snagged on its way into my lungs. Was he really that much of a hopeless romantic? Or…
Crossing my arms over my chest, I leaned back against the tree trunk and quickly told him the basics of what happened with Milo—also known as the reason why I had no intention of trusting another guy anytime soon.
“I thought everything was going well. And then he told me he got an offer to work at a dig site in Greece. That it was an incredible opportunity, one he couldn’t pass up.
” I shook my head. “Of course it was a lie.”
“He never went?”
“Oh, he went all right,” I said grimly. “All the way to fucking Jersey City. Into the apartment of his actual girlfriend.”
He squinted. “Wasn’t that a plotline on Friends? Where Chandler pretends to move to Yemen?”
“That’s what kills me. It wasn’t even original.
And I didn’t find out until a couple of weeks later when I went to an exhibit at the Met that I knew he’d been looking forward to, just to send him pictures so that he wouldn’t feel like he’d missed out, and there he was.
With her.” I wrapped my arms around myself.
“The whole thing was such a joke. I can’t believe I fell for it. ”
“I know you’re not blaming yourself for someone else’s assholery,” Dash said, disentangling himself from the swing as he stood up.
“And I know you’re not contemplating abandoning this new life you’ve made for yourself just because it didn’t work out like you thought it would.
It takes time to find your niche and your people in this city, but when you finally do, it’s like magic.
If you want to leave because you’d rather be somewhere else, do it.
But for what it’s worth, I’ve been lonely everywhere I’ve ever lived.
I’ve been lonely in crowds and around friends. ”
It was hard to imagine. Dash had such an easy way around other people. I had seen with my own eyes how perfect strangers fell over themselves to catch his eye.
But maybe that just made someone feel all the more alone.
I opened my mouth to say something to that effect, but Dash wasn’t finished talking.
“And also… I’d miss you if you go.”
In this summer wonderland, sunlight was filtered through leaves and branches so that it was less harsh by the time it reached his face. His eyes were brown, and warm, and flickering with reflected green and the pink of my dress.
As if he’d read my mind, he reached over to flick one of the gauzy layers with his finger. “You look like a fairy princess in that dress. A fairy princess, and this garden is your realm.”
“Does that mean you’ll call me Your Highness?” I asked, trying and not fully succeeding in recapturing the bantering tone from earlier.
“I’ll call you anything you want, Mariel,” he said softly.
Maybe it was the seriousness of his smile, or the way his breath curled around the syllables of my name, but I felt myself drawing closer, unable to help the way my gaze skipped down to his lips.
I might have been holding my breath. Dash looked like he was, too, the dark lashes that ringed his eyes gone as still as the leaves suspended above us.
I had never felt so in the moment—like all that existed was this instant, this space between one breath and the next, so full of possibility and yearning. So full of Dash and me.
And then, in the space of a second, the stillness between us was broken as a large, hulking, furry shape detached itself from a branch and landed on my shoulder, knocking me into Dash and dragging a startled scream from me.
Dash caught me, again, like the romance hero he clearly was destined to be. He held me against him with one arm as the creature leapt off my shoulder and onto the paving stones, meowing dramatically.
Dash leaned back, looking half resigned and half regretful. “Mariel, meet Kitty Marlowe.”