Ten
“Come on, Ash,” I say. “It’s time to pay up.”
He wipes the café counter for a fifth time. “Aren’t we supposed to be working on Wuthering Heights?”
“I’m only ten chapters in,” I say. “I need to get at least one letter into Josh’s hands. It’s been too long already. What if he thinks I’ve forgotten him?”
“I thought you were going to send it anonymously?”
“I am, but he’ll probably be suspicious, right?”
I hope he wants it to be me. Ash says nothing, and I recognize that as the gift it is.
“No more stalling, get over here and teach me your romantic secrets.” I nudge the sunshine-yellow chair beside me with my foot.
He throws down the rag and eases into the chair as slowly and reluctantly as my grandpa joining my grandma’s bridge group for tea.
He frowns at me across Formica. “Well?”
I flip open to a sparkly white page and look expectantly up at him.
He casually takes a sip of his Americano.
I fold first, patience being a virtue I do not possess. “Ash!”
“What?” His mouth quirks. “Marlowe, I already told you I wasn’t going to feed you words to send him.”
“How am I supposed to do this, then? I haven’t had enough homework, and our first romance field trip isn’t until this weekend.”
He settles in, and I can feel the full force of Ash Hayes’s attention.
“What do you want to say to him? What do you want, Marlowe?”
What do you want, Marlowe?
“I just want things to go back to normal.” I can’t keep the jagged edge out of my voice. As soon as the words come out of my mouth, I want to stuff them back inside. They sound pitiful. The countless YA heroines stacked on the back wall are having adventures and taking chances, and I just want my normal routine back?
And him,my brain yells, as I stumble over the sharp edges of our memories together. Every soft touch and tender word now stained with the fear that he was pressing his lips to mine and simultaneously thinking I was less than I should be.
My phone vibrates on the table, because someone upstairs has a terrible sense of humor. DAD pops up on the caller ID and I silence it, my heartbeat flooding my ears.
“We can take a break if you need to get that.” Ash leans back, dark eyes missing nothing.
I shake my head. “He’ll call back. We try to do a twice-a-week check-in. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”
“That’s nice that he calls so much.” He slides a finger around the rim of his mug, his nails now a hunter green.
“Do your parents call often while they’re away?” I trip over the words, and half expect him not to answer. But I want to ask just in case he needs someone to.
He keeps his eyes on his coffee. “Not really, no. I am neither a project that is going to make money, nor a problem that requires a lot of active troubleshooting.”
My mouth snaps shut, and I use up every ounce of willpower to hold myself back from leaning over and hugging him. Or wrapping a blanket around him and tucking Darcy into his arms.
He finally pulls his attention away from his cup, and his eyes narrow. “Don’t pity me, Meadows.”
The words are out before I can screen them. “It’s them that I pity.”
He just looks at me, and I feel stripped bare. Like he’s seeing more and more pieces, and I have no control over what final picture he’s getting. I shove more words in front of him, to snap the tension.
“Dad’s like me.” I gesture wildly at the entirety of me. “Same brain. Same prickly grasp on emotions. Same spectrum.”
“Same obsession with fungi?” He smiles, and it feels like a Friday.
“Mushrooms,” I correct. “Fungi is the kingdom, and nobody loves mold.” The blank page in front of me feels insurmountable. “And no, he has other interests.”
“Like what?”
“Medicine.” I shrug. “And me.”
“Sounds like a pretty good dad.” He brings the mug to his lips, and I listen for the soft clink of metal against porcelain.
“The best. He made sure I had an easier time of things than he did growing up. Therapists, meds, and always looking up different strategies to help me navigate a world that was not made for me.” I smile, Josh momentarily pushed to the back burner. “I went through this rough patch when I was seven. I was really struggling to put words to moments and feelings and was having these pretty bad meltdowns because I couldn’t figure out how to categorize everything inside of me.” Ash leans forward, and I feel the slide of his combat boot against my sneaker. I pretend I don’t notice. “My dad’s solution was these stacks of word-of-the-day calendars. I was unbearable for a long time after and sounded like this pretentious little know-it-all asking Momma to be less loquacious in the morning or asking her to expound on that night’s dinner menu.”
He laughs, and I blush at the ease of it. “Why is that not surprising at all?”
“It worked, though,” I say, sliding him another piece of the puzzle. “I was finally in the club, I could put a name to all the feelings that were building up inside me. I could share them, commiserate, celebrate, and my grandpa stopped shaking his head and repeating ‘Bless her heart’ when I spent the afternoon with him.”
“So, give me a word, Marlowe.” His mouth curls around the letters of my name, and I blink at the flutter in my gut. “Since you’re such a connoisseur.”
“Fine,” I say, pretending to think. “‘Liberosis.’ Happy?”
“Rarely. What does it mean?”
“The desire to care less about things.” I tuck my hands under my thighs.
“Good, give me another one.”
“‘Collywobbles.’” It’s ridiculous, and so is this game, but I’m most ridiculous of all, because I chose that word just to watch him pretend he’s not amused.
I’m not disappointed.
“Let me guess, the trajectory of a hummingbird in flight.” His hair is as messy and disordered as the inside of my skull.
“So close,” I say, hiding my smile too. “It’s butterflies in the stomach.”
“That was my second guess.” He takes a sip of coffee. “We have a word riddled with longing, and a word that describes how you feel when you’re too close to someone you want. Sounds like you have all the tools you need.” He nods down at my notebook, still open to a blank page.
I pick up my pen. “Excellent idea, Ash. I’ll send him some definitions and wait for him to come running.”
“Isn’t that what you feel for him? You wish for liberosis because he gives you the collywobbles? Just put that in more words.”
“I am eighty-five percent certain you did not use those in a sentence correctly.”
“I’m feeling pretty good about those odds.”
And was that even what I wanted to say? I missed Josh with a bone-deep ache, but so many bruised feelings have blossomed under his words that it’s hard to think.
Sometimes I wonder if you’re even really that interested.That one’s a punch to the gut.
I think it’s time to leave.There’s a slap to the face.
It’s all right, Marlowe, not everyone’s built for it.That one? That’s a mortal blow.
I droop, my forehead falling forward onto the page with a dull thunk. “Never mind, let’s call it off. I’ll just be alone forever.”
The silence stretches long enough that I suspect he’s left and gone back to scrubbing the counter.
“Do you want to go sit with Darcy and be in your feelings for a while?”
I huff some hair out of my face. “I just thought you’d be more helpful than this.”
He rubs his eyes. “Marlowe, I’m not a magician. I can’t just produce the perfect letter out of thin air. I still don’t know what you even want to say to this jackass.”
What do you want, Marlowe?
“Don’t call him that,” I say, barely registering the insult anymore. Looking too hard at the breakup was like probing a wound. I don’t want to peel back those words and stare at the damage underneath, or unearth all of these moments that make me feel like I’m drowning.
“I want him to know how I feel about him in a way I clearly wasn’t able to convey to him before,” I say, finally. That’s the right angle. Happy, loving, and moving forward to better and brighter times.
Ash looks like something he ate has disagreed with him, but he pries his lips open enough to mumble, “Okay, so just tell him exactly what he wants to hear.”
I flinch, reeling from the vacillation between teasing smiles and sharp sentences. I don’t always clock tone correctly, and I spend the majority of the time giving people the benefit of the doubt. But this? He’s being rude and unhelpful. I’ve spent hours over the past few days looking at rock band photo shoots and poses, and I’ve already started overhauling his current website. If he isn’t all in, neither am I.
I close my notebook and shove my emotional-support pens in my bag.
“Are you going somewhere?”
I ignore him and slip my cardigan back on, pushing my chair back.
He grabs my wrist, and I know my face is as stormy as his. “I’m sorry.”
I pause. “For what?” Not to drag it out, but because I want to hear why.
He frowns but doesn’t hesitate. “Because I don’t like him, and I’m letting that affect our deal, which is unfair to you.”
I put my bag back down. Only one question matters. “Can you do this?”
“Yes,” he says, meeting my eyes. I believe him.
“I don’t know what to ask you, and I’m sorry if this is annoying, but I don’t know how to write something like this and I need a little more guidance.”
He waves my words aside. “Don’t apologize.” His long fingers, decorated with calluses and small scars, flip my notebook open again. He pauses and I lean forward on the off chance his magic is contagious. He looks up with a small smile. A truce.
“You have four letters. Four letters, and you want him to know that you love him. That you know him. All the parts of him.”
His pen dips down and he scrawls four words on the page before sliding it back to me.
Mind.
Heart.
Body.
Soul.
“That’s it?” I ask, glancing down.
“It’s a starting place,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Each letter has a theme. Today’s letter—” He stabs “mind” with a finger. “—is going to be what you love about his personality, his humor, his intelligence—what little he has.”
He’s trying, so I let it slide. “And ‘heart’?”
“Kindness. Acts of service. The way he cares about the things that are important to him. The way he loves.”
I flush, eyes skimming over “body.” “I think I’m able to guess the next one. What about ‘soul’?”
He shrugs, the movement jerky. “The whole picture. Who he is to his core, and the reason you’re making deals with strangers to get him back.”
“I like it,” I say, looking up.
“Your surprise is immensely flattering.”
I swat at his arm, jostling the Americano. “I mean it. This is helpful. Helpful, but familiar.” I narrow my eyes, my brain snagging on the pattern. I pull my beat-up copy of Wuthering Heights out of my bag, and flip until I get to the chapter I read last night. “Wait, here it is!”
I slide it across the table, my finger finding the place for him. He lifts it up, and his voice finds the right cadence immediately. “‘… you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy: where is the obstacle?’ ‘Here! and here!’ replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead, and the other on her breast: ‘in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!’”
He looks up with my sigh. “You okay over there?”
“She knows Edgar is the safer choice, but her mind, heart, body, and soul tell her that she belongs with Heathcliff. It’s just…” I trail off, my face flushing. “It’s just romantic, the idea of this bond being more powerful than anything else.”
I smile, waiting for him to agree with me, as we’re surrounded by books built on the premise of love conquering all. Instead, he just closes the book and slides it back.
My smile wavers, but I busy myself with the soft edges of Momma’s paperback copy. “Maybe we can do that as the central theme of our paper? All-consuming love, and the destruction that happened because two soul mates weren’t allowed to be together.”
A muscle in his jaw twitches. “How far along are you, again?”
I shrug. “Not much further than the part you just read.”
He nods, pulling out his laptop. “We’ll keep brainstorming.”
I refuse to be disappointed that he didn’t jump on my brilliant assessment of Wuthering Heights, and I focus every ounce of energy on not being intimidated by the large expanse of blank page.
Mind.
Josh’s mind.
Josh’s tidy, comfortingly predictable (except when he’s dumping me) mind.
“It’s hard to concentrate while you’re thinking that loud.” He pulls his hair out of its messy knot, and the scent of warm sage wraps around me.
I cough, eyes pinned to paper. “Nothing I’m thinking could possibly be louder than Darcy’s snoring.”
“He has sleep apnea, Marlowe. Have a little compassion.”
I ignore him, chewing on the end of my pen.
“Just tell him his brilliant football strategies keep you up until midnight every night,” he says dryly. I roll my eyes, but the easiness between us settles and I realize that at some point in this conversation, something has shifted.
I shake my head until there is room for thoughts that don’t include boys who smell like herb gardens or what being friends with Ash would look like. “At midnight I’m solidly in bed, weighted eye mask in place, white-noise machine purring. I’m not thinking about Josh’s anything.”
But maybe that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. Is this what dreamy girls who are good at love do? I look up at Ash, who’s typing out a barrage of words like he’s mad at them. I bet he would know. I bet he can’t even go to sleep until midnight chimes on some creepy haunted clock and he does at least one ritual.
I go back to my letter, and finally I start, adding flourishes and curls to each letter in an attempt to disguise my own blocky hand.
I would like to know what was going through your mind when you first decided I wasn’t enough—
Nope, still the wrong tone. I cross it out.
Do you still even think of me? Seems like a lot of moments to throw away—
I flip to another page and start again.
I love the way you look at the world. The way you approach a challenge. You don’t do it by halves or sidle up to it with uncertainty. You attack it head-on. Unflinchingly.
I wince and try not to think about the breakup. But this is better.
There’s a beauty in that, and I can’t help admiring it. A structure to the way your mind pulls apart obstacles that inspires me to be less of a pushover. That makes me want to be more honest about the things that I want.
Your willpower, your strength, your jokes that coax a smile out of me when I’m at my lowest—it’s no wonder I’m yours.
Your secret admirer.
It’s not going to win a Pulitzer, but it’s honest. It’s an honest-to-God love letter.
I slide it across the table, my eyes gobbling up each microexpression as they flit across Ash’s face.
“It’s good,” he says finally, the words raspy. He clears his throat, hands flying over the keyboard again. “You should send it.”
I seal the letter, my heart threatening to hammer out of my chest, and check the time. We can make it if we hurry.
I throw my things in my bag. “Come on, let’s go.”
His eyes narrow, the paper forgotten. “Why? What’s going on?”
“We have to deliver the letter.”
“Absolutely not.” He leans back, his expression shuttered.
“Ash.” I drag his name out at least five extra syllables. “You’re supposed to be helping me.” I put my hands on my hips. “Football practice is almost over, I just need to stick it under his wiper blades.”
He tries to ignore me, and I gently press the top of his laptop down until he looks at me. “Please? He doesn’t know your car like mine.”
He sighs, a deep, painful sound, as if I’ve asked him to carry me over the Alps piggyback-style. “In and out” is all he says, grabbing his bag and heading for the exit.
I swallow down my squeal, but happiness bleeds into the bounce in my step and a smile so wide I worry my face will crack.
This is it.
We drive the five minutes over to the football field in silence, but I’m vibrating in my seat. Ash parks a few rows away from Josh’s black, oversized truck while I scan for witnesses.
“Keep an eye out,” I say. I race between cars and shove the envelope under the wiper blade before I can stop to second-guess myself.
I climb back in the car, breathing like I’ve run a marathon. “Did anyone see me?”
“It was like watching a Mission: Impossible movie.”
He grasps the gear shift, sliding it into reverse.
“Wait!” I still his hand with mine. “Five more minutes? I want to watch him open it.”
Ash scowls, but I feel the gear shift move back into park. He’s all bark and no bite, just like Biscuit—my neighbor’s two-thousand-year-old decaying Maltese.
“Really, Marlowe?”
I shiver. I’ve never had someone use my name so often. No shortcuts. No hurry. Every vowel and consonant accounted for.
“Five minutes.”
It only takes three.
The gates to the field swing open, and varsity and JV players slowly empty into the parking lot. I scan over burgundy-and-gray sweats, until finally he emerges at the end.
I slouch down a little, watching with hungry eyes. Josh slowly ambles through a crowd of back pats and high fives, throwing his bag in the back of his truck. He climbs up in it, and for a moment my stomach clenches as his engine roars to life.
But then he sees it. Pale pink and hanging on to his windshield for dear life.
He gets out, snatching it from its snare, and flips it over.
I lean forward, on the edge of my seat. He rips it open, and I watch his eyes fly over the page.
Then he grins, the smile expanding like a sunrise. Starting with a twitch of his lips, spreading up to his eyes, and not slowing until his entire face is shining.
There he is.
There’s the guy I fell for.
He steps forward, eyes roving the parking lot, and I grab Ash’s shirt and drag him down until we’re practically kissing the emergency brake.
“I have so many regrets right now.” His breath is warm against my ear.
“Shhh,” I hiss, frozen in place. We can’t spoil it now, not when we still have three letters to go.
“He’s not Batman,” Ash grumbles. “He can’t hear me complain in my own car.”
I’m not willing to take any chances. I give it a few minutes, the sound of our breathing roaring in my ears, before I release him. “Okay, see if the coast is clear.”
“So he can think I’m his secret admirer?”
“Ash.” I poke him in the ribs.
“Fine.” He pops up, turning in all directions. “Romeo’s gone. He certainly didn’t try that hard to crack this mystery, did he?”
I spring up, but nothing can spoil my mood.
That smile.
This was the best plan. A brilliant plan. A Nobel Prize–worthy plan.
Ash drops me back at the bookstore, and I’m already preparing myself for when Josh texts me later. Of course, he will at least suspect me.
Should I do coy, but flirty?
Adamantly deny it, but then segue into a meaningful conversation about how much we’ve missed each other?
I pull open my car door, the options endless.
“Marlowe.”
I look up in a daze, and Ash lifts one dark, no-nonsense eyebrow.
“We’re still on for this weekend, right?”
“This weekend?” I echo dumbly.
“The Harvest Festival? Our field trip?” He’s frowning again, and I shake my head free of cobwebs.
“Yeah, of course. See you then.”
I barely register the drive home. I keep checking over and over that my ringer is turned all the way up.
I do a little homework, read some Wuthering Heights, and pick up my phone like a compulsion. I finally check his Gabber profile, and his latest photo is him standing next to his truck with a smug smile and a pink envelope. The caption reads: Dear secret admirer, you’re the sweetest.
I text a screenshot to Odette and Poppy, swallowing my disappointment. He posted that two hours ago.
Odette responds immediately.
Plan Cyrano-Josh-the-douchebag is a go!
Don’t call him that, I text back on autopilot. I shake it off, diving back into my English moors. There’s still time.
Finally, around midnight, I accept that it’s not happening. He’s not reaching out. Even if he suspects it’s me, he doesn’t actually want to know.
I flop back against pillows as my disappointment drags me under. It’s late, I’m sad, and right now would be the weirdest time to use the number Ash programmed in my phone. A small part of me wonders if he’d be amused, though.
That I’m here, staying up until midnight, thinking about love.