Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Danny
The first night Christina is back at her apartment after our spring break together, I don’t sleep for one minute.
I lie in my bed—nothing but a pile of pointless wood and foam without her—and just scroll through our text messages.
I pause for untold stretches of time on the selfies she’s sent me.
Just when I think I have her memorized, some little feature will draw my attention: a freckle on her earlobe, the shimmer of her black hair in the sun, her preferred head tilt for the camera.
The next morning, I conduct several interviews for ongoing projects that I postponed for our work-free spring break.
The joy from my week with Christina buoys me through the hard truths more than usual, but I know these interviews and all of my projects would be exponentially improved by Christina’s involvement.
I’m a better documentarian with her. I’m a better documentarian just from knowing her.
For lunch, I microwave the leftovers from the spaghetti bolognese dinner I made her last night that she insisted “put Gordon Ramsay to shame.” I shoot her a picture of it now, and she replies with a picture of her own lunch: some baby carrots, almonds, and a sad half sandwich.
Christina: I didn’t realize how pitiful my meals were until you had to go and be a maestro in the kitchen
Me: Chefs, baby, they’re called chefs
Christina: No, when it’s you, you’re just Maestro-ing. In the studio, in the kitchen, in the bedroom …
Me: Trust me, I wish I were taking care of your lunch (and other) needs today
Christina: Yeah, I miss you. Like a lot. Maybe more than I should after how much time we’ve spent together
Her words strike me somewhere in my ribs. How could I even respond? I miss her more than I’ll be able to express.
It isn’t until I go to settle into my studio for a long afternoon of editing that I break.
Because Christina must have snuck in here at some point last week.
Beside my editing assistant is a framed 5x7 photo—a photo of us.
It’s a selfie she took of us in the mountains last week, just as the trees were bursting into their varied greens that reflected the green tint of her hazel eyes.
My arm is draped across her shoulders and hers around my waist, and her happy smile is devastatingly beautiful.
I look something close to blissful.
On the edge of the frame, she’s attached a Post-it note with delicate, slanted handwriting: My Maestro, Just because the world can be dark doesn’t mean you can’t let the light in.
I brush my fingertips over her handwriting, as if I can absorb its message through touch. As if I can feel her through the pen strokes.
Mind made up, I work, and I eat dinner, and I work some more.
I look at the picture beside the stuffed dinosaur she chose for me, and the happiness in that pair of items reverberates through the studio, through my body, through my mind.
I finish what I need to finish for today, but with warmth in my chest. With light in my heart.
And then I pack a bag, get in my car, and merge onto the highway.
What is a forty-five-minute drive compared to feigning sleep in a bed without her anyway?
Runzhou answers the door, takes one look at my face and the duffel slung over my shoulder, and nods sympathetically.
“Took you long enough,” he says, stepping to the side of the wide-open door in invitation. “You’ve been apart, what? Twenty-eight hours?”
“Is she where I think she is?” I glance toward her closed bedroom door.
“Of course. Though I think her Cozy Corner has lost some of its luster since you gave her a whole Cozy Room. In fact, I think any part of her life that doesn’t include you has lost its luster.”
I’m momentarily stunned. “You think so?”
“I know so.” He jerks his head toward Christina’s door like Go get her.
I do just that. I reach her door and knock gently.
“Come in, love,” she singsongs, thinking I’m Runzhou. “Are you going to K’s tonight—”
She halts midsentence when she glances up at me from her recliner. And as her face blossoms from surprise to unbridled joy under the twinkle lights, I know I love her.
I’m in love with her.
It’s been happening for a while. Maybe since the very beginning when I caught sight of her purple cap and peacoat in the firelight of that pagan festival.
Something in her called to me before I even saw her face, so strongly that I answered.
And then—it was Christina. This brave, brilliant woman. My muse. My … everything.
I think love accumulated in our small moments.
When she ingratiated me into her world of books.
When she teased my brother. When she pulled a blanket over the both of us during a movie.
When she clung to me through a loop of grief.
When she kissed me just for straightening an upturned collar on her shirt.
When she tucked my hair behind my ear, transforming a characteristically nervous gesture of mine into a comfort.
All the moments have amassed to this: a love so consuming that my entire being has no choice but to surrender. My every thought—my every move—belongs to her. Revolves around her. Calls to her. Honors her.
I’m struck so hard with that clarity, it lands like a physical blow.
I’m paralyzed, but it’s okay because she’s striding toward me.
She throws her arms around my neck and kisses my throat.
Of their own volition, as if responding to her has been encoded in my DNA, my hands slide up her back to hold her to me and my nose drops to inhale the sweet spring scent of her hair.
“You’re here,” she sighs into my skin.
I can’t speak. The only words my mouth would be able to form at this moment are I love you.
And as difficult as those words are to keep inside, Christina deserves the space to let her feelings for me clarify in their own time, like mine did, without pressure or expectation.
I want us to feel right for her. If she chooses me, in any capacity, it needs to be her decision and her decision alone.
So I simply kiss her, and it’s like my mouth is still only capable of an I love you, but it’s expressing it with the kiss instead of words.
And maybe she senses that this cup of mine is finally overflowing because she trembles against me as our lips move and taste and savor.
Her fingers tangle in my hair, and my tongue nudges into hers, and she hums encouragingly around me, welcoming everything.
I love her so fucking much.
She breaks the kiss by brushing her lips up my cheek and drifting them across my closed eyelids. I imprint the sensation into my internal code.
“Hey, Danny?” she finally says, pulling back to peer up at me.
Beautiful. She’s so beautiful. She owns me, whether it’s said or not.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“When we stay here, can we still do pre-bed tea with Runzhou before reading in bed?”
“When we stay here?”
She smiles in that secret way. “Yeah, I’ll come to you tomorrow, baby.”
So at least we’re aligned on that. We won’t spend our nights apart anymore. But she also wants to enjoy the time she has left with her friends before everything changes after graduation.
I just kiss her again, soft and sweet. “Of course.”
“Hold on.” She crosses the room to pick up her phone from her Cozy Corner side table and types for a minute.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket.
I peer suspiciously at her grinning face as I pull it out.
Christina added Danny to Sloppy Bitches + Runzhou.
Christina: Ladies and gentlepersons, gather round and do me the enormous honor of welcoming the newest Sloppy Bitch you already know and love: Danny fucking Reeves
I stare in wonder as the messages of over-the-top congratulations and welcomes pour in.
I’ve never had a group of friends like this before, especially since I didn’t go to college. For me, there’s only ever been Charlie, even though Charlie’s always had plenty of friends.
And if Christina is adding me to this group chat, it means she thinks of me as family.
Is it possible that a life here, with me, could be one of her postgraduation options?
Christina texts “Y’all are gonna make me cry” in response to her found family’s acceptance of me. Her eyes are indeed watery when I cross the room to cradle her face again.
“Is this a cigar moment for you?” she bumbles.
I kiss this woman I love again, unable to be anything but wholly present in the light of her radiance. “Definitely. But we can do cigarillos, baby.”