Chapter Fourteen
Olympic sprinters: Pictures of Earth
It was Sunday, and my day off, so we decided to meet when you got off work at the Center for Wooden Boats.
I didn’t want to tell anyone, but then I realized…
it should be different this time. I wanted to respect you in every way possible, no matter what.
I texted Addison and Priya. After all the bad stuff they’d said about you post-breakup, it was probably tricky to know what to say now.
We’re with you, no matter what, Addy responded, and Priya sent hearts and that little celebratory horn thing.
It’s hard to tell what it really is, but it looks happy.
I tried to do homework until it was time to leave, and then I cleaned my closet for something to do.
I don’t know why, but throwing things away always made me feel better, more organized, calm, though Winnifred Evans would likely have answers to that.
I tossed old tennis shoes into a garbage bag, and clothes that had bleach splotches or marker stains.
It was the longest day of my life, but then, finally, it was time to go.
On the porch, Mom was picking off the dead flowers from her hanging basket.
Fall didn’t just get the leaves—the flowers were shriveling up, too.
“So…” I said.
“You going somewhere?”
“I heard from Mars.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“I’m going to go meet him.”
“Okay, honey. Hey…”
“Yeah?” I waited. I was hoping for some reveal, like she might tell me when this exact thing happened to her. Some new bonding moment you might read in a book or see in a film, where something changed. A connection blooming where there’s only been dry, empty ground.
“I trust you.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. It probably meant Don’t have sex.
It was disappointing. I wished I’d stop having hope for a relationship like Addy and her mom had, or just for some kind of closeness, or whatever the word was.
But no. I’d have the hope and lose the hope in a hundred tiny moments, probably forever.
Well, whatever, because my stomach was already a mess of nerves, and my spirit was going to soar regardless.
I was going to see you again, oh my God.
You wouldn’t think you could get so anxious just seeing someone you already loved, but wow.
I didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought I did, but who could tell for sure.
The teensiest little Band-Aid, those really small ones that don’t seem to have a true purpose, had been stuck over my heartbreak since your text.
It’d be really easy to yank it right off again.
The Center for Wooden Boats was open year-round.
You could rent a little sailboat even in early October, that day when all the trees were bursting with orange.
Beyond Lake Union, all of Queen Anne had turned orange, and at the north end of the lake, the trees around Gas Works Park had turned orange, and the yellow light of the late afternoon of autumn gave everything a pumpkin-y glow.
I rolled down the window of my car and snapped a photo.
It was one of the nature shots Ms. Costa was urging us to move away from, but nature mattered to me, too.
And this very moment mattered so much, my hands were shaking. The orange trees blurred in the image.
It wasn’t truly cold out yet, just crisp.
Sweatshirt weather still. I had the happy thought that I’d get to see you in every season.
I’d get to see you in a dripping rain jacket, and I’d get to see what you looked like with snowflakes landing soft on your dark hair and on your lashes.
We’d get to run through the hard, pelting rain of November, and stroll the city streets at night after the city was blanketed in thick white snow, the evergreen boughs weighted down, the streets transformed into a new and magical place.
Those thoughts made me walk fast from where I parked. Please, I begged the smiling triangle of pizza. I don’t even know what I meant by it. Maybe, just don’t be that happy wrongly. I hurried down the slatted-wood gangway and onto the dock, headed for the charming shingled boat rental shack.
“Margaret!” It was Chester. He gave me a big smile that I read a bunch of stuff into, like, maybe he was so glad to see me, and glad you and I were back together, though maybe he wasn’t even aware that we’d broken up.
Chester looked changed to me, but I realized it was only his windbreaker, the long sleeves and navy color looking more serious than his array of T-shirts. Time had moved things along.
“Hey!” I called.
Chester arced his thumb over his shoulder, indicating that you were on the dock beyond.
And then, yes, there you were. Talking to an older couple in matching REI attire, the guy making a joke as you all laughed.
You held a clipboard. You were probably finishing a sailing check, the brief evaluation of sailing skills that was required before anyone rented the boats.
I held back and just watched you. It made you seem both new and familiar.
Like someone I’d known all my life, but couldn’t wait to meet.
When the three of you were done, the couple walked back up the dock holding hands.
I loved seeing older couples hold hands.
It seemed hopeful. The woman smiled at me as they passed.
I wondered if passion just turned into that, something cozy and settled, and it seemed like a nice thing.
A good thing, like the hot, hot summer turning to the crisp calm that was happening right then.
I was halfway to you before you looked up and saw me.
Your face was so glad, and the muscles in mine already hurt from smiling so hard.
It seemed like one of those moments where you do that thing from The Bachelor, where the girl runs and jumps and wraps her legs around his waist. But that was never me.
I’d probably make it halfway or something, one leg hanging down.
But, what? Whoa. You were running. The guy never ran, okay? It was her job to run, hers to show her willingness and want, hers to cling with her legs, while he stood there, waiting for it all.
You were running.
God, I loved that. See why I loved you so much? Could you ever, in a million years, imagine a guy like Liam running like that? You were thin and odd and loved Voyager’s Golden Record to the point of obsession, and you had a big nose, and those otherworldly sapphire eyes, and you ran. You did.
You flung your arms around me, and you lifted me off the ground.
Pretty much. Almost. We stumbled. Good thing we didn’t fall off the dock and into the lake.
It was a guy-running, couple-stumbling reunion, as imperfect as we were, so full of joy.
I couldn’t believe your face. That I was looking right at it.
God, I missed it, and it was so silly, just ridiculous, that I’d spent a little over a month not seeing it.
We kissed. Not a lengthy, world-record, tongue-jamming kiss, but a regular Mars-and-Margaret one. It was so familiar. As if, Right, that’s what a kiss should be like. That’s the one that was home.
You looked into my eyes like you couldn’t believe me, either. I sniffed your shirt. You just smelled so good. I inhaled the you-ness of you, and you gazed at my hands as if they were treasured things, and not just my regular old hands that did stuff.
“Let’s not ever do that again,” you said.