Now, I know you may think this doesn’t sound like your average declaration of love, and yes, while I was typing out the exchange I began to wonder whether I’d misunderstood the whole situation, and perhaps I am simply an incredible narcissist, but I’m sticking to my guns. He’s in love with me. Let’s examine the evidence.
Article A: When I confronted him about being weird, he replied defensively at the speed of light. Which means he pre-empted the question. Which means he knows he’s being weird. And then when I applied the tiniest little bit more pressure, he folded like a poker player with a pair of twos. Trust me, I am fluent in Danny. This means he is hiding something.
Article B: He blushed. Danny has never blushed in his life. In fact due to his immense paleness, I have kind of been operating under the assumption that his blood is colorless, like IV fluid.
Article C: He said, “I don’t know.” Let me tell you, Danny is the most opinionated son of a preacher man on the planet. Possibly in our entire solar system. So for him to utter the words “I don’t know” is utterly implausible. Of course he knows. He just doesn’t want to say it.
I’m not sure how I feel about this development. I think at the moment I’m mainly sad because anything that jeopardizes our friendship is not okay, and everyone knows unrequited love is the cancer of friendship circles. And I do not even a little bit love him back. I don’t think. I mean, I love him, like an annoying cousin or particularly needy hamster, but I am not in love with him. I don’t think.
Or maybe I am in love with Danny? Maybe I’m just missing the signs. Maybe the fact he often makes me feel queasy when he burps the national anthem is not a symptom of disgust, but deeply rooted infatuation. Maybe the fact we’re so comfortable around each other, to the extent where I often FaceTime him from the toilet, is actually a sign we’re soulmates. It’s not exactly how I imagined my first great romance would unfold, but is it really realistic to expect an epic Notebook-style love story in this day and age?
How doth one know that one doth be in love? [I’m unconvinced by the accuracy of my “doth” usage in this sentence, but am leaving it in for authenticity.]
9.16 p.m.
It’s quarter past nine on a Friday night, and instead of headbanging at a gig and/or participating in recreational drug use, I’m chatting to Betty in the living room over a mug of hot cocoa. Rock and roll.
Our living room is the size of your average garden shed. The walls are covered in that weird textured wallpaper most commonly associated with old folks’ homes. We found the velvet sofa on the street, had it examined for termites, and then promptly covered it with blankets and cushions from a thrift store. My grandma’s child benefits and Martha’s wages don’t quite stretch to IKEA, which Mr Rosenqvist would probably be horrified to hear on account of his proud Swedish ancestry.
We also have one of those old TV sets, fatter than it is tall, without cable. Honestly, the battle I had to go through to get Betty to have Wi-Fi installed. Like Vietnam but with more waterboarding.
We’re both piled on the velvet sofa in our sweatpants, and her wrinkly feet are in my lap as I give her a much-needed foot rub while she knits. This is her first night off in ten days, and I can tell she’s feeling it. She groans as I bury my thumb in the pressure points caused by her bunions. For the thousandth time, I wish it was me working so hard instead of her. But when I got in from school, I rang around all the places I’d dumped my résumé, and none of them showed any interest in hiring me. Not even Martha’s.
Once I’ve moved onto painting Betty’s toenails a vivid shade of fuchsia I tell her about the Danny situation, and she doesn’t even have the common decency to act surprised. Even Dumbledore also looks at me like, “Duh, it’s been graffitied on the kid’s face since the start of summer; now give me one of those peanut butter cups or I’ll avada kedavra your ass.” She asks me how I feel about it, and I reiterate the thing about unrequited love being the cancer of friendship circles, and how maybe I am actually in love with Danny, but I’ve been mistaking it for a mild stomach flu. At this she is mortified.
“Izzy O’Neill, you are absolutely not in love with Danny Wells.”
“No, I didn’t think I was.” I wipe a rogue smudge of nail polish from her skin with a cotton bud. “How do you know?”
“Do you want to kiss his face with your face?”
“No.”
“Do you want to marry him and grow old with him and help him tie his shoes when his arthritis gets the better of him?” Her knitting needles click together at the speed of light, which makes it sound like there’s a cicada chorus occurring in our living room.
“Not even a little bit. The thought is vaguely horrifying.”
“Do you want to let him enter you?”
“Gross. No.”
Apparently this is all the evidence she requires to deliver her final verdict: Danny’s love is unrequited. She then proceeds to give a long anecdotal monologue on how she’s always liked Danny and how this is not a surprising development, which I am going to paraphrase for you here:
“You and Danny have always been close pals, especially in the beginning, when it was just the two of you. Ever since you brought Ajita home in the third week of sixth grade, cramming on this sofa with giddy excitement over your first play date, I knew you kids had something special. He’s an only child, so he struggled a bit when he first had to share you, but he soon got over it. You all bounced off each other. Always cracking jokes, inventing games and acting out elaborate stage shows with no solid plot arc whatsoever. Danny doted on you even then, but you always kept him at arm’s length. He’s always been infatuated with you – I think he just finally worked that out for himself this summer. Poor kid.”
“Well,” I say. “Shit.”
“Shit indeed.” She tsks at a dropped stitch in the scarf she’s knitting, examining the damage between her thumb and forefinger. “Hey, has he talked to you much about his parents lately? Danny, I mean.”
I frown, swiveling the lid back onto the nail polish and admiring my handiwork on her toes. They look vaguely less horrific. “No, I don’t think so. How come? Everything okay with them?”
She shrugs. “Word at the community center is that their marriage is on the rocks. Could just be small-town gossip, but who knows?” As she talks, Betty ditches the knitting needles and rubs her temples with her thumbs, round and round in circular motions. At first I think she’s trying to summon the Holy Spirit, but judging by her pained expression, she’s not feeling so great.
“Another tension headache?” I ask.
“It’s those damn strip lights in the kitchen at work,” she grumbles. “Staring at fluorescent tubes sixty hours a week would give anyone a migraine.”
There’s a weird internet phenomenon, born around the same time as BuzzFeed, glorifying sassy older women who work until they’re a hundred years old. Look at them! Throwing shade at snarky regulars and serving day-old coffee grounds to their ruthless managers! So hilarious and inspiring! But this is the truth. More and more vulnerable old people can’t afford to retire, and so they keep working at grueling service jobs because they simply have to. It’s a matter of survival. They work through sore feet and headaches and bone-deep exhaustion, illness and injury and grief. It’s sick.