“Just coffee.”
“Can I get a patty melt?” I ask the young man behind the counter. He’s probably in college, and I wonder if he’s here because he’s another Christmas orphan or maybe because the holiday overtime is too good to pass up. I hope it’s the latter.
I catch Theo giving me the side-eye for my order. “What?” I ask. “We didn’t eat dinner, aren’t you starving?”
“Too nervous to eat.”
We tuck ourselves into a scratched wooden table in the window.
“You don’t think he’ll forgive her?” I assumed Hannah and David were having make up sex in the front hallway by now. He’ll be glad she finally came to her senses.
“I don’t know.” Theo takes a contemplative sip from his paper coffee cup. “But I think she’s brave.”
“For telling her boyfriend she’s been a stubborn idiot the last month? I think stubborn is Hannah’s resting state. I don’t know if I’d call that bravery.”
“No, I mean for putting herself out there for love. Being willing to go outside her comfort zone. That’s vulnerable and I think it’s brave.”
I wonder, not for the first time, if we’re still talking about Hannah, or if maybe we’ve veered into talking about us. I’ve always wondered if Theo knew how I felt; knew that my fight with Hannah wasn’t just about Jeremy. His words feel like a challenge: if I were brave, I would tell him. We stare at each other, the sound of the burger patty sizzling on the grill fills our silence.
Fuck it. I’m done being a coward. I’m done feeling less than. I’m exhausted and light-headed with hunger, and in my half-delirious state, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to tell him. A Hail Mary pass before I leave New York.
“In that case,” I begin, “I have something to tell you.”
His green eyes lock onto mine and my stomach drops like we’re hovering at the top of a rollercoaster.
“I have feelings for you. Romantic feelings, not friendly feelings. I’ve always had those feelings for you, and I wanted you to know that.” I keep it short, not giving myself time to back out. Better to rip the Band-Aid.
He blinks at me. His face is blank. My skin feels translucent under the harsh fluorescent lights, and I wonder if he can see through my shirt and straight through my chest, all the way down to my frantically beating heart.
“Is this a good idea?” he asks.
The lone spark of hope I’ve been tending all these years gloms onto the fact that I have not been summarily rejected and flickers a little brighter. “Of course it’s not a good idea. For a whole host of different reasons.” I tick them off on my fingers. “I’m leaving, and we’re friends, and we might make a mess of it. It’s a terrible idea.” He looks like a bobblehead figurine, avidly agreeing with my reasoning. “But I love you and sometimes love is messy and inconvenient.”
“I love you, too . . . ,” he says. His tone makes it clear his declaration of love ends with a comma, not a period, and I brace myself for the but. It will crush me if the rest of that sentence is but only as a friend, and I might slap him if it’s but I’m not in love with you.
But apparently no further sentence is forthcoming. He stalls out there. I want to grab the collar of his shirt and shake the rest of the sentence out of him. Not knowing how it ends is too much to bear.
I’m not willing to back away from the brink this time. I’ve come this far. “I haven’t heard you say you don’t have feelings for me. So do you?”
The moment has an electric charge to it. “I think this is a bad idea,” Theo reiterates.
“You already said that. So, do you? Do you have feelings for me as more than a friend? Because if you do, I think we should explore this.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the kid behind the counter gawking at us. When he sees me look his way, he jerks his head down and busies himself assembling my sandwich, which I have no appetite for anymore.
“You’re leaving, so what does it even matter?”
“I’m not leaving you, I’m just going to LA. You could come with me. Or you could visit.”
He makes a dismissive sound.
“You don’t have a job. Your father owns a goddamn airline. This is a minor inconvenience, at most. This is not a dealbreaker and I won’t pretend otherwise. Tell me, do you or do you not have feelings for me?” I’m playing a dangerous game. I will get my answer tonight.
“I . . .” The word hangs in the air between us for an unbearably long time before Theo takes a breath and finishes, “I don’t.”
He reaches for my hand on the table between us, and I whip it away like I’ve been burned.
“Oh,” I say.
He wasn’t scared to admit he had feelings for me. He was trying not to hurt mine by telling me he didn’t. Bile rises in the back of my throat while tears prickle behind my eyes. I feel like a leaky water balloon threatening to burst.
The kid behind the counter hovers by the register with my sandwich on a paper plate waiting for the right time to bring it over. I can’t pretend he didn’t hear every word, it’s pin-drop-silent in here and we weren’t keeping our voices down. I’m as confused as he is about what to do next.
“Now I know,” I say, treading water in our conversation.
My tears threaten to spill over at any second, and I don’t want Theo to see me cry. “You know what?” I forge ahead before he can guess, “I should probably go check on Hannah. I didn’t charge my phone like I said I would, and I don’t want her to worry.” I pop out of my chair, pull my wallet from my front pocket, and throw down all the cash I have—three singles. It’s not enough, but now isn’t the time to worry about fair with Theo. Life isn’t fair. If it was, he’d love me back.
“Finn,” he says, “this doesn’t have to change anything.”
Is he really dumb enough to think that? This changes everything.
As I leg it for the door, the kid holds up the plate with my sandwich and shouts, “Do you want this to go?”
I can’t answer because of course I don’t want it, but if I tell him my voice will wobble and I will not let myself cry until I’m out of Theo’s sight line.
I push through the door and power walk past the front window of the cafe. Theo gets up from his chair and for a second I wonder if he’s about to come after me. Instead, he stands stock-still and stares at me through the window with an anguished look on his face. Like he knows he ruined us.
And he has.
I hustle past, snow flurries sticking to my eyelashes, and the minute I’m out of sight, the tears come.
twenty-five
Hannah
This year, December 26
I’ve always thought the hallway of our apartment building looks like a hotel, not a home. When I get to our door, I pat my pockets for my keys. Nothing.