She’s tried bland conversation. Following him at close range. No tactic she can muster seems to mend whatever is broken.
As she swipes her MetroCard, her hips slam against the turnstile bar. Insufficient fare. Dammit.
Josh is probably praying for the train to whisk him away before she can refill the card. He’ll return to the safe confines of Manhattan and go on with his life, satisfied in the certainty that he’s dodged a bullet.
Ari makes a show of retreating to the ticket machine, half-hoping he’ll turn around and offer to swipe her through. Not so much because of the $2.75, even though that’s the equivalent of about thirty minutes of NeverTired labor.
She just needs something—one gesture—to build on. To prove this crack won’t deepen.
Tapping her index finger on the fingerprint-smeared glass to select the $5.50 minimum, she watches Josh walk a few steps in the other direction, past clumps of bundled-up people waiting for the next Manhattan-bound N.
By the time she swipes the refilled MetroCard and pushes through the turnstile, Josh is pressing a pair of AirPods into his ears.
It stings.
No. It doesn’t just sting, it hurts. It’s the kind of petty silent-treatment bullshit Cass would pull anytime Ari wouldn’t capitulate and apologize for some crime against their relationship. Like a little warning of things to come.
Which means she can’t let it go and walk away; she has to hurt him back a little bit.
She taps him on the shoulder. “Are you experimenting with passive aggression instead of original formula aggression?”
“What?” He removes the AirPods, pouting with all the subtlety of a silent film star.
“Ghosting out of an actual friendship with someone who just got abandoned is a real asshole move.”
For once, he looks expressionless. “I don’t understand what you want from me, Ari.”
“Stop avoiding me!” She hasn’t picked a fight with him before, at least not since they’ve been friends. Not a real fight. There’s no sign of any train yet…so they’re doing this.
“I’m avoiding you? Are you fucking serious?” He takes a half step closer, like it’s the absolute maximum proximity he can stand. “You’ve been pretending like nothing happened for two fucking weeks.”
Something small and bright and sharp pulses under her ribs. “I’m not pretending,” she protests. “We just don’t need to give it more oxygen.” She pulls off her scarf, which feels way too tight around her neck. “You’re the one who said it was nothing. ‘Just a New Year’s kiss’? ‘It was the pot’? That’s exactly what you said.”
“That’s what I said because you didn’t—” He looks down at the platform. Josh always shows hurt on his face like he never figured out how to hide it. “You seemed so fucking relieved when I”—he pauses to breathe—“walked it back.”
“We got carried away,” she says. “I had a lot to drink, I was feeling lonely.” She’s recited this narrative to herself plenty of times over the last two weeks, but in her head, it hadn’t landed with such a resounding thud.
“Great description for our ‘friendship.’?” He starts to pace again. “I happened to be standing nearby while you were feeling sorry for yourself.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “You’ve made your feelings completely clear. You keep me around because you’re depressed and you don’t want to be alone and I seem to be the one person in this city who you specifically don’t want to fuck.”
“You want to be my fuck buddy now?” It feels good to accuse him of something. “That’s what you wanted this entire time? I don’t even like half the people I go home with.”
“You’d rather fuck people you hate than someone you love.”
“Who said anything about love?”
“Definitely not you,” he spits. “That would require you to drop this act where you pretend like nothing matters to you. You broke down sobbing in front of me. That’s the reality of your life.” Her flight impulse kicks in and she turns on the heel of her off-brand Ugg boot to escape, but Josh catches up. “I don’t want to hear about the couples or your awful ex or the roommates you used to fuck. You want to entertain someone? Get back up onstage and don’t call me.”
He turns away again, apparently trying to get the last word, but she can’t let him have it.
“Let’s talk about the reality of your life for a minute, then,” she says, walking after him. “You’re choosing to sit at home. You hold every random woman you date to a ridiculous standard of perfection, but your most intimate relationship is with the floor of the shower at Crunch.”
Finally, Ari can see the headlights of the N heading south from the Ditmars stop.
“I literally met someone an hour ago.” His voice is low and hoarse. The train is close enough to the station to create a rumbling sound.
“But you’re not gonna sleep with her, are you? You’re going to take her out for an expensive meal, find one stupid imperfection, and text me about it.”
At least a dozen people are now staring at them.
“You know exactly what that kiss was.” He’s almost yelling over the crescendo of noise. “You’ve known the truth for two weeks and you’re pretending you can’t see it but it’s there. I can’t look at you, waiting for some acknowledgment of this enormous fucking thing that happened. I can’t do that.”
He rakes his hand through his hair and blows out a breath. It seems impossible to look at him, too.
“I just—” The words feel trapped in her throat. “I don’t…” The platform shakes under her feet.
“The next time I fuck someone,” he shouts, nearly drowned out by the roar of the train blowing past them, “it’s not going to be because I’m desperate to eradicate the memory of my ex.” Ari holds her breath. If she doesn’t exhale, time will stop right here. “I haven’t slept with anyone else because the only person—”
“Josh, please—”
The train screeches to a rough stop, obliterating their voices.
The doors open with a calm mechanical hiss—like everything is still totally normal and Ari’s stomach didn’t just plummet down to the sidewalk along Thirty-first Street. A generically cheerful pre-recorded voice announces, “This is…Astoria Boulevard. This is a Manhattan bound…N train. The next stop is Thirtieth…Avenue.”
Josh steps backward onto the train. This is it. This is the last image of Josh she’ll keep locked in her brain.
“I want you,” he says. An indecipherable sound escapes Ari’s throat, but it’s not a word. She’s certain she’ll hear that phrase—that specific serious intonation of it—in her head forever. Like the best part of a song. The bit of “Hey, Jude” that builds into the na-na-na-nanana-nahhs. The part that gives you goosebumps.
“I just…” she hears herself say. “I don’t want this to change.” She gestures in the space between them. “I can’t lose this.”
“We aren’t losing anything.” He holds out his hand, his eyes shifting from hopeful to resigned, as people brush past them and she stands there, paralyzed.
The gap between the car and the platform might as well be a giant chasm. Ari could walk it back. She’s good at shoving down inconvenient feelings. Josh’s always bubble right up to the surface.
“Stand clear of the closing doors please.”
The doors jerk and start to slide again and the only thought banging like a drum in her head is that she can’t stand here on the platform and watch this train pull away. She can’t let Josh be one more person who leaves her behind.
Ari reaches for his hand and he pulls her inside just in time.
18
THE TRAIN SHUDDERS AND HEAVES forward, slamming Ari against him. It’s an unsexy collision, despite the new, uh, context established two seconds ago. Her unwound rainbow scarf snags on one of the closures on his coat.
They should probably be sharing a passionate kiss, or at least, like, making eye contact. But Ari rearranges herself so that they’re both standing side by side, with their backs against the doors. Facing him feels impossible. Like being pushed out onstage without knowing her lines.