That’s all it says. No apology. No explanation.
Chaos, fireworks, and “Auld Lang Syne” erupt as Josh stares at the three words he would have strangled metaphorical kittens to hear six months ago.
The man with the starter pistol raises his hand in the air.
Josh strains to look back at Ari through the crowd.
She’s not typing anything else. She’s just staring at him, eyebrows slightly raised, her mouth in a tight, nervous line.
The pistol fires, making him jolt.
“Let’s go, racers!” Ryan shouts. The momentum of hundreds of runners presses Josh forward.
For a few seconds, he’s almost glad to be literally running away from Ari.
Josh: You have the wrong number.
Unknown Number: Is this not the Biggest Boy?
Josh: That’s it?
This is still a joke to you?
Nothing about the two of them has ever been as straightforward as a declarative statement and a direct response.
Unknown Number: There’s a speech where I list out all the reasons we should be together but to be honest this is not how I envisioned this going down
“You okay?” Briar asks, nudging him as the entire pack of Ryan’s Racers slowly makes their way toward East Drive. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Josh: You don’t just get to come back here and say that, like ntithjg happened.
For once in his life, he doesn’t care about typos.
Unknown Number: I’m saying it because of everything that happened. Because I missed you so ducking much every moment I was away
Josh: You cnat just show up here and ambush me and expct things to go back to what you want them to be.
Stupid fucking giant thumbs on tiny keyboards.
Josh: I’m not doign this again. I don’t want to be your friend. I don’t want to be the person you crawl back to when the other thing doesn’t work out.
The ellipsis reappears on the screen and Josh exhales.
Unknown Number: I’m not crawling.
I did an airport run to get here!!
Josh: I don’t know what that is.
Unknown Number: It’s basic cultural literacy!!
and there is no other thing. There never was.
Just you
Josh: Then I want the speech.
The whole thing.
Unknown Number: my hands are shaking
Josh: DICTATE IT. VOICE TO TEXT.
“Hey, man,” says Ryan, flanking his other side. “Can you grab some B-roll of this? My iCloud storage is full.”
“No!” Josh yells, pushing him off.
“Okay. Jesus. I guess I’ll just delete something.” Ryan shakes his head, scrolling through his Photos app as they jog forward.
The ellipsis is still animating—what’s taking so long?—when Josh feels the first snowflakes. A few heads in the crowd of runners tilt upward.
Ari: Sometimes I say ridiculous things just so you’ll get this really specific look on your face where you’re kind of annoyed but mostly amused and it gives me more joy than making other people actually laugh.
You do this thing with your mouth when you’re deciding what to say next and I find it really hot and I never told you that.
I get this Pavlovian smile response every single time I get a text from you, even if it’s just one word, because you still make me a little nervous and excited.
I want to give you shit about the clown costume forever. It’ll never get old for me.
I want to buy the organic grapes with you.
I want to bring you chicken noodle soup when you’re sick.
I want to wear your shirts.
I want you to take your shirts off me and whisper dirty things in my ear.
I want to wake up to your voice every morning and fall asleep to it every night.
I built my entire life around not needing anyone. But I NEED you.
I’m sorry it took me so long to let myself believe that.
I don’t know if these are the right words to make you believe in it, too.
Because I’m not healed yet. My existential wound is still fucking bleeding.
And it might be too late.
But you said there’s never going to be a perfect time.
So I’m here now, saying that we deserve to be happy.
Maybe there’s no such thing as soulmates, but I think you’re my person. And I’m yours.
And I don’t want to wait for it anymore.
I want to wake up with you tomorrow.
* * *
ARI GRIPS THE metal bars of the barrier, her heart thumping in a way that feels like a potential medical issue. Somewhere in that mass of people dressed in colorful outfits is a man wearing a dark hat and jacket, reading a sloppily dictated love declaration. It’s either the beginning of a love story or a moment she’ll be narrating to therapists for years to come.
Ari shuffles sideways over the slippery pavement, waiting for a face in the slow-moving crowd to look up in her direction. With each passing second, it feels a little more hopeless.
No new text message. Not even an ellipsis.
Who receives a love declaration and then just…disappears?
Someone like you? her brain offers.
She stumbles into a cop in front of the barrier who won’t let her go farther as the runners make the left turn to go north.
“If you wanted to run the race, you should’ve entered,” he says. Ari watches the clusters of runners slowly jog away. She wraps her hands around the barrier, hardly feeling the freezing, wet metal against her palms. “You could wait at the finish line. They’ll finish the loop in an hour or so.”
Oh? Just an hour of stomach-churning agony while listening to a DJ blast “Cha Cha Slide” and watching Gabe’s phone light up with Happy New Year texts that aren’t from Josh?
Ari backs away from the barrier, her mind already running a scenario where Josh crosses the finish line and pointedly ignores her there, too. She hadn’t realized how stupidly confident she’d felt until the possibility of failure became apparent.
Delicate little snowflakes float down from the cloudy sky. Ari shivers.
The cop is looking at a slight commotion up ahead on the race route—a ripple in the herd—people moving aside, as if to avoid an obstacle.
Some rogue jogger, slightly taller than almost everyone else, pushing his way through the crowd the wrong way, parting the sea of runners.
Ari allows the tiniest bit of hope to take root.
“Josh!” she yells, nearly colliding with a woman dressed up in a bathrobe and a foam Statue of Liberty crown.
A race official in a Road Runners jacket gestures wildly at Josh, trying to get him to continue north.
“Get out of the fucking way!” one of the runners shouts, knocking hard into Josh’s right side.
Josh pushes past the sea of people in front of him, slowly working his way up to the barrier.
“What do you want me to say?” he shouts over the commotion. There’s a weary look in his eye.
Ari breathes in.
“You could say that”—her vocal chords seem to seize up—“you’re still in love with me.”
She doesn’t breathe out.
“All I’ve been doing over the last year is trying to—to just get over this.”
Shit. This isn’t how declarations of love begin.
“Are y-you over it?” she asks before she can stop herself.
With every second that he stares at her, his face stern and confused, her heart clenches a little tighter.
No. No no no no no.
It’s impossible. Airport runs followed by dramatic speeches have a one hundred percent success rate in fiction.
Her vision is already blurry from the tears and the snowflakes in her lashes, but she sees something immovable in his expression.
“I don’t—”
Oh God.
She looks away from him, the first pangs of a familiar emotion pricking her chest before he can complete the rest of the sentence.
Oh God.
Ari takes a step back from the barrier, toward the sidewalk, backing into a smattering of people watching the fireworks. Don’t let him see this part. Walk away now. Move! Move your legs.
Except she has no sense of which direction will lead her back to a street.
She’s holding her breath. Her lungs won’t accept more air.