Then there’s a middle-aged woman with beautiful braids and skin the color of coffee. Her face blank, she shows almost no expression in the clips we see, just flashes of watery eyes on occasion.
This woman lost her husband exactly one year ago today. She says this is the first time she’s been able to escape the worst of her grief, even for a few minutes.
I watch the rest of the clips—including the one with Esben and the guy wearing the motorcycle jacket—both anticipating and dreading my appearance.
He’s saved me for the end.
My fingers brush against his when I take the mouse and pause the video. I turn to him. “You mean a lot to these people,” I say, a new understanding coming over me.
“They mean a lot to me.” Esben looks at me with such warmth and sincerity that I can hardly take him in. “I just gave them a chance to let the world stop spinning. What they did with that was out of my hands.”
I get what he’s saying. I’ve lived it.
“Keep watching.” There’s a nervous yet hopeful edge to his whisper.
Hesitating, delaying this, I cannot get myself to start the video because I fear the world—or my world—might blow up if I do. The computer’s mouse feels hard and threatening against my palm.
Esben’s hand goes over mine. “It’s okay.”
Together, we hit “Play.”
CHAPTER 10
ROBIN HOOD
Sometimes, the unexpected happens. Sometimes, someone makes you break your own rules, I read.
My body is tense when I begin watching, but my intrigue leads me forward. Although I lived these moments, seeing them from this new perspective is fascinating. This is how others experienced my three minutes with Esben. And, I learn quickly, he’s included the entire three minutes, not just clips as with the rest of the participants. I am glued to the video this time, desperately wanting to not miss a second of the replay. There are near head-on shots of my face, Esben’s, our profiles as we face each other, and I see now that there must have been more people shooting footage than just Kerry. It’s more than unpleasant to watch how cold I am during the first few moments I face him, but the way I shed my armor and defenses—the way I eventually allow myself to be with him—is intoxicating. It’s a side of myself that I am terribly unfamiliar with.
The video shows him flipping the table, kicking the chair, and how we run to each other as if we need each other in order to breathe. I am less frightened by seeing this than I would have thought. In fact, my emotions swell, and a warmth courses through my body that has nothing to do with all the alcohol I’ve had.
On-screen, Esben’s mouth touches my cheek. I remember that well. It’s just before I lost my mind, and I cringe, knowing what’s coming. But I don’t look away as I see myself lift my mouth to meet his. The kiss goes on and on. Right now, I shudder a bit. Never have I kissed anyone like this. With the few people I have kissed, the kisses never looked like this. They never felt like this either.
I finally understand how the Internet was spellbound.
The most painful part to watch is when I push from him and leave, when my fear and confusion become too strong for me to fight.
I’m disappointed in myself. Ashamed. Anyone else in my shoes wouldn’t have broken that tie.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” I say.
“Kissed me?”
“No. Backed away.”
“It’s all right,” he tells me.
Incredible sadness and frustration engulf me. “No, it’s really not. It’s not okay that I have never kissed anyone with a fraction of that urgency before. It’s not okay that I’m afraid of people and relationships and interaction. None of it is okay.”
Esben kneels next to me and tries to soothe my growing upset. “Look, I’m not a shrink, but . . . hell, you’ve kind of been through a lot, and if you ask me, it is okay that you’ve been in a shitty place. Just because that’s where you’ve been doesn’t mean you have to stay there if you don’t want to.”
I think for a few minutes.
“Play it again,” I say quietly. “Play it again.”
Three more times, I watch the video, and Esben stays right beside me. After, when I have memorized every second of our airtime, I turn in the chair. Esben is very calm, I notice. Very together.
Steffi was right, I admit. Maybe it’s my gin haze letting me acknowledge this, but he is gorgeous. Slowly, I lift a hand and place my fingertips on his cheek. Esben does not move while my touch grazes down his face, and I trace the line of his firm jaw and trail down to under his chin. The back of my hand moves inch by inch back up, the feel of his skin enough to keep me there forever. “You shaved,” I say.
He cracks a smile. “I did.”
“Esben?”
“Yeah, Allison?”
“Could I have some more macaroni and cheese? I’m still a little drunk and hungry.”
“Of course,” he answers with a laugh.
Just for a heartbeat, his hand goes over mine, and he gives me a little squeeze.
While the microwave hums in the background, I look through comments under the video. The sheer number of them is incomprehensible. There are over ten thousand. I keep scanning lines, scrolling down, reading a few more.
“What is instalove?” I dive into the second mac and cheese, and Esben lies on his side on the bed, his head propped in his hand.
“Oh . . .” An actual blush floods his cheeks, and I suspect this does not often happen. “Um . . . this is sort of awkward—”
“A lot of people are hashtagging us with instalove.” Now I’m the one blushing. “I mean, not hashtagging us. Hashtagging you. Your video.” I take a large bite and unceremoniously talk with my mouth full. “Why are people doing that?”
“Oh. Yeah. Well, it means, you know, instantaneous love. It’s often used as a derogatory phrase to say that two people fell for each other too quickly. That it is fictional and would never happen in real life. But there’s also a lot of cheering about us. About us and instalove. Because some people believe in that. They say they’ve lived it.”
A rush of humiliation tears through me. Again. I should be getting used to the feeling. But I also feel a teeny bit . . . I don’t know. A good kind of embarrassment.
“The kiss,” he tries to explain, “got to viewers. The video captured the . . . the pull between us. There are a lot of people who latched on to the idea that we should be together.”
“Together?”
“Allison,” he says rather bashfully. “They think we fell in love that day.”
I let this sink in. “How could that happen? That’s nonsensical. And why do they care?”
“That’s a good question. They saw something that reminded them of someone. Something they wanted. They projected their own emotion onto us. Or,” he says cautiously, “they saw something real take place.”