I’M SO NERVOUS I feel sick.
I look down at my outfit, sure that it’s all wrong even though Paige helped me pick it out. I fidget with the strap of the sundress, then run my fingers through the sections of hair that she’d straightened and pulled over my shoulders after she’d carefully applied my makeup. That part had taken forever, and I’d gotten stiff sitting there, but she’d been determined to do enough blending to cover what’s left of my bruises. When she was finally finished, she’d stood back with a proud smile.
“Perfect.”
Then she’d turned me around slowly to look in the mirror. I almost hadn’t recognized myself for the second time since I woke up.
“Is this . . . ? This is what I normally look like?” I’d asked, eyeing my reflection. “This seems like a lot.”
“It’s not,” she’d said, hands on my shoulders. “It’s just that you’re not used to it. But you usually do your hair and put on makeup, especially if you’re going to see Matt.” She’d gestured at the makeup spread out over my desk. “This stuff is all yours, Liv. I made sure not to do anything that you wouldn’t have done yourself. You look beautiful, and my work here is done. I gotta get going, okay? I have work until ten, but it’s gonna be dead, so call me and let me know how it goes.”
“I will.”
With that, she’d packed up her stuff, given me a hug, and left me alone in my house, waiting for Matt to come pick me up.
I stand up and look in the mirror above the couch for the millionth time since I’ve come downstairs to wait, and I tell myself that this is me. This is what I look like now. This is what I wear when I’m going out with my boyfriend.
I look down at the phone in my hand, at Matt’s phone number, just a tap away. I could call him and explain that I’m not feeling well, put this off a little longer to give myself time to memorize the history of us that Paige spent last night telling me. But she was so excited when I’d decided to call him, and today when I’d called my mom to ask her if I could go out, she sounded like she was too.
“Of course,” she’d said. “We love Matt.”
“I know,” I’d told them.
The knock on the door sets off a wave of butterflies in my stomach. I let it settle a moment before I stand up, smooth my hair and my dress, and go to answer it. Then I stop. I stand there in the entryway for one more moment and try one last time before I see him to believe what Paige said. That I’ll feel a spark of something when I see him again.
And then I open the door, and he’s standing right there on the step, holding another bouquet of red flowers in his hand, looking as nervous as I am. We stand there looking at each other, not sure what to say, or do. Unsure of how to be around each other. Like the strangers we are.
There are no sparks or flashes of anything, just the warm summer air and silence between us.
“Hi,” Matt says, before the quiet stretches too tight. “I . . .” He holds out the flowers to me. “I brought you these.”
“Thank you,” I say. “They’re so pretty.” I look down at them and remember the note from the hospital. His, I assume. “My favorites.”
He nods. I take the flowers and he plunges his hands into his pockets, his shoulders rising into a shrug that makes him look even more unsure than he did a moment ago. “How are you?” he asks, his eyes meeting mine. “You look . . . you look better. I mean, like you feel better. I mean—”
He shakes his head, bites his lip for a second. “Lemme just start over.” He looks me in the eye. “You look really pretty.”
“Thank you,” I say, feeling self-conscious all over again about this version of me.
“That’s my favorite dress.”
“I know.”
“You do?” His brows lift, the tiniest bit hopeful.
“Paige told me.”
“Oh,” he says. They fall.
It’s quiet a moment. I try to think of something to say.
“You look nice too. Better than you did last time.”
He laughs.
I cringe. “Wow, sorry. I just meant that it looks like you’re healing too.” I motion at his arm, which is no longer in a sling. “We’re both terrible at this, aren’t we?”
“Apparently,” he says.
This seems to relax something in us both, at least a little bit.
“So,” he says, “what do you want to do?”
His tone and the tentative look on his face make me think that he’s not just talking about what we’re going to do right now, today, but what we’re going to do about us.
I don’t know what to say, so I give what I hope is an encouraging answer any way you look at it. I step forward and reach out my hand.
He smiles in relief as he reaches his own hand out to take it.
And this is how we begin again.
It’s a big step up to get into Matt’s truck, so he helps me up and in, then closes the door gently before walking around to his side. When he gets in, he looks over at me. “You okay?”
I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine. Good.” I smile and reach back to pull the seat belt around me, but it sticks. I try again, and it sticks again.
I’m about to try again when Matt scoots closer. “That thing’s tricky, remember?” A look of horror crosses his face before he even finishes saying the word. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—here.” He leans across me and reaches for the seat belt, and I freeze at the closeness of him.
He feels it too, I think, because he also freezes, and we’re face-to-face, eye to eye, and it might be romantic if the situation were different. All it would take to close the space between us would be one little shift, a giving in to the tiny pull of the other’s gravity to bring us together. For a moment, he looks like he might be the one to lean in, and I stop breathing because I don’t know what I’ll do if he does.
But then he blinks. Swallows hard. “It’s like this,” he says softly. And then ever so slowly, he pulls the seat belt out until it can reach around me and leans back to click it into place.
“Thanks,” I say. “I um . . . I guess I forgot about that too.” Now it’s my turn to cringe. “Oh my God, I didn’t mean—I’m sorry, I don’t . . . this is . . .”
“Awkward?” Matt finishes for me.
“Yes,” I say without thinking.
“I know. It is for me too.” He takes a deep breath, then shakes his head. “I don’t really know how to do this, Liv. I don’t know what’s okay, or how to act, or what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
“But I want to try.”
“I do too,” I say.
He nods, and he looks at me for a moment with an expression that’s both hopeful and sad, like he’s searching for the girl he used to know and love, but isn’t sure he’ll be able to find her again.
I’m not sure either, but in this moment, I want to be that girl. I want to find her just as much as he does, so I reach out my hand and take his in mine. “So let’s try. Take me somewhere we like to go.”
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Yes,” I lie.
“Okay,” he says, and he puts the truck in drive. “That makes it easy.”