Afterward, once I’d regained the use of my legs and vocal chords, I pulled you onto a bench and made you tell me again.
“It scares me, too,” I said. We were holding hands, smiling shyly at each other, and then at the ground. I traced the life line curving across your palm with tip of my finger.
“So, what, then?” you asked.
“Well . . .” I turned my face up to yours. “You know what those motivational posters say: Do something that scares you, every day.”
You grinned, pulling me closer. “Just once a day?” you asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, pushing the hair out of your eyes. “I think we can get away with more. I mean, we are making up for lost time.”
“How much—” you started to say, but then you shut up, because I took your face in my hands and pulled it onto mine.
We made up for lost time on that bench, warm, slow, intoxicating kisses that—once we got past the first, tentative, trembling ones—swelled like waves in no hurry to make it to shore. Later, we made up for lost time on the Wonder Wheel, our little boxcar swinging back and forth a hundred feet off the ground while we swayed together, our breath quickening, completely ignoring the view of the sun setting over the city. We somehow lost the crutches, but neither of us cared. More than a few times, I was overcome: my desire felt feverish, too big for my body. It escaped through my throat in halting sighs. I never wanted it to end.
I didn’t want to get on the train to go home. I still wish we hadn’t. Sometimes I like to pretend we’re still up there on the ferris wheel, suspended someplace between heaven and Earth, preserved in a perfect moment in time when everything seemed like it was going to be all right.
That was the first day I knew I loved you, Diego.
There won’t be a last.
Chapter Twenty-Two
April 24–29 (last week of Spring Break)
14 days left
LIFE DOESN’T HAPPEN IN MONTAGE, with newspapers spinning, or calendar pages falling off one by one. Dance sure as hell doesn’t happen in montage, although I’d be the first to admit that it looks good on screen to see beautiful people go from lead-footed to flawless in the span of two minutes. But that second week with you—after you dropped me off on my corner, pressing me up against the graffiti-covered lamppost I’d Sharpied my name onto in fifth grade, and whispered, “Promise this will still be real tomorrow?”—felt like a flip book of best moments, lived in real time.
There was Monday: Coming up out of the subway into one of those impossibly beautiful Manhattan spring mornings, like God had Gershwin on surround sound, still tasting you on my lips, my whole body humming as I took the stairs two at a time, barely feeling my feet (you were right: adrenaline is a crazy drug). We flew across that stage, nailed the lift, and could barely keep our hands off each other, which Mr. Dyshlenko and the pianist pretended not to notice. “I will tell Sofia she has nothing to worry about,” he said with a wry smile.
After rehearsal, we got lunch and walked to Central Park West, up to Sheep Meadow, where we lay for hours in various states of entanglement. With your head resting on my stomach, gazing up at a cloudless sky, you rewrote history, telling me everything you’d thought but hadn’t said for the past four years. I was especially shocked by the fact that Caleb—who you’d been so nice to—had inspired various revenge fantasies in which you unleashed some crazy capoeira on him in the orchestra pit.
“Maybe you should double major in drama,” I teased.
“What, you weren’t jealous?”
“Of your lady friends?” I thought for a minute. You flirted with so many people, I never really knew who you were just talking to and who you were actually talking to. “No.”
“Not even a little?” You sounded disappointed, and I wondered if I should tell you that whenever Liv or Ethan would start telling me about one of your hookups, I would stop them and change the subject. Liv always thought I was being a prude, and Ethan acted pissed, like I was robbing him of a valuable storytelling opportunity, but really I just never wanted to think about you, like that, with anyone.
“I mean, I guess I’m glad you never had anything serious.” I ran my fingers through your hair. “That would have been weird.”
“Actually,” you said, “I did have something kind of for real with—”
A stab of envy tore through my gut. “I don’t want to know!” I cried.
“I knew it!” You sat up and grinned, then leaned down and kissed me. “Don’t worry,” you whispered, your lips still grazing mine, your thick lashes fluttering against my cheek, “I was just waiting for you.”
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