You, Again(106)

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.

It’s just a feeling. Isn’t that what the mindfulness exercises are about? And that feeling is complete and total anguish. You can cry when you’re alone again. Don’t do this here. Hold it the fuck togeth—

A hand grabs her right arm, just below her shoulder, stopping her forward movement. It feels like that one hand could lift her off the ground.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be over this.”

There’s a tug at her arm and she turns to face him, releasing the sob she’d been barely holding in for the last minute. Fresh, hot tears slip down her cheeks. There might be tears in his eyes, too, but it’s impossible to tell because her entire field of vision is blurry.

Josh pulls her into his body, tucking her head into his chest and wrapping his arms around her, temporarily raising her body heat by several degrees. There’s just the freezing metal of the barrier between them. They stay like that until her breathing slows to a regular rhythm.

“Tell me you mean it.” He bows his head down and speaks softly into her ear. “Tell me you’re not going to take it back tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. The concept is too much to process.

“I can’t take it back,” she says into his jacket. “It’s on your phone, you have the receipts.”

He runs his mouth along the shell of her right ear and behind it, laying delicate kisses along her neck. Apparently, he hasn’t forgotten her weak spots. She doesn’t bother to dial back her reaction this time—what’s the point?—letting out a little moan as he moves up her jawline until their faces are almost aligned and she can hold his gaze.

“I want you.” It’s freeing, telling him. Letting it spill out. Letting herself feel an untempered, raw emotion. “I. Want. You. I wish I could’ve said it a long time ago.”

Josh nods and holds her face in his hands, tilting her chin up in a way that makes her automatically part her lips. But instead of going in for the kiss, he closes his eyes, and touches his forehead to hers.

“I really fucking missed you,” he says.

“I really missed fucking you.”

He sighs into her mouth.

“Brat.”

“Your brat?”

He nods, stroking his thumb up and down her cheek. She moves her head against his hand, drinking in the feeling of being cared for.

She can’t feel the falling snow. She can’t feel the vibrating bass of the cover of “Modern Love” that’s playing over the sound system. She can’t feel the deep booming sound of the fireworks in her chest. The thing she feels—the only thing—is Josh: his lips brushing hers, his hands tangling in her damp hair, then moving down her back and under her ass, lifting her over the metal bars.

Her feet don’t touch the ground on the other side. She wraps her legs around his waist, crossing her ankles, and holding tight as people continue to jostle past them and the snow continues to fall.

She breathes him in. The softness of his mouth, the way his long nose juts into her cheek, the faint trace of his nonsense cologne. She wants to capture his bottom lip in between her teeth and keep it for a few seconds. Like there’s finally something that belongs to her.

“It’s matzo ball soup,” he says, when they come up for air. “Not chicken noodle.”

“That was a test. I had to make sure you actually read it.”



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