I feel special. Like he’s confiding in me because of our history.
We smile at each other.
Someone’s put on Lil Peep, so all the white girls treat the bar to shouted karaoke.
“You picked the place,” he reminds me.
I search the bar around me, hoping for a more acoustically amenable area just as a booth frees up. I grab his arm and lead. We slide in facing each other across the table.
A lanky Black dude up-nods as soon as we’re seated. “Just the two of you?” he hollers. He and his friend have matching septum piercings, and they’re both wearing bleach-spattered sweatshirts.
I nod helplessly, but just before they can squeeze in with us, Patrick slides next to me. “Executive decision,” he whispers in my ear. “Is this okay?” he asks. “We could also stand if I’m crowding you.”
I smile. “This is good.”
The boys sit opposite us and start making out athletically. We grin into our glasses.
He slings his arm around the back of our seat. My ears heat up.
“So, you were saying,” I remind him. “About work.” I don’t ask what Danny Song smells like, even though Danny Song was my celebrity husband before he became the Internet’s boyfriend. I couldn’t even tell if I wanted to be with him or be him. Just that when I fantasized about him bowing deep to my mom, greeting her in the honorific when they met, I’d feel warmth spread in my chest. All the horrible, shameful mistakes I’d made with other boys would be wiped clean. I know it’s somehow defective that I’ve never dated anyone Korean before. Asian even. But marrying someone like Danny Song would fix all that. Marrying Patrick, too, for that matter. I’m flustered at the thought.
“Um, as I was saying”—he clears his throat; his thigh is pressed against mine—“I don’t know. I have all these ideals that are probably going to bite me in the ass. Everything’s so fucked. Billionaires don’t pay taxes. Idiot racists rule the world. I’m trying not to work for evil people, even peripherally. I’ll probably starve, but I’m okay for now.” He glances down at his hands.
I clear my throat. Stare at the ring of wet on the black tabletop. Sincerity always throws me.
“What about you?” he asks finally.
“What about me?” I croak, shrinking a little under his gaze. “I didn’t know there was going to be a speech portion.”
I wish he’d turn his eyes down a little.
“But what are you studying? New York’s incredible for creative people. What do you want to do once you’re all good and learned up?”
“Well…”
The truth is, I know all the socialist talking points, but if anyone threatened to pay me enough for a cute apartment and a forever sofa, I might happily be stuck on marketing calls all day for a company specializing in murdering honeybees.
“Well, I wasn’t done talking about you,” I demur. “The job suits you.”
“How’d you figure?”
“You’ve always been into details,” I say, wondering if he agrees. “Keenly observant.”
At least that’s how it felt. Back then. When four years really did feel like such a long time. I was still in grade school when he started high school. I somehow felt invisible and conspicuously ungainly at the same time. I had awful hair and awful skin. Chipmunk cheeks with an explosion of pimples sprinkling my chin.
This was before I knew how to be seen. How to hide, too.
chapter 21
It’s not that I had a crush on Patrick at the outset, just that I noticed and appreciated the way he moved through space. Unlike other boys at church who constantly horsed around with a basketball and lunged into you as part of the game, Patrick mostly read graphic novels. He had this smoldering intensity. Like, he had everything he needed right there, right then, all by himself with his book. He wasn’t like the guys at school, either, where the popular ones seemed to glitter with erratic menace. I couldn’t tell if Patrick was popular in his other life, his real life, his non-church life, during the week, but he seemed quietly confident. He would rarely look away when I caught his eye. If anything, he’d lean into it. I always looked away first. I wasn’t ever sure whether he was mocking me.
“You see quiet things,” I practically whisper.
“You do too,” he says. “At least you did then.”
“I’ve changed a lot though.” I finish my vodka, hoping to make it true.
“Yeah,” he says evenly. “I see that.”
“All right.” I show him my empty cup. “My round. What are you having?”
“No way, Baek Ji-young. Your money’s no good here. I’m older. I’ll always be older. It’s on me.”
“Ew.” I laugh. “I am not calling you oppa.”
“Ew,” he says back. “Then don’t.”
When he leaves, I check my phone. June hasn’t texted or called.
“I like your hair,” I tell him when he returns.
He runs his hands through it. “I mostly still wear a hat, but I thought I’d make the effort.”
I gather my hands so I don’t reach out and touch it. It’s killing me not to. It’s something I’ve been aching to do since he arrived. Since before, if I’m honest. Patrick hat watch was personal church tradition.
“This is going to sound psychotic,” he says, studying me again. “But you feel so familiar even though I barely know you.”
I untuck my hair from my ears so that it hides the side of my face closest to him. I feel exposed that he finds me unchanged even though he makes it sound like a good thing.
“I know what you mean,” I tell him, not knowing what he means at all.
At several points during the evening, I have to remind myself to listen and not just stare at his lips. In the booth across from us, there’s a revolving cast of characters, but I barely notice their comings and goings.
It occurs to me, too many drinks later, that I should have eaten dinner. I’m not good at drinking. I know I’m talking way too much and I’m desperate to pee.
“Okay then,” says Patrick. “Bathroom break. And you’re not talking too much.”
“Oh.” I laugh, rising to my feet. I hadn’t known I’d said it out loud.
We squeeze out of the booth. The floor underfoot feels spongy. And my left haunch tingles with pins and needles. I place my hand on his shoulder to steady myself. I know I’m closing my eyes longer than I should, but it feels exquisite. I’m exhausted.
“Whoa, okay,” he says, assessing me. “How are you doing?”
I focus on the central Patrick of the three in front of me, which pulse along to my heartbeat. “Seems wasted.” The sibilance of my words slide way longer than I’d intended them to.
He grins.
“Don’t make fun of me,” I plead.
“I would never,” he says, offering me his arm. “So, we’re going to deploy the buddy system on this, Baek Ji-young. We’re going to pee, optimally not together, and then we’re going to get you a coffee and possibly an entire loaf of bread and then pour you into a cab.”
“I haven’t eaten bread since eighth grade,” I tell him.