But I’ve done the work. And in the quiet space between the tangled thoughts and my hammering heart, there’s a breath.
“Matt,” I say, before I can change my mind. My voice cracks with nerves. He looks at me, surprised. “Would you—I don’t know, want to get a coffee sometime?”
He stops walking. “Coffee?” he repeats.
I’m not breathing. I know that, but I still can’t force myself to take a slow inhale like I’ve been practicing. I brace myself for the rejection. “Yeah,” I say, words starting to come out faster now. “I’ve missed you, to be honest, and I’d like to spend time with you again, but—yeah, God, I understand if you don’t want to.”
He watches me, his mouth open in a small O, not saying a word.
I look away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No,” he says quickly. “I mean—shit, I mean yes. I want to.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I just moved here for the next few months and don’t know anyone and it’d be nice to catch up and…I’m rambling.”
I meet his eye. Relief spreads through me, but even then my shoulders tense, waiting for Matt to laugh in my face. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he says, nodding. “I mean—it doesn’t have to be as…”
“Right. It doesn’t have to be a date.”
“No. But I’d like to keep talking.”
“Same,” I say. All the fear of the moment begins to fade. I hesitate. “I have to tell you, though, that I’m still working on myself.”
“I know.”
“I might have to communicate a lot, you know? It could get weird sometimes. But I have to say when I’m feeling anxious and scared and when I need to pull back.”
“I’d like you to do that. As long as you don’t start to push me away.” He seems to have a hard time looking at me.
“I won’t. I might have a hard time unraveling my emotions. There’re—well, there are still a lot of emotions to unpack.”
He frowns. “Really?”
“Yeah. I was in love with you. It isn’t easy to forget those feelings.”
“You were in love with me?” he says, like he doesn’t believe me.
“Yeah. Yes. I loved you, Matt.” I still might. I’m not sure. I think about him all the time—him and the way he treated me with so much love and compassion, the days we had together on and off set, lying in bed together. I loved him then, and seeing him in front of me now, familiar emotions settle in my chest again.
“You never told me that,” Matt says. “I told you that I loved you, but you never said the words back.”
Fuck. Another way I hurt him, and I didn’t even realize it. I remember him saying that he loved me, and in those moments thinking that I didn’t believe him. I was unable to say that I loved him, too. I was so afraid then.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have. Because I did. I loved you.”
Matt looks upset. He clenches his jaw, eyes wet. He’s allowed to be angry at me. I can’t help that.
I wait for him to speak.
“I’m not even sure I really knew you,” he eventually says. “Maybe you didn’t know me, either. We only knew the versions we shared with the world. Our personas, our roles. I began to love you when I started to see the truth you hid from everyone else. I don’t know.” He meets my eye. “I’d like to get to know you. The real you, Logan.”
In that moment, I think he might be saying something else. Maybe that he wants to fall in love with me again. “Yeah,” I tell him. “Me, too.”
Mattie
Though most of my time is taken with the play over the next few weeks, and a significant amount is spent on myself—resting, reading, listening to podcasts, breathing—I want to spend time with Logan also. I don’t want to jump right back into what we had before. That isn’t my intention at all. I even tell myself, at first, that maybe we should meet only as friends. But just as Logan had to admit he has emotions to unpack, I realize that closure was the end of one story with Logan, and that now, a new story is beginning—and I think that might be okay, too.
A few coffee meetups and friendly lunch dates turn into dinners and long walks on the weekends. We’re firm in keeping this platonic for now—at least, that’s what we tell ourselves. Slow, steady, nice and easy—Logan, taking the time he needs to make sure he feels safe. Me, making sure I’m focusing on myself. It’d be too easy to fall back into old patterns. I think that’s what scares both of us.
That’s what scares me, anyway, when Logan invites me over to his apartment. He must understand what my silence on the phone means. He’s been so intentional, communicating and reaching out more than he ever had before.
“I’ve been practicing recipes,” he says, “and I wanted to try to cook for someone.” He pauses. “Well, not for someone. For you, specifically.”
I remember when we were both unable to make much more than spaghetti at his family’s cabin. That’s another issue that I struggle with: the constant nostalgia. The happy memories. We weren’t always so bad together, were we?
“I would love that.”
I get lost on the train a few times—it’s still taking me a while to get used to the rush of NYC. It’s almost laughable that I thought LA was fast-paced. I get turned around before I find his apartment. The complex looks a lot more ordinary and run-down than I was expecting, but maybe after a few years in LA, I’ve become more of a snob than I thought. I press his apartment number on a keypad, and he buzzes me in. Before I’ve walked up to the second floor, Logan already has the door open, waiting against the threshold.
“Hey,” he says, ducking his head. I feel his waves of discomfort. It reminds me of when he would open himself up to me, only to push me away by the end of the night. He clenches his jaw, takes a breath, and meets my eye with a shy smile.
I feel guilty, that I want to kiss him. I feel like I should have his permission to want something like that. I bite my lip. “Hey.”
He steps aside and lets me into his apartment. It’s him, so much more than the stark loft in LA. It looks like he might have found some of his worn furniture with faded paint on the street, and the abstract paintings with splashes of color seem random, but they show sparks of his personality. The living room is cramped, the white kitchen even smaller. Logan’s already started cooking.
“Do you need any help?”
“No, no,” he says, waving me away. He’s already cleared a spot on his sofa for me. “Sit down. Relax. Do you want to watch something?” He searches for his TV’s remote. “I barely turn this thing on. I don’t know where—”
“Logan. Logan,” I say. He stops his frantic, nervous search, embarrassed. “It’s okay. I’m fine. I’d love to talk to you while you cook, if that’s okay?” He hesitates. “Unless you need to focus…”
“No,” he says. “I mean—yes, yeah, I’d love that.”
I want to laugh. We’re like awkward teenagers, more than we ever were when we first started to fall in love. He asks how things have been going with the play, and I describe the long days and the fear that there is no cut or additional takes.