* * *
——
In romance books there’s always a chase scene. It happens near the end, when one person realizes they’ve made a colossal mistake and then has to go through a series of obstacles to get back to the other person.
My chase scene starts just outside the hotel, where there is a line of cabs waiting. It’s only after I get into one that I realize I don’t know X’s address. I text Fifi. Miraculously, she’s not teaching a class. She texts me Archibald and Maggie’s address right away. She can’t resist adding:
don’t know what took you so long
boy is too sexy to let go of
good luck
Traffic getting back to LA is awful because…because traffic in LA is always awful. It takes us forty-five minutes to get to midcity. The cabdriver turns onto Wilshire. Unbelievably, traffic is even worse. It’d be faster for me to ride my bike. I tell the driver to turn onto Curson and take me to my apartment instead. I run inside and grab my bike lock key. I don’t stop to change my clothes. I can bike in a dress. By the time I realize I’m still wearing my heels, I don’t have the patience to go back. All I can think of is getting to X as soon as possible. There are so many things to say to him and not enough time to say them. I don’t want to miss another second of being with him.
I hear the old woman’s voice in my head, telling me that the power would leave me when I was ready. And I feel the moment when it does go away. Weirdly, it’s like adjusting the focus on a set of binoculars. The power leaves me, and the world is somehow clearer than it was before.
Maggie answers the door when I get to her house. She looks like she was expecting me and gives me a hug. “You look very nice, dear,” she says, before telling me that X is playing guitar in the living room.
The very short walk from her door to the living room is the longest I’ve ever taken.
I don’t know exactly when or how X is going to die. I don’t know how I’m going to survive the crater he’ll leave inside me.
The only thing I know for sure is that I can’t live with knowing I could’ve had more time with him and I didn’t take it. It doesn’t matter that love ends. It just matters that there’s love.
X stops playing as soon as I’m in the doorway, as if he can sense me there.
“It’s my dad’s wedding today,” I say.
He stares down at his feet. “When?”
“Right now. I mean, it happened already.”
“Did you go?”
“I did. It was nice. The reception is happening right now.”
He looks over at me. His eyes are sad and wary, but at least they’re on me. “Why are you here, Evie?”
“I need a dance partner.”
“You came all the way over here in the middle of your dad’s wedding to ask me to dance with you?”
“Yes.” I leave the doorway and sit next to him on the sofa.
He hugs his guitar tighter and shifts slightly away from me. “I don’t know, Evie. You messed me up pretty bad.”
God, I’ve wasted so much time already.
“I know,” I say. I reach out and rest my hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t flinch, so I keep going. “I’m sorry. I was scared.”
“Of what?” he asks.
“Of losing you.”
He hangs his head down, not looking at me. “You don’t make sense. You’re scared of losing me, so you dump me?”
“It seemed safer.”
“You were never going to lose me,” he says, frustrated. “I tried to tell you.”
I stand up and pace a little, trying to find the right words. “I’m screwing this up. What I’m saying is I finally figured out that endings don’t matter nearly as much as I thought they did.”
“What matters, then?”
I sit back down. “Beginnings are nice, but the best part is right now, in the wide-open middle. I made fun of you, but you were right this whole time. I should live in the moment and all that other stuff.”
He lifts his head and turns to face me.
Now I know the right words to say. “You’re the love of my life, Xavier Darius Woods. I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.”
His smile starts off small just at the corners of his mouth before spreading to take over his entire face. “I’m the love of your life?” he asks.
“You are. It’s terrifying, frankly.”
He laughs at that and then bumps his shoulder into mine. “You’re the love of mine too, you know.”