“He’s brilliant,” Ricky agreed. “And it makes sense, right? After that, I figured that loving someone, the proper way, I mean, was about discipline. Being disciplined enough to keep choosing the same person you chose fifty years ago, over and over again, year after year, rain or shine.” His voice cracked on the last words, and he cleared his throat. “And I thought I could do that. It seemed straightforward enough. And then one day . . . this crying girl comes stumbling into my favorite garden and all of a sudden it’s a wrap.”
Ricky reached for me then, brushing his knuckles against my cheek. It was as though once he’d gotten permission to touch me, he couldn’t stop, like his affection was bubbling up inside him and needed to be released in small gestures.
“What are you saying?” I asked. “That I’m some sort of temptress?”
Ricky chuckled, shaking his head.
“Your eyes have set man’s heart ablaze,” he recited quietly. “And you have had your will of him.”* He paused. “James Joyce.”
I rolled my eyes and bit back a smile.
“You artsy boys are so disgusting,” I said, but I leaned in close to kiss him anyway, marveling at the fact that kissing Ricky was something I could just do now.
“I really like you,” Ricky said in response, and I warmed under those words, letting their meaning permeate. Ricky had seen the full, unfiltered range of what I was, and he liked me. Just as I was. Angie Appiah, with no edits.
“I really like you too,” I said softly. We giggled together, giddy as teenagers. But unlike my teen years, there was zero chance of my momma busting down the door to interrupt.* Nothing stopping me from letting the mouth that was hovering just above mine trail lower, of slipping my hands beneath his thin white tee to learn what he felt like underneath. No one standing in the way of me pulling Ricky’s body back over mine and seeing exactly where the night took us.
But I didn’t do any of that. One year until I apply to residency, I thought. One and a half until Match. Until I get sent to train somewhere across the country, and you decide to hop on a different horse.
“You’re thinking so hard right now,” Ricky said, squeezing my hand. “Everything okay?”
I smiled indulgently at him, watching the candlelight flicker across his face. I felt like we’d slammed down on a timer until heartbreak. And now, I was in too deep to come out unscathed.
“Nothing,” I said, rolling closer to him, resting my forehead against his. “Just that I’m . . . relieved. I wasn’t sure that you felt the same way.”
Ricky hummed in affirmation, and then he kissed me again, so slow and deep that I almost felt at peace. When he pulled away, his eyes were bright.
“Me too.”
Eighteen
Tabatha crossed her arms petulantly across her chest. When she was a kid, that same stance had signaled an impending tantrum, each one more explosive than the last. Even Momma used to take cover, until the year Grandma came to live with us and introduced her to corporal punishment.* Still, sixteen years later, I knew that that pose meant trouble.
“Why must you always choose the hardest thing?” Tabatha said.
We sat in a ripped-up booth in Robust Coffee Lounge, Tabatha’s favorite Southside coffee shop, sharing a plate of banana French toast between us. I looked up from my mournfully empty coffee mug, my finger tracing the rim in slow, slippery circles. Tabatha looked especially gorgeous in an off-the-shoulder floral shirt that showed off the slope of her back, and I’d watched about four guys begin to approach her before jumping back at the sight of the glittering rock on her finger.
“What do you mean?” I said, mirroring her pose. “I’m seeing someone, and he makes me happy. Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting for me this entire time?”
“Of course it is,” Tabatha said. “But I also want you to be careful. Like . . . sis. He’s not your boyfriend, right? Y’all are just”—she waved her hands dismissively—“going with the flow or something?”
“We haven’t talked about it,” I said, puffing one cheek out. “Why? Suddenly I can’t just enjoy myself?”
“I mean, yeah you could, if you weren’t clearly in love with this dude,” Tabatha said, scoffing.
I bit the inside of my cheek. I don’t know about love, I wanted to say, but I couldn’t deny that my feelings for Ricky were more intense than anything I’d felt for anyone before him. I hated how reckless he made me, how I couldn’t seem to think of us together without letting my mind shuttle heedlessly into the future. And Ricky wasn’t helping. In the forty-eight hours or so since we’d stepped boldly out of the friend zone, he’d been doing his best to plant seeds about the possibility of a long-term us into my head. He talked about attending music festivals that were a year away, posited taking a trip to Puerto Rico in February to escape the worst of winter. Yesterday, he’d even entertained the possibility of me stopping by for an impromptu dinner with his grandparents, a proposition I dodged by insisting that I would be working late.