“So, we go back to the city?” I ask. Hannah nods, her face set in a look of grim determination.
The ride back is quiet. The combination of the holiday, the late hour, and the snow means we have the highway to ourselves. I leave the radio on low, playing oldies Christmas songs. Around New Rochelle, Hannah says, “His parents probably think our relationship is on its last legs. First, I don’t show up for Christmas, and now I don’t even know where David is.”
“Who cares what they think,” I say.
“Come to find out, I think I do,” she says. It feels kinder not to point out that Hannah’s always cared more than she lets on. There’s a stretch of silence where we mull on that while “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” changes over to “Let it Snow.”
“What do I do if it’s too late?” she asks.
“We could do the Golden Girls thing and the four of us could move to a house in Miami and eat a lot of cheesecake and talk shit about our exes,” I suggest.
“Doesn’t sound like the worst plan,” Theo says. He’d been dozing against the passenger window. I didn’t realize he was listening.
It’s almost two thirty in the morning when we pull up to Hannah and David’s building. All but two windows in the mid-rise building are dark. “We’ll stay close,” I say. “And I’ll find a phone charger. Call or text to let us know everything is alright. We can come back and get you if you need us.” I press a kiss to her temple. “I’m proud of you,” I whisper into her hair.
We park in an overpriced garage—$60 for up to two hours plus a $15 oversized vehicle fee—and leave the most ostentatious parts of our costumes in the truck. I scrubbed the last of my eye makeup off in the hospital bathroom with hand soap and paper towels. We look wrinkled and rumpled, but almost normal if you don’t happen to notice Theo is wearing gold lamé breeches instead of pants. I feel like I’ve lived a whole week in the eighteen hours since I woke up yesterday morning.
The only thing open this time of night is a twenty-four-hour deli on Greenwich Street.
“What are you getting?” I ask Theo as we survey the giant menu board behind the counter.
“Just coffee.”
“Can I get a patty melt?” I ask the young man behind the counter. He’s probably in college, and I wonder if he’s here because he’s another Christmas orphan or maybe because the holiday overtime is too good to pass up. I hope it’s the latter.
I catch Theo giving me the side-eye for my order. “What?” I ask. “We didn’t eat dinner, aren’t you starving?”
“Too nervous to eat.”
We tuck ourselves into a scratched wooden table in the window.
“You don’t think he’ll forgive her?” I assumed Hannah and David were having make up sex in the front hallway by now. He’ll be glad she finally came to her senses.
“I don’t know.” Theo takes a contemplative sip from his paper coffee cup. “But I think she’s brave.”
“For telling her boyfriend she’s been a stubborn idiot the last month? I think stubborn is Hannah’s resting state. I don’t know if I’d call that bravery.”
“No, I mean for putting herself out there for love. Being willing to go outside her comfort zone. That’s vulnerable and I think it’s brave.”
I wonder, not for the first time, if we’re still talking about Hannah, or if maybe we’ve veered into talking about us. I’ve always wondered if Theo knew how I felt; knew that my fight with Hannah wasn’t just about Jeremy. His words feel like a challenge: if I were brave, I would tell him. We stare at each other, the sound of the burger patty sizzling on the grill fills our silence.
Fuck it. I’m done being a coward. I’m done feeling less than. I’m exhausted and light-headed with hunger, and in my half-delirious state, it doesn’t seem like such a bad idea to tell him. A Hail Mary pass before I leave New York.
“In that case,” I begin, “I have something to tell you.”
His green eyes lock onto mine and my stomach drops like we’re hovering at the top of a rollercoaster.
“I have feelings for you. Romantic feelings, not friendly feelings. I’ve always had those feelings for you, and I wanted you to know that.” I keep it short, not giving myself time to back out. Better to rip the Band-Aid.
He blinks at me. His face is blank. My skin feels translucent under the harsh fluorescent lights, and I wonder if he can see through my shirt and straight through my chest, all the way down to my frantically beating heart.
“Is this a good idea?” he asks.
The lone spark of hope I’ve been tending all these years gloms onto the fact that I have not been summarily rejected and flickers a little brighter. “Of course it’s not a good idea. For a whole host of different reasons.” I tick them off on my fingers. “I’m leaving, and we’re friends, and we might make a mess of it. It’s a terrible idea.” He looks like a bobblehead figurine, avidly agreeing with my reasoning. “But I love you and sometimes love is messy and inconvenient.”
“I love you, too . . . ,” he says. His tone makes it clear his declaration of love ends with a comma, not a period, and I brace myself for the but. It will crush me if the rest of that sentence is but only as a friend, and I might slap him if it’s but I’m not in love with you.
But apparently no further sentence is forthcoming. He stalls out there. I want to grab the collar of his shirt and shake the rest of the sentence out of him. Not knowing how it ends is too much to bear.
I’m not willing to back away from the brink this time. I’ve come this far. “I haven’t heard you say you don’t have feelings for me. So do you?”
The moment has an electric charge to it. “I think this is a bad idea,” Theo reiterates.
“You already said that. So, do you? Do you have feelings for me as more than a friend? Because if you do, I think we should explore this.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spy the kid behind the counter gawking at us. When he sees me look his way, he jerks his head down and busies himself assembling my sandwich, which I have no appetite for anymore.
“You’re leaving, so what does it even matter?”
“I’m not leaving you, I’m just going to LA. You could come with me. Or you could visit.”
He makes a dismissive sound.
“You don’t have a job. Your father owns a goddamn airline. This is a minor inconvenience, at most. This is not a dealbreaker and I won’t pretend otherwise. Tell me, do you or do you not have feelings for me?” I’m playing a dangerous game. I will get my answer tonight.
“I . . .” The word hangs in the air between us for an unbearably long time before Theo takes a breath and finishes, “I don’t.”
He reaches for my hand on the table between us, and I whip it away like I’ve been burned.
“Oh,” I say.
He wasn’t scared to admit he had feelings for me. He was trying not to hurt mine by telling me he didn’t. Bile rises in the back of my throat while tears prickle behind my eyes. I feel like a leaky water balloon threatening to burst.