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“Just say it.”
“Say what?”
“That I don’t tell my family about my job because I’m unable to let people know that I’m more than the sum of the ways I can be useful to them. That if I show my true self, with my needs and my wants, I risk being rejected. That I’ve wielded my ability to hide whoI am like an emotional antiseptic, and in the process I’ve turned myself into a puppet. Or a watermelon with googly eyes.”
He maneuvers the car past the glow of the streetlights, and as the seconds pass in silence, I grow afraid that I’ve said too much, showed too much, beenmetoo much. But then:
“Well.” His smile is fond. Tender. “My job here is done.”
I close my eyes, letting my forehead slide against the window—hot skin and cold glass. “I know how messed up I am.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I just... I don’t know how to stop.”
“Then maybe my job is not done. And you should stick around.” I turn to check whether his expression matches his tone—a mix of teasing, sweet, amused, hopeful, other things I can never understand.
Then I notice where we are. “This is your apartment.”
“Yup.” He parks. No, hereverseparks. Without sweating or crying or a litany offuck shit fuck. I hate him.
“Did you forget something?”
“Nope.”
“Then why—?”
“I figured we’d take it easy tonight. Relax.”
“What about your friends?”
“They can entertain themselves.”
“But they’re waiting for us.”
“Nah. I texted them.”
“When?”
“While you were comparing your brothers’ relationship to a nonpolar covalent bond.”
“I... Why?”
“Because you’re obviously upset. And probably had a long weekat work. And you had more-or-less nonconsensual lunches with two people whom I know to be giant pains in the ass. I think it’s better if we stay in.” He kills the engine. “Just us.”
“But...” I look up at his building. Unlike mine, it doesn’t look like it’s twenty minutes from being condemned and thirty-five minutes from burning down due to exposed circuitry. “What are we even going to do?”
I hear the smile in his words. “I have a couple of ideas.”
•••
“So,Breaking Dawn’s the first one.”
“What? No.Twilightis the first one. Otherwise it’d be the Breaking Dawn Saga.”
“Right. Need a blanket?”
The lights are low, but Jack tracks my movements as I shake my head and fold my legs underneath me. The hot chocolate he made sits on the coffee table, right next to his Heineken, and I think I saw him raise the thermostat when we first came in, after he noticed me shivering in the chilly hallway. I’m overdressed, over-made-up, overcurled for a night on the couch. I don’t care, though.
