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“Here I am, trying to help you out in a difficult situation, and you repay me by being surprised that I can read.”
While he’d been drowning in her, busy unspooling the filthiest of thoughts, she must have been at work, because there were ten digits written on his palm—just enough for a phone number. And underneath, three letters that knocked the breath out of his chest. Rue.
My first impression of him was probably highly similar to others’ first impressions of me—with the caveat that serious, unsmiling men tended to be considered consummate professionals, while serious, unsmiling women were often written off as haughty shrews. Oh well.
“I’m sorry.” His Adam’s apple moved. “I forget to look at other things, when you’re around.”
we were two engineers in a professional setting—surely we could pass the Bechdel test.
“A fair bit. We’re not Nolan Sawyer level, or anything—” “Mallory Greenleaf level, you mean?”
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
It’s because with you I never have to worry about being too odd, too unlikable, too out of tune. You never make me feel anything other than just right.
He’d put her at the center of his universe, and feel on top of the world when she eventually returned the favor.
Eyes on him, I went to stand next to a pair of beat-up sneakers and waited for him to notice me. Less than five minutes later he glided to me—breath labored, grin wide. It was a punch in the stomach, how happy he was to see me. How happy I was to see him.
He could spend the next few years learning the nooks and crannies of her moods, studying her temperament, cataloging her disposition in all its little idiosyncrasies, and once he’d accrued an adequate body of research, it would be his mission and his pleasure: make Rue Siebert happy.
He stared at me for an endless moment, and a silly thought nestled into my mind. If I were able to love someone, I would choose you. In that timeline, I would want it to be you.
Call me if you need me. And then, right below, scribbled more hastily, as though he’d decided to add something when he was already halfway out of the door: Call me even if you don’t.
So this was falling for someone. A ruthless expansion of the senses. The meticulous, unintentional cataloging of a person’s head tilt, the shape their hand made around a wineglass, the little tells in their gaze.
He looked at me like nothing I could have said would surprise him. Like he knew not just the contours, but also the shaded, buried parts of me.
“Out of all the people I’ve met, the things I’ve wanted, the places I’ve been, none has ever felt as necessary as you do. Because I love you. I love you in a way I didn’t think I was capable of. I love you because you showed me how to fall in love. And I don’t regret it, Rue. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Even if you can never say it back. Even if you never think about me again after today. Even if you were right after all, and you’re not capable of love.”
Her jaw worked. “Is that a no on that second chance?” “God, you’re so fucking…” He shook his head, and then caged hers between his hands, leaning closer. Breathing in her scent. “I love you, Rue. You are the only chance there is.” Her eyes shone bright. “Yeah?” “Yeah.” He felt a bone-deep, chest-warming amount of joy—like
He pulled back, and it was her turn to press a soft kiss against his thumb, even if her eyes were serious as she warned, “I’ll never be easy to be around, Eli.” He knew that. He loved that. He wanted nothing more than to learn every inch of her, his complicated, mercurial dream girl. He leaned in for a kiss. But before, he said, “I can imagine worse fates.”
I ran my hand through his hair, glanced at the trees, smelled the earth, and said, “I was so wrong.” “About what?” he asked against my shirt. It meant that he probably couldn’t see my smile, and wasn’t that too bad? “About whether my story could ever be happy.”
