Unlikely Story

by Ali Rosen

Psychologically, I’m very confused . . . But personally, I don’t feel bad at all. —The Shop Around the Corner

She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid And so did she. They searched for blue Their whole life through, Then passed right by And never knew. —Shel Silverstein

“I was so embarrassed that you knew all my inner thoughts. It was like having your crush find your diary. Every insecurity, every fear . . . all the pieces I don’t show anyone. I’d somehow already shown them to you. Only to you.”

“And all the while I’d been also wondering how this person I was writing to had unexpectedly become my best friend—this therapist, who I also spent a lot of time wondering about. The first person other than Nan I’d felt comfortable sharing pretty much everything with. And suddenly, what seemed like a total impossibility almost felt like an inevitability. I wasn’t opening up to you in person because writing had made me more open; it was because you were you. You were always the person I wanted to talk to. So once I’d sort of mentally processed it, the first feeling was relief. But then the fear came back, because I remembered everything I’d said before, and . . .” His forehead wrinkles as he’s lost in thought. “I guess I’m mostly wondering what you were going to say before I ruined everything by bolting on Monday?” he says finally. And I laugh, because of all the things he could be wondering, that’s absolutely the easiest. “I was going to tell you about how a few months ago I told my therapist that I might be going insane because I was in love with someone I hadn’t even met.”

He traces my jaw and whispers, “I love every version of you,” as though he can hear my thoughts from yesterday.

“I have one question, just to make sure I’ve got this whole thing straight . . . ,” he says eventually, and I roll over so I can look into his eyes. His hand lazily twirls a piece of my hair around his finger, and the whole scene feels like a perfection I couldn’t have imagined even a day ago. “I told you to never surrender to your neighbor . . . who was me.” I burst out a laugh, and his eyes watch the movement, his mouth curving to one side in amusement at my reaction. “Oh my god,” I finally say when I can breathe again. “Yeah, actually. You did.” “Karma really always gets you in the end, apparently,” he chuckles. “Couldn’t just be a smug bastard, I also had to be committing the worst own goal of all time.” “It worked out okay,” I say, reaching out to touch his chest, somehow needing to not let go of whatever is tactile between us.

“Whatever it is, we’ll make it work,” I say calmly, taking his hand in mind, tangling us together. “You’ll be here for however long you need, and I’ll be in New York, and we’ll talk and it’ll be fine.” “That’s it?” he says skeptically. “You’re just fine with someone far away and distracted and probably stressed out? You don’t think that’s overly optimistic?” I kiss the tip of his nose. “You love every version of me, yeah?” I ask, and I love seeing the way he blushes all the way from his cheeks to his chest. I love getting this vantage point. “Yeah,” he says softly. “Okay, well I feel the same way. I loved you when I only got to talk to you once a week in different time zones through a work document. I think we can make London to New York work with texting, video calls, and regular phone calls. We’ll talk it through, and we’ll make it work.”

And Eli is here. Eli’s adorably, haphazardly wearing one of my aprons, folded so it’s just around his waist, and he’s cleaning up what looks like the remnants of a dough. A rack with scones is sitting to the side, cooling. He barely has time for his crooked smile to form before I’m barreling into him, flinging myself fully around him, arms around his neck and legs around his waist, and he quickly grabs hold tight, not giving any signs of letting go. I kiss him like he’s a mirage in a desert. He tastes like coffee and scones and smells like my shampoo.

But if there was ever a metaphor for letting people in, of course Eli would’ve been the wordsmith to inadvertently come up with the perfect one: we’re actually moving ahead with his duplex plan. What started as his favorite joke—about playing telephone between our apartments or adding in a fireman’s pole—soon became an idea he was casually looking into. It started with a few articles about apartment combinations (“Hey, Nora, look at the photos of what these people did! That spiral staircase really doesn’t reduce the square footage almost at all!”), and eventually ended with a dinner party where a friend who was an architect pulled out a measuring tape. When I asked him if he was serious, he looked at me with shining eyes and said, “Only if you really want me to be.” And in that moment, I knew I truly did. I’ve spent my whole life bending to fit other people, making myself smaller when someone needs me to be, or picking up their slack when they don’t want to carry it anymore. And I like being reliable. I like being a steady hand for people who live their lives a little wilder. But I want to be an equal. I want to build a spiral staircase between two identical apartments and let combining two lives double our capacity—neither person taking any more or accepting any less. Our life isn’t perfect—I can’t control my parents, I can’t make my brother step up more, and I can’t solve everything for my clients the way I would like. Eli’s mom’s health is still a concern, and he and hi...