The Seat Filler

by Sariah Wilson

because Noah was dating the Bride of the Mummy, and he would obviously never be interested in someone like me. I was the girl picked last for sports teams. The one who didn’t get asked to the prom. I was always on the outside looking in.

Okay, universe, I said. If he likes me, he will come back to the van. If I have to go to him, he doesn’t. It was childish, but now that I’d set up an imaginary test, we’d just see what happened next.

“Having worked with so many doors in my profession, I can tell you this—that’s the thing about doors. Once you close them, they’re designed to be opened again.”

I took the candy bar carefully and just held it in my lap, staring at it. It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me.

Because I’ve been there, done that, and given the way he is staring at you right now, you are in very deep trouble.”

I didn’t know if that made me a hypocrite, keeping my secrets to myself while being way too enthusiastic about him spilling his.

You might have philemaphobia. A fear of kissing. My agent wants me to do a romantic comedy, and she sent me this script that’s about what you’re describing.”

“You’re supposed to think of five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, one thing you can taste.

Because you know, deep down, that you would never be enough for him. You don’t measure up,

I am not going to make fun of your kissing or tease you about how you do it, and I’ll never judge you. I won’t do anything that you haven’t asked me to do. You’re the director here—what you say goes.

Mostly because I’d never let myself dare to dream that it was possible that I could ever be in a relationship. But I wanted to be.

But then I realized that it wasn’t an age gap but an experience gap, with all the things he had seen and been through.

“I checked it. The engine is still there.”

A few nights he read out loud to me, and he was like the world’s best audiobook, because in addition to dramatizing the voices, he couldn’t help but make faces while he was reading—a wry smile, a raised eyebrow, a frown. I loved how expressive he was.

I’d spent so much time ignoring the voices in my head that discouraged and disheartened me that I wasn’t sure what to do with one that told me there might be something more here.

I could do it for him. I could find a way to cope with all of this craziness, if that’s what it took.

He was. Not just physically, but emotionally, too. He’d always been someone I could rely on and trust.

realized no matter how much things might change between me and Shelby, no matter what challenges and obstacles we were going to face, we would still get through them all together. Adding new people to love along the way. In this case, a very tiny person. And one oversize one. The person who made sure I was here for this, who did whatever he had to do to get me to my best friend because he knew how important it was to me.