“No,” he said. The word came out firmer than he’d intended, but he didn’t regret it. He held her gaze and repeated himself. “No, Abigail. I’m not.”
Her throat moved as she swallowed. She studied him with those clever, clever eyes, and Will suddenly felt that he must be see-through.
But if see-through was what she wanted, he’d try his best to give it to her. He wished he could offer better, offer more, offer truer, but it turned out that throwing away all your fears at once was nausea-inducing and semi-impossible. So he met her halfway. “I’ve been flirting with you because I … like you, Abbie.”
Her expression blanked. Her eyes said shock. Her mouth said “You—what?”
Well, thank God he hadn’t confessed to loving her. Good call.
“I know that sounds ridiculous,” he rambled. “We’re in our thirties. But—” But this started when we were kids, he almost said, and thank God for his rarely used brain-to-mouth filter that kicked in and cut him off. Not yet. Not yet. “But I don’t know how else to put it,” he finished. “Talking to you is the best part of my day, even if we only do it through Instagram DMs. And talking to you in person, with words, it feels like … coming home.”
“That’s because we only ever talk when you’re at home,” she cut in sharply. Her expression was still unreadable, and her breaths were a little shallow, but at least she’d said something.
“Yes,” he agreed slowly, “but also because you make me happy. I can be myself around you, and I love it when you’re you, and I just want to make you smile, and also, like I said, you’re very beautiful and kind of incredibly hot. I could say more, but it might veer into unromantic territory.”
Silence. Then she repeated, the word so thin it was practically transparent, “Unromantic?”
“Yes. Because this, what I’m saying right now, is supposed to be romantic. That’s what I’m trying to do here. I don’t know if you want me to do that, but I kind of hoped you might consider it, and that’s what I’ve been trying to … to figure out, I guess. If you would be open to it. But clearly I wasn’t very good at it, because plans and subtlety and stuff isn’t really my thing. I guess my thing is flopping my feelings onto the table like an unasked-for penis, but trust me when I say I’m really trying to be restrained here, Abs, and, er, I know this is a lot, so … you don’t have to answer right now, or anything. I just … I don’t want to lie to you, Abbie. You asked me what’s happening. So. That’s what’s happening.”
For a moment, Will felt a thousand times better, getting all that off his chest. Then a few more seconds ticked by, and Abbie remained silent and obviously astonished, and Will remembered why he’d been aiming to reveal that stuff incrementally instead of all at once: Abbie didn’t really like emotions, or surprises, or surprising emotions.
He watched, his cheeks warm and his palms kind of sweaty, as she opened and closed her mouth a few times like a fish. Which wasn’t the greatest sign. Then she made things a thousand times worse by saying, “Will. What the fuck?”
And that, of course, was the exact moment Ms Tricia burst into the room.
Four
@DoURe1dMe: Hey, do you know where this quote’s from?
@AbbieGrl: “If I loved you less, maybe I could talk about it more?” That’s Emma.
@AbbieGrl: Why?
@DoURe1dMe: I don’t know. I might read it.
Abbie quietly panicked to death while Will sat in front of her with his ridiculous fucking shorts and his T-shirt that said PUSH IT REAL GOOD and his hopeful, hungry eyes.
He looked at her like he’d really meant what he said, not in a casual way but in a galaxies-lying-beneath-insufficient-words way. He looked at her like they were both characters from the novel they’d talked about last night. He looked at her like this was a fairy tale, like he’d rip away thorns with his bare hands and climb a lonely tower to get to her.
But none of that was actual fact; it was interpretation, and Abbie’s social interpretations were often skewed. She’d learned that in therapy. (Therapists were often rude as fuck; that was another thing she’d learned.)
She was supposed to put her thoughts on trial—it was one of the techniques she’d been taught—but right now, her mental judge and jury had Will’s confessions on trial instead. “I like you, Abbie,” he’d said. “You make me happy,” he’d said. Abbie’s head found those words guilty of reckless endangerment. They were cute but shallow when compared to what lived inside her. The butterflies were waking up again—he’d woken them up—and this time they were flapping hard enough to break free. Which couldn’t be allowed to happen, because then Will would find himself face-to-face with what should be secret, ancient monster butterflies, and he’d be understandably horrified, and she’d lose all claim to dignity.
“Will,” she said. “What the fuck?” Her body felt too tight, too brittle, swallowed up by a sudden storm of emotion. She usually kept these feelings wrapped up safe and hidden, but his words had them surging like a hurricane. The coil twisting in her belly, the heat racing across her skin, the way she craved his warmth like he was the antidote to life’s frost—
Stop. This was only a crush, that was all. It couldn’t be anything different. She’d told herself that for years, because the alternative was too depressing to contemplate and too huge to control.
Abbie needed control.
What she didn’t need was Will stirring up things he didn’t understand by flirting, by saying soft shit to her, by giving her chained-up urges enough hope to break loose. But before she could make that fact clear (or, alternatively, throw her hot chocolate in Will’s lap to distract him before climbing out of the window and running to Edinburgh), Grandma burst into the room.
Will and Abbie both jolted, their impossible bubble popped, their attention diverted—for now. “Gravy!” Grandma said from the doorway, still wearing her silk headscarf and frilled nightdress.
Will, of course, rose to his feet at once. “Is she having the babies?” He looked like a concerned husband being informed his wife’s water had broken. Abbie couldn’t even tell her heart off for squeezing. Calm would be a thousand times more difficult to maintain now that Will was running around claiming to like her.
Not that like meant anything. It might, if they were strangers, or if Abbie was ordinary. But she wasn’t ordinary. Abbie was the sort of person who, on hearing that an old friend had developed some belated attraction toward her, stepped into what should be the puddle of her responding affection to find that it was in fact a well, a hidden lagoon, a leagues-deep ocean. Abbie was a heart that beat too hard and usually ended up bruised.