I suddenly understood what it felt like to have family come see you at work, like a wife and kids. I’d never had that jolt of happiness at seeing someone I cared about when I wasn’t expecting it. I wanted to hold Grace while I walked Vanessa around to show her my desk. Introduce her to Marcus. Revive Becky and formally introduce her too.
“What are we eating?” I asked, looking up at Vanessa.
She was watching me holding Grace. I couldn’t make out her expression, but there was something distant about it.
I nodded over to the table. “Come sit with me.” I moved some files with my free hand and cleared a spot for her.
“I got us Thai food,” she said, setting down the bag she’d brought. “Oh, and before I forget to tell you, I can’t hang out on Monday. I just found out.” She looked at me and put her bottom lip into a pout.
I felt my face fall. “Why not?”
“A work thing came up,” she said, reaching into the bag and pulling out to-go containers.
I had to force down my disappointment. That was two nights that I wasn’t seeing her.
“Do you want me to watch Grace?” I asked, hoping she couldn’t hear the letdown in my tone.
She opened a container of fried rice and scooped it onto a plate. “You don’t have to. I was going to ask Yoga Lady.”
“I can do it,” I said, putting Grace down in her stroller and taking the chair next to Vanessa’s.
She shrugged. “All right. If you want to. I didn’t want to assume.” She finished serving my food and slid it over to me.
I looked at her while she was making her own plate. She wasn’t paying attention.
She’d dyed the ends of her hair last week for a video. They were blue and purple to match her sweater. It looked exotic. She had a little dimple on her cheek that came out when she smiled. Soft freckles along the bridge of her nose, long lashes.
Beautiful.
I felt that thing happening, that urge to keep looking at her for longer than was appropriate. It was something that I’d been dealing with almost constantly for the last week or so.
I felt like a teenage boy panting over some girl in my gym class. I wanted to touch her. All the time. When she sat next to me on the couch, I wanted to put an arm around her. I wanted to hold her hand at the grocery store, pull her onto my lap when she’d come see what I was working on at my desk at home. It was ridiculous how strong the impulse was.
I knew I was probably just projecting my own shit onto this situation, but the space between us always felt unnatural. Like we were both pretending that we wanted it there and it was an effort for both of us to maintain it.
Vanessa made videos about me. I didn’t watch them—I didn’t have time to. And Becky regaled me with the dramatic recap every time one posted anyway. Mostly Vanessa talking about what we did that day and gushing about how attractive I was—not that any of this mattered. Besides being flattering, it didn’t change anything. We were still just friends and that’s how it was going to stay for the foreseeable future.
I forced my eyes away from her and back to my food.
“So what am I supposed to wear on Sunday?” she asked, picking up her soda.
I was taking her out for her birthday. I had something pretty big planned.
She bit the end of her straw while she waited for my reply.
“Just wear something nice. Maybe the gray sweater dress,” I suggested, taking a bite of my noodles. I liked that dress on her.
I liked everything on her.
“Thanks for taking me out. I’d probably just be sitting at home if you didn’t.”
I found that very hard to believe. “What about your other friends? There’s nobody else who would have done anything?”
She shrugged. “Nobody local. I’ve got plenty of friends. It’s only exes I’m short on. I’m so single I don’t even have someone to drunk text,” she mumbled.
I smiled. “You can drunk text me.”
She snorted. “Good. It’s only a matter of time. Nice to have permission. I hope you like typos and crying emojis.”
I laughed.
“You know, you could have a boyfriend if you wanted one,” I said. “I still don’t understand why you don’t date.”
She scoffed. “Nobody wants to get involved with my kind of baggage. Trust me.”
“Your baggage is not as bad as you think it is,” I said, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “Any man would be lucky to have you.”
I’d have you…
She pointed her fork at me. “See, that’s exactly the kind of stuff people say to make you feel good, but isn’t it funny how the people who insist you’re a catch are never the ones who actually want to date you?”
There was something clipped about her tone.
She looked away from me and brushed her hair off her forehead in that way she did when she was frustrated.
I stared at the side of her face. “What’s wrong?” I asked.
She wouldn’t look at me.
I studied her. Her chin did the slightest quiver. I swiveled my chair until our knees touched, and I put a hand on her arm. “Hey, look at me.”
The second her eyes met mine, she burst into tears.
I leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. “What happened?” I smoothed her hair down. “Hey, shhhhhhh. Tell me.”
She just cried. Vanessa never cried—even in situations when she should.
A helplessness tore through me, an instant impulse to fix whatever was wrong.
“Vanessa, what is it?”
Tell me so I can make it better.
She shook her head. “Sometimes I feel like I’m spinning. Like I’m in a tornado and I can’t ever stop moving and the only time I feel still is when I’m with you.”
The comment took me so by surprise I didn’t know what to say.
She let me hold her for another moment. Then she pulled away, sniffed, and brushed at the tears on her cheeks. “Hey, let’s read our fortune cookies. If you say, ‘while in bed’ and then read it, it’s always funny.” She forced a smile at me.
Like a projector changing reels, one scene to the next in a split second.
I shook my head. “Don’t do that.”
Her forced grin got bigger, and she smiled at me with tears still in her eyes. “Do what?”
“That. That thing you do where you pretend to be happy. You change the subject and go do something distracting. It’s okay to be upset sometimes. You don’t have to fake it with me.”
She looked at me and she was suddenly so sad again I almost hated that I called her out on it.
“Adrian, if I don’t laugh, I’ll spend the rest of my life crying,” she whispered.
My eyes moved back and forth between hers. I reached out and gathered up her hands. Our knees were still touching. I could feel energy transferring between us like I was absorbing her sadness, making her calm down. I wanted to absorb it. I’d take all of it if it meant taking it from her. “What’s wrong?”
She looked at me for a long moment like she was debating whether to continue. “Adrian, I’m worried my hand isn’t just carpal tunnel.”
I drew my brows down. “What do you think it is?”
She pulled her face back and looked at me, tears in her eyes. “What do you think I think it is?”