I want Ren so badly. I want him as much as I want to run away from him as fast as I can. Because I haven’t wanted to let someone in, in a long, long time. It’s terrifying as ever. And it hurts even worse, now that I know rejection is coming before I even asked for a chance.
“Frankie.” The plea in his voice draws my gaze. I couldn’t look away if I wanted to.
“After I say what I’m about to, I want to hear your honest feelings on it but…not now, if that’s all right. I was hoping you’ll give it a bit of time to sink in first.”
I wrinkle my nose. “That’s not generally how I work, Zenzero. I don’t have tons of filter between this and this.” I point from my temple to my lips.
“One of the many things I like about you.” He grins. “But I think what I have to say might leave you a bit…shocked. It will at least buy me the few precious seconds it will take to walk through your house and get in the van. And I’m going to do that. Because I am a coward.”
I swallow in nervousness, clenching my hands into fists, as an odd current of fear and unease rolls through me. “You’re about the least cowardly person I’ve ever met, but okay.”
Ren exhales heavily. “So. Once I say it, I’m going to leave. And when you’re ready—if you’re ready—tell me, and we’ll talk.” He glances up to the night sky, like he’s searching the stars for something mere earth can’t give him. But then his gaze drops once more to me, a tender smile warming his face.
“First. I never wanted to keep this from you, but I-I didn’t know what else to do but stay quiet when it was impossible. And then, when I knew you were leaving, I wanted to wait until you left the team, but I don’t know what happened except on the beach, last night, something feels like it’s changed, and now I can’t. I can’t contain this anymore. It needs to be said.
“I want you to know, if you never want to hear about this again, I will respect that. I won’t make it uncomfortable. I’ll be professional at work and leave you alone. Okay?”
Is this how you let someone down easy? Seems like an odd way to do it. I search his eyes. “Ren, I’m so confused.”
He makes a sound of unease and rubs his forehead. “Yeah, I’m realizing that. Which…I don’t know if that makes this easier or harder, but here goes.”
Standing tall, throwing his shoulders back, he huffs a breath and stares intensely down at the ground. Until, finally, he peers up at me through thick lashes and holds my eyes. “The woman I’ve been waiting for…”
My stomach drops. That’s how he’s going to do it. Tell me about her, and like a bucket of ice water, douse every spark of lust between us.
I feel sick with sadness already, knowing that once I know who she is, this tiny moment I had with him—stolen kisses, heated glances, the soft whispers of tangled fingers, palm to palm—has to end. Because I am many things—obsessive, fastidious, blunt, and short-tempered—but one thing I am not, and never will be, is the other woman.
“That woman, Frankie,” he says. “It’s you.”
It’s you.
Two words. Missiles, tearing through my heart, landing on an earth-rattling boom.
Ren’s right. I’m speechless. And long before I once again locate my body in time and space, Ren’s gone from my yard, leaving me blinking rapidly into the middle distance while my brain tries to process the words it just heard.
It’s. You.
Wandering shakily into the house, I slowly sink to the ground, as my breath comes short and quick.
Countless moments with Ren flash through my mind, painted in a new, weighted, gloriously terrifying light.
I’m the one he’s been waiting for.
I’m the one he’s wanted.
My throat is bone dry. I grab the counter and hoist myself upright, fumbling for a glass from the cabinet, filling it with filtered water, and draining it. Setting down the tumbler, I’m met with my reflection in the window above the sink. I hold her gaze, staring at her shocked features.
She’s never felt so many conflicting emotions at once, and it shows on her face. Hope. Terror. Joy.
It’s been so long since I embraced the part of myself that aches to come to life when Ren’s near. The one that laughs and jokes, that hugs hard and kisses deeply. The one that cries at sappy movies and throws open her heart for those she loves. The one that believes someone could love her without one day resenting her, without seeing her laundry list of needs and hurdles as burdens but rather as beautiful parts of what make her her.
Because I know that having arthritis, being autistic, does not make me less whole or human. It doesn’t make me wrong or broken. It makes some things in my life more challenging in ways, yes, and maybe I don’t represent the “norm,” but I can be someone who surmounts obstacles without it meaning there’s something fundamentally lacking in my makeup.
Problem is, that truth has been harder to hold on to when I let people in. Because then my sensory limits, my unexpected emotions, my easily tired body, my unfiltered mouth, are part of the package deal with me, and apparently, they wear out their welcome. Everyone—my family and childhood friends, my one college boyfriend—everyone, except for Annie and Lo, who I have loved and let in, has ultimately come to resent me.
So, when I moved away and started my life fresh, I told myself I simply wouldn’t love or be loved that way, not anymore. Because each time I let someone in and they show me I’m not worth the work, it’s become more painful, more difficult to bounce back.
“What are you going to do?” I ask my reflection.
For so long, my way of life has worked for me. It’s comforted me to guard my emotions, be sensible with my heart, practical with my actions, controlled and ordered. Being safe allowed me to move beyond the pain of my past.
Silence fills my home. A weighty emptiness spills into its corners, as stark and illuminating as the moon outside. An uncomfortable question burrows deep in my chest and pricks my heart.
What if the life I’ve built, the one that was supposed to free me, has turned into a prison after all?
18
Ren
Playlist: “Saturday Sun,” Vance Joy
I woke up convinced last night was a dream. But then I rolled out of bed and passed my laundry hamper on the way to the bathroom, freezing as I noticed muddy paw prints and grass stains coloring the knees of my suit pants. And it all came rushing back.
Forcefully.
I told her. I really told her. I listened to an overwhelming intuition, an undeniable voice inside my head, telling me I should.
Because despite my brain-bruised fog the other night, I knew I remembered that I didn’t just hold Frankie’s hand, Frankie held it back as she whispered something that I couldn’t remember but whose sound I remember. She sounded sad. Hopeful. Tender.
Knowing that she’d kissed me, the way we talked on the beach, the care in her touch in the hotel. Then everything she said that night over takeout—my brothers said if that wasn’t a woman who has feelings for you, they didn’t know what was.
I couldn’t stand the thought that Frankie might feel something for me and be in any doubt that I felt the exact same for her, too. The deception’s benefits no longer outweighed its risks.