We find a bench in the National Gallery’s sculpture garden and sit across from a tall metallic tree.
“You didn’t know it would work, did you?” Rhiannon asks.
“No. Not at all.”
“And it must feel weird that it did work.”
“It’s not weird,” I tell her. “It’s terrifying.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Rhiannon shakes her head. “No. Don’t think that way. That could never happen to you. Because you don’t do what he did. You care about the lives that you’re borrowing. They don’t need to push you out.”
“But if they wanted to, they could.”
“Only if they know you’re there.”
“But you’re talking to me as me—how does Marlon not know?”
“Because I’m not talking to him. I’m talking to you.”
Her phone rings. She takes it out, looks at the screen, and says, “Nathan.” After talking to him for a minute, she turns to me and says, “They’re getting ready to go home—they want to say thank you. Nathan’s going to ride back with them.” She passes over the phone, and I talk awkwardly to each of the Giddingses. They are very grateful. I don’t know whether or not they realize the only reason X was anywhere near Wyatt was so he could get close to me.
Once she hangs up, Rhiannon tells me she brought her own car just in case things went wrong.
“I didn’t want to ride home with them if we failed to bring Wyatt back,” she admits.
“Makes sense.”
Now it’s Marlon’s phone that vibrates. His friends are wondering why he missed dinner, and where he is.
“We’d better come up with a pretty good alibi,” I say. “What do you think Marlon likes?”
“Hamilton?”
“Why do you say that?”
Rhiannon gestures to Marlon’s phone case. Which is, indeed, a Hamilton phone case.
“The touring company is here in DC right now. Let’s send him there.”
“How will we get a ticket to that?”
Rhiannon smiles. “He doesn’t need to attend. He just needs to think he did. Come on.”
We get to the theater just as people are filing in. Rhiannon takes a picture of Marlon in front of the marquee with his thumbs up. He sends it to all his friends. They respond immediately.
No way!
How did U—
We’ll cover for ya!
Rhiannon and I head to dinner then, earbuds shared, blasting the cast album.
We end up at a pizza place a few doors down from Politics and Prose. We’re both excited for food, and exhausted from the day. I am enjoying my time with her, but about once every five minutes, I think, X is gone. He’s really gone.
And I don’t feel relief. I feel regret.
I know I can’t keep this inside. So I tell Rhiannon.
She has no idea, X’s voice says in my head. Not really his voice, of course. But now a part of me will use his voice to get its points across.
It doesn’t matter. I want to tell her, I say back.
“There have to be others,” she assures me. “If there were two of you, there are likely three, if not three thousand. You’ll find them. You can have the same conversations with them. Without the evil streak.”
I’ll never know how evil.
Nor will I ever know if I could have somehow convinced him to go the other way.
I doubt it. But I’ll always wonder.
“So what’s your plan?” Rhiannon asks. Then, seeing my expression, she clarifies, “For tonight, I mean.”
“I’m going to go back to Hamilton when it lets out, and get someone to give me a ticket stub. Then I’m going to head to a residential area, because if I keep going to sleep in a hotel, I’m going to end up flying to Paris before I know it. And I want to stay here. Near you.”
“Do you want me to stay with you?”
“No. You need to get back. You have school tomorrow.”
“I know. But I’ll stay if you need me.”
“If that’s the condition for you staying, then you’ll never get to leave.”
“You don’t need me.”
“I absolutely need you. And our whatever-this-is.”
“The love that can’t find the right word.”
“Yes. That’s what we have.”
“It’s weird.”
“It definitely is.”
“No—something else. I was going to say that it’s weird the way I always thought our big question was whether we’d manage to be together. But it’s like the question’s shifted, and now it’s not whether we can be together but in what way we’ll be together.”
“And what’s the answer to that question?”
“It’s the word we haven’t found yet. But it’s there. I can feel it there.”
So can I. And I don’t know what to call it, either.
I am just grateful it exists. I am grateful that after everything that’s happened, it holds.
* * *
—
An older couple is nice enough to give me one of their ticket stubs. Then I listen to the cast album some more as I walk up to Dupont Circle, writing Marlon’s evening inside his head and hoping the memories I’m creating will feel real.
A little before midnight, I use Marlon’s phone to order a Lyft. The driver knows to take him back to his hotel.
Very quickly, I fall asleep in the back seat.
RHIANNON
I return to my life. The fact that A is near is definitely a part of it. But it doesn’t define it. It can’t.
That night, I take my time walking back to my car. I can’t get the sight of Wyatt and his family out of my head, or the thought that if we hadn’t done something, he might have been lost forever.
This, I realize, it what it feels like to be part of something much bigger than yourself. Not just with friends, but with strangers.
It allows me to understand the strength it takes not just for A to be human, but for all of us to be human, if we want to be important not just to friends, but to strangers.
Months ago, back when I was with Justin, I never would have even approached such thoughts. I was too busy staring down to look out. I can see this now.