“What can I do?” Fitz asks.
“You should have given her water instead of letting her get dehydrated. You better hope nothing happens to her.”
“Wha’s gonna happen to me?” Bernie mumbles. Her words are heavy, slipping across her tongue like ice.
“I’m sorry,” Fitz says. “Tell me what to do.”
“I don’t know, Romeo. Help your girlfriend,” Darcy snaps.
Fitz freezes. My eyes dart to Molly, but she’s already grabbing mittens and a hat from the pile by the door. And Bash is next to Bernie on the small sofa that only has room for two. Which means … when I glance at Fitz, he’s looking at me, having come to the same conclusion. I’m door number three. “Warm drink,” he says.
“Oh. Um …” Do they think I’m the type of person you turn to in a crisis? News flash: I’m really, really not. “I don’t know.”
“The stove—”
“Is electric. It won’t work.” I search the room frantically. “The fire!”
In the kitchen, he grabs a bottle of water while I search the cupboards for a cast iron skillet. I empty the bottle inside and place it over the fire. Darcy and Bash talk to Bernie, asking her questions and keeping her conscious. My heart relaxes with each question she answers correctly. When the water is warm but not scalding, we carefully pour it into a mug and hand it off to Bash, who holds it to Bernie’s lips and helps her drink.
Molly, Fitz, and I sit on the other couch, not saying a word, hardly daring to breathe. I pull a blanket over my lap, and Fitz drags half of it over him, scooting closer so we both fit.
“Do we need to call 911?” Fitz asks.
“No, she’s warming up. She’s going to be okay.” Darcy sits back on her heels, looking every bit as relieved as I feel.
Fitz leans back against the couch, his head lolling to the side so he’s looking at me. “I’m such an idiot.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say. His thigh is pressed against mine and I have to fight every urge in me to take his hand, to touch his knee, to get closer.
Darcy stands. “She’s stable, but we should get her checked out as soon as we can. I’ll try to get in touch with her parents while you all dig the cars out of the snow.” She takes her phone from her pocket and wanders off to look for decent reception.
“Someone should stay with my sister and make sure she’s okay,” Bash says. He nods to me. “Have you ever shoveled snow before?” When I shake my head, he appoints me as Bernie’s babysitter.
Bash, Molly, and Fitz gear up for the snow. When Molly’s coat is too puffy to get her boots on, Fitz bends and helps her step into them.
Well then. I guess I’m staying.
I take Bash’s place next to Bernie on the couch. When the door closes behind them, she takes another sip of the warm water and smiles weakly. “They’re gone?”
I nod.
“Perfect. Now we can gossip about Fitz.”
Some days, I wake up with a black pit of doom in my stomach. This is not one of those days. I wake up smiling, the memories of last night so vivid I blush.
The sounds of morning float down the hall and through the crack under the door. Footsteps putter around the kitchen, overlaid with soft laughter and sizzling bacon. My stomach growls but I snuggle deeper under the covers anyway. Streams of sunlight—the first I’ve seen in days—fall across the floor of Harrison’s room.
Harrison.
I grin wider, pulling the covers up to my chin. I stay there for a long time, staring at the ceiling and listening to the sound of my heartbeat.
The thing about my life is this: It’s safe. It’s predictable.
Please note: Predictable does not equal boring.
I love goat yoga with Clover and baking bread in my own kitchen and daydreaming about trips around the world and everything with Fitz.
I love everything with Fitz. All the movies and the aimless drives around town and the sour-gummy-worm binges and late-night talks about broken hearts and impossible dreams. Being in love with Fitz is a lot of things: scary and heartbreaking and disappointing and exhilarating. But it is never boring. And that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? Even on the days when my future is the scariest, maybe even especially on those days, Fitz is the Technicolor in my black-and-white world.
But the predictability of it might kill me. The way I dissect his every look and touch and glance makes me frustrated and angry with myself. Angry for being so hopeful and desperate and scared.
Last night was anything but predictable, and as I count the beats of my heart in a warm bed the day after Christmas, I feel raw. Human. Surprised.
I revel in the feeling. For about ten minutes. And then I’m brimming with the need to tell someone. I spend so much of my life listening to Clover’s stories about Jay and Fitz’s stories about whomever, and I never have any juicy secrets of my own. Now I finally do. And if I don’t tell someone what happened, I might explode.
I want to tell Fitz. The thought comes as a surprise, although it shouldn’t, because I always want to tell Fitz everything. That’s the way it is with a best friend, and even more with a best friend you’re in love with. Sometimes it’s hard to know my opinion about a thing until I’ve talked it through with him, because he knows me better than I know myself. I unlock my phone and my fingers fly over the keys. Last night, I made out with a boy in an elevator. And on the subway. And up and down the streets of New York City. I did it until I stopped thinking about you, until I stopped wondering how his kisses are different than yours.
Delete.
Obviously.
This is a story for Clover, which is why it’s too bad I was such a thoughtless jerk last time I talked to her.
I write a new message, and this one I do send.
Can we talk?
It’s not good enough. I know that. But I can’t bring myself to type the apology she deserves. Because what if she marries him, and her life goes to hell, and I didn’t try to stop it?
On its heels, another thought comes barreling toward me:
What if she marries him, and we’re not friends anymore?
Please. I send. It’s not great, but it’s not nothing.
Hunger pulls me from bed. I duck into the bathroom to brush my teeth and my hair, and then step into the kitchen, not knowing what to expect from Harrison.
He looks up from his bowl of oatmeal. “Hey,” he breathes, and I’m bombarded with a million thoughts at once: his hand on my waist, his breath on my neck, his lips on mine. And then he tucks his hair behind his ear, and all those vivid memories are washed in a bittersweet haze. Because the way he tucks his hair behind his ear is not the way Fitz shakes his out of his eyes, and the difference between those two moments, and the visceral reaction my body has to one and not the other, is a canyon so wide I might never be able to cross it.
Will I ever get to the side of the canyon where I’m allowed to be in love with Harrison? In this universe, with this version of myself?
“Hey,” I say back.
A beat, and then we break out in matching smiles.
I’m not yet in love with this boy, but according to string theory, anything is possible.
“I was thinking we could go to the High Line this morning.”
“That sounds great.”