She wanted to tell him about the broken radiator in her apartment that her landlord assured her worked just fine.
She wanted to tell him how much she hated wearing skirts and dresses to work, but Roger insisted on a “classic” dress code.
She wanted to tell him that her insurance didn’t cover mental health services, and she couldn’t afford a therapist.
She wanted to tell him how hard it was to be so far from Jackie.
She wanted to tell him the truth about Ben, the real truth, the way he’d eaten her up until there wasn’t any of her left when she met Reece.
Most of all, she wanted to tell him how she felt right now. How mad she was at herself for treating him like shit. How annoyed she was that he looked fresh off some influencer’s feed. How much she missed his kindness and never once realized it until right now, this very minute.
“Not great,” she said.
The truth of those words ached. She’d admitted it to herself before in quiet, fleeting moments: standing cramped between strangers on the subway who shoved their backpacks into her spine and ran over her toes with their bikes; watching her favorite queer bar close permanently because the rent had gone up again; listening to Roger pontificate about how millennials just didn’t know the value of hard work as she answered his emails.
And yet she was so, so lucky, and that made it worse. What right did she have to complain? How could she want more when this was what she had always wanted? A job in media that paid a living wage, decent enough healthcare, a room of her own in an apartment with a roommate who didn’t steal, at least. In another year, she’d finally pay off her debt. If she got this promotion, maybe she could get her own place.
Her career in media kept moving backward as layoff after layoff forced thousands of talented applicants to fight over fewer and fewer jobs, but she lived in the best city in the world, where you could bump into Jake Gyllenhaal on the sidewalk next to a pile of trash bags taller than an SUV.
But those incredible New York City moments—the ones that supposedly made the cost and the stress worth it—had become fewer and farther between as time went on. She couldn’t remember the last time she went dancing at Cubbyhole, or wandered through a museum, or read a book in Prospect Park. All she could think of was paying through the nose for grocery delivery because she couldn’t carry her boxes of La Croix all the way from Key Food.
On most days she felt like she never left that crowded subway car during rush hour, surrounded by strangers unwilling to let her through to the doors. With each new lease she signed, each year that passed without real progress in her career, the oxygen bled out of her life a little more.
“I’m not doing great,” she repeated, this time for herself.
She forced a self-deprecating smile for his benefit, already worried that she’d gone too far, said too much.
But there was no pity on Reece’s face, just concern. He took both her shoulders in his big hands. The urge to step forward and press her face against his chest nearly overwhelmed her. She knew he could wrap her up in his arms and insulate her from all this dread. He’d done it before.
“The good thing is you look amazing,” he said. She snorted, startled out of her misery, and he grinned at her. “Seriously, it’s not fair! You have Disney Princess hair, what is this?”
Reece caught one of her curls between his fingers and held it up to the light. She felt a strange thrill at the sight of her gold and silver strands held in his grasp.
“The gray works for you. It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you.” She shoved her fist into Reece’s chest and he took a step back, laughing as he let go. “Flatterer.”
Reece gave her that open, joyful smile she’d never forgotten, the one just for her. Laugh lines, white teeth, the edge of his gaze soft with awe. His round cheeks crunched his eyes into bright jade beads, and a single dimple appeared beside his mouth. She wanted to poke her finger into it. She wanted to run screaming in the opposite direction. Her heart cracked open and leaked sunshine into her chest.
She wanted him. She wanted the way she felt right now, the way Reece made her feel when he looked at her just like that.
Warm. She wanted his warmth.
But she didn’t deserve it. How could she even think she did?
“Reece, I—” she started, and then tripped on a stutter. “I’m so sorry.”
Reece frowned, concerned. “For what?”
“You know what. For how I behaved at graduation.”
She cringed at the inadequacy of her words. How I behaved.
“Charlie, you don’t have to—” Reece interrupted.
She put up a hand. “I do have to. I was a jerk and I’m sorry for not—” Oh god, how should she put it? She’d owed him this apology for five years and never took the time to practice. “For not being more considerate of your feelings.”
She was proud of herself for a fleeting moment before she noticed Reece’s face pinching.
Damn. Feelings sounded so after-school-special, patronizing. She’d always been garbage at conversations like this, conversations that mattered.
“For not considering you,” she revised. “I was wrapped up in my own bullshit when we were hooking up and I shouldn’t have left campus without saying good-bye.”
“We really don’t need to talk about this.” Reece crinkled his empty wrapper in his hands.
“Reece.” She desperately wished he would look at her, but his eyes were fixed on the carpet.
“Seriously, Charlie.” He sighed. “It was pretty clear that you were still hung up on Ben. It’s on me that I wanted more from you.”
Charlotte flinched at the sound of Ben’s name in Reece’s mouth. “I wasn’t hung up on Ben.” She uselessly fluttered her hands, at a loss for words. “I was recovering from him. From…the whole relationship.”
Reece grimaced. “Right, recovering. Got it.”
Her face burned with humiliation. Reece didn’t know what happened because she never told him, and now she couldn’t fathom a neat summary. It felt so raw, Ben twirling a pen as he lounged at the front of the lecture hall, a memory made flesh after years of losing its color.
“Is he coming this weekend?” Finally Reece looked at her again, only now Charlotte wished he wouldn’t.
“Who, Ben?” she said. “Yeah, he’s here.”
