“Me wanting you doesn’t count?” he asks, brows knitted together.
A fiery heat wave, a series of them, one after another.
Me wanting you.
Me wanting you.
Me wanting you.
“It counts,” I say. It’s terrifying how much it counts. I set my plate aside. “What about you?”
“Me?” he says.
“I heard your phone call,” I confess.
He’s quiet, thoughtful, for several seconds. “It was my dad.”
I start. “Your dad?”
“He’s been trying to call me nonstop,” he says, “from phone numbers that I don’t have blocked. So he could tell me to get Julia to call him back.”
I gawk. “I don’t understand.”
“Turns out they’ve been talking,” he says. “Which I’m guessing she didn’t tell me because she knew it would stress me out, waiting for him to fuck her over again. Which he did. He figured out where Jules worked, because she still lets him follow her on social media—which I warned her about—and he told our mom.
“She showed up at the restaurant. Upset Julia bad enough that she walked out. Got fired, blocked my dad, and got on an airplane here—not necessarily in that order—and now he’s harassing me to try to get her to forgive him.”
“Oh my god, Miles,” I say. “That’s terrible.”
“I’m sorry.” He rubs the bridge of his nose.
“Why?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t want to dump this on you.”
“You’re not dumping it on me,” I promise.
“I’m used to keeping all of this separate. And nothing is, with you. You’re my roommate and my best friend and the woman I just slept with.”
My eyes burn. I try to blink away the feeling.
He’s looking at me like he’s trying to strain something out of me. “Daphne?”
“You’re my best friend too.” It comes out as a throaty whisper. “That’s why today was so hard, when my dad left.”
My throat twists, my voice wobbling: “Because you saw it. And it makes me feel pathetic. Even more so because the truth is, if he turned around and came right back here, I’d be thrilled. I’d forgive him again and again, just hoping that eventually I’d actually mean something to him. I’d call and beg him to come back, if I thought there was a chance he’d say yes. But I can’t, because I know he won’t. And I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want him to prove that I’m . . .”
I’m trying to find alternate words.
Because just saying these feels like codifying the truth into existence.
It’s painful to push them past the knot in my throat, but holding them in all these years hasn’t made me feel better, hasn’t made them less true, hasn’t stanched the bleeding or numbed the pain. “That I’m not worth it.”
“Hey.” Miles’s arms come around me, his heat and spicy ginger scent soaking into me.
“A part of me is just waiting,” I rasp, “for the moment when you see whatever it is that drives people away. And I don’t want that. I don’t want you to stop wanting me around. I think it might break my heart to be someone you don’t like.”
“Fuck. Daphne.” His hands come up to my face. “Do you want to know why your dad doesn’t stick around?”
Tears sting the back of my nose, but I nod. It’s the question I’ve never been able to stop asking, no matter how badly it hurts.
“Because you see him,” Miles says. “And he can’t stand it. And Peter’s the same shit with a different outfit, so bored with himself he convinced himself that being with someone like Petra would turn him into someone else, without, like, having to be brave enough to try acid.”
“He was bored with me, Miles,” I say.
“If it was about you,” he says, “he could’ve ended it. Instead he blew up his life. That’s about him. I’ve been that guy, a dozen times, with a dozen people I didn’t deserve. It’s easy to be loved by the ones who’ve never seen you fuck up. The ones you’ve never had to apologize to, and who still think all your ‘quirks’ are charming.
“It’s easy to be around people who don’t know you. But as soon as someone starts to figure you out—as soon as you can’t be perfect—it’s easier to move on. Find someone new to be the cool, fun, laid-back one with.”
“So that’s it?” My voice crackles. “I make people feel like their worst selves.”
“Daphne, no.” He pulls me in against him, his face buried in my neck. “God, no.” When he draws back, tense dimples have pricked his scruffy jaw. “Look, I’ve always wanted to be that fun, easy person with no baggage, even with Petra. But after a while, someone either finally sees you or they don’t, and either way it fucking sucks. Because if they see you, and it’s not what they signed up for, then they’re out of there. And if they never see you . . . it’s worse. Because you’re just alone.
“And I loved Petra,” he says, “but deep down I knew, as soon as things stopped being fun, she’d be gone. And she was. She found something more romantic, more perfect, just more. I think you’re the first person who’s really seen me. Past what I want people to see.
“You make the people you care about feel like . . .” He pauses. “Like you want all of them. Not just the good parts. And that’s terrifying to someone who’s spent a lifetime avoiding those other pieces of themselves.”
“I don’t want to scare people off,” I say, throat aching.
