Ryan sees my furrowed brows and comes to stand in front of me. He takes his thumb and runs it across the area between my brows and then smiles when my face softens. “Better.”
He kisses my cheek and then my jaw and then my neck. The slight scruff of his five o’clock shadow tickles the sensitive skin on my neck, and chill bumps erupt down my arms. Just as I’m ready to melt in his arms and gear up for an all-night kiss fest, he pulls away. “I’m going to get a shower. Make yourself comfortable.”
He moves around me, but this time, I’m the one to catch him by the arm and pull him back to me. “Ryan…” I started this sentence, but I don’t know the exact words to finish it. I want to tell him how I feel about him. How he scares me and comforts me at the same time. But I can’t say it yet, so instead, I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze him tightly.
“If you’re going to miss me that much, you can come with me into the shower if you want.”
It’s like he knows I’m going to retaliate and preemptively tries to block my assault by clenching his arms down. Doesn’t matter; my fingers are tiny, and I’m able to wiggle them past his muscled arms to dig them into his sides, making him laugh until he’s dying for air. But I’m ruthless and don’t care if Ryan breathes, so I keep going until I think he has dislocated a rib from laughter.
After I’ve sufficiently tortured him, he goes to get a shower, and when I hear the water turn on, I briefly contemplate taking him up on his offer. But then I shake off the thought, because I’m not quite ready to take that step with him yet. I still don’t know exactly what will happen with Ryan and me, and I want to wait until I feel more secure about what we are.
The second reason I don’t want to go in there is because I get a few minutes of uninterrupted relaxation (read: snooping) time without Ryan. I didn’t really do that much snooping, though…is what I will tell him if he catches me. But really, I go through EVERYTHING. It’s so ridiculously boring, though. This man has no skeletons in his closets. His drawers are empty. The desk has never been touched. Not even a single dust bunny under his bed.
Huh. He really doesn’t live here. I think he left more of a footprint at my house than in his own, and I’m not sure what to make of that.
Since playing Sherlock ended up being a bore, I go to my luggage and start to unpack into his guest room drawers (they are empty too). I unzip my bag, and my eyes immediately zero in on something that I know for sure I didn’t pack. It’s the pile of applications Stacy gave me to look over. There’s something new, though. A yellow note is stuck to the top of the pile.
You don’t need these.—Ryan
One second ago, I was fine. Now, a knot is forming in my throat, and I think I’m going to sob.
You know that moment where you use an old hair tie, and you think you can squeeze one more loop around your ponytail, but then, out of nowhere, it snaps and shoots across the room? I’m the hair tie. Ryan’s confidence has me launching across the room to my phone, tears leaking down my face.
I’m so glad he’s still in the shower right now and not here to witness this breakdown. Because that’s what it is: my final breakdown. The one I’ve been putting off for five years.
I look around for somewhere private, but Ryan’s whole apartment is like one giant co-working space where everything echoes and no one can sneak any funny YouTube videos without alerting the whole office. But I need to make this call, so I stuff myself into Ryan’s closet and shut the door. After sliding to the floor and leaning back against the wall below his dress shirts, I call the one person I need to talk to most right now.
“Stacy!” I say when the call connects.
“June? What’s wrong?”
“I’m in Ryan’s closet!” I sound hysterical.
“Did he put you in there?!”
“What? No. I came to Chicago with him because I love him, and now I’m sitting on the floor of his closet while he’s taking a shower.” I say it all like Stacy is the dumbest person in the world for not assuming that first.
There’s a long pause followed by Stacy starting to say something, but then pausing again, and then starting over. “Okay, Junie, you’re gonna have to start from the beginning, because I tried to catch myself up, and the dots just aren’t connecting. Why are you in his closet?”
Tears are streaming down my face, and I can’t stop them. “Because I think I might be in love with him! It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did, and he brought me here for a first date, and I never told you because I was sad that you’re moving, and I was trying to cut ties with you before you cut ties with me, but I can’t cut ties because I need you, and I think I might be a fraud feminist, because I’m completely happy here with Ryan, and I don’t want to be alone anymore, and I do want to buy your share of the company, but I’m too scared to run it on my own!”
“Heavens, woman, breathe!”
I do as she says, shutting my eyes and taking in a deep breath through my nose. Now that it’s all out, the tears have stopped, and I feel as if a boulder has just rolled off my back.
“Okay, first of all,” says Stacy, “you could never cut me out of your life even if you wanted to. Remember, we did that thing in eighth grade where we pricked our fingers and mixed our blood? So you’re stuck with me forever. Second, I’m pretty sure you have no idea what feminism is, so you need to do some research. Being independent doesn’t mean you have to be lonely.”
Oh no, I’m going to cry again.
“Third, you love Ryan? I thought you hated him. When did this happen?”
“About eighteen years ago.”
“JUNE! You’ve liked him all this time and kept it from me?!”
“I was embarrassed because I liked him so much, and I thought he didn’t like me at all. So I just hid it and channeled all my feelings toward hating him.”
“Yeah, I gathered that last part.” She pauses for a minute, and I let her digest. “Okay, so, wow. How does Ryan feel about you?”
“I think he really likes me too. I mean, I would guess he does because he’s been living at my house, and asked me on a date, and has been ridiculously patient with my craziness. Also, we’ve been making out a lot.”
“I’m going to pass out. You and Ryan are making out? Would it be weird if I asked for a photo of that?”
I laugh. “Stacy, we literally made out on the dance floor of your reception. I’m betting your photographer snapped a photo or two.”
“You did?! Where was I?”
“Staring longingly into Logan’s eyes.”
“Gross.”
“Yeah, it was nauseatingly sweet.”
And then Stacy and I carry on for another five minutes while she talks me down from my cliff just like I knew she would. It’s what we’ve always done for each other, and now I feel better knowing that it’s what we’ll always do.
After I’ve filled her in on every detail of life over the past couple of weeks, she says, “So what do you want going forward?”
I press my lips together and pull my knees up to my chest. “I want Ryan. But he lives here, and I live in Charleston. I don’t know how we can make it work.”
