The postscript.
I go to Dr. Insomnia’s Coffee and Tea Emporium every afternoon with my friends. You know how to find me. I will be waiting for you. I have always been waiting for you. It’s always you.
The cab stops in the Village.
I pay the cabbie, thank him, and step out onto the sidewalk in front of the coffee shop I’ve never been to. Her place.
I peer through the glass window, scanning for her. A guy in a beanie wraps his arm around a girl with pink hair. A trio of tattooed punk girls are spread out on a couch. A young mother and father drink lattes as the mom rocks a baby. An older woman with gray hair taps away on a laptop. In the far back of the shop I spot a guy tipped back in his chair. He’s talking animatedly, likely telling a story to three girls. One has bright blond hair, one is dark blond, and one I can barely see. Then she laughs and turns to the window, like she’s waiting for someone.
I will be waiting for you.
My heart bangs against my chest, leaps into my throat. And I can’t help it. I’m grinning like a fool. There she is, and as I walk to the door and pull it open, her mouth falls open. Her eyes widen, and then she pushes back her chair, and walks to me.
We stand in the middle of the coffee shop. Pop music plays overhead. I have no idea what song it is. The sound of espresso machines whirring and patrons chattering mingles with the unknown tune.
“Hi,” she says, going first, her voice breathy, her green eyes lit up and sparkling.
“Hi.”
“Forgive me.”
I tilt my head. “For what, K?”
“For leaving.”
“I don’t think you need forgiveness for that.”
“I don’t want you to hate me.”
“I could never hate you.”
“I don’t want you to be mad at me,” she says, reaching for her necklace, absently touching the charms, as if the necklace settles her.
“I’m not mad at you,” I say, because I dealt with that emotion already. I’m past it. I have let go of anger. I only feel want and hope and potential.
“I want you to love me.”
Kennedy
His rapid-fire responses slow down, and he seems to consider what I just said before he answers me with a question: “You think I stopped?”
My heart expands, grows inside my chest, filling me up. But not stopping isn’t enough. Being so in love isn’t enough. The reasons need to be right. “I didn’t stop either. And I need you to know that I love you for you. I love you not just because it’s a secret, not just to piss off my mom. I love you because you’re you.”
“You broke my heart twice, K. Are you going to do it a third time?”
I shake my head.
“How do I know?”
“I don’t know. How do you ever know?”
“You don’t ever know. You just take the chance anyway.”
“Take the chance,” I say, hope expanding inside me. So much hope that I don’t know how I’ll ever feel anything else. There can’t be room in me for anything but this.
“You,” he whispers, then takes my hand and grasps my fingers, his eyes never straying from mine.
“You,” I repeat, wanting him to know that this time is different. This time is for all time.
Sometimes a person can start as a shield or a secret but then become something more. He is my something more. Here, with my hand in his hand, I ask him. “Do you want to meet my friends?”
“I would love to.”
We walk, hand in hand, to the table. They are all quiet, and I can tell they’ve been whispering about me. I clear my throat.
“Lane, Catey, Amanda. This is my,” I say, then stop, look at him, the man I love madly, searching for the word, the title, the designation. “My Noah.”
He laughs, that warm, deep rumbly laugh that thrums through me, filling me with happiness. “Evidently, I’m her Noah. Nice to meet you, Lane, Catey, and Amanda.”
He extends his hand to shake with each of my friends, then sits down and joins us for coffee. It’s not a perfect fit. The five of us don’t slide into conversation like it’s all natural. But somehow, our quintet works.
*
It is not my eighteenth birthday tonight. That day is long gone, but I celebrate the way we had always intended. Together.
We don’t book an inn or run off to a five-star hotel. We don’t plan the moment this time. We just stop resisting because we don’t have to hold back anymore.
His home feels like mine. Or really, like ours. I no longer have to ask permission or spin a fable to be here. I am here because I can be. Because I make all my own choices now, including this one.
Everything about tonight feels right, from the second he unlocks the door to his apartment, to the way we kiss and unbutton furiously as we stumble to the bedroom, to my clothes landing in a heap on the hardwood floors.
I wait on the bed, the lights on, watching him strip off his final layers of clothes and grab protection.
I can’t take my eyes off him. Seeing him like this makes my throat dry and heart pound. He is so stunning, and so mine. I grasp his shoulders and tug him down on me, whispering that I’m ready.
“Me too,” he says.
It hurts at first, but soon it doesn’t hurt. The pain washes away, and in its place comes something wonderful. This deep physical connection. This intensity that comes from this love. I can’t believe I waited so long to feel something so good, so pure, so blissful.
But I am so glad I did.