Sick Kids In Love

by Hannah Moskowitz

  “Wow,” he breathes.

  “Hi,” I say again.

  I come the rest of the way down the stairs. The kitchen’s chillier than my room, and Sasha immediately takes my coat off my arm and helps me into it. His hands brush my bare shoulders.

  “I should be home by midnight,” I tell my dad.

  “All right,” he says, though we both know that’s like two hours past his bedtime, on the rare occasion he’s not working that late. I don’t have any sort of defined curfew. I’ve never done anything worth having one.

  Sasha and Dad shake hands and have some sort of male telepathic conversation, then we pull on gloves and get out of there. “I can’t believe you have bare legs,” Sasha says.

  “Well what should I have worn, leggings?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Do you want to take a cab? We should take a cab.”

  “The train’s right there,” I say. “I’ll be fine.”

  There’s one seat left on the train when we get on. I raise my eyebrows at him, and he shakes his head, so I sit down. He immediately takes his coat off and lays it over my legs. I’m one step closer to making it mine.

  “You worry too much,” I say, but I pull it over me anyway.

  “Yeah, well, you get cold.” I can’t get over how he looks. Just this study in contrast, all pale and disheveled inside that careful suit. It’s perfect. Someone’s going to copy this for the Oscars. “Why are you looking at me?” he says with a smile.

  I look down quickly. “You’re looking at me, too.”

  “I really like that dress,” he says.

  I don’t know how one sentence can make me feel so awkward and so happy all at the same time. I squirm around a little in my seat, and he chuckles.

  The dance is at my school, in our gym. There are a lot of people lurking outside, including at least two girls who are crying to three other girls, and I really want to barge in and ask them what they would do if it was their last night in New York, because I have no shame, but Sasha would probably die of secondhand embarrassment if I did. Mr. Mattrapolis and Ms. Binger, the freshman English teacher, are sitting at a folding table in front of the gym to mark our names off a list and check our coats. Pounding music leaks out of the gym’s closed double doors.

  “Ready?” Sasha asks me.

  “I should be asking you that. My friends are about to swarm us.”

  He laughs. “I’m ready.” We push through the doors.

  They swarm us immediately, of course. They must have some sort of tracking device planted in me. Luna, to I assume no one’s surprise, has the best dress, this dark-blue sparkly silk thing that looks like she’s wearing the whole galaxy. Ashley’s stunning in light pink, Maura’s wearing red and has a streak in her hair to match because she does not abide by seasonal rules, and Siobhan has a black halter-dress that makes the rest of us look like middle schoolers by comparison.

  I twist Maura’s face to the side to look at her makeup. “Look at that wing,” I say. “You’re gonna poke someone’s eye out.” Ashley and Luna are busy fawning over Sasha in his suit.

  “Come dance,” Maura says, pulling on my hand.

  “Let me put my stuff down,” I say.

  Ashley points. “We’re that table in the corner.”

  Sasha and I go over, and I put my purse down and consider slipping out of my shoes, but it seems ridiculous, since I didn’t wear heels. “It’s warm in here,” Sasha yells over the music.

  “See, that’s why I wasn’t worried about bare legs. Are you hot? You should take your jacket off.”

  “No, that’s the only thing keeping me from looking like a very tall potbellied pig.”

  I roll my eyes. “All right, well, drink some water.”

  “Do we actually have to dance?” he says. “I was prepared for a night of sitting, and then maybe some gentle swaying at some point.”

  I look at my girls dancing in a cluster with their arms up in the air. Maura beckons me over. It does look fun. I wish I thought it looked fun.

  “I have to do a few with them or they’ll never leave me alone,” I say.

  “Do I come for that, or…”

  I try to imagine dancing with Sasha the way the girls who are dancing with boys are dancing—or the way Luna and Siobhan are dancing—and it just feels awkward. It would be the most intimate thing we’d ever done, and it would be in a room full of people who have never seen him before, and we’d be pretending to be open and sexy people instead of neurotic and uncomfortable people and it just… We’re already at a dance, wearing fancy clothes. We’re already far enough from who we actually are. I don’t want this to turn into some night of us being two other people together. It’s supposed to be us.

  Plus I just try to imagine Sasha dancing, and that’s kind of ridiculous all on its own. “Ashley’s date isn’t with her, either,” I say. “The boys usually leave us alone for the fast songs.”

  He looks relieved. Maybe he was thinking all of that stuff, too. Probably he just doesn’t want to dance. “I’ll get food,” he says.

  “Perfect.”

  I go out with the rest of the girls and screech with them and join our writhing little group. Maura holds my hands and spins me around. I don’t remember the last time I danced with all of them like this. I should do it more. So I’m going to feel terrible tomorrow, so what? That’s tomorrow-me’s problem. It’s my body. I get to make it feel terrible for a day, if that’s what I want.

  The next song is one we all love, and the one after that is one of those bat mitzvah songs with a designated dance, so I end up on the dance floor for a while. I look at Sasha every so often. He’s drinking punch with his foot propped up on his knee, watching me like he’s amused.

  After four songs, my hips are screaming and I’m feeling bad about leaving Sasha for so long. The girls make moaning noises at me as I go, but I extricate myself anyway and limp on over to him.

  He pulls out a chair for me. “You good?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Are you?”

  “I’m fine,” he says. “But all they had for food were these dry little cookie things.”

  “Are these hamantaschen?”

  “I know. I’m only suffering through that on Purim.”

  “Wow. That’s very culturally broad for this place. Gimme some punch,” I say, and he shares his cup. “You didn’t get me my own?”

  “Of course I did. It’s on the table behind you.”

  “Oh. Sorry.”

  He laughs. “You’re fine.”

  “That was a terrible idea, by the way,” I say.

  “Aw, you looked like you were having fun.”

  “Yeah, but my legs are killing me.”

  “Put them up on my lap,” he says.

  “You sure?”

  He turns toward me and hauls them up carefully. “There you go.”

  I fold my arm on the back of my chair and lean my head against it and just… It’s blissful, for a minute, just resting. And then a slow song comes on, and we look at each other.

  “Next one?” he says.

  I sigh with relief, and he laughs. “Next one,” I say.

  The next one takes a while to come around, which gives him time to duck into the bathroom and deal with a nosebleed and me time to work the room and ask people questions for the column and worry a little about how long he’s been in the bathroom with his nosebleed. He comes back eventually, while I’m waiting by the doors of the gym wondering if I should go after him, and he gives me a little squeeze around the waist.

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “I’m fine,” he says. “I promise.”

  “Drink some punch, though.”

  “Yes, doctor.”

  We sit for a little longer to give him time to recover and dissect the cooki
es to see what’s inside them and eventually try eating a few, because if I’m honest, I really thought there was going to be food here, but they’re terrible. I spill punch on my dress, and he dabs at it for a while with a napkin, but it’s no use.

  “It’s still a nice dress,” he says. “Now it just looks like you murdered someone in it.”

  They announce the king and queen—it’s Ashley, of course, and the senior she got to bring her at the last minute—and they have to dance, which means another slow song. Sasha raises his eyebrows at me, and I nod. He carefully takes my feet off his lap and we go to the dance floor.

  He circles his arms around my waist. I reach up and drape mine behind his neck, my wrists crossed. His scarf is cool and smooth under my skin, like water.

  Eventually I lean in enough to rest my cheek against his chest.

  My legs still hurt, but I don’t care. I want to stay here. I want to sleep here, standing up in the middle of a room of people. Me and Sasha.

  I’m so scared. I’ve had crushes before, obviously, but this is something else. I don’t know if there’s a word for how the world feels survivable when I’m touching him and at no other time.

  “You good?” he says in my ear.

  “I’m good.”

  I can hear the smile in his voice. “Not a mistake yet?”

  He smells like cinnamon. He always smells like cinnamon. “No. Not a mistake.”

  I wonder if his lips taste like cinnamon.

  And what his hair would feel like through my fingers.

  I can’t do it. I can’t kiss him here, in this room full of people. Pretending like we’re the Snow Ball king and queen. That’s not me. That’s not him.

  And anyway, the music stops. Something fast comes on.

  We pull away a little and look at each other.

  “What do you want to do?” he asks me.

  “I’m really hungry,” I say.

  His eyes widen. “Oh my God, I’m so hungry.”

  “Do you want to get out of here?”

  “Yes.”

  …

  We talk about going to the twenty-four-hour diner in Sunnyside, but honestly, I’m tired, and I can tell he’s fading fast, too, so we just stop at McDonald’s on the way to the subway. The train’s pretty empty, so we spread the food out on our laps and get grease spots on our clothes and share fries.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he says. “This has been bothering me all night, but I haven’t known how to ask it.”

  “Of course.”

  “What’s the bra situation with that dress? Is this creepy? I’m sorry. I can’t figure it out, and it’s driving me crazy.”

  “Oh, it’s a stick-on!” I hold my arms up.

  “A stick-on bra?”

  “Yeah, it, like… It’s two cups, and you stick them on, and then you hook it together in the front.”

  “Does it hurt?”

  “No, no.”

  “Amazing.”

  I laugh and lean back against my seat. He bites into a fry.

  “Did you have a good time?” he asks me on the walk back to my house.

  “Yeah, did you?”

  “I did,” he says. He pauses. “You’re not acting like you had a good time.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Do you think this is the best time I’m capable of having? Because…I mean, that would be okay. My friends are still there cheering like, I mean, they’re at like a level-ten happy right now.”

  “What are you?”

  “I don’t know, maybe a seven? And that’s good! You can’t complain about a seven.”

  “A seven’s pretty good,” he says.

  “What are you?” I ask.

  “Maybe an eight.”

  I say, “I think I was expecting, I don’t know, we’d put on nice clothes and all of a sudden morph into these romance people. But that’s not… I mean, I don’t even want that. That’s how we turn into Frida and Diego, and that’s no good.”

  “So the choice is no romance or Frida and Diego?” He doesn’t sound disappointed. Just thoughtful.

  And I realize what I’ve been saying here. I’m telling him that I’m simultaneously glad that nothing happened between us and I’m disappointed that I didn’t have a better time with him.

  Wow, I am just the world’s worst date.

  I’m cold, all of a sudden. I haven’t been cold all night.

  “Maybe,” I say. I don’t know what else to say. I’ve ruined everything.

  We’re at my house now. The lights are off inside. I stand on my bottom step. We’re almost the same height like this.

  “Thank you,” he says. “For inviting me.”

  I nod. We hug.

  I feel my heart pounding against him.

  I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry I’m not a romance person.

  I’m sorry I think too much.

  I’m sorry I ruined everything.

  Don’t let go.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow?” he says.

  “Yes.”

  He lets go. He’s looking down at the ground. He starts to walk away, and I take a shaky breath and go up my front steps.

  I’ve just put my key in the lock when he says, “Ibby?”

  I turn around. “Yeah?”

  “For what it’s worth,” he says. “I’m in love with you.”

  He’s a few feet back from my house, standing on the sidewalk. His scarf shines in the streetlights.

  His hands are in his pockets. He’s not looking down anymore.

  I catch my breath. “What?”

  “I’m in love with you,” he says with this small smile. “I…I love your voice when you call me even though you’re falling asleep. I love that you’re not afraid of people. I love how much you care about everything you do. I love how you can’t eat anything without getting it all over yourself, and how you are with my siblings, and…I like that you’re Jewish, I like that, and that you’re sick, and that you…you have never been afraid of me. I love that you ask questions, so many goddamn questions, and you…” He shrugs. “I love that you exist in this world. I mean, I love the world even more because people like you exist in it. And I don’t even know how people live as long as they do without having someone like you in their life, or how I’ve done it for this long. I love your dad and your crappy mom because they made you. I want to go hug everyone at your school who made you happen. I love your friends. I…I am all in, here, that’s what I’m saying. There’s not a caveat. There’s not an exception. There’s…I love everything about you.”

  “Sasha,” I whisper.

  There are drunk people roaring on the next block. There’s a car horn blaring on Queens Boulevard.

  There’s nothing else but him.

  He says, “And I’m not saying this because I want to date you—which I do, just to be clear—or because you look incredible in that dress—which, you know, again, you do, you look like Cinderella—I’m just… I don’t think you know that you’re destined for a life full of love that is…that is big, and that is sweeping, and that is without penalties or expectations, it’s just there, and…and I think you should know that you are, and I know that because it’s already started. You are going to be loved purely and happily your entire life by people who are just fucking delighted to do it. And if you don’t think you’re the kind of person that happens for, then you’re my best friend and I need you to know this about yourself, because this is a lot bigger than you and me, because you are bigger than you and me, and you are loved, Isabel. You will always be loved. And it will be so good.” He nods. “It’s good. It’s really good to love you.”

  Every feeling I’ve ever had in my entire life is right here, right on the surface. And that boy is just standing on my sidewalk, grinning casually up at me like there’s nothing I could d
o that would possibly be wrong.

  How is he breathing right now? I can’t breathe.

  I say, “Y-you can’t just say these things and then expect me to know what to—”

  “I don’t,” he says.

  He’s too far away. “Come here?” I say. “Please come here right now.”

  He comes to the bottom of the stairs.

  “I need a hand, I can’t—”

  “Yeah, of course,” he says, and he takes my hand and helps me down the stairs.

  And goddamn it all, I feel like Cinderella.

  And I am going to die if I go one more second without kissing him.

  I don’t even know which of us moves toward the other one first. It’s one of those moments that seems predetermined, like that clock that’s been inside me and maybe inside both of us since Thanksgiving at the very latest, tick-tick-ticking away, is finally sounding the alarm. It has to happen. It has to happen, and right now.

  I stop on the last step, where we’re eye to eye, and he holds me by the waist with one hand and cups the back of my head with the other, and my arms are around his neck and scrambling in his hair, trying to pull him closer, closer, and I didn’t know kissing could feel like breathing.

  Yes—his lips taste like cinnamon.

  …

  I wake up the next morning still wearing a dress that looks bloodstained, feeling frozen and sore, like I was caught in an avalanche.

  My phone is ringing.

  “Are you so sore you feel like you’re going to die?” Sasha says. “Because I’m so sore I feel like I’m going to die.”

  “Yes,” I say. I’ve never been this happy.

  What was the best thing that happened this year?

  I don’t know. It was kind of a downer year, but I got to watch my best friend be super, super happy, so that’s pretty great…and we still have Luna’s party to come. So the year is not over yet!

  —Maura Cho, 16, optimist

  The world didn’t end, which, considering the current state of, you know, everything, is enough for me to call it a win. Also I got into NYU, and my mom and my sister didn’t kill each other, so I’ll take it.

  —Siobhan O’Brian, 17, mediator