by Audrey Bell
He kissed me.
“I’m sorry,” I said throatily.
“For what?”
“For being selfish,” I said.
“You did what you needed to do.”
I shook my head. “I hurt you.”
He bit his lip. “Yeah.”
My eyes filled.
“But I was being an idiot,” he said.
“No, you told me you loved me. And it was all I wanted to hear. But I pretended it wasn’t. I convinced myself I wasn’t. Because I thought—I don’t know. I keep trying to figure out what I was trying to protect myself from and it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Listen. We were both young.”
“We both still are.”
“No, we both made promises to ourselves when we were young. Right?” he looked at me. “They had a lot to do with our parents, right? I saw my Mom’s life shatter because she married someone with a dangerous job who couldn’t give it up. And I said, I’m never going to do that to my wife and I’m never going to fall for a girl that would do that to me.” He met my eyes. “And you promised yourself you were never going to give anything up for love, because it never worked out for your parents. You promised yourself you wouldn’t fall in love, basically.
“But I fell for the girl with a dangerous job and you fell in love and we both decided we needed to keep these stupid promises we made to ourselves when were kids instead of growing up and realizing, things aren’t that black and white.”
“Right,” I said. I nodded. “But you…”
“I’m sorry.” He said. “If I’d listened to you, I wouldn’t have pushed you so hard so fast. But I wanted to know after two months whether you’d give up your dream for me. And when you hesitated, I wouldn’t compromise. I fucked up, too. This is not on you.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, it is.”
“It’s on both of us.” He grabbed my hands and laced our fingers together. “And I don’t care, because we fixed it, right?” He looked at me.
“We fixed it?” I smiled. “Jack, this is still kind of a mess.”
“Right. But we know that now,” he smiled back. “I mean shit happens. Bad shit happens. To everyone.” He met my eyes steadily. “We both thought we could avoid it. But nobody does. You know? And we shouldn’t hurt ourselves in the meantime.”
I nodded.
He pushed his forehead to mine. “We’re going to be okay.”
“Yeah.” I nodded.
“You’re going to be okay.”
I smiled. “Yeah.”
He pulled me into his lap and I wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him hard. “I love you,” I said again. It had been scary the first time. Unpleasantly scary, but it wasn’t now. I wanted to say it. I wanted to keep saying it. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He laughed. “I know. I love you too.”
I kissed him again. I knew that saying I loved him wasn’t going to break me this time. I knew it would save me.
He kissed the top of my head.
“I was afraid,” I said.
“You don’t have to explain.”
“I was afraid that if showed that I loved you, I would end up getting hurt and feeling stupid. So, I did the opposite. And I ended up getting hurt and feeling stupid.”
“I know,” he said. “You really don’t have to explain, Hadley. It’s okay.”
“I’m not afraid though. Of letting it show anymore. I’m not afraid of letting my love show. I’m afraid of not showing it,” I said.
It turned out to be easy to let it go. That once I started, I couldn’t really stop. I loved the way he laughed, the way his hair stuck up in the morning, how he cocked his head when he was looking at me. I loved how sweet he could be, and how sure he was. I loved how he talked to people, like they were the center of the world.
I loved that he noticed me. I loved that he knew me better than I knew myself. I loved that he had put it out there back in March, when he was pretty sure I was going to shoot him down.
I loved that he never told me to smile or to stop being so serious. I loved the way he held my wrist and kissed the palm of my hand.
I loved that after all that time of thinking love wasn’t safe, I realized that I had never been safer than I was, curled in my tiny apartment in Harlem, with Jack Diamond, the person I was madly in love with.
I loved him. I was going to let it show forever.
Epilogue
Jack, Seven Months Later
“We are not getting a Mastiff,” Hadley said.
“Why not? I like him. And he’s a puppy.”
“Because we live in New York. And I’m going to be the one who ends up walking it in the morning,” she said. “I don’t need as much exercise as a mastiff.”
I looked over at her and smiled. “A mastiff would look good on our couch.”
“I want a mutt,” Hadley said. “I want a small mutt with an anxiety disorder who speaks Arabic to keep you company when I’m in Jordan.”
Soon she’d be leaving for three weeks to go to a Syrian Refugee camp just across the Jordanian border. It would be her second trip. She’d gone for just five days a few months back and written an article that just about everyone in America had read.
And this time, she wasn’t scared to go. The refugee camps were stable. People were suffering there, but they were safe. Hadley wouldn’t be in danger of dying.
After Hadley had walked away the night of our formal, Xander said she was the world’s most emotionless bitch. At the time, I had wished I could agree with him. But even then, when I wanted to hate her, I knew nothing could be further from the truth.
Hadley saw everyone’s suffering clearly. She saw it perfectly. And she knew how to write about it. She gave it a name and a face and a story you could understand. David and I might have been the only people who really saw that part of her in college.
But when you read her articles, you knew.
I laughed. “I don’t want Hadley 2. I want a mastiff.”
She shook her head and walked further into the animal shelter. We’d just signed a lease together on an apartment in north Chelsea. It was on the eighth floor and the building didn’t have an elevator. The bedroom was microscopic. But it had a kitchen you could use and a decent view. It was only a few steps away from the subway and it was ours.
And Hadley wasn’t freaked out about that at all.
Her phone rang and she pressed it to her ear. “David!”
I could hear his laughter through the phone and I walked up behind her and kissed the soft part of her neck and she smiled and elbowed me in the hip. She pointed at a nervous looking dog that was sitting in the corner of its cage.
I smiled at the dog. She looked terrified, and I gripped the front of my cage with my fingers. “Hey, girl,” I said to her.
She had a white medallion on her chest and curly speckled ears and black fur and big mournful eyes. The placard on her cage said she was about two years old and shy, but housebroken.
“We’re getting a dog,” Hadley told David. “Yes, seriously….No, I know. It’s insane…well, he wants a mastiff, but that’s not happening…” She laughed. “But, yeah, I get back at the end of May, so any time after that is great for us…the apartment is the size of a postage stamp, but you both will fit….”
I looked down at the shy mutt and smiled at her, trying to coax her out of the corner. “Hey,” I said again, smiling when she approached my hand cautiously. She nuzzled up against my hand and sat down.
Hadley ended her phone call with David. “Don’t you like her?” she asked me.
“I do like her,” I said. “Is David coming to visit?”
She nodded. “Yeah. In June. Justin, too.”
“That’ll be fun.”
“Yeah.”
“You like her, too, right?” I asked, nodding at the dog.
Hadley smiled. “Yeah, she’s adorable.”
“Do you want to get her?” I asked.
“Yeah. Only if you’re sure, though.�
�� She leaned her head on my shoulder. “I thought you wanted the mastiff.”
“No. She’s perfect,” I said. “Don’t you think?”
“Yeah,” Hadley said softly.
“What do you think about Avery?” I asked.
“Avery. I like that,” Hadley said, wrapping her fingers around mine. She put her hand up against the cage too. “Hey, Avery.”
The dog turned her attention to Hadley and I smiled. “She likes you.”
“I like her too,” Hadley said. She looked up at me.
“Let’s get her,” I said.
I met her shining eyes and she mouthed the words I’d gotten used to hearing: I love you.
