Love Lettering

by Kate Clayborn

  Like it’s a sign.

  “Oh,” he says finally, and it’s almost as if I can sense him sobering up. Realizing how his sort-of friend Meg showed up to the same bar as him on a random Friday night.

  “Sorry, man,” Gretchen says, shrugging. She smiles as she plucks his card from his fingers. “Thought you needed an assist.”

  Reid watches her go, and I watch the wash of pink spread across his cheeks.

  “It’s fine!” I say, tucking my wallet back into my bag. “I was out, anyway.”

  “Meg,” he says quietly, too quietly for the rising tide of noise all around us. “I’m sorry.”

  I wave a hand. It’s ridiculous that I’m so embarrassed, but I am. I rushed over here as though he needed rescuing, so eager to see him again. “It’s like I said, I was—”

  “No,” he says, and he has to lean in so that I can hear him. He went swimming today; I can tell. I let my eyes close for a beat longer than a blink, relishing that now-familiar smell, but open them when he speaks again. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. That I didn’t answer your calls.”

  I send up a silent plea of exasperation—to Lachelle, to Gretchen, to the fates—for giving me the most complex practice problem for my first try at fighting with Reid. Should I let him keep going? Should I interrupt to tell him how sorry I am, how it was my fault, how I never meant to hurt him? Should I tell him again that this isn’t the time, that he’s been drinking, that it’s too loud and annoying in here? Or will that make it worse; will that make me seem rude, dismissive, distant?

  “I thought of calling,” he says, taking advantage of my quiet, anxious indecision. He reaches up and rubs a hand through his hair, messily enough that it sticks up on the right side. “Every day, I thought of it. But then I’d think about what you said. About people trying to protect themselves.”

  “I was wrong,” I blurt, even though it’s going to be no use right now explaining to him what I learned tonight—about myself, about other people.

  But it doesn’t matter, because he keeps going. Gretchen brings back Reid’s card and receipt, but he doesn’t even seem to notice; he keeps his blue eyes so focused on me. When there’s a new round of shouts from somewhere in the rear of this swine-filled bar, he leans even closer.

  “I don’t do that. Protect myself. I’m”—he swallows—“honest to a fault, that’s what Avery used to say. To my own detriment. To the detriment of people around me.”

  I tense at this mention of Avery, of the past between me and Reid she brings up, of a shared criticism we’ve both, apparently, leveled at him. I feel a new spike of guilt, a desperate urge to run from this pain I caused him.

  But I stay.

  “Then I went out walking today,” Reid says. “I walked across the Bridge. I walked all around Brooklyn. And I realized something.”

  No, wait, I want to say. Wait, I realized something, too. But God, it is so loud in here, and Reid is so close, and his voice sounds so good....

  “I realized I’m not always honest with you.”

  I lean back, enough so I can look in his eyes. It doesn’t sound like a good thing to say, this I’m not always honest with you. But somehow, the way Reid says it—the letters take on a new meaning. As though if you drew them all out, you’d find something. Something you’d actually want to see.

  “But you . . .” I say, my voice too quiet for this clamor, and Reid ducks his head, brings his ear closer to my lips so he can hear me. “You always say what you mean.”

  He leans back again, his eyes tracing over my face—my eyes, my nose, my mouth. Please forget I’m wearing Hello Kitty faces, I think.

  “I don’t. Because if I did—”

  Somewhere down the bar a glass breaks and someone shouts an unintelligible expletive, but neither of us moves. I’m watching Reid’s mouth in case I have to lip-read what he says next.

  “If I did, I would say that last week I watched every video you’ve got on your website so I could hear the sound of your voice again. I would say that a woman stood next to me on the subway and I think she used the same shampoo as you, and I could hardly breathe for how much I missed you. I would say that I walked around all day with a Meg-shaped shadow beside me, and I only came in here because of the signs outside, and so I wouldn’t call you up at nine o’clock on a Friday night and beg you to talk to me again—about Frisbee, the weather, the name for that piece of a letter you told me about—”

  “A spur,” I whisper, because holy shit. This is the best fight of my whole life.

  He nods, his face so serious. “A spur,” he repeats.

  Then he drops his eyes to the bar, to my card, and adds one more thing.

  “I would say I like you so much, Meg.”

  And then—right then, the real fight breaks out.

  Chapter 12

  “A couple of stitches ought to do it.”

  The doctor leaning in to take one final look at Reid’s eyebrow has the efficient, slightly impatient demeanor of a woman who has seen a whole lot worse, and who probably has a whole lot worse waiting for her out in the lobby of this urgent care. She reaches up a latex-gloved hand and touches her index finger to the lump forming around the cut on Reid’s brow, and I see his jaw clench tightly against the pressure she’s put there.

  “Sorry, big guy,” she says, lowering her hand and leaning back, pulling off her gloves. “The good news is, I don’t think you’re concussed.”

  “I told you I wasn’t,” Reid says, sullenly.

  “Yes, that was helpful. To have your expert medical opinion.” She looks over at me and rolls her eyes.

  I really love this doctor.

  She moves over to the tablet on the pale-green laminate counter, tapping in a few notes from her exam, and I realize that it’s the first time in at least a couple of hours that I’ve taken a deep, relieved breath. All through the cab ride here, my big bag basically a clown car for the steady stream of tissues (clean! I’m not an animal, or your grandma) I’d handed over to Reid to press against his gushing cut, my body and brain had felt electrified, all my thoughts and actions a new, supercharged kind of Meg-Bot mechanical:

  Noise, crowd, push, punch.

  Blood, door, outside, cab, doctor.

  Reid. Fight. Bar fight.

  Swine, as it turned out, had lived entirely up to its name when it came to the majority of its patrons, who rudely interrupted the most romantic confrontation of my life by starting a brawl over a game of air hockey. It’d started somewhere in the back, some mysterious place where the pastel-shirt guys and the beard guys apparently met, deadlocked in their angry, competitive feelings toward each other over various table games and probably also their relative success levels at late capitalism. Maybe if my eyeballs hadn’t been turning into giant red hearts I would’ve noticed how that rising tide of noise was being matched with a new press of people making their way to the front.

  Instead, I’d only noticed when one of the pastel-shirt guys, courtesy of one of the bearded guys, had landed like a projectile into the back of Reid’s stool.

  And that’s when I learned that Reid Sutherland—despite his stoicism, despite his civility, despite his slight inebriation—absolutely knows how to fight.

  His reflexes had been superhero-fast, one hundred percent not-intoxicated fast. He’d stood from his stool, all his height blocking me from the encroaching crowd, and for one brief, mindless second, I’d done the thing I’ve been wanting to do for weeks: I’d pressed my body close to his.

  In the seconds after—it must’ve only been seconds, though it’d felt much longer—the chaos had been overwhelming, somehow managing to be both an in- and out-of-body experience. I’d felt it when a cold splash of beer had landed on the back of my dress, and I’d heard my own brief yelp of surprise as I’d jumped away from Reid’s body in shock. I’d felt it when his body had then briefly knocked into mine, the force of the stray elbow to his brow that’s brought us here, and I’d heard his grunting exhalation of pain.

  And
then I’d seen something change in the line of his back—a broadening, a stiffening.

  A preparation.

  But had I really felt it when he’d turned and grabbed me by the wrist? When he’d tucked my body close to his, when he’d put an arm around my shoulders and started to shove his way through the crowd of angry, sloppy patrons? Had I really seen it right, when one of those patrons threw a lazy, misdirected punch in our direction? Had I truly heard Reid—quite late Reid!—mutter a quiet, frustrated “Fuck” through clenched teeth before he’d moved me out of the way? Had that been real, him ducking that punch, him pulling back his arm and making a fist as the guy started coming again?

  Could I actually have felt the force of that ham-fisted, sloppy-drunk guy thudding to the ground at my feet?

  “What about his hand?” I say now, in the firm, no-nonsense voice I seem to have had since we walked in here, and the truth is, I’m still surprised to hear it. A literal fight, and I feel stronger than I have in ages. In the lobby my hand had been rock-steady as I’d filled out Reid’s paperwork, quietly but quickly asking him questions that he would answer stiffly, his voice muffled from the fresh, icy-cold compress the check-in nurse gave him.

  “I’m okay, Meg,” Reid says, his voice low and soothing. For a split second some of my newfound strength falters. I like you so much, Meg, he’d said, but he’s been quiet ever since, and if I look at him now—if I see that bruised, bloody brow, the one he got for me—I may not be able to stay focused on the most important thing, which is making sure he’s okay.

  I keep my eyes on the doctor, waiting for her answer.

  “In this case, the patient and I agree. His hand looks fine.” She directs her next comment to him. “Someone must’ve taught you to make the right kind of fist.”

  Reid gives a bored shrug worthy of pastel-shirt guy. This slight air of sullenness is the only lingering symptom of his former inebriation. He has looked stone-cold sober from the moment that man hit his stool, though the energy bar I forced him to eat (another gem from my bag) and the ten tiny cups of water I made him drink out in the lobby probably helped.

  “I’m going to grab an NP who’s got a steadier hand than me to stitch you up, okay?” Then she turns to me again, speaking as though Reid isn’t in the room. “Keep an eye on him tonight. If he seems disoriented, or has light sensitivity, or complains of nausea, give us a call.”

  “She’s not—” Reid begins, but I cut him off. Reid may have punched a guy in the face (better than pistols at dawn, I am now assured) before I could get clocked by an errant fist, but I’m ending this night as rescuer-in-chief. I got him to this urgent care, and I’m going to be the one who wakes him up every hour to shine a light in his eyeballs, though that is probably not what this doctor means about checking for light sensitivity.

  “I will,” I say. “He’s staying at my place.”

  In my periphery, I see Reid turn his head sharply toward me.

  “Great,” says the doctor, snapping the cover closed on her tablet. “You all have a good night, and try to stay out of trouble.” The door shuts behind her with a decisive click.

  And then Reid and I are alone—truly alone—for the first time in a week.

  “Meg, you don’t have to—”

  This time, it’s me who turns sharply, and I finally let myself take in the full force of his bruised face. My heart clutches, but I don’t wince. Somehow I know—as though I’ve been practicing for a lot longer with Reid than I realized—that if I show pity toward him right now, he’ll fight me so much harder.

  “You’re staying with me. You don’t even have your phone.”

  “I have my MetroCard. And my feet.”

  “You’re about to get stitches.” I cross my arms over my chest, and I register how strange it feels to do it. I don’t think I’ve ever stood this way in my whole life. It’s weirdly satisfying. “Where did you learn to punch like that, anyway?”

  I don’t ask so much because I care, but because I’m trying to distract him from arguing with me about staying over tonight.

  He blinks down at his hand. “My older brothers. To help me at school.” He pauses, then looks up at me with an expression of such naked embarrassment that I immediately uncross my arms.

  “Please don’t think I do that often,” he says.

  “I don’t,” I say quickly, feeling some of the fight drain out of me. “Of course I don’t.”

  “Or . . . drink that way. It’s rare. And I hadn’t eaten all day. I only had—”

  “Reid, it’s fine.”

  Oh, man, the sad eyes. Forget it, I’ll never win this argument. Maybe I can pay one of these nurses to go home with him, if the thought of staying with me is so awful.

  “You—” He shifts on the bench, the paper covering the vinyl crinkling beneath him. “You’ve barely looked at me since we got out of there. If I scared you, or if the things I said—”

  That fast, my own reflexes take over, some protective instinct I have for him, and I cross the tiny space, putting myself right in front of him. I wait until he raises his eyes to mine again, then reach out my hand—oh, it’s shaky now—and set it on top of his.

  I see his chest expand with the breath he takes.

  “You didn’t scare me. None of it scared me.”

  It’s not all the way true, of course. It was scary, but not in the way he means. It was scary to see him again, to confront him again. It was scary to remember parts of our fight, to feel the hurt feelings that still exist between us. But I stayed, and if I can make him stay tonight—

  “None of it?” he asks, looking down at our hands.

  I know what he’s asking. I like you so much, Meg.

  “None of it.”

  He moves, turning his wrist so our palms press together, so his fingers link with mine. I swallow reflexively. Holding hands with Reid, I think, routes through the city unrolling in my head like a map on a table. What if I never want to walk any other way?

  “But I think we should come back to this tomorrow,” I say. “When you’re feeling better.”

  For once, it doesn’t feel like I’m avoiding anything. It feels like Reid is coming home with me tonight to sleep on my couch and to get annoyed with my nocturnal nursing efforts, and it feels like we’ll wake up tomorrow and practice at this in the clear, completely sober light of day.

  “Did she move out yet?” he asks quietly.

  I feel my brows lower in confusion. “Sibby?”

  He tips his downturned head in a small nod.

  “No, but usually on Fridays she stays with—”

  I don’t finish before his shoulders slump in relief, his head dropping forward even more. With him sitting on the table, and me standing here, the top of his bent head is right at the level of my chin.

  I realize what he must be worried about.

  “She wouldn’t care, anyway. We’ve lived together a long time. Both of us have had . . . uh, overnight guests before.”

  Reid’s hand squeezes mine gently. He’s holding my hand as though I belong to him. As though we belong to each other.

  “A few more weeks,” I say, and for the first time since I got the call about Reid I think about Sibby moving out, about the other fight I have waiting for me, and I take a breath through my nose. “I think the official date is on a—”

  “I was worried,” he says, interrupting me. He lifts our joined hands, holding them in the space between our bodies, and oh. His breath tickles the back of my hand. My sensitive, sensitive hand. Where all my talent and all my most secret thoughts come from. It’s like having clinging, confining bandages removed.

  “Worried?”

  “I kept thinking,” he says, his voice lower now—either my closeness or maybe the fatigue finally setting in. I take a step forward and shift our hands, making a small, inadequate pillow out of the back of mine for his brow. He takes the hint, letting the uninjured side of his forehead rest, warm and heavy, against my knuckles.

  How must this look, this
picture of us? A knight bowing in service to his lady. I see my name in an illuminated, medieval-manuscript style.

  MARGARET THE BRAVE

  “I kept thinking,” he says again, “it’d be hard for you, her leaving. And what if I missed it?”

  “You didn’t.” My voice has lost all its steadiness, but it doesn’t much bother me now. The hand that’s not clutched to his—it lifts, seemingly of its own accord. I reach out and stroke my fingers through his thick mass of red-blond hair, and I think his whole body shivers. I think mine does, too.

  “I’m so sorry I didn’t call.”

  Reid the Repentant.

  “It’s all right,” I say, stroking again. “Tomorrow, okay?”

  “Tomorrow,” he agrees, and then—as if to seal it—Reid lifts his head the smallest amount. Enough to press his lips against the back of my hand.

  And that’s how Reid and I rest after the fight, waiting to get stitched all the way back together.

  It’s a bold move, going back to the park.

  We don’t so much plan it as we do walk our way to it, one of the many mutual, unspoken agreements we’ve come to over the course of last night and this morning. The promise we made to each other in that tiny treatment room—Tomorrow—has lived between us through every interaction we’ve had, something we both seem to be keeping sacred for full daylight, for full sobriety, for full assurance of no head injury. Inside the low-light, hushed quiet of my apartment, Reid had been polite, careful, helpful, a houseguest unsure of his welcome: Your place is nice. I don’t want to get blood on your couch. I can put the sheets down.

  In response, I’d tried to be easy and unbothered, nearly professional in my hangover-preventing, concussion-checking, of-course-you’re-welcome-here care. Advil and a full glass of water to keep future headaches at a minimum. Quiet, hourly, tiptoed walks out into the living room to see his big, still-clothed body sprawled on my couch, half-covered by the blanket that I usually keep at the foot of my bed, his breathing soft and even. An extra towel and toothbrush in the bathroom, a fresh bar of soap in our tiny shower stall, a large T-shirt I got last year for free at the Northside Festival folded neatly on the counter.