“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I wish there were something I could do.”
He laughed. “You can start by not sounding like you think you’ve ruined my life. You’re pretty cool, but you’re not that awesome.”
I smiled. “I deserved that.”
“Yep. And you can do one more thing for me,” he said but hesitated.
“Name it.”
“Just tell me this: is it Will? The reason you’re so messed up?”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, stalling.
“So it is,” he said. “There’s a crazy energy around you two. Seems like a good guy. Good luck. Is that even what I’m supposed to say here?”
“More like condolences,” I said. “That’s never going to work. So I’m breaking it off with you because I’m a mess, but I’m definitely not moving onto something else this time. I’m going to load my Kindle with Eat, Pray, Love–type books of women figuring themselves out, and I’m going to sequester myself from dating until I make some kind of progress.”
That won another laugh from him. “Good luck, and this time I mean it.”
I thanked him like a total dork and hung up. I wished desperately that I could go into work, but it was Sunday, and now I had a day to fill with something besides thoughts of Will. Which seemed impossible. I’d wanted to spend the day moving, but even though the leasing office had agreed to let me change apartments, the unit wouldn’t open for two more weeks.
Fourteen days of anxiety every time I opened my front door to leave in case I bumped into Will. It would be my outside limit, but I could do it.
The plan after spending an hour on the phone with Sophie this morning was to keep myself as busy as possible to keep my mind off things. Off Will. She’d helped me come up with a list of things to do but not without making me deconstruct the scene with Will twice, especially the part where he said he understood me and wanted to be with me.
“Then why not see where it goes?” she’d asked. As if she hadn’t been telling me that he wasn’t good enough for me. But she’d brushed away that concern. “He gets it now. And he’s a good guy. How will you ever know if you don’t try?”
How would I know? Because I’d had a lifetime to study him. And I could see the breakup as easily as I could see the early days full of infatuated kisses. And in the time it took to go from one to the other, I’d end up collecting a whole bunch of new memories it would be impossible to purge when we ended.
Sophie had dropped her argument and helped me make my “keep insanely busy” list. At the top was to limit all proximity to Will so I could try to think about him less. At least I had a move in the works. But I still had lots of other spaces full of Will to clear out somehow. Delete messaging threads; unfollow him on Twitter, where he was documenting his Gatorade bottle castle; unfollow him on Instagram, where he posted adventure pics.
How do you quit someone cold turkey when you can’t remember when they weren’t a part of your life?
I pulled up HeyThere and logged in, needing to deactivate my profile too so I couldn’t suck anyone else into my drama. But the second I clicked the button to hide my profile, my fingers zipped over the keyboard on kamikaze autopilot, typing in Will’s screen name and trying to destroy me.
Nothing popped up.
I straightened and tried a few things, but no Will. I punched in every possible search sequence that could find him, but he wasn’t there. He’d scrubbed himself and the beautiful profile I’d written off the website. I took a couple of virtual tours of other websites he’d mentioned when he’d started his experiment, but there was no trace of him on those either.
Okay. What did that mean? He was giving up on the online thing? When had he done this?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was that it made things a tiny bit easier for me, and I’d take it.
I picked up my cell to delete our message threads, but it buzzed in my hand. It was him. Your heart is bigger than Texas. Don’t tell Sophie I used that cliché.
I stared at the message, then typed, Thank you. But what was that for?
I waited several minutes, but he didn’t answer. Will?
Still no answer. I left the message thread alone for the time being until I could figure out what that last text had been about. Instead, I got up and worked on the second thing on the keeping-busy list and spent an hour rearranging the spices in my cabinet and listening to a science podcast about bee-colony collapses. I’d had better Sunday nights, but that project plus six Friends episodes was enough to keep my mind at a low rev instead of a flat-out race until it was time to go to sleep.
I didn’t have a set bedtime, but for the foreseeable future, it would be when I thought I was tired enough to lie down and drift right off without spending any time in that vulnerable place where I could feel how hard I was already missing Will, where the weight of everything that I was losing could smother me.
My phone went off as soon as my head touched the pillow. Will again. There is no better friend to have than a Becker.
Great. Except I’d screwed up even that. I stuck my phone in my pantry so I wouldn’t hear it, then went back to bed, but sleep didn’t come for a long time.
He texted again almost as soon as I fished my phone out of the pantry the next morning, and I startled when it buzzed, dropping it in the sink, where it narrowly avoided landing in the oatmeal bowl I was soaking.
You always see the best in people, and you expect more from them than they expect from themselves. It makes me want to be better. It always has.
I couldn’t stand it. Not one more message. What are you doing?!!!
He didn’t answer.
I mean it. Tell me. What’s up with these messages?
The phone vibrated. Come down here and ask me that to my face.
I didn’t respond. I left for work a half hour before I knew he would. I didn’t normally walk into work happy to discover that we had a massive bug to sort through, but today, if I could have found the bug, I would have hugged it for semidistracting me until midafternoon when Will texted again. I hated that I hoped it was him the second my phone went off. I hated that I wanted it to be another compliment. I hated that my fingers fumbled to pull up the message.
If we could figure out how to harness your determination and convert it into fuel, it would be more powerful than fusion. Your willpower is amazing.
But not my Will power. That was totally weak and fading fast. I set the phone down and walked back to the conference room to work through the broken code my team had finally found. At least here I had problems I could solve, unlike at home where I only made them worse.
I could only hope we had an equally nasty batch of code to debug tomorrow because even with work taking all of my concentration, Will was stealing thought after thought.
I didn’t respond to him at all for the next two days, despite five more texts. He told me that he admired my relationship with my brother, the way I loved what I loved, like Friends marathons, even when other people like him teased me for it. He told me that I had the quickest mind of anyone he knew and that he loved the way I cooked, even when it was rabbit food. But it was the fifth one that pushed me too far. It came in right as I got home on Wednesday. You’ve always taken better care of me than anyone. You are so good at that.
Because I love you! I wanted to scream. Because I would have done anything for you. Because I still would do anything for you. So why couldn’t he give me this one thing? It had been three days since I’d watched him walk out of my place, three full days where I didn’t feel one bit better, one iota more hopeful that I would get through this.
Stop it. I pressed send. If I needed to beg, I would, but this had to be over. And yet my phone vibrated in my hand.
Make me. Right now.
It was a game to him. A freaking game! I stomped into my bedroom and tore off my suit, skinning into my running gear as fast as I could. I’d outrun this. Him. My anger.
Because he was making me very angry. Furious.
I tore open my front door, intent on hitting the running trail, but I stopped cold. A package sat on the doorstep topped by a card with my name on it in Will’s handwriting.
I scooped them both up and dropped them on the table. The box was dense, maybe a couple of pounds, and it made a loud thunk when it hit the table. I ripped the envelope off the card. There’d better be an explanation inside. And an apology. And a promise to respect my boundaries.
It wasn’t a card at all but a piece of printer paper folded into fourths, and when I opened it, his scrawl filled the page.
Dear Hannah,
I’m sorry things are wrecked right now. You keep taking the blame for it, saying it’s your fault for telling me how you feel. I’ve never been great with words like you are, but I’ve never been bad either. I’ve tried explaining this to you a few times, and I screw it up. I’m going to try again here, in writing, to see if I can make it come out right and if I can stay out of my own way.
It’s hard to say these things in front of you. I lose my train of thought, and I don’t want to talk. I just want to . . . never mind. You’re distracting. In a good way. Let’s leave it at that.
So here goes: when I read the profile you put up for me, it lit my brain on fire. You saw me like I want to be seen, and you know me like I want to be known. I don’t know if you know how that feels, but if you don’t know, you need to. It’s a gift—one you deserve. It’s amazing to be understood and accepted anyway. And that’s how seeing your words made me feel.
I could date a hundred women a hundred times each and never find one who will know me like you do.
But I know you like that. I know you think I see you as my responsibility because of Dave. But that responsibility to Dave is different than what you think it is, and maybe you’ll be willing to ask me about it. Because I want to explain. But that’s not what this note is about. This is about you. Those texts were to tell you that I see you. I do. I see every single part that makes you who you are.
This is the part I screw up when I try to explain it to you. I say it, but I don’t think you hear me, because maybe I’m not saying it the right way: I have always seen you. Since you were seventeen, a long time before you told me you had a crush on me and I laughed at you to save us both.
These words aren’t coming out right. I think I’m giving up on words. But I’m not giving up on trying to tell you at all. Open the box if you haven’t already. Maybe it will say it better. And if you don’t understand it, come find me.
Love,
Will
To save us both? What? What did he mean, he had always seen me?
I tore open the box, so full of anxiety I was on the verge of puking. He’d shoved a dark-blue towel inside. I scooped it out, gasping when I unwound it. He’d finally carved the cocobolo block.
The piece was beautiful, maybe as long as my forearm, a sinuous design that moved in a few clean lines through space, and I smiled. He’d made me an infinity symbol, the curves flowing into beautiful straight lines that sloped and curved again. The wood was gorgeous, almost warm beneath my skin.
I loved it as soon as I saw it, even more when I touched it. But I still didn’t know what it was supposed to say that Will’s words couldn’t. I stared at it for a couple minutes, trying to figure out the message.
I set down the wood and picked up my phone. It’s beautiful.
Does it explain everything? Or even anything?
I wanted so badly to fake a psychic connection, to believe that I could read his mind, that I could perfectly understand what he was telling me because I knew him so well. But I told the truth. I’m lost.
I sat down and looked at the wood again. It was strange to see a finished piece from him. So often he whittled something that almost matched his vision but not quite. When that happened, he put it aside. It wasn’t worth sanding something that wasn’t everything he meant it to be. So he’d abandon it.
But this slid like polished stone beneath my finger. I couldn’t resist touching and tracing it, noticing new patterns in the grain with every pass.
A light tap sounded on the front door a second before Will’s head poked through it, swiveling until he spotted me at the table. “May I?” he asked.
I nodded, and he stepped in, hands in his pockets. His eyes caught on the note he’d written me. It lay face-up waiting for me to study it again for new patterns too.
He cleared his throat. “How did you find the guts to march into my place and tell me how you feel? This is hard.”
My stomach clenched. “Why? What do you need to say?”
He laced his fingers behind his head and stretched. A minute ticked by. He stayed where he was, holding his own head up, staring at the ceiling.
“Will?”
“I don’t want you because I can’t have you.” It came out in a rush. “I want you because I’ve felt that way since you were seventeen years old.”
The world exploded. My entire understanding of everything Will and I had ever been to each other peeled away and collapsed around me, like watching someone demolish the exterior of a skyscraper, leaving behind a steel skeleton that suddenly had no context as the only thing standing.
Will let out a shaky breath and leaned over, putting his hands on his knees, still not looking at me. He looked like he did after a hard run.
All that came out of my mouth was, “What?” A vacuous, stupid-sounding word, but I had no other ones to give him.
“Yeah. That’s not a confession I was ever going to make. ‘Hey, when you were seventeen, I was a total creeper at twenty, digging my best friend’s sister.’” He straightened and met my eyes finally. “But I’m confessing it anyway. I don’t even know what’s happening to me anymore.”
I gaped at him, mouth open, too stunned to even blink. “When I was seventeen? How could you like me? I was fat and awful.”
“You were bigger, yeah. But you’ve always been you. I mean, you’re happier now, maybe. But your personality is the same as it’s always been. And you’re gorgeous. You know that, right? Even with the extra weight, you’ve always been gorgeous.”
It was the last thing I’d ever expected to hear from him. Finally I swallowed and licked my lips so I could make them form words. “Why didn’t you say anything when I told you how I felt?” But I couldn’t sit still while I processed all this.
I touched the sculpture again, a tingle traveling up my arm. He had made it, had turned this over and over in his hands, and I wanted to feel that same touch so much that it was distracting me to the point of driving out coherent thought.
He watched me closely, apprehension around his eyes as I turned a full circle in the kitchen, trying to figure out what to do next. I could only replay his words. I’ve felt that way since you were seventeen. My brain was glitching, and I didn’t care. I could listen to that forever.
I stood and crossed to sit on the couch, staring blankly at the coffee table in front of me. I’ve felt that way since you were seventeen. “Do you still feel that way?”
I didn’t turn around to watch him as he answered, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t say anything anyway. I heard him move to the table, then back toward me on the sofa, stooping to set down the infinity sculpture before settling into his corner and leaning back. “Yes. I still feel that way. That’s what the carving is about. I think I’m always going to feel that way. I want you to know that.”
I stared at him, dazed. He finally unclasped his hands to look at me, like he couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t saying anything. I didn’t even know what to ask, but I was desperately trying to come up with questions so I could understand.
“I’d come home for a holiday that weekend when you told me you loved me,” he said. “Presidents Day, maybe. It was a Thursday night. I was back at campus by Friday noon. I was so freaked out.”
“Why? Because I was young?”
“Because I thought the way you felt was my fault. I’d kind of figured it out that fall, that you were not Dave’s little
sister anymore. That you were separate from Dave. And, yeah, maybe a lot of the boys around the neighborhood were too dumb to look past a few extra pounds, but enough did. Didn’t you ever notice guys checking you out? I saw it happen two or three times. You didn’t?”
I shook my head. Never.
“The first time I noticed was the first time I started to see you differently too. But I could laugh at myself. I chalked it up to me being kind of a typical guy, paying attention to anything with nice hair and curves. But Dave noticed guys checking you out too, and it made him so mad. It brought out that protective streak in him, and it bothered him that he had to be gone during the week for school, that he couldn’t stick around and keep an eye on the guys sniffing around.”
“Nobody sniffed around!” I said, exasperated. “I never even had a date until senior prom, and that was after I’d lost about half my weight.”
He shrugged. “I’m telling you, guys have radar for this stuff. But for me, it didn’t matter. I felt weird about being attracted to you already, and when I saw how much it bugged Dave to see other guys paying attention to you, I felt worse. So I slammed a door shut on the whole idea and figured I’d be around you so much less from that point on that it didn’t matter. Then you had to go and confess all your feelings a few months later. Geez, Hannah. Talk about killing me.”
He sat forward, elbows on his knees, and turned to face me. “I was afraid I’d unintentionally sent out some kind of signal you were picking up. But there was no way I was going to cross Dave. So I laughed it off and figured it would fade for both of us.”
“You crushed me,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I thought it was a high school thing. I thought we’d move past it.” He rubbed his palms up and down his thighs. “It honestly seemed like you did. So I did too. It was easy when I wasn’t around you that much, to dismiss you as being young and dumb and let it go.”
“I did get over you,” I said. “Finally. A high school crush is a stronger force of nature than you realize. But I did it. That’s when I started running. And when I got to college, I decided I needed better hobbies than eating my feelings, and the rest of the weight came off.”
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