You Know Me Well(26)

What.

Have.

I.

Done?

If Apple really wants us to become addicted to their products, if they really want them to be the zenith of user-friendliness, why in Job’s name isn’t there an unsend button? How hard would it be to enable us to take it all back, to erase the mistake before it’s seen?

What.

Was.

I.

Thinking?

What kind of spell did Violet cast that made me write what I just sent?

I will fight for you.

From what strange place did that rise up? How could I think, for even a moment, that this was something Ryan would want to receive?

What a Foolish Frederick I am.

Violet’s still proud of me—she’s completely unattuned to my rising panic. But Katie can tell something’s wrong.

“What is it?” she asks. “What did you say?”

I pass her my phone. She takes one look at the message and says, “Goodness.” Then she passes the phone to Violet, who reads the message and returns it to me.

“Is it true?” Violet asks.

“Is what true?”

“Would you really fight for him?”

I nod. But the nod isn’t enough, so I add, “I would fight for him.” And that’s still not enough, so I go on. “In fact, I would tear through rubble with my bare hands to get to him. I would lift cars. I would wrestle down anyone who said we shouldn’t be together. Because if you want to know the truth—if you really want to know the truth—none of that could be nearly as hard as being in love with him and not able to tell anyone about it. Including him. I have this thing inside me, and it’s angry and it’s scared and it’s uncertain and most of all it’s so completely in love with him, and it would do anything to keep him, even if it means things staying the way they are now.”

I cannot believe I am telling them this. Why am I telling them this?

Before I can stop myself, I push further.

“I can’t let him fall in love with someone else. I can’t let it happen. Not like that. I am so mad at him and I am so in love with him, and it hurts to be realizing it like this. Would I fight for him? I have been fighting for him for years. And I’m losing. No matter what I do, I’m losing. But I have to fight anyway.”

I want to laugh, because right now, sitting across from me with such matching concern, Katie and Violet look like a perfect couple. Exactly what I don’t have. Which makes me do the opposite of laugh.

“You’ve never told him,” Violet says. It’s not a question. It’s obvious.

“I tell him all the time—I just make sure it’s never when he’s listening. I say it when he’s in the other room, or when he’s asleep, or when the music’s really loud. Sometimes he asks me what I just said. And I tell him never mind. Or I make up something else, something that isn’t ‘I love you.’”

I know talking about a problem is supposed to make you feel better about it, but talking about this only manages to make it feel more present. All my words, all this talk, is balanced out by the silence of my phone.

No reply.

No reply.

No reply.

Unsend.

“You can’t keep it inside,” Violet offers.

“Or maybe I can’t keep it at all,” I tell her. “Maybe it was never really mine in the first place.”

You can be naked with someone and remain unknowable. You can be someone’s secret without ever really knowing what the full secret is. You can know he’s even more scared than you are, but that doesn’t make you any less scared yourself.

We would draw lines, and then we would cross them. Underwear was going to stay on. We were going to mess around but not have sex. We were only going to have sex once, to see what it was like. We were not going to make it a big deal. We were not going to let it affect our friendship. We were not going to tell a soul.

I don’t think he’s said a thing to anyone.

I imagine he told Taylor that I was his friend. His wingman. His best friend.

If Taylor even asked.

Katie says my name gently, draws me back. She’s looking at me carefully, while Violet watches my phone with a mix of surprise and horror at its inactivity. Maybe when she puts texts out into the universe, they come back to her quickly. Maybe she really thought her plan was going to work.

The waiter has probably been hovering for an hour, waiting for the teary gay boy with the phone problems to compose himself long enough to order more raw fish.

“Do you need anything else?” he asks.

I feel enough time has passed for my tea to get cold. But it hasn’t.

I shake my head. I’m out of words until some more appear on my phone.

“Ryan could be busy,” Katie says once the waiter’s gone. “His phone could be off.”

But my words will still be waiting for him.

And if he’s half as into Taylor as he seemed to be, his phone is going to be within reaching distance and the ringer will be set loud enough to wake the dead.

Unless he’s with Taylor right now.

Katie is reaching for my hand, but it’s Violet’s hand she should be reaching for. Here they are, together for the first time, and I’ve turned them into minor characters in my own soap opera.

“I always wonder what it would be like to meet him now, as a stranger,” I find myself saying. “This is my game within our game—to try to come up with the scenario in which it would work out better. Maybe if I met him now. Maybe if I met him in college. After college. Once he’s comfortable with who he is. But every time I do this, I feel awful. Because I’m sacrificing our history. I don’t love him for who he is now. I wouldn’t love him for who he is two years from now. I love him for all the hims he’s already been with me. I guess that’s the contradiction. I want a fresh start. I would fight for that fresh start. But I also want it to be a continuation.”