The Way You Make Me Feel(55)

Hamlet threw his head back and the laugh that came out of his body immediately made me crack up with him. When he finally calmed down, he was wiping away tears. Tears. I smiled at him, and the tenderness that flooded out of my chest and into all my extremities caught me off guard.

I don’t deserve him.

I blinked. “Okay, so what else?”

“Jeez. You’re being so bossy about this.”

“Your grandparents are going to take three hours making a fruit platter for us. We need to fill the time.”

His head was still leaning back on the edge of the sofa, his arm draped casually behind me. But when he looked over, not smiling for a second, his eyes were serious and intense. They cut through me, blazing hot, and I was completely disarmed.

Keeping his eyes on mine, his fingers grazed my bare shoulder. “I like your freckles. The way you chew on your lips when you’re annoyed.” I rubbed them together self-consciously and he smiled. “And I like … how you dress. Especially when you wear your Docs with your little shorts.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, pervo.” But I was pleased—I always felt so sloppy and unkempt next to Hamlet. Whenever I first saw Rose in her carefully coordinated outfits, I wished that I dressed more like her.

“But I think what I like most,” he said almost sleepily, his fingers playing with my tank-top strap, “is how you’re different from me.”

It should have been sweet, comforting—something like that. But instead, I could only think of how that chasm of difference between us had shrunk over the summer. How that bothered me for some reason. “Different how?” My needling knew no bounds.

“You know how. Everything! I like how sure of yourself you are. You don’t do things to please other people.”

“But you’re confident, too!”

He scoffed. “Kind of. I’m always worried about, I don’t know, being nice or something.” He seemed a little embarrassed by that admission. But it was one of the reasons I liked him so much, too.

“You’re kind,” I said quietly, resting my face on his hand. “I’m not.”

“What?”

I shrugged. “It’s fine, one human being cannot exemplify all the good things in the world.”

Instead of laughing, he frowned. “You are kind. You just don’t like to show it. Like a cranky old man in a village.”

I released a bark of laughter. “Get out!”

He sat up and ran a hand through his hair. Hair so thick I imagined combs shattered upon touch. “You are! You’re like that cranky man who yells at children but then secretly mends their shoes.”

“What!” I couldn’t stop laughing.

“You’re…” he paused. “You’re all tough candy shell. When inside—”

“I’m oozy chocolate? Please.”

Instead of responding, he leaned over, pulling me in so close that our eyelashes practically touched. His lips grazed my jaw and then moved up toward my ear. “Yeah, chocolate. Melted.”

Every bone in my body turned into liquid as I turned my lips to his. He cradled my head gently and kissed me softly. And then. Then he said, “I love you.”

I stilled. My blood stopped coursing through my veins, my heart froze midbeat, my cells were suspended. I couldn’t move.

Uncertainty passed over his face, his eyes still on mine. When I didn’t react, he moved back a little, his body no longer touching mine.

Hamlet loves me. Hamlet LOVES me? Hamlet loves ME? My brain was malfunctioning, wires being crossed, indecipherable signals being passed back and forth, and I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t let me interrupt.”

Both of our heads swiveled to see Hamlet’s grandma holding a tray of fruit in front of the TV. His grandpa was right behind, with a giant bowl of popcorn.

Hamlet blushed. “We were just—”

“Give me a break,” his grandmother grumbled as she tottered back over to the sofa, walking between us and plopping herself down, the tray rattling on her lap. She glanced over at me. “This one is a bad influence, huh?”

I stammered, “What, why…”

“Eat some fruit. Cool off,” she said, shoving the tray onto the coffee table in front of us. We both reached for the tiny forks poked into the pears and ate silently, not making eye contact with each other while the video game started up again.

*

That night, I looked through some old photos of Felix and me from when we dated. There was one of us hanging out in some parking lot. Felix with his arm draped lazily around me, both of us smiling in the harsh glare of the lights. I didn’t remember that day, because days with Felix and Patrick always ran together into one indistinct blur.

Felix never said he loved me. Even though we cared for each other, and still did, it never got to that level. We liked a lot of the same things and were attracted to each other at the time. But Felix didn’t dig past a certain depth, and neither did I. Hamlet, though? He was fearless in his digging, in his pursuit of something more meaningful.

Looking at these photos with Felix was bittersweet. The chasm between us from the water-park incident felt unbridgeable, and I wondered if Patrick was right. Were they being replaced?

I texted Patrick and Felix: How are you guys?