White Rabbit(31)

And yet I was thinking about it; I couldn’t think about anything else. The weight of our strange situation built slowly, like a trickle of sand that buried me bit by bit as the hours passed, snuffing out the happiness I’d initially felt. By the time the final credits rolled, I was depressed and off-center, lost in an ugly spiral of insecurity. Back in the lobby, I was feeling worse than ever when Sebastian steered me suddenly away from the exit without warning, pulling me into a photo booth set up alongside some arcade games.

“I’ve been waiting for this all night,” he murmured gruffly as he dragged me down onto the narrow bench beside him, sweeping the curtain closed. He pulled me in for a kiss, and I shifted back, moving his hands away from my waist, my neck. It only took him a second glance to register my expression. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

“Why don’t you want to be my boyfriend?” I blurted the question clumsily, surprising myself with how needful I sounded, and watched as Sebastian’s shoulders sagged. Our relationship was not only undeclared, it was also undefined—a secret that didn’t actually exist. We were like a tree falling in the forest with nobody around … and then maybe we weren’t even really a tree to begin with.

“Rufus—”

“I just want to know why.” I tried to sound firm, secure, but I could hear my own unevenness—my own weakness—and it embarrassed me. Two sentences in, and I was already losing the argument I had started. “You didn’t mind being Lia’s boyfriend, but you don’t want to be mine.”

“This is about Lia?” he asked stupidly, cocking a brow. “I told you—”

“It isn’t about Lia,” I returned with frustration, even though, yes, it was obviously about Lia—at least in part. “This is about … this is about us spending time together. It’s about this, right here, now.” And it was about kissing in the alcove behind the theater, and hiking in the Green Mountains on weekends, and our Skype chats in the middle of the night, and the way he made sure our fingers touched whenever we passed things to each other at meetings for the newspaper. “This is about me not wanting to spend time with anyone else but you, and you saying you don’t want to be my boyfriend.”

It sounded so pitiful that I’d have kicked myself in the face if it were physically possible. Sebastian raked a hand through his short, dark hair, his brow furrowing, and said, “Rufe, you know how I feel. I just … I don’t understand why we need to, you know, put some kind of label on it, or whatever. Why can’t we just be what we are?”

Because I don’t know what we are, I thought, but did not say. Instead, I retorted, “Labels keep things organized. What’s wrong with labels?”

He sighed. “I just spent the last year wearing one of those—being someone’s boyfriend, dealing with all the drama—and I’m just kinda worn out from it. You get that, right?” It was a leading question, and I provided the nod expected of me, even though I didn’t get it. How could I? I had never been anyone’s boyfriend and couldn’t help taking it personally that his sudden need for a label-free existence coincided precisely with the advent of our relationship. I swallowed my words, not even sure how to speak them out loud, and Sebastian continued, “One of the things I really like about you—about us—is that there’s no pressure, you know? We can just be ourselves.”

“But what do I mean to you?” I persisted, feeling smaller by the second and yet determined to at least not completely fail myself. I hated the way my voice shook, hated how much of my self-esteem actually depended upon his answer. When planning this conversation in my head, I’d envisioned myself resolute and in control, but here I was spiraling and trailing smoke.

“You know what you mean to me.” He moved close again, putting his hand back on my waist, squeezing. The scent of citrus and vetiver embraced me, and I felt my stomach go all gooey. “All the crazy CIA shit we do—getting hall passes at the same time just so we can kiss during school hours, just so I don’t have to wait all day to do it? You know what you mean to me.”

I licked my lips, but I was like a fish on a hook, and he knew it. “I—I just…”

Sebastian put his other hand on my chest and shoved me against the wall of the booth. The air rushed from my lungs and warmth erupted in the pit of my stomach, flooding my extremities. I goggled at him helplessly as his hand prowled its way under my shirt, and when I felt his touch against my flesh, my skin knotted all over with goose bumps and I emitted an embarrassing whimper.

His lips grazed mine—not a kiss, just a promise—and he murmured, “This is the best part of every day, Rufus. This. You really have to ask what you mean to me?”

My willpower was running on its very last fumes, and it took all I had to whisper, “It j-just really m-matters to me. It feels like … I just need to know.”

Sebastian exhaled, and put his forehead to mine, his eyes closed. For a long moment I held my breath, my heart beating so hard it hurt. I needed him to say the right thing … but if he didn’t, what would I do? I wasn’t sure I had the strength to walk away if he insisted on us continuing to Just Be Ourselves—on leaving me to always wonder why, if labels didn’t matter, did it matter so much that we not have one?

Finally, he declared in a low, soft voice, “Okay, Rufe. If it matters to you, then … it matters to me. We can be boyfriends.”