Unbreak My Heart(17)

I’m not clear on how to read her. “Is that a secret or something?”

“No. I wasn’t sure how to tell you I might be returning.”

“Why?” I raise an eyebrow.

She shakes her head but doesn’t answer me directly. “The job sounds great. One of my former coworkers referred me to another medical center. They have some new shifts opening. They want nurses who speak English and Japanese.”

“Sounds like exactly what you do,” I say slowly, because there’s not much blood rushing to my brain to help make sense of her words.

“Andrew,” she says, demanding my attention, “the reason I said I wasn’t sure how to tell you is . . . because I’d have missed you.”

My heart squeezes. “I’d have missed you.”

“And I didn’t want to face saying goodbye to you again.”

My heart lurches toward her. Don’t say goodbye, I want to tell her. Instead, I say in a dry husk of a voice, “Saying goodbye is hard.”

I can’t say another fucking goodbye.

“But maybe we don’t have to yet,” she says with a hopeful smile. “Since I’m going back there, and you’re going, I want to go with you. Help you when you need it. I don’t start my job for a few more weeks, so I can be”—she pauses, quirks up her lips—“your sidekick. Will you let me?”

For a moment—no, for several long moments—I’m not sure I heard her right. I suspect I’m hopped up on too many pills, but I count back through the day, and I haven’t had any.

Is she really saying this? Truly meaning this?

Her and me? Figuring shit out?

We didn’t do that before.

This is a brand-new agenda. A temporary one, but at least it’s something.

For now.

Those two conditional words reverberate.

This is for now.

But for now is all I have.

Besides, when I look back on my life, am I going to regret not going surfing, not taking a trip to Italy, or not saying yes to having Holland by my side as I try to understand the person I loved most?

Like I could say no to her.

“Yes.”



*

We don’t make out again. Instead, we make plans, booking flights and emailing Kana. I let her know I’m heading to Tokyo and would love to see her. As we go into full-on practical trip mode, we turn on a movie in the background. As the hero races a motorcycle down the steps of a historical building, Holland falls asleep on my couch.

It’s not cold, but I cover her with a blanket. I watch her doze for a minute, a strand of her long hair falling over her mouth. Her lips flutter, trying to blow the hair away. I adjust her hair for her, tucking the strand behind her ear.

My lips form words, quiet, nearly silent words.

I love you so much it hurts, and it hurts so good. Keep making it hurt. I need it. I need you.

When I get into my bed, I’m keenly aware of her in my house, as if I can somehow hear the rise and fall of her breathing, the flutter of her sleeping eyelids, from a floor above. I imagine her waking, walking up the stairs, heading down the hall, and standing in my doorway, a sliver of moonlight through the window sketching her in the dark. I would speak first, telling her the truth—that I’m still completely in love with her. That nothing has changed for me.

Everything else is frayed around the edges. This—how I feel for Holland—is the only thing in my life that has remained the same. Everyone I have loved is gone. Except her. Holland is the before and the after.

She’d say the words back to me, that she feels the same. Like she’s found the thing she’s been looking for.

Come find me, come find me, come find me.



*

In the morning, I find her in my kitchen making toast.

“I am the world’s deepest sleeper,” she announces by way of a greeting. “I didn’t wake up once.”

“Sometimes you need to sleep through the night.”

“I might be in love with your couch.”

I look away as I sit at the counter on one of the stools. The toast pops up, and she begins to spread butter on it.

“Are we doing this?” I ask.

“Going to Tokyo together?”

“Yes.” I clench my fists, waiting for her to tell me it was all a fevered dream.

She nods, and I exhale all the breaths in the county. “We are, but there’s one thing I need you to know.”

I groan. “Stop saying stuff like that.”

She puts her hand on my arm. One touch, and I’m lit up. “The reason I stopped you last night?”

“Right when it was getting good?” I ask, lifting a brow.

She smiles, a flirty little grin that threatens to destroy me. “It messes with my head too much.”

“It messes with mine in a good way.”

“I mean it,” she presses.

“How does it mess with your head?”

She takes my hand, threads her fingers through mine. “It makes me think we can go back to how we were. But I can’t take advantage of you right now.”

“Please,” I scoff, “take advantage of me. I should be so lucky.”

“You’re grieving. It would be wrong.”

“I don’t mind that kind of wrong. I can handle all kinds of wrong.” Apparently, I haven’t lost the ability to flirt with her.