City Love(46)

“A person can have more than one jam,” I clarify. “Just so everyone knows. Look how tall this white castle is. There’s one, two, like thirteen pieces.”

“You were clearly meant to play Asara.”

And win Asara. I end up winning the first game I’ve ever played. Against hardcore gamers who have been beasting on Asara for years.

“Damn, Sadie,” the guy across from me says. “Killing it on your first try! You are good.”


“She’s a natural,” the guy crammed against me says. He really doesn’t need to be this close. Which maybe I should have told him from the start. But I didn’t want to be rude on our first day. “I should show you my castle tower adaptation.”

“Sorry?”

“Game adaptations,” the guy across from me jumps in. “When we think we can improve an aspect of a game that isn’t working as well as it could, we invent a change. Some of us have invented entirely new games. See that guy in the gray shirt over there? He invented Climbers.”

“What’s that?”

“Only the coolest blocks game ever. Most of these guys would say it’s not complex enough to bring. But I’ll bring it next time if you want. I think you’d dig it.”

“Blocks are hot.”

“Right?”

When we leave three hours later, I’m floating in a happy pink bubble of Official Girlfriend Status. I can’t wait to go back and be around people who know me as Austin’s girlfriend. It felt so good sitting next to him the whole time. Our thighs touching as we slid closer to each other. Our arms brushing together as we played. Smiling at the inside jokes he whispered in my ear. We’re a real couple now. Austin put the Official Girlfriend Status out there. No one can dispute what we are.

The heat wave broke this morning. It’s such a relief to not only breathe normally outside but to have a cooler summer breeze on our skin. We take a minute outside the main doors of Whole Foods to just breathe. The air is so refreshing that we decide to walk home along the river. This is the way I’ve been dreaming the perfect summer night with the perfect boy would be: walking along the water in no rush to get anywhere, holding hands, laughing, talking about everything we have in common. Stopping every now and then to kiss.

Walking with Austin is exactly like that. We have to keep stopping to make out. It’s not only that we want to make out—we have to make out. I’ve always wanted to feel this kind of passion. Sometimes I see couples who are so into each other they can’t contain their attraction. They do things like kiss each other the second they get up after dinner at a restaurant. I saw a couple like that when my parents took me to Mr. Chow’s for my graduation dinner. They were so cute. I remember noticing them when the hostess sat us at our table. They were sitting on stools at one of the high tables, two lovers so enraptured by each other it was like the rest of us didn’t even exist. They smiled at each other the whole time. They were the opposite of most couples you see at restaurants who are barely looking at each other with nothing to say. When they got up to leave, he pulled her close to him and kissed her deeply. The group of girls at the table next to ours actually sighed. Theirs was the kind of love you rarely see, but when you do it reminds you of what you’re looking for. It gives you hope that what you want to find actually exists.

The same thing happens when I see couples kissing on the street. They kiss on stoops or leaning up against buildings or intertwined in the middle of the sidewalk, oblivious to the swift stream of people bending around them. I’ve always wanted to be those people kissing on the street. The ones you see where you want to be them so badly the longing rips into your chest and takes your breath away.

I’ve always wanted to be them. And now we are.

People circle around us as we kiss on the path. Runners fly by. Moms power walk, pushing babies in strollers. An old couple picks their way by slowly, the man leaning on his cane, the woman with her arm linked through his. But the people around us hardly register. When Austin kisses me, it blocks out everything else. This is how it must have felt to be the girl whose boyfriend kissed her at Mr. Chow’s. That kiss was an image I’ll never forget. Maybe someone is passing by us right now thinking the same thing about us.

We start walking again. I laugh when Austin wobbles a little.

“Can’t even walk straight,” he says.

“How am I still standing?”

“Did I take your breath away?”

“Oh my god.” I stop walking. “I was just thinking that. Sometimes I see people kissing on the street or at dinner or whatever and they’re so in love it’s almost painful to watch. Not painful in a bad way. Painful because I want to be them so much it hurts, you know? And now I realized that we’re those people I’d always wanted to be.” I wrap my arms around Austin. “We’re them.”

He looks at me with so much tenderness tears spring to my eyes.

“You had me at holistic wellness,” I say.

“What?”

“Just kiss me.”

Austin kisses me even more intensely than before. If it’s possible for your brain to short-circuit from an overload of emotion, I’m pretty sure that’s happening.

We walk some more until we get to the Zen garden. That’s what Brooke calls it. The Zen garden is this area on the opposite side of the path from the river. It’s all willowy grasses and tall sunflowers, with simple wooden benches dotted over a winding path. A series of stepping stones lines the border between the main walking path of the park and the narrow garden path. As if he’s reading my mind, Austin takes my hand, angling me near the stepping stones so I can climb up. I climb the stones with him walking beside me, holding my hand the whole time. Austin would never let me fall.