Opposite of Always(96)

I guess the reason I’m telling you all of this is because I don’t want you to misunderstand this story. Because it’s important for you to understand that I’m no hero.

I didn’t save Kate.

She didn’t need saving.

If anything, she saved me.

She taught me that almost doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

You can try your hardest to change something—exhaust every possibility—and sometimes it’s still not enough.

But almost means you were there. You did all you could.

In the end, it’s the smallest decisions that matter most.

The seemingly insignificant choices we make every day— To be honest with the people we love and with ourselves— To let go of the things we can’t control, and appreciate the things we can.

Sometimes it’s hard to see how much these things mean.

But they add up.

They mean everything.

Take it from someone who’s seen the future.





Fin, for Real This Time


“You sure your parents are okay with me being here? In their house? In your bedroom?” I ask.

“A little late for that.” Kate smiles. “But yeah. I think they’re just happy I’m happy.”

Kate’s childhood sheets are weaved between us, covering her stomach, her legs, my feet, joining us at our hips. Her eyes not letting mine go. Her breath so close, I taste spearmint. I blink, but only for a second. I don’t want to miss anything.

“Did you ever think we’d be here?” she asks.

“I dreamed we would. But I’d be lying to say I thought it could ever happen,” I say.

“I think that’s what scared me. I think I did know.”

“I think you’re beautiful, Kate. That’s what I know.”

“Stop. You’re making me blush.”

I trace her shoulder blade. “Black people don’t blush.”

And she laughs. A beautiful laugh that comes rolling up from her feet, makes the bed quiver. “Why wouldn’t we?”

My own cheeks go warm; maybe we do blush. “I meant, like, visibly.”

She shakes her head. Sits up on her elbows, her eyes still on mine. “I know what you meant, silly. I just like to see you sweat sometimes.”

“Uh, mission accomplished.” I run my finger across her cheek. We lie there, quiet. I hear the clock tick a new minute on the far wall. And then another. “So? Are you going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Do we blush?”

“You’re looking right at me, Jack King. You tell me. Do we?”

I study her for another moment. And then when I can no longer wait another, I lean in, kiss the space beneath her forehead, between her eyes. Her eyelids twitch against my chin.

She closes her eyes tight, like a fist, like she’s trying to get back a dream.

She says, “I think blushing isn’t something you see. It’s something you feel.”

And though she can’t see me, I nod. “I feel it, Kate. Every bit of it. I feel.”

“Come here,” she says, eyes open now, holding her arms out wide.

“I don’t think I can get any closer,” I say, even though I want to, even though closer is all I want.

“You can,” she says, pulling my head into her face. “See.”

She’s right.

And I see.

“You know what I love about the end of black family movies?” I ask Kate.

“Coming from anyone else, that would be an interestingly racist way to begin a conversation, but you’ve stoked my curiosity anyway. Please proceed,” she says.

“The dancing. There’s like almost always some large party—like a wedding reception, or family reunion, or whatever—and after everyone has finally settled whatever differences that need settling, when everyone is feeling the love, they end with some massive aerial shot of people doing the Electric Slide or a Soul Train line—like, I love the idea of everything ending that way. With people happy and smiling and dancing their asses off.”

She shakes her head in that disapproving way you’d look at your puppy who’s done something charmingly destructive. She laughs. “Me too,” she says. “Me too.”

She taps on her phone, fires up her Bluetooth speaker. She pulls me out of bed, and we clear off a spot in the middle of her floor, kicking away crumpled clothes and schoolbooks and whatever. We join hands and we shake our heads at each other.

“Will you do me the honor?” I ask her.

She bows and I curtsy and we dance.

“Hey, just so you know, I so don’t love you. Not at all,” Kate says, rather breathily because we can’t stop dancing. Not for anything. Even weird, awkward proclamations from our hearts.

I grin. “I don’t love you, either. Just so you know, too.”

“Cool,” she says, doing some dance that looks as though she is fishing but has suddenly hooked a killer whale. “I was hoping you felt the same way.”

“Cool,” I repeat, doing a dance I like to call cleaning windows on scaffolding fifty-six floors up. Okay, I just made that up. The name, not the dance. That move happens to be a staple in my repertoire.

And we keep on dancing, Kate and I. Our bodies twisting in ways they are not meant to twist, a lot of robot dancing, some old-school Cabbage Patch with a few pathetic Running Man interpretations thrown in for good measure.