Chapter Text
DANTE
My window is open and the rain is deafening, but I’ve finally stopped sobbing. It’s like the world had mercy on me and took my weeping for itself, if only for a little while. The rain started up around midnight, just after Ari had dropped me off outside my house. He hadn’t gotten out of the truck. He didn’t watch me get out of the truck. He’d stared stonily ahead, his face a blank mask. In a way, that was the worst moment.
When I told him I couldn’t be friends with him anymore, I’d honestly thought that maybe it would jar him out of whatever stone fortress he lives in. That’s not why I did it - that would be unforgivably manipulative. I did it to stay sane, because every time I saw him, every time I heard his voice, my unrequited love would break my heart anew. When I still believed there was hope for us, I’d been able to take it. But something about the silent treatment he gave me for five days just broke me. I wasn’t sure he’d ever talk to me again, for one thing, and I didn’t even understand why. And then I also knew he probably would talk to me again, eventually, and we’d just cycle back into our platonic relationship where I couldn’t have him, and he didn’t want me to have anyone else, and...I just couldn’t deal with that. It was bad enough that I woke up with and went to sleep to a bone-deep longing that never got fulfilled, but then there was Ari’s moodiness to deal with, the drama, the way he shut down so severely when I made him mad. Which I would NEVER do on purpose, but it happened anyway.
I had finally come to realize that the pain was starting to outweigh the joy in our relationship. And I couldn’t stand to watch that happen, to let it get worse and worse until we ended up resenting each other. Better to quit while we’re ahead.
But I’d still hoped, deep down, that he wouldn’t let me do it. The best thing would have been for him to stop my words with a kiss, for him to declare that he loved me and was just scared but being with me was worth conquering his fear. That would have been the best thing, but I would have been happy with a simple, “don’t do this, Dante.” I wouldn’t have even minded another fight.
But what I got was radio silence. I pushed him away and said, “I don’t like it when you touch me,” and then he just stared at me and I watched a light go out in his eyes, I watched the curtains close and the doors slam shut, and after a minute he just walked back around the truck, got in, and waited. I stood there, my whole body shaking, reeling from the emptiness inside me. Then I opened the door and climbed back into the passenger seat, and he cranked up the truck and pulled away from our spot without a word.
He drove all the way to my house in silence. How very Ari. How very devastating. He’d just accepted the end of our friendship without the slightest protest.
But that wasn’t the worst thing.
The worst thing was how he stared straight ahead when I got out of the truck. I didn’t know what to say. I crossed in front of the truck and stood by his door and looked at him, but he never once looked over at me. Is this it? I thought. A sudden desperate, irrational urge came over me to ask him what he was doing tomorrow, to make plans to see him again, like maybe tomorrow none of this would be real. We’d be fine. All would be back to normal.
But normal wasn’t okay with me, I reminded myself. That was the whole point. I took a deep breath, to say something, anything. I couldn’t have the last words I spoke to him be “I don’t like it when you touch me.” And how could he let that be the last words spoken between us? How could he not say anything? Not even look at me? It suddenly hit me that maybe I’d never meant to him what I thought I did. That I’d been grossly mistaken, and the power of our friendship had been completely one-sided.
That was the worst thing.
So I stood silently, watching him, begging him with my eyes to look at me. Trying to think of something to say. I couldn’t. I couldn’t think of a damn thing. Then he’d cranked up his truck and backed out of my driveway and was gone, and it was too late.
By some miracle my parents were already in bed. I couldn’t have faced them right then. I couldn’t have faced anyone. I went into the bathroom, feeling cold and numb, and brushed my teeth and washed my face and looked in the mirror, and I didn’t recognize the boy looking back at me. This Dante-without-Ari. He was a stranger. I tried to remind myself that I hadn’t always known Ari, that I’d been Dante-without-Ari most of my life. But it didn’t help; it didn’t matter. I knew him now. That changed everything. This was a new version of Dante-without-Ari, and it was a broken thing.
Then I’d gone into my room and I saw his jacket on my floor amidst my things, and I dissolved into tears. Never in my life had I cried like that. That deeply. It was like my sobs were coming from a place so deep inside me I hadn’t known it existed until right then.
And then the rain started, so loud it was like a freight train right outside, and after a few minutes I stood up on shaky legs and opened the window so I could hear it at its full volume and feel the cool moist air. And somehow that action had calmed my hysteria. Like I said, the universe did tradesies with me. It didn’t stop the pain in my chest - it didn’t even stop the tears. It just calmed me, quieted me.
And now I’m sitting on my floor, clutching his jacket to me, feeling the tears stream down my face and drip onto my knees. Trying to find a center of balance in this new, bleak future I’ve made for myself.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here. Maybe just a few minutes. Maybe an hour. It doesn’t matter. Time feels meaningless now, now that it’s not measuring the distance between the last time I saw Ari and the next time I’ll see him.
There won’t be a next time, unless we run into each other around town, and then what will he do? Ignore me. I’m sure of it. Look right through me if he looks at me at all.
The tears are finally stopping, though the rain is heavier than ever. I think I’m all cried out. I can’t bring myself to get up, though. Get into bed. I just keep sitting here on the floor.
The rain is so loud, it’s easy to convince myself I imagine the sound of his truck outside. I know that sound so well; I always know when he gets to my house because his truck is pretty loud. And I swear that’s it, outside, just barely discernible under the sound of the monsoon.
But it’s not. I’m just imagining it, remembering it. I’ll probably hear it again and again in days to come, but it won’t be real.
Then it stops. The imagined sound. I swear it was just there, and now it’s not. And...was that the sound of a door slamming? The doors on the truck are heavy. They’re loud when they slam closed. I think about slamming the door closed tonight, when I got out of the truck. Right after I’d told him I couldn’t keep being friends with him and right before I told him I didn’t like it when he touched me.
I know it’s not him. He didn’t come back. This infernal hope inside my heart just doesn’t want to die, but it needs to. It has to.
“Dante!” Ari’s voice cries, right outside my window. That I didn’t imagine. I’m at my window so fast I don’t even register clambering up before I’m there, hanging halfway out, the rain pelting me painfully. Ari is five feet away, on the roof of our porch. I can barely see him through the sheets of rain between us. But he’s there. He’s there.
“Will you come down and let me in?” He yells over the noise. Without a word, I’m dashing out my door and down the stairs in my bare feet, trying to be quiet so as not to wake my parents, unable to slow the pounding of my heart. I unlock the front door and step onto the porch just in time to see him swinging down on the far end. He lands on the hood of his truck, then jumps from there onto the porch. He’s drenched. He may as well have just hopped out of a swimming pool. His hair is hanging in dripping strands, clumps of it stuck to his face. His clothes are sagging on him.
He’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.
The way he walks over to me is not a way I’ve ever seen him walk. It’s fast and purposeful. I open my mouth to ask him what he’s doing here or tell him I love him or who knows what, but before I can make a sound he’s got one hand on the back of my neck and the other on my hip and he’s pulling me against him, and he’s kissing me. He’s kissing me, full force, no holding back. Not a shred of hesitation.
I kiss him back the same way. I can’t believe this is real. I’m lightheaded, dizzy, and it’s a good thing he’s wrapped his arms around me because I think I’d sink to the ground if he wasn’t holding me up. Water leaches into my t-shirt and jeans from his, rainwater from our hair drips all over my face and shoulders, and I cling to him. He keeps kissing me, and kissing me, and kissing me. I keep kissing him back.
After what feels like forever (time is meaningless now, too, in an entirely different way), he pulls his mouth away from mine just enough to look into my eyes.
“I’m in love with you,” he says hoarsely. My heart is in my throat. “I’m in love with you, Dante. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry.” He keeps kissing me in between every sentence. “Take me back, okay? Take me back. Take me back.” He sounds like he’s about to completely break down.
“Ari, Ari.” I say, taking his face in my hands, holding his gaze. I can feel how big I’m smiling. “Yes.”