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My legs are shaking. My hands too. There are a thousand sticks of dynamite inside of me. They’ve been there for 3 years, lying unused, but suddenly, there’s a fire next to them, the flames just barely licking the explosives.
“I’ll be there”. That’s all he said. Maybe he’s not even coming. Maybe he meant- okay, I can’t think of anything else that “I’ll be there” could mean, but maybe it was just a cruel joke.
Brian wouldn’t do that. Brian doesn’t play that type of joke. Brian is the motherfucking sun, and he brings warmth to everything he touches. But he doesn’t burn. Never.
Not my Brian, at least. Maybe he’s changed. I’ve changed. I think. I cringe as I think about the stranger that’s been living in my body for two years. I don’t want Brian to know that stranger, I want him to know me . But maybe he won’t like who I am now. I run my hand self-consciously over my new buzzcut. What if he doesn’t think I’m attractive anymore? My heart does a backflip at the idea of him ever thinking that I’m attractive. Is it normal that I still feel like this? Wouldn’t most guys, after three years, just move on , find some other new kid with electric hair and magic eyes who knows how to fly?
Except that there isn’t a single other one. Not another boy like him in the whole world.
Jude says she and Oscar are “split aparts”. She told me that she needs her own soul, but occasionally, she and Oscar share.
I think that was me and Brian, I really do.
Because I loved him.
I love him.
I hear footsteps crunching through the leaves, and my heart leaps out of my body, through the trees, trying to find him as my body stays behind, waiting.
And then he’s standing there, and my heart and I become one as it begins to beat faster and faster.
His hair has gotten a little darker and cut shorter. He’s taller, but not as tall as me. His chest is a little wider, too, his muscles more noticeable through his shirt- puberty might have stretched me out like a piece of silly string, but it sure was nice to him . He reaches up with his strong hands and brushes his hair out of his eyes. God, those eyes , I’ve been mindpainting them since the day I met him but no drawing could ever come close to the real thing, the radiance and pure light of them.
“Stare much?” he says, his voice deeper but still the same, the same, the same. He’s still my Brian. I think I’m going to cry.
I realize with horror that there are tears in my eyes. I wipe them away quickly, watching as he walks closer to me. Not close enough. I remember when I wanted to be in a thimble with him. I still do.
“I’m sorry, Brian, I’m so so sorry,” I say, the words tumbling out and getting tripped up over each other with how badly I need to say them.
I’ve been imagining this moment for ages, and I have decided one of two things will happen: he’ll either tell me that it’s okay, and then we’ll kiss, or he’ll still hate me and reveal he only came here to throw meteorites at my head.
But I guess I’d make a terrible fortune teller, because he just looks confused.
“ You’re sorry? No, no, I’m sorry, really sorry, I don’t even know how to say how sorry I am.” It’s his turn to look away and swipe at his eyes. It hurts my chest to see him in pain.
“Sorry for what?” I ask without breathing.
“For disappearing. Right after you- your mom- right when you needed someone to be there. I was so mad at you, for what you said to Courtney, I hated you for a little while, but more than that, I was just- I was scared by how much I felt. I thought you might be able to ruin me. And then- then you were in ruins. And I wasn’t there for you. Because I was scared.” He meets my eyes now. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”
I don’t even know how to speak. I think about how, all the nights I lay awake hating myself for what I did to him, maybe he was doing the same- he wasn’t hating me, but himself .
Why didn’t we ever see each other sooner? I thought it was because he hated me. But maybe- maybe he thought I didn’t want to see him .
No one has been more wrong about anything in the world, ever.
He’s walking closer to me now, until he’s two feet away, leaning against a tree. It’s the same tree he kissed me against, all those years ago. I wonder if he realizes. If he remembers.
He pulls something out of his pocket. A piece of paper. He unfolds it, and it’s creased like he’s done this a thousand times. He holds it out to me.
I take it. It’s the drawing I did of him. The first one. Ever. Right after I met him, and we laughed together in the forest. But this- I tore all my drawings of him up years ago, right after he and Jude went into the closet together.
“How?” I don’t take my eyes off of the drawing as I ask it.
“Jude.”
I look up at him now, confused.
“During that- that night in the closet.” He sheepishly breaks out his half smile and it sends me to Mars, so I don’t even have to re-feel the whirlwind that was Courtney’s party. “I think she felt really terrible, because she knew what you- what you thought was happening. She said she tore it out of your sketchbook, said something about feeling you thinking about me through the wall at night. She said she thought I should have it. Then she made me swear not to tell you.” I feel a surge of love for my sister. “For a while it just sat in my desk drawer, but after everything happened- I- I don’t think I’ve gone a day without it in my pocket. Even when I was so mad at you. I needed you with me.”
I hand the picture back, stunned by how much this means to me. Wordlessly, I take the rock out of my pocket and show it to him.
“Is that from the first day? On the roof?” I nod. I needed him with me, too. “When I caught you checking out those movers with binoculars and then followed you into the woods?” he adds, which makes me laugh, which makes him laugh, and I think I’m dying because the sound of our laughter together is so fucking familar.
He’s walking even closer to me now, and somewhere along the way, the laughter dies, and then his lips are on mine and the dynamite in my chest explodes.
Standing there, in the forest, I realize that I can finally say it. I just barely pull my lips off of his, and I whisper into his mouth, “I love you.”
“So damn much,” he says back. A tear is falling down my face, but I’m not embarrassed. He gets it.
It’s us. Finally. It’s us.