Page 59 of Again with Feeling

He stopped, clearly waiting for a reaction.

“Um,” I said. And then, “Okay, that’s good. I mean, is it good? I mean, what about—” Sayingthe fact that you told me you’re in love with himdidn’t seem like the right move, but what came out instead was, somehow, even worse: “—the security deposit on the apartment?”

Although not the eye-rolling type, Bobby looked sorely tempted. His voice, though, was still unsteady when he spokeagain. “I also want to apologize. I should have done this a long time ago.” He stopped. The pages rustled, and his heel beat a tattoo against the floor. “I told you once how hard it is for me to talk about the things that matter most to me. When I told you that, I couldn’t believe how…how easy it was. I just said the words, and I knew you’d understand. And when that happened, I thought it was because you were the exception. I thought you were special. And youarespecial, Dash. I’ve never met anyone like you. You care so much about other people. You’re gentle and kind, even though you’re so hard on yourself. You make the world a better place by being in it, and the worst days of my life are when I don’t get to be around you, and see your smile, and hear your voice.

“But I also need to apologize, Dash, because you aren’t the exception. The truth is, it’s still hard for me to talk about—about how I feel. I want to. I know I need to. But it’s hard to explain how—”

He stopped there. His throat worked soundlessly on the words, and his eyes glistened as he blinked rapidly.

“Bobby, it’s okay,” I said.

Shaking his head, he cleared his throat. After another moment, he said, “How scary it is. And after I broke up with West, when I wanted to tell you how hard things had gotten, it was like everything had changed between us. I couldn’t tell you anything. And I thought maybe I’d been wrong.” He turned the page, and the papers rustled like dry leaves. “It took me a while to realize that I’d felt so safe with you at the beginning because, at the time, West had been there. Between us. And as long as West was there, I didn’t have to deal with how I felt about you, or the fact that I found myself spending time with you instead of my boyfriend, or that the more time I spent with you, the more I realized I wasn’t in love with West, and I was making a terriblemistake. So, I’m sorry that I let my fear keep me from talking to you.

“You were right about how hard I’ve tried to run away from my feelings. I’m sorry for that, too. I’m sorry that I used you as one of those ways. That wasn’t right. And it wasn’t fair to you. I knew you weren’t ready, and I still tried to—to control things. To make things be what I needed them to be so that I didn’t feel so insecure. The same way I did with West.” He had to stop again. His breath was harsh and quick. “The same way I was doing with Kiefer.”

“Bobby,” I said. “You didn’t do that with West. This isn’t the same.”

He pressed his fingertips to the page, but I could still see them trembling. His eyes met mine. “No,” he said quietly. “That’s true. This isn’t the same. Nothing is the same.”

I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t think of anything, as a matter of fact, except how brightly his eyes were shining.

“I need you to know I’m sorry,” Bobby said, his voice wobbly now, his face strained with the effort to check his emotions. “I need you to know that it’s terrifying for me to feel out of control, and nothing makes me feel more out of control than…than feeling this way. How much I feel for you, that scares me. And the thought that something bad could happen to you, that I could lose you, itterrifiesme. When I saw the Jeep at the bottom of the hill.” He stopped. The pages shivered in his hands. “When I stepped into that house and saw that old man pointing a gun at you.” He had to stop again, blinking frantically. When he spoke again, his voice was so thick I could barely understand the words. “I can’t promise that I’m going to be a different person overnight, but I promise I’ll work on this, Dash. On talking. On communicating. On being vulnerable. On making sure you knowthat you’re the most important person in the world to me. I’ll do whatever you want, Dash, if you’ll please give me a chance.”

I was nodding before he’d even finished. And I was crying, although I didn’t know why. Wiping my cheeks, I said, “I’ll help you. We’ll help each other.”

He nodded. “I know.”

I thought I was done, but fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. I was smiling so hard my face hurt, and the most I could manage was a whisper: “You wrote it down.”

“Someone much smarter than me told me it might help,” Bobby said. “And he was right. But I didn’t write down all of it.”

He folded the sheets of paper again and returned them to his pocket. And then he got to his knees. His hands came to rest on my legs, and he looked up at me, and his hands were trembling, and I could hear his breath high in his chest, and a long way off, the ocean was a low, slow song.

“I love you,” he said, and his hands tightened around my legs like he was holding on. And then, more slowly, “I love you.”

“I love you too,” I said, but it came out small and tangled because of the knot in my throat. I started to stand, and I got tangled in the blanket, and then Bobby had to jump to his feet to keep me from falling on him.

And then we were standing again, his hands on my arms, his grip strong and steady.

“I love you,” he said again, and he kissed me.

The warmth of his lips. The taste of his mouth. His hand finding the back of my neck.

Sometime later, I was blinking at him through my glasses, trying to decide if I still had legs. And Bobby had that beautifully goofy smile stretched across his face. And then it changed to something else—an expression I hadn’t seen on his face before. His hand slid up my chest, and he caught the tab of the hoodie’s zipper, and the smile on his face was like a fire about to catch.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

He was looking at me, and that look was new too.

“You’re the detective,” he said, and I heard the echo, when he had said those words before and meant something else entirely. The zipper stuttered down an inch. “Figure it out.”

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