Page 77 of Guy's Girl
“I am,” she says hastily. Because she is.Right?
“Good.” He nods. “Then it’s settled. As soon as you’re back in New York and ready to tell your parents, we can call them together. Unless you want to do it alone, of course. Just as long as we get the process going.” He lets go of her hands and keeps walking. Ginny follows, numbness seeping into her with every step.
After ten minutes, they reach the main shopping road, Bogdányi. They turn left and walk downhill. Adrian gestures to a marzipan candy shop on one side of the road. It seems as if he’s gearing up for an enthusiastic explanation of marzipan’s importance in Hungarian culture. But before he can get much headway, Ginny stops walking.
For a few steps, Adrian continues on as if nothing is amiss. When he realizes she is no longer with him, he turns around, confused.
“Ginny?” he asks. “Do you want to go inside?”
She inhales once, twice, three times. Then, she blurts, “I’m sorry.”
“What?” He steps closer. “Sorry for what?”
“For—” She gestures vaguely to herself. “For all this. For having a meltdown. For ruining your trip with your friends. For forcing you to bring me to your grandparents’ house and being such a fucking imposition on them.”
“Ginny.” Adrian closes the distance between them. “You didn’t force me to do anything. I chose to bring you here.”
“But it’s my fault. If I wasn’t such a complete and utter mess, you would never have had to make that choice. I’m so—” Her voice breaks a little. “I’m so fucking selfish. I’m sorry, Adrian. I’m so sorry.”
“Ginny.” He puts his hands on her shoulders.
“I don’t—” She swallows. She can feel them coming. The tears. She doesn’t want to cry in front of him again. “I don’t want to be a burden on your family.”
“Shhh.” He pulls her into a hug. “It’s okay, Ginny.”
“I don’t—I don’t ever want to be a burden. To anyone. I hate it. I hate it so much.”
“Shhh. You aren’t a burden.”
“Yes, I am.” She hiccups. “You don’t have to lie to me, Adrian.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I’m standing here, in the middle of your hometown, sobbing my eyes out, and you’re seriously saying I’m not a burden?”
For a moment, Adrian doesn’t speak. She thinks she has trapped him, that he is finally going to push her away, revealing the annoyance underneath. Instead, after a few seconds, his shoulders start to shake.
“Are you—” She pulls back, thinking he’s crying. But when she looks up, it isn’t tears she sees; it’s laughter.
Through her own tears, she lets out a surprised laugh. “What?” she asks. “What is it?”
“If someone had told me in college,” Adrian says, shoulders still shaking as he cups a hand over his mouth, “that I would one day be holding Ginny Murphy as she cried her eyes out on the most public street in downtown Szentendre”—he wipes a fake tear from his eye—“I would have called them mental.”
She cracks a small smile. “Rightfully so.”
Adrian shakes his head. Then he takes her by both arms, leaning down to look her directly in the face. “If you can’t burden your friends with your troubles,” he says, “then who can you share them with?”
She thinks about it for a moment. Biting her lip, she whispers, “No one.”
“That’s bullshit.”
Her eyebrows must jump up to her forehead. She can’t remember Adrian ever cursing before.
“I’m serious. It’s bullshit. I mean, I get it. I’m the king of being emotionally unavailable. You know that better than anyone else.”
At that, she can’t help but laugh. “True.”
He smiles. “But Clay was right, Ginny.”
