Page 42 of Glass Half Full
My eyes lock with his on the last word. He’s staring at me with an expression I can’t place, but if it wasn’t totally absurd, I’d say he’s watching me with something close to wonder. The air between us gets thicker as the silence stretches, the space that separates where we’re sitting seeming too big and too small all at once.
We’re magnets again, our poles shifting, the force between us pushing and pulling in equal measure as we figure out and fight against what we want.
Him.
That’s what I want. I’ve just split myself open in front of him, and I can’t hide what’s in my heart anymore. I want him closer.
I’m not weak. Tonight I’m strong enough to reach for what I want.
Twelve
Dylan
INCANTATION: A chant or series of words used to suggest magic or ritual
Renee pushesherself to her feet in front of me. The spotlight behind her silhouettes her shoulders and turns her hair into a halo framing her face. As I sit looking up at her, I realize I’ve never truly known what it means to be in awe of someone before. She’s perfect—not because she’s flawless, but because she won’t allow herself to be stopped by her flaws. She carries them with her, refuses to bow under their weight. I meant what I said it to her: she’s the farthest thing from weak.
I could sit here looking at her all night, but she seems ready to go inside. As irrational as it is, a part of me hoped we really would be out here all night. There’s so much more I want to say to her, so much more I want to know: where she’s been, what she’s seen, who sheis. Whenever we start talking, I end up wishing time had an emergency brake just like an elevator. I wish we could hang in a suspended moment together and talk and talk and talk until we’d said everything we could possibly say, until I knew her inside out and the only thing left would be to reach for each other and speak with our bodies.
I push myself to my feet. It feels dangerous to even look at her, but I can’t stop staring.
“Dylan.” She says it like a prayer, but I don’t know what she’s praying for. “Dylan, just before I went to England, there was this one night...I don’t even know if you remember it. It was an open mic night, and after—”
“You were wearing white.” I have to cut her off. I can’t handle her thinking it’s possible I could have forgotten. “That night, you were wearing this white dress.”
Her eyes go wide before they soften. I notice her hands twitch at her sides.
“I never forgot the things you said to me. I also never got to thank you for them.” Her voice lowers until it’s hardly more than a whisper. “Thank you, Dylan.”
I don’t think we’ve moved, but somehow we seem closer together. How else would I be noticing how thick her eyelashes are, or how perfectly symmetrical the swell of her bottom lip is?
“I always wondered something,” she continues when it’s clear I can’t speak. “That night, did you...Were you...Did you want to kiss me?”
I wanted to do more than kiss her. I wanted to breathe her in. I wanted to inhale her.
“It would have been a bad idea,” I manage to get out through my clenched jaw. She’s staring up at me through those damn eyelashes, and all I can think about is her mouth, her neck, that inch of her gorgeous bare shoulders I can see before they meet with the edge of her coat.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
Everything grinds to a halt.
Shit, shit, shit.
“I’m glad you didn’t,” she repeats, “because I wasn’t ready for you to kiss me then, not like I am now.”
I start mentally cursing for an entirely different reason as she blinks up at me.
“Do you want to kiss me right now?”
“Renee—”
“Please. Just answer me. I need to know.”
No small talk.
That was my only rule when I taught poetry. It’s the same rule I let guide me when things get tough, when it’s easier to run away, to avoid saying what needs to be said or hearing what needs to be heard.
Anything I say now would be small talk. Any explanation I tried to make would fall short of the mark, and maybe I should be taking a step back instead of a step forward, but I can’t answer her with anything but honesty, not after what she’s shared with me tonight.
