Page 55 of Seven Percent of Ro Devereux
We fly home the next afternoon, and the airport is mobbed. There are two days until Christmas. Willow pushes Miller through security in a wheelchair, and he complains the entire time. “There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” he repeats, but she silences him with a hand on his shoulder and pushes on.
His sling is navy blue, cutting across his back in an X.It keeps his arm close to his body, his clavicle at the best angle for it to heal. He tells me he’s fine, but any time he thinks I’m not looking, I catch him in a grimace.
We had to cancel all our other media appearances, every single interview. Jazz rebooks us for theTodayshowin January, two weeks before the Celeritas meeting. The rest we’ll do remote from Denver when Miller’s ready.
His injury has thrown a bucketful of cold water onto the flames of the Josie/Hayes scandal. Sympathy is a powerful drug—and if people loved Miller before, they’re rabid for him now.
I scroll through the comments on@MASHapp’s latest post aswe wait at our gate. It’s a picture of Miller and me, art directed by Felix this afternoon. Miller’s propped up in bed and I’m cross-legged on the mattress in front of him, an open box of pizza between us. We’re surrounded by floral arrangements, from Josie and Jimmy and a whole bunch of strangers. Miller holds his good arm in the air, flashing a thumbs-up and smiling for the camera, and I’m looking straight at him with an expression so sincere it hurts to look at.Heard NY pizza heals all wounds, the caption says.Thanks for all the support—Mo’s on the mend.
The comments section is bloodred, teeming with heart emojis and heart-eyed smileys.
We love you, Miller! Get better soon!
How is this man even hotter in a hospital gown???
We must protect Miller at all costs!!
I look over at him, finally out of the wheelchair and sitting next to his mom in one of the leather gate seats. He has a book open in his lap, a cup of coffee in his good hand. As if he can feel me watching he looks up, and when our eyes meet, he smiles.
Yes, I think.We must.
Miller and Willow sit next to each other on the plane, Miller in the aisle so his cast has space of its own. I’m across the aisle and behind them, at the edge of the row with Felix and Jazz tucked in beside me. I spend the entire flight staring at the curve of Miller’s ear, at the way his hair curls at the nape of his neck. I feel like I’m going to come out of my skin.
The flight attendants start drink service, and when their cart moves past Miller’s row he stands, stretching his good arm in theaisle. I watch him put his book down, say something to his mother, turn to the front of the plane. He walks toward the bathrooms, careful with his cast.
As I watch him in the dim glow of the overhead lights, I think about what he asked Autumn, two weeks and a full lifetime ago in the bitter cold at formal.What would love look like?
I’m not sure if there’s an answer that works for all of us. But I know it now, what I’ve been hiding from myself all this time: that for me it looks like Miller, gingerly moving down the airplane aisle. Opening his eyes in that hospital room to find me. Closing his fingers around my wrist before we stepped into the mess outsideThe Tonight Show. Love has always, always looked like Miller.
It’s the truth I’ve been swallowing, all but choking on: that I am obsessed with Alistair Miller, that I have not stopped thinking even once of the way his voice sounded when he said he loved me. That it’s exactly as he said in the hospital: Miller is what I know for sure. It’s always been the two of us, eternal as the gods we grew up believing in.
You will become people you can’t even fathom yet, Vera told me. But every version of myself, I know, belongs with him.
The front galley is empty, every flight attendant dispersed down the aisle dropping off drinks. I step out of sight and wait there, twisting my fingers together. When the bolt on the bathroom door slides open, my heart nose-dives down the line of my rib cage.
“Miller,” I whisper. His eyebrows shoot up, and he steps sideways through the door to close it behind him.
“Hey,” he says, surprised. I beckon him toward me, into the metal-walled alcove. “What are you doing?”
It’s tight in here, even tighter with his bulky cast. Beneath our feet, clouds part under the belly of the plane.
“I, um.” I came here with absolutely no plan, stuttering complete nonsense. “I just—”
Miller’s eyebrows are still lifted, his eyes on mine. We don’t have a lot of time, I know. The flight attendants will be back soon. This space is only ours for right now, so I just get on my tiptoes, steady myself against his good shoulder, and kiss him.
Miller’s lips are soft and dry and entirely still. I don’t think he’s breathing. When I pull away he just looks at me, mouth slightly open. The line where his lip split is deep, cherry red.
I let out an inhuman squeak and dart around him, horrified. What am Idoing?
“Ro, wait.” Miller grabs my wrist, hot as a brand. He tugs me back into the privacy of the kitchen. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, though I do. Of course I do. He’s looking right at me, something suddenly so unfamiliar about his face it makes me want to hide. “I’m sorry. I was just—I was. That was stupid.”
Miller steps closer to me, releasing my wrist. “It wasn’t stupid.”
We stare at each other. The plane hums around us. “No?”
He shakes his head slowly. I watch him swallow, his Adam’s apple rising and falling in his pale throat.
