Page 85 of The Someday Daughter
“I’m going to—” I break off, already stepping away from Rana.
She laughs one last time. “Yeah, you go. I’m going to grab something to eat anyway.”
I nod, only half listening, taking the rest of the slope down The Beach so quickly my knees ache. When I hit the crosswalk I shout his name and Silas looks up, his entire face illuminating in a grin. He lets go of Puddles and she runs for me—a slow, creaking lope that’s so pure and good and familiar I could cry. My knees hit the sidewalk and I wait for her, catch her when she gets to me, squeeze her tight into my chest. When I carry her over to Silas, he wraps us both in his long arms.
“Hi,” he says. I draw a deep breath against his throat. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.” It’s a muscle I’m building—saying it to Silas, and Fallon, and my mom. Being brave enough to put those words in safe places. It’s one part of a nebulous whole I’ve been working through in that office a few blocks off campus, where I spend every Thursday afternoon talking about what happened with Camilla and Sadie, about all the stories I tell myself about myself, about the way I hurt in Nashville. About my anxiety—not a possession but a part of me, and one that I’m learning to be kinder to.
I thought once that the kind of doctor I want to be is realer than the kind of doctor my mother is—that the physical of our bodies holds more weight than the intangible of our minds. But in that, as in so much else, I was wrong. And the more I come to understand myself, the more I realize how much I don’t understand. It feels good, even when it feels bad, to be getting closer.
“I missed you,” I say.
“I still miss you,” Silas says, carefully lowering Puddles to thesidewalk and then taking my face in his hands. “And you’re right here.”
He kisses me—his lips October-cold and soft and searching. I tip him against the car, spread my fingers over his ribs through the thick fabric of his sweatshirt. When his mouth opens under mine, the whole world hazes out—I’m heat and I’m hunger. I’m an infinite ache. I love him so much it could end me.
“Sadie says hi,” he murmurs, lips in the hollow behind my ear.
I swallow. Lift a hand to hold his head, feel the curls at the nape of his neck. “Okay.” I talked to Sadie just a few days ago; I’ll talk to her next month, when we’re all in LA for Thanksgiving. “Hi, Sadie.”
Silas pulls back, his eyes tracking over mine. We smile at each other and Puddles darts a lick against my ankle and I want to freeze this, just as it is. This suspended moment, with a full weekend ahead of us—fleeting and precious and finite. But how, standing here, it feels hopeful and enormous. Like it’s endless enough for now.
“Where to first?” Silas asks. His eyes are golden in the autumn light. “I have a few ideas.”
“Anywhere,” I say. I slide my palm into his, thread our fingers together. And then I ask him to do what he’s done all summer and all fall, what he’s done every moment since that first night I met him. “Surprise me.”
