Page 141 of Backslide
“Right. I know literally what we’re doing. But why? What are you doing here? I haven’t seen or heard from you in weeks. We said goodbye in California and that was supposed to be it.”
“Right,” he says like we’re discussing the weather. “I know. But I don’t want that to be it. I don’t think thatshouldbe it.”
I narrow my eyes at him, prop a hand on my hip. “Well, maybe you don’t get to decide.”
He toggles his head. “Yeah, okay, fine. But I’ve solved the problem. So, the decision kind of makes itself.”
“You’ve solved the problem?”
“Yup.”
“Because you’re going to bribe me with cereal to uproot my entire life for you?”
“No,” he says, like I’m being ridiculous. “Because I’m going to uprootmylife foryou.”
I take this in. At least I try.
What. Is. He. Saying?
Like a zombie, I sit down on the couch too because I’m not sure I can trust my legs to hold me up. I open my cider with a hiss. Chug half of it. Let it fizz, tart and sweet, on my tongue. Place it on a hexagonal coaster on my coffee table. The hexagonal coaster I bought at the MoMA store while I was living my regular adult life—and hating him.
“Sorry—what?” I say, finally.
“I’m moving back to New York. To be with you.”
He says this like,I’m going to order the burger.Like it’s that basic.
I choke. Belatedly. Like my body just realized it swallowed something. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I thought about it,” he shrugs, “and the way I see it, it’s my turn… to choose you. To show you I’m a different person than I used to be.”
“Noah… what is going on?!”
He finally gives me his full attention. Slides over beside me so we are close, our thighs touching, so I can feel him next to me. And then he faces me full on, his expression taking on a new seriousness. It takes everything in my power not to trace the scar on his cheek with my thumb, his faint laugh lines. Not to lean in and kiss his parted lips, then and there. I can feel his presence like a hum beneath my surface. Like mini earthquakes that won’t stop rolling.
Today, his eyes are a color I can barely describe—something earthy and green and brown and yellow all at the same time. Something grounded.
They hold it all. And they are zeroed in on me.
“I didn’t realize until I saw you in California that you’re what’s missing from my life.”
I open my mouth to interject, but he holds up his hand.
“Just let me get this out. I know you’ll have thoughts—trust me. I know you.”
Fine, I allow. I will listen.
“Before Sonoma, I had convinced myself—deluded myself—into believing that what we had was just a kid thing. Just a first-love thing. That there wasn’t a chance in hell it would become something again. I mean… I figured we might still be attracted to each other. I figured there was a small chance we might bone or something, but—”
“Noah…” I motion for him to continue.
“Sorry.” He slides a palm over his hair. “Anyway, then I saw you at baggage claim and you were, well, let’s be honest, kind of mean. But also really hot. And most of all, you wereyou. Sharp and stubborn and funny and impossible—myperson. And, from that moment on, as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, rationalize what I was feeling in a million different ways, I’ve known that I can’t live without you. That I don’twantto live without you.”
“But…”
“I know,” he says, a hand coming to rest on my leg, to steady me. “We have history. We have baggage—exponentially bigger than the Jolly Green Hulk. I get that. I do. And no amount of cereal is going to erase that. But we’re adults now. That’s the beauty of it. We can figure out how to get past it. Because it’s worth it. And because, honestly, it’s going to take a lot more energy trying to get over you than it is trying to get… well, not under you. But you know what I mean. Under you is part of it.”
I exhale a wobbly breath. Try to pull my mind out of the gutter as I flash to me under him—which is frankly where I’d like to live.
