Page 94 of Let's Talk About Love
“Of course I do. How do you not know this about me?”
Takumi laughed, turning away to look out the window for a moment. “I’m trying to figure something out and it’s not making sense to me.”
“Okay.” She willed herself not to be nervous.
“Before, you said ‘bisexual minus the sexual’ but didn’t add in a substitute. So if you don’t care about sex, what do you care about?”
“Ah,” she said, pleased by the question. She held out her hand—he took it and sat next to her. She interlocked their fingers before laying her head on his shoulder again. This time, he laid his on top of hers, fitting together like puzzle pieces. “Okay, so the way it works for me is I have to like the way someone looks physically, but then that’s where it stops. At first. I think lots of people are cute in the same way as babyanimals and Lisa Frank notebooks. It’s pure aesthetic appreciation. Nothing sexual about it.”
“That’s a little confusing,” he said. “I hear what you’re saying, but I have to make an effort to see the disconnect.”
“Do you want to have sex with every pretty girl you see? WAIT.” Alice held up her hands. “No, don’t answer that. I am certain no part of me wants to know the answer to that.” She waited for him to finish laughing. She’d come this far, might as well bring it all the way home. “Okay, so, seriously. Say you see a guy and clearly he’s good-looking. Like you can’t stop yourself from staring at him because he’s so beautiful. You just want to look at him until he says he’s noticed all the staring and then you start worrying you’re creeping him out. And then you feel terrible because he thinks you only like him for his face and really nice body that looks fabulous in clothes.”
Takumi stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “Got it. And for the record, continuing with that thinly veiled hypothetical situation, the guy knows you like him for more than his looks now.”
“Oh, thank God. I was starting to sweat.” She laughed. “So that’s how it starts—I’ll think they’re cute. And sometimes I’ll keep thinking about them, about what it would be like to hold their hand or kiss them. And then I start hoping they’ll ask me out on a date. That’s when I know it’s romantic. I get a serious crush on them, there’s all of these intense feelings, and stuff.”
“Ah, okay.” He grinned at her—a lovely and understanding grin.
She wanted Takumi to be hers. Ryan believed that if God closed a door, He opened a window. Her parents had left her lost and reeling. Minutes later, Takumi had been there to lead her back. If that wasn’t a sign, she didn’t know what was.
“And for the record, I don’t believe in true love either, but I think it’s possible to feel like it could be real. That it’s possible to share something that feels that way with someone.”
The skeptical look on his face made her laugh without humor.
“And I think it’s possible to feel that way more than once. Sometimes even with more than one person at a time. Feelings are messy and confusing. It takes me a god-awful long time to sort through mine and I don’t always completely trust myself. Why not rely on fiction, fantasy, to help steer the way until you figure out what’s real and what’s not? It’s better than being alone all the time.”
“How does watching them make you feel less alone? Why would you want to watch something you don’t have but want? Wouldn’t that make things worse?” he said, sounding genuinely curious.
“I don’t know.” She laughed quietly to herself.
“Please don’t pout.” He rubbed her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad.”
“I don’t feel bad.” Alice lifted her head, watched him for a moment, and lay back down to resume her watch of the ceiling. “Not really. I’ve just never gotten to have any of that stuff.”
“Stuff like flowers and chocolate and expensive dinner dates?”
“And thoughtful gestures and spending time together and holding hands and slow dancing in the kitchen for no reason,” she said, hoping he would catch her hint. “And I don’t know, maybe a moonlit carriage ride every once in a while even though those are supposed to be surprisingly smelly.”
“They’re definitely overhyped.”
“You’ve been on one?”
“Yeah. You’re not missing anything.”
“Ryan rented a horse-drawn carriage for part of Feenie’s promposal. I almost died of jealousy.”
“Ah, promposals. They seem ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Says the girl who didn’t get one.”
“You didn’t go to prom? That seems like a very un-Alice thing to do.”
“No, I went.” And spent more than half of it sitting alone. All of her friends had dates. She didn’t want to intrude on their moments, so she sat outside on one of the massive balconies and watched the full moon.
“Did you have a good time?”
She nodded.
