Page 57 of One Little Change
15. Same Book, Same Page, Same Something
Only minor freaking out involved in fixing things, so a resounding success!
Ryan
All was… not right in the world. But not wrong either. All was back to how it was before in the world. I was in Chicago. Luke was home. We were chatting on the phone. I was exhausted but not really from traveling a long distance, more from the emotional journey.
It was late and I was under my covers and whispering quietly, or attempting to, even though my roommate wasn’t even here. He was probably out robbing old ladies or whatever else super villains did. Why would old ladies be out so late at night? They should get some sleep. Maybe he could tell them that when he robbed them.
“When we made a plan,” Luke’s voice whispered to me, like he was under his covers too. “Were you kind of like, okay, things won’t go wrong now?”
Normally I would pretend to be confident like someone who had no problems ever and never expected to have them. But then what was the plan for?
“I’m not even gonna front, exactly,” I told him.
“But the plan was just, like, about how to deal when stuff went wrong.” Like telling ourselves this wasn’t the easiest situation but we could handle it meant that whenever something did arise, those magic words would solve it. They were just supposed to be a reminder so that we could talk and figure things out.
“And we’re so used to getting things wrong, we didn’t consider that we were doing things right,” I added. That was a little terrifying, the reminder that you could care about someone so much and do things correctly and it still didn’t mean things would work out.
“We were getting things right?” Luke asked like that was news to him. “Awesome.”
“No one shut anyone out, we kept talking even when it sucked and we were all honest and committed and stuff,” I explained. As I wasn’t a humble person, I was totally taking credit for all of this. “I really am a relationship expert… and you’re okay too.”
Luke thought about that. “The yelling at each other wasn’t great.”
“Understandable though,” I defended. “We should be able to survive getting mad and having a fight.” It was also a little comforting to know that if you cared about someone so much it didn’t always matter whether you were getting things right or wrong. You could decide to keep facing whatever came your way. “We just have to trust that we can handle it instead of just saying the words. As much as some stuff changes, other stuff stays the same.”
“Like how I wanna be with you,” he told me sweetly. The words were music to my ears.
“I want that too.”
Everything was dark and quiet, but in a good way. Like I was safe in my own little fortress of solitude but not complete solitude because Luke was with me too, in spirit at least, and all the problems seemed far away, like they couldn’t intrude on the peace we created.
“Let’s start over,” I said at the same time Luke said, “Let’s be friends.”
The mental equivalent of a car crash happened inside my head. My fortress of solitude was on fire. And apparently a bunch of people had been in my fortress with me but just being creepers and out of sight. I thought I’d been alone but now there were a bunch of voices all yelling and screaming and rolling around on fire.
“Are you breaking up with me?” I asked. My voice sounded a bit screechy but at least I wasn’t sobbing or something.
“No! I thought we were on a happier note.” He sounded as panicked as I felt. Good, that was good.
Everything inside me said the best thing to do was start screaming into the phone. That was the only way to properly express my terror and confusion.
I reminded myself words were a thing and tried to use those instead. “Me too until you said we should be friends.”
“I meant what you said.” It sounded like he was making an effort to not freak out too.
“But only I said what I said,” I said, not really paying attention to what I was saying, while I tried to keep down the hysterical laughter bubbling up in my chest. Was that better or worse than screaming?
Seemed like we finally had been back on the same page or realized we’d been there all along, like with the messages we sent each other and now it was all for naug—
“We keep getting worried about things going wrong,” Luke explained. “While we’re apart, I think we should just put intimacy or whatever off the table. I don’t wanna break up—” EXCELLENT NEWS “But there’s more to a relationship than just romance, isn’t there? We should focus on those parts.”
“Oh,” I relaxed onto my bed, like a puppet with his strings cut. Okay, there was no cause for alarm. I kicked all the formerly screaming people in my head out into the cold. “We should just catch each other up on our days? Talk about stupid stuff, support each other, try not to tackle the heavy stuff while we’re apart.” That sounded perfect.
“Yeah, but like, only if you want to, I mean—"
“Yeah, that’s what I meant by starting over.” Clean slate. But clean and good didn’t mean the same thing. “But actually, we shouldn’t.”
