Don’t Be in Love

30

Don’t Watch Him Go — Adelaide

Outside the restaurant, rain was throwing bare branches around and bowling pieces of trash down the sidewalk.

“Well, that’s a lot of rain,” I observed with some slight dread at the front of the restaurant, clutching my flowers. I liked these boots.

Dorian’s face seemed to mirror the same thought, watching the weather as the music and tables bustled behind us.

He proceeded to open the umbrella.

“What are you doing!” I grabbed his hands and stopped him.

“What do you think? I’m getting the umbrella ready because it’s downpouring!”

“That’s bad luck!”

His gaze jumped between me and the weather outside.

“Fine. You wait here, I’ll open it outside,” he said.

“Dorian—”

“You better give me your number after this—no more communicating via email!” He ran out of the restaurant and was completely soaked before the umbrella was open and over his head. He returned to the door and bridged the gap above us.

“How do I look?” he smirked, a laugh on the edge of his lips as rain droplets turned strands of his hair into sopping curls.

“Exceptionally wet. That look is pretty in right now,” I replied, stepping under the umbrella and letting the door shut behind me.

“Is it?”

“Slicked back hair, wet makeup—”

He tilted the umbrella away from my head, letting a line of rain in.

I shrieked, jumping forward into his chest, laughing.

“Let’s be nice to the bloke with the umbrella.”

Our walk back home was too short. While twenty-five minutes of dodging puddles and being hit by windy waves of cold rain wasn’t ideal, it ended our conversation too quickly.

The tree outside my balcony dripped dew onto the umbrella. “Thank you for coming. And bringing these.” I gestured to the bouquet.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

“Pretty sure you invited yourself,” I reminded him.

“Semantics.” He shrugged, the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight,” he said softly. A thin stream of water ran down the edge of his face. I stopped it with my thumb, surprising us both.

A clouded look spread across his face as he searched mine. The silence that tended to spread between us was always uncomfortable. But this time, it gave me a moment to breathe him in. As if I was in a museum trying to pull the meaning of a painting from its use of light.

I counted how far I’d have to lean forward on my heels to reach his lips. Then I tried to calculate how many what was I doings would pass before they were replaced with the complete and utter chaos of desire .

I cleared my throat and abruptly backed away. “Goodnight,” I repeated.

“Goodnight.” He nodded, backing up.

I left the bubble of our umbrella and stepped under the awning above my apartment entrance, pulling the door open.

The heating unit in the small lobby hit me and the door shut. I took three steps upstairs before the urge to get one more glance at him turned me around.

I found him in the rain still, under the tree.

Don’t do it. Don’t do it.

I ran back down the stairs and opened the front door.

“What are you doing?” I shouted over the rain.

“I’m waiting for you!” he yelled back, the rain shadowing his words.

“Waiting for me to what?”

“For you to get into your flat!”

“But your shoes—”

“Adelaide, I’m already soaked so just get inside!”

“You’re so demanding!” I threw my arms up, letting the door shut and running up the steps.

The rain said hello on my apartment windows as I pushed the front door open. Its hellos grew louder as I ran into my room to open the balcony.

The wind whipped my hair as I looked below at Dorian.

See, I’m safe , my arched brows said.

Stubborn , he shook his head. Rain was coating his hair. He resembled a shot from a romance film. With one hand in his pocket and the other holding the umbrella at a slant, he didn’t care if it was covering him anymore.

We just stared at each other for a moment before he pulled his hand out of his pocket and wedged the umbrella under his elbow. Cupping his hands together, he passed a glance between his hands and me.

You want me to do that?

He nodded and dug something out of his pocket. Walking right underneath the balcony, he tossed the item high in the air, catching me off guard. I threw my hands out and cupped the item between my palms as if I was trying to grab a guppy leaping from a pond.

Stepping back under the cover of the balcony above my head, I opened my hands and found a telephone booth keychain. It wasn’t the red ones I passed every day on my way to campus though. This was painted a blue-gray and had small streams of green that ran from the top to resemble vines. It matched the keychains hanging from my purse.

You did this? I let it dangle from my fingers and stared at him in awe.

It’s just something small . He scrunched his nose.

My chest filled with earnestness. I was a teddy bear stuffed with handknit hearts.

I twisted, glimpsing at my purse. Before I could second guess it, I grabbed one of the keychains off my bag and ran out of the apartment, retracing my steps to his outside.

“What are you—” I cut off his question with a suffocating hug.

The umbrella shuttered above us. Then, it fell altogether at our side as he wrapped his arms around me.

I breathed in the cold rain smell coating his hair and let the side of my face absorb the scent. My hands found the back of his neck and my heart found his. I squeezed, and he squeezed back.

“Thank you. So much ,” I whispered. “That was the best birthday I’ve ever had.”

With one hand secure on my lower back, his other smoothed out my hair, twirling strands at the bottom.

“I’m so glad,” he exhaled. “I’m so glad.”

I could remain here all night. The rain could dissipate my clothes, soak the leather of my boots, and prune my fingertips. I didn’t care.

My toes ached as I pushed up on the balls of my feet to hold onto him.

Pick me up and kiss me , I wanted to tell him.

Swallowing one more gulp of this moment, I reluctantly pulled my hands from his hair. But not before clipping my Red Sox hat keychain onto his belt loop.

I kissed the side of his neck, felt him shiver, and ran back inside. I practically floated up to my bedroom. From my balcony, I watched him pull the umbrella back over his head. In a haze, he stared at the keychain attached to his hip.

Then he looked at me.

He opened and closed his mouth before shaking his head like a flustered kid. The smile on his face was no longer shy.

My heart raced as if I was struck by some shock of electricity.

Happy Birthday, Adelaide , he mouthed. And then he left. His figure was slowly taken by dark sheets of rain, like a tugboat tethered to a ship in an ocean. I felt myself leaning forward.

What if I went back outside? Took the stairs two at a time and got to the sidewalk before he could get too far?

I let the rain hit my face in thought. The old black paint of the railing chipped under my palm.

I’d run to him, catch his sleeve, grab his attention … and then what? Tell him what? Do what?

I think I like you. I think I really like you. I can’t stop thinking about kissing you.

What am I doing? I stood up straight with the haste of a spark.

I let my head fall back and closed my eyes, hoping the rain could wake me. Hoping it could wipe these thoughts away and cure me.

I’m lonely. I just feel lonely.

And he has a girlfriend, you absolute dumbass.

“ Ugh ,” I groaned in frustration and pushed the balcony doors shut.

I clipped my new telephone booth keychain to my purse before I could think it over. Tugging off my boots and draping my coat over my desk chair, I walked into the hallway.

My feet stopped. Two cinder blocks attached to my legs as I found Sabrina on the couch.

Mia had said they’d both be out late with Sabrina’s dads. But there Brina was, quickly reminding me of what a horrible friend I was.

The guilt in my chest was debilitating. The last time this much emotion clogged my throat was when I told my aunt I’d be moving out indefinitely to live on campus. She said goodbye and let me move in by myself while I watched siblings and parents carry their children’s belongings into their temporary homes.

Something about seeing Brina half-asleep, her head falling into the cushion with such peacefulness, made the guilt so much worse.

I approached her quietly, my feet spreading the area rug. A printout of a highlighted periodic table was on her lap and there was a movie on the TV illuminating the dark room, casting a light across her face.

“Brina,” I whispered, resting my hand on her shoulder.

“Hm,” she grumbled, squeezing her eyelids together.

“You have to get to bed. You have a final in the morning.”

She slowly opened her eyes but didn’t make an effort to move. “This is my favorite part though,” she sighed, trying to focus on the movie.

I turned to watch. The live-action Cinderella was playing. Cinderella stood at the top of a grand staircase in her blue ball gown. Then it cut to Prince Charming looking up at her in awe, meeting her at the bottom of the stairs.

“I want that. That’s my dream,” she whispered.

You already have so much , I wanted to tell her. Parents, comfortability, security. How’s that not already a dream?

“It’s a movie, Brina. Just a fairytale.” I brushed her bangs out of her face.

“I know. But someone wrote that movie. And that writing couldn’t have all been fictional. Something real must’ve inspired it.”

I closed my mouth and watched the scene with her. Prince Charming pulled Cinderella in and out of his chest, letting her sparkling skirts spin around her ankles.

“One day, I’m going to have a husband that looks at me like that,” she thought aloud, words muffled by the cushion. “And we’re going to have kids and live in a beautiful house with blue shutters. We’ll make pies together, take the kids to flute recitals, create Christmas traditions, and compile new stockings when we have grandkids. We’ll grow old together, and even when I’m eighty, he’ll still look at me like that.” She exhaled, her eyes falling shut again. “It’d be perfect if Dorian turned out to be that person.”

Air stopped moving through my lungs.

“I’ll let you finish your movie.” I brushed her back one more time and then stood, walking back into my room.

She loves Dorian. She loves Dorian. She loves Dorian .

I like Dorian. I like Dorian. I like Dorian .

I was spending too much time around him. That had to be it. I was confusing a budding friendship for romantic interest. Just because he was attractive didn’t mean that I liked him .

I closed my door and let my nervous breathing run through my chest.

One day, I’m going to have a husband .

Why was I forgetting that Sabrina and Mia were going to outgrow this apartment one day and build homes? Build families.

If that’s what she viewed as her Dream Life, then that’s what I wanted for her. But part of me couldn’t help but think where I was supposed to fit into her life.

It was selfish. They should be happy. I wanted them to be happy.

I sat on my bed feeling numb. The memorabilia hanging from my walls overwhelmed me.

For years, I had this idealistic image of what a perfect life would be: a job that consumed me in the best way possible, and a home that was forever mine. Not a place I’d have to move out of one day or a house I’d get comfortable in only for it to be taken away. Just a home for me.

But having friends warped that.

Now all I could picture was being alone without them. Utterly alone.

Alone in a home I paid for with the job I worked hard for in college to qualify for, which required restless nights in high school to achieve. The home I dreamed of filling with my souvenirs and successes.

Brina and Mia were my only family. But they’d also be busy building their own families.

I couldn’t even begin to think of Dorian or James in the same circumstances or else I’d succumb to the rolling in my stomach and vomit.

He left these things because they reminded him of us , my mother had said as she stared into Dad’s bureau drawers, filled with his clothes and sawdust. He didn’t want us, so he left his belongings to become things.

Ever since then, I packed my things like a squirrel in the winter to protect my life and my joy and prove to myself I had memories worth keeping, only to feel like they were all slipping away now.

I stared at the frames filled with film photos and postcards above my desk. Then my lamp strung with keychains and my bureau attacked with handwritten notes.

They were always comforting. Pieces of my life I could hug tightly to remember I had so much to be grateful for. That I had experienced so much of the life my parents never had in their twenties.

But the items loomed over me now.

They were a reminder that, one day, all of my things would be just that: things. They wouldn’t be handed down to a child or displayed in a museum. The items stuffed with my joy and the happiest times of my life would be things that no one wanted, in a bureau with excess sawdust.

I was a reflection of the things I carried. So what did that mean if the things I collected were destined to be tossed away?

Was I just a collection of the things no one wanted?