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My voice is full of tears. My heart is so full of cuts, nicks—every second this goes on makes the blood flow more freely. Cleans me out. Empties me.
He rests his head against my neck, kisses me at the nook where neck becomes shoulder. “Don’t cry because of me. You’re going to be fine. Great. Better than great. You’ll get a whole lot more sleep, too, which is good. You’ll live longer. ”
Come back to me.
The words are shouting inside me, bouncing around like manic ghosts, but I clamp my mouth shut and rest my hands on his body, just to feel his warmth and the way his back rises and falls with every breath. The ridges of his spine.
I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.
“Promise me,” I say, even though I wasn’t going to. Even though I swore to myself I wouldn’t make a single demand. “Promise me you’ll be my friend. Promise me you’ll call me, text me, tell me what’s going on with you. Promise if you’re awake in the middle of the night, if you’re alone, if you need somebody—”
He lifts his head and wipes my tears away again, this time with his thumbs. “I promise. ”
“You’re going to need a friend. ”
“Yeah. ”
“I want to be your friend, West. ”
He kisses the tip of my nose. “You’re already my friend, Caroline Piasecki. ”
I just close my eyes. I close my eyes and open my hands and let go of the tail of his shirt. “You should get in line. ”
“Yeah. ”
“Text me when you land. ”
“I will. ”
“Tell your sister I said hi. ”
“She’ll like that. ”
This time, when he kisses me, I don’t let myself touch him. Not anywhere but at the mouth.
His lips are so soft.
They tell me all the things I told him and more.
Live. Breathe. Fight.
Be who you are. Be better.
Be fierce.
“Don’t wait for me,” he whispers, and he kisses me again. “I don’t want you to wait. ”
When he picks up his backpack and walks away, I think of the day we met.
How he drove his car almost right into my feet. How he teased me, made me smile, made me faint.
How he looked with that dumb rubber chicken dangling from his fingers, grinning, asking me, Want to play?
I think maybe I’ve always been waiting for him.
Always.
I don’t know how I’m ever going to be able to stop.
