“Jett.”
“I don’t know. The same stuff, probably. Gym. Wednesdays. Your plants. Except now I get to say it whenever I want, and you can’t stop me.”
“I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Good. Because I’m going to be insufferable about it.”
“You’re already insufferable.”
“But now I’m insufferable and in love. Much worse.”
He smiled. Not the careful one. Not the professional one. Not the one he assembled for coworkers and gym buddies. The real one. Crooked, a little surprised, as though he couldn’t believe his own face was making that shape.
We cleaned up together. He washed, I dried, because he had a system and I’d learned not to interfere with Ellis’ systems. Jack the fern got his evening mist. Diane the pothos dripped onto the kitchen floor, and Ellis wiped it up without breaking conversation. We brushed our teeth side by side in his bathroom mirror, and I watched our reflections: my brown skin against his pale, his height against my breadth, two people who didn’t match on paper but fit in every way that counted.
I stayed the night. He fell asleep first, the way he always did: one arm across my stomach, face turned into my shoulder, breathing going slow and even within minutes. The man slept like someone who’d been given permission to stop worrying.
I stayed awake a while longer. Not from anxiety, not from the slow-leak feeling I’d had the week before. Just taking it in. The weight of his arm, the sound of his breathing, Jack barely visible through the bathroom door, existing quietly in the dark.
I loveyou; I thought.
The words still fit. Still didn’t burn or cage or suffocate.
If anything, they’d gotten bigger since I’d said them out loud. Like they’d needed air to grow.
The Wednesday after, I stopped by Sierra’s to drop off a lens cap she’d left at my place three weeks ago. I’d been meaning to return it. Somehow I’d found seventeen reasons not to.
Sierra had been seeing Lauren for a few weeks. Long enough that the rest of us had heard the highlights on a daily basis. The way Sierra photographed them at the window, the brownies Lauren had baked from scratch and dropped off the night Sierra missed dinner, the meet-cute at Bean & Bloom that Calliope had already turned into folklore. Lauren had become a presence in Sierra’s stories, in her playlists, in the way she said their name. The rest of us were waiting for our turn to meet them in person. Apparently, mine was now.
Friday morning, my phone buzzed. It wasThe Chaos Covenchat.
Sierra:okay I have to tell you something
Raven:what
Sierra:I think it’s time.
Calliope:WHAT TIME. SIERRA. TIME FOR WHAT.
Sierra:Time to add Lauren. Is that too soon?
Calliope:ADD HER IMMEDIATELY
Raven:do it
Jett:do it
Sierra:Not here. She’s officially one of us, right?
Calliope:Without question.
Raven:agreed.
Jett:yeah. she’s in.
Calliope:Time for a rebirth. Rise, new chat, rise!
Jett:RIP Chaos Coven. May she rest in memes and midnight thirst traps.
