“Hey,” Ren says as we sway on the dance floor. “What if I came to visit you in New York this fall?”
“This fall?” I say, as he draws me closer, something about the sight of his hips moving in time with mine making it hard to think beyond this room. “If you want to,” I tell him.
He brushes the hair from my shoulder, thumb smoothing absently back and forth along the strap of my dress, straightening what doesn’t need to be straightened. He’s watching the movement, his face serious.
“I do want to,” he finally says.
He’s looking at me in a way that has every late-night phone call, every moment in our lives I found myself wanting to move just a little closer to him crashing over me, tugging me under like a rough wave.I’ve never beenyourboyfriendplays in a loop in my head, and suddenly I want to ask why not. Suddenly, all I can think about is yesterday, Ren so casually cool onstage, his fingers sliding over the guitar strings.
“I need some air,” I announce.
Ren’s answering nod is quick, a crease appearing between his brows. “Of course. Let’s—”
“No, you stay.” I smile, but it’s difficult. I wonder if I had more to drink than I thought, but I know I didn’t. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
I don’t give Ren a chance to respond and instead push through the crowd of bodies until I’m on the other side of it. I step out onto the balcony, but it’s nearly as loud out here as it is on the dance floor, so I clomp back inside and over to a table of coupes filled with champagne, grab one and toss it back.
I bring a hand to my forehead. Am I losing my mind? I feel like I can’t hang on to any one thought,palms gone clammy, a constant fluttering in my stomach since the night started.
But it’s not long before my eyes scan the room, searching for him. I crane up on my toes, step to the side, and there he is, standing by the bar, attentively talking to a couple we sat next to at dinner. He laughs at something they just said and smiles, and it’s at that moment that it flits across my brain, filling my heart up until I think it might burst.
There you are.
The room tilts, or maybe it’s the earth under me, its axis reorganizing itself after a molecular shift.
I’ve felt like this before. Of course I have. Or I’ve felt some version of it. I stare at the cut of his profile, and realize I’ve felt this way before aboutRen.
History is rewriting itself in real time as I think back over the weddings, over our college years, our entire lives: Ren in a photo booth, hand on my thigh; Ren on the beach, skin glistening under the July sun; Ren at the bar, singing along to the Killers while I laugh; Ren’s soft breathing on the screen porch, a rhythm I could fall asleep to; us on the phone for hours; the smell of his old Sublimity shirt I never gave back; Ren’s eyes and arms and mouth and shoulders and chest and hips and—
Howdidn’t I know? Or did I? Again, my mind is stumbling over itself, every memory something new, a before and an after.
That’s when Ren looks at me. I’ve been staring at him for who knows how long, eyes stuck on his face. The polite set of his mouth disappears into a concerned frown, cheeks that he shaved again this morning hollowing.
I know what I must look like. My lips are parted and I think my expression must be somewhere in the realm of someone who’s just received reality-altering news.Ma’am, welcome to the multiverse. A meteor is headed for the city. The aliens have landed.The news hasn’t quite hit yet, but I’m stunned, even awed, at its magnitude.
His gaze latches on to mine and the room goes still, music quiets. An image suddenly flashes through me, of Ren under a streetlight at twenty-one, head leaned back as he laughed at something I said. There’s a week-old tattoo on his arm, proof that we are a part of each other forever, and I want to reach into that moment, pause it, pluck us out so I can examine the evidence that’s been there all along.
My heart turns over in my chest at the way his eyes travel across my face now. But then he tilts his head toward me in anare you okay?move, and I’m yanked back to the pounding bass and raucous celebration of the room.Get it together, Joni.
But I can’t get it together. I bob my head yes and dart away, ducking behind a large potted plant where I can be alone to sit with the way that the world has just changed.
chapter twenty-two
The first thing I do is hurry down the nearest hallway and call Stevie. But after two rings, I end the call, holding the cool phone to my chest. Do I even want to tell Stevie? Do I want to drag her into this when I don’t even know whatthisis yet?
I lean against the wall, stare up at the ornate ceiling. Being here, in a ballroom full of people I don’t know, and feeling this way might be one of the most out-of-body experiences I’ve ever had. It’s like someone has opened me up, ripped out my most important parts, filled them up with new ones before shoving them back inside.
I can’t be in love with Ren, and yet, it’s overwhelmingly clear that I am, that I’ve always been. I think about the Joni Mitchell song again, the pad of his thumb smoothing lazily along the strap of my dress when we were dancing, summers on the screen porch, every single playlist he’s ever carefully made for me, and have to squeeze my eyes shut.
“Joni.” I jump at the sound of his voice, turn my head against the wall to look at him as he strides toward me. Suddenly, Ren isn’tRen, and instead some romantic lead, all dark eyes and tousled hair,like someone should put a light and a fan on him, set him up for a cover shot.
Think, I tell myself.Think of times you didn’t want him.But I come up alarmingly short. Can a brain really rewire itself in so little time? There has to be something. But all I can think of is a particularly bad hangover, his head in my lap as he opened his brilliant brown eyes to look up at me and my breath caught in my chest.
“Ren,” I say. Maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe it doesn’t matter if I reach out and fist a hand around the lapel of his jacket, press my knuckles over his heart. There are no consequences in dreams. In a dream, I can do anything I want.
“Are you okay?” he asks as he stops in front of me.
“I’m great,” I say, settling for a brief tug on his jacket. “Are you okay?”
