Page 106 of Pining for You

“I will have to help him, but Audra said she’ll cover for a bit.”

I nod. My heart is beating so fast that it’s hard to hear my own thoughts to make sense of them, so I just look out at the crowd, where Cash, Izaac, and Diya are all dancing again, now with Naomi and Reena. Eve stands next to me, taking it in, and I can smell the cinnamon on her. I can feel every single inch of my own skin and how badly I want to jump out of it the longer the silence goes on.

“Well, I don’t want to tear you away from the dance floor, but… maybe we could take a walk?” Eve asks finally. She has to get very close to me so I can hear, and I feel her breath on my neck. My knees are basically just for show at this point.

The idea of being alone with Eve again terrifies me. But trying to talk at all in this commotion would be a total waste of my already short breath, so I just nod.

We make our way for the exit at the other side of the barn—the one where there isn’t currently a crowd rabid for tacos, or a stunned group of revelers following a drag queen’s dance instructions. As we make our way against the current of people, I catch Naomi’s eye. My mother has no context for this person I’m with, but the way she’s grinning at me, I can tell that somehow she’s figured it out. Mothers seem to have radar for these things.

There’s an old gazebo behind the barn. During the summer, it’s used as a stage for live music, and has been the centerpiece of a few weddings over the years. Now it’s embroidered with white Christmas lights, and wearing wreaths every few feet under a thick crown of snow from the storm. I lead us toward it. Since everyone else is clamoring for Carlos’s tacos, it’s empty and quiet.

Eve looks at the sky before walking up the steps to the platform.

“This place is something else, huh?” she says. “Those stars.”

Despite the clouds that are producing the snow, it’s clear enough to see constellations like sprays of spilt sugar across the sky. The snow that our moon predicted.

Our moon. Our magic. Is it still ours?

I wait for her to continue. I’m not sure what this is about… and I’m not sure I trust it.

“Well, it may not be the best cold weather gear, but that suit is fire,” she says, stepping closer, and my temperature skyrockets. She has that New York City radiator effect even all the way out here in Ripton.

For a moment I think she’s going to reach out to touch it—to touch me—but when I don’t respond, she dips her hand into her bag instead.

“Anyway. Um. You forgot this,” Eve says, holding out the book on humanism she gave me before everything blew up.

“Ah,” I say, gazing down at the cover. I completely forgot I left it.

I’m grateful, but surprised.

“Is this why you came all the way to Connecticut? To spread your philosophical gospel?” I ask, then I look up at the stars again. “Or was it for the view of the heavens?”

She shakes her head at both.

“To sell tacos, then?” I nod toward the truck and the clusters of partygoers digging into their orders.

Eve shakes her head again, still looking at me. “I didn’t come for the tacos, Strudel. Or the stars.”

I’ve spent all day replaying the morning in my head, and then imagining moments when I might get to talk to Eve again, to explain. Moments like this one. But now that it’s here, I’m strangely hesitant. I don’t want to relive those feelings—the ones that hurt so much.

“Honestly, I was pretty sure you never wanted to see me again.”

“Well, for a while there I think you were right.”

“I know that was intense…,” I say.

“Yeah. But it was more than that.” She looks like she’s searching for the right words. “It hurt, Strudel. It hurt, and I didn’t even know why in the moment. I really had to think about it.”

I wait, just sitting in my nerves, trying to listen and not speculate or assume or script the scene for once. And it’s harder than I thought.

“I gotta say,” she says after an agonizingly long pause. “I think it’s because you succeeded. You had me convinced with the whole magic thing. I trusted you. And when I realized that it wasn’t Fate, or magic, or divine intervention, or the moon that brought us back together, I guess I felt let down. And betrayed, in a way.”

I wait again, holding my impulse response as she inhales. It’s clear she has more to say.

“And then something occurred to me after you left.”

“What’s that?”