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“I love you,” Henry echoes, one arm moving to hold me in his lap, the other snaking through my hair. He tilts my head toward his, pulling me close to him. I feel his beard against my chin, and my hands reach up to touch his furry face. His eyes flicker closed for just a moment, and then his lips are on mine. Henry kisses me like we’re making up for lost time, and I suppose we are. Not just these last few months, or the nine years we didn’t talk, but everything from that moment in Julia Schmidt’s basement on. His teeth skim my bottom lip, drawing a low moan out of me, and I feel him immediately harden underneath me.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell him again as we catch our breath. “I never want to hurt you like this again.”
He twists a curl of mine lightly around his finger. “I know.”
“Do you forgive me enough to try one more time?”
“Of course. You’re it for me too, Norah. Always have been. Always will be. I just have one more question.”
I lean back to look at him, one eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”
“This isn’t actually the same lip gloss from middle school, right?” The corner of his lip quirks up on one side as my nose crinkles up in disgust.
“Gross, Hen, I bought it this morning.”
“Oh thank God,” he heaves in mock-relief.
I smile so wide I’m afraid I’ll break my face, so I kiss him again. To preserve my face. And because I love him.
* * *
Unable to stop ourselves, we make love on the roof, and I don’t even feel weird anymore about using those words to describe it. Henry later jokes that we should have had sex on the couch instead, to make up for all the times he’d walked in on Nick, but ultimately he decided his friend had done too much good at this point to deserve that.
Afterward, he helps me clean up the roof, and we go downstairs. He plops me in the room he reclaimed as his while he has a long talk with Nick. When he returns, he tells me it’s time to go home, and we book flights for the following morning. Then he packs up the room, gives Nick a long hug, and takes me to the Roosevelt for the night. He says the walls in the apartment are super thin anyway, and he does not intend to be quiet just for Nick’s sake. And it’s not just the sex. We talk all night. The most brutally honest and vulnerable we’ve ever been.
The next morning, we fly out of a small airport in the Valley, walking right through security. When we land in New York, we go to our own apartments. Because we’re two separate people and are working on boundaries.
Henry returns to work in person after what he described to me as a “sabbatical,” and we both start thriving professionally. We see each other a few nights a week. We eat dinner at Ignoto, or the tiny Jewish deli around the corner, or get takeout from the Indian place I love. I watch him like a hungry animal when he cooks for me because he’s so sexy when he feeds me. He wins over my roommates the first time he makes everyone what he refers to as “our special pork udon dish,” and forms a particular kinship with Michael whenever Luisa and I start talking too fast for the guys to track. I go to his work dinners and smile and rub his back while he talks his face off. He goes out with me on the weekend and dances or sings his heart out, no longer hiding behind the statement that he’s not much for karaoke. He’s terrible every time in the most perfect way. Our moms are in no rush and take their time planning the perfect wedding. We find ways, both big and small, to blend our worlds into one that works for the two of us. We keep communicating. We keep choosing each other. We are always, always trying.
Epilogue
Twenty months later…
Henry
I sit in the center of the camel-colored sofa flanked by the Gold sisters as we watch Sally Albright tell Harry Burns that “Auld Lang Syne” is about old friends, and I feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
For the girl I grew up with, the complicated history that led us to this point, the time I’ve had with Norah since she flew to Los Angeles and finally said what I’ve known deep down since we were kids—that she loves me too.
To be here, in our moms’ condo in Chicago, watching a movie that meant so much to us in another lifetime, feels surreal. But so much of the last nearly two years has been that way, as I built a life with the only woman I’ve ever loved.
Norah stretches her legs, placing her feet in my lap, and I instinctively start to knead her arches.
“Don’t be gross,” Hannah says, scrunching up her nose. “I cannot be smothered by all this affection right now.”
Hannah is currently in an off-again phase with her grad school boyfriend. Norah is certain it won’t stick, as much as we all despise Cal. I must say that this Hanukkah is already off to a better start without him.
This holiday last year was the first time we met Cal. While I try to be impartial, knowing how stubborn and overprotective the love of my life can be, he really was the epitome of an insufferable film school bro. He was judgmental about the movies the girls (and I) wanted to watch, clearly had no interest in getting to know Hannah’s family, and never shut up about himself.
I’m sorry that Hannah is hurting right now, but as my mother would say, good riddance.
“Don’t give me that,” Hannah continues, throwing a pointed look at her sister. “You know how they are.”
“Oh, we know.” Norah raises her eyebrows suggestively. “You didn’t share a wall with them.”
Our moms’ wedding last month was filled with heartfelt vows and the Jewish traditions I always love learning more about. I file away what seems meaningful to Norah, what caused her eyes to mist up during the ceremony, what we could make our own one day.
Afterward, Mom and Sara headed to Paris for an extended honeymoon, making sure to return in time for Hanukkah, which is much earlier than Christmas this year. This evening, we’ll light the menorah for the first night, which is why Norah and I flew back in from New York. We decided to stay in the condo this time, since Sara has handed over the reins, and I’m now on latke duty in perpetuity, but regretted the decision after discovering that three weeks in France did not dull their newlywed…enthusiasm.
