How They Met, and Other Stories(47)
Author: David Levithan

Carefully, very carefully, you begin to send signals. You ask her to make most of the decisions, with the hope (but not the expectation) that eventually she will make the right one. You imagine (ha!) that the usual rounds of “I-don’t-know-what-do-you-want-to-do?” will end up with her leaning over and kissing you and saying, “There—that’s what I want to do.”

This does not happen.

Instead, your “signals”—which seem to you to be so obvious and fat, so loud and behemoth—are as remote to her as the shift of an atom. The conversation does not halt—it does not thin itself and become a conversion. You falter, fall back to asides, to jokes—she laughs, you are amusing. She doesn’t know. You wonder if it’s better that way. Enlightenment is scary. Sometimes things look better in the dark.

You could stop her laughter in a second. Force it.

You don’t want to.

You back away from an awkward pause.

These are some of the things you cannot say to her:

“When I am with you, there is nowhere else I’d rather be. And I am a person who always wants to be somewhere else.”

“I see you in my dreams. And not just in fourth-grade classrooms or underwater Tupperware parties or other nonsensical dream places. I see you in reality most.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t choose this. It just happened.”

Milo is distracted, struck, left without a center of gravity. His shoes don’t match, and neither do his socks. He doesn’t notice. He lights candles and forgets about them, only to find the wax and ashes the next day. He puts CDs in the washing machine and throws recyclables in the sink. He is haunted by a muffled ringing. (His cell phone is in the laundry basket. It will take him three days to find it.)

Ramona is on her way over. Milo regrets this, because really all he can think about is William.

Two hours ago, he almost said something. To William, not Ramona. He does not say as much as he should to Ramona, and he says even less to William. Or, rather, he says too much to William—everything except those three words, although at least he can use the I and the you in other contexts. He can avalanche William with words—stories, litanies, tangents, anyways—without letting the biggest boulder loose.

And yet, two hours ago. They were at a gallery, seeing the work of a Japanese photographer who has traveled the world to capture seascaped horizons—the ocean meeting the sky without any land or ship or human in sight. Night and day, calm and storm—gray, black, and white indivisible.

Milo could have looked at the photographs, but he looked at William instead. The glass on the frames was reflective; Milo could see William’s eyes move to find the border between sky and sea. Milo saw his own hand moving to William’s shoulder—but, no, that was just a daydream mapped on the glass that Milo was placing over reality. They moved from one photo to the next—William covered the placards with his palm and asked Milo to guess the place they were seeing. Milo was invariably wrong—he guessed Cape Horn for the Carolinas, Alaska for the south of Wales. He even guessed Switzerland. William didn’t point out that Switzerland doesn’t touch any oceans; Milo realized it himself. “Guess guess guess,” William asked, playfully tugging at Milo’s sleeve, patting his back tenderly after the third consecutive miss. Guess guess guess, Milo thought, patting William likewise, looking at his eyes in the next reflection. When William was quiet again, when he resumed his immersion in the photography and let out a sigh, Milo felt his heart lurch. It was a strange and heretofore unknown feeling—but it felt perfectly natural, as if Milo had nothing to do with it. It was tidal. Milo wanted to tell William about it—which would mean telling William about everything.

But William was already speaking, talking about the length of the exposure and the solitude of the near-daybreak. Milo could not find a transition. He was afraid of souring what had been a wonderful afternoon. William spoke on—of apertures and natural light and the point where the eye is directed. Milo’s urgency subsided into a light, bearable sadness.

He tried to look at the pictures.

There comes a moment of decision, if not many. He is talking to you about his morning and suddenly more than anything else you want to kiss him. Or it is night and you are staring at her upturned face, wondering wondering wondering. You share a bed, you share a glance. He changes his shirt in front of you, and you think: You have no idea how much I love you. He has no idea. He is the lucky one.

The question is there in each silence. The question is there in the space between you. But you cannot bring it aloud. He is lending you his sweater. She is hugging you hello, and you try to measure for that extra beat. You linger in his apartment, he lingers in your thoughts. When you touch her arm, you feel a charge. You are lying on the floor, watching TV, your legs intertwine with his. You are on the couch laughing. You are breathing in the night sky, lying on your backs. She is pointing out Orion. Your head is on his shoulder, you are riding on the train. You are walking arm in arm through a snowstorm. Singing.

There are good reasons, there are bad reasons—but most of all, there are too many reasons. They cloud, they crush, they deceive. They are too much and never enough.

There is an avoidance in everything. Avoidance, and invention. Ramona rings Milo’s doorbell. Milo watches William’s mouth as he mentions the still point of morning. Ramona rings the doorbell again. She sits alone in her kitchen. Milo imagines what William would be like as a boyfriend. Ramona invents Milo. Milo invents William. They are all invented.

And you…you are not invented. Who do you invent? It goes unspoken.

To love—to fall—is not a question.

To touch—to kiss—to speak—those are questions.

There is nothing worse than a ruined friendship. There is nothing better than a companion. Somewhere in between lies risk.

Somewhere in between, lies.

Ramona reaches over and pulls Milo toward her. She embraces him, she plunges, she will not let go for a minute. She can do it. Milo and William have a conversation about love and halfway through, Milo interjects: “But, William, you know this is how I feel about you?” He can do it. Milo holds Ramona and treasures her. William is surprised, but not displeased. There are happy endings. There have to be.

You have to believe there are kisses and laughs and risks worth taking. What would you have them do?

Ramona and Milo. Milo and William. Kisses and sighs. Ridiculous Boyfriend #9 and you. Him and she.

They are inventions. They can do things.