Page 78 of Later Bloom

As they wait for the kettle, Arthur asks how her trip home went, and Aubrey says abruptly, “There’s something I think we should talk about.” She can’t stand the itch anymore.

His shoulders are tense, but he wears the tiniest hint of a smile. “Sure,” he offers.

“I just think—well, I’m sorry about what happened last time. I think I went about it wrong. It just seemed so silly we couldn’t just talk about it, you know—but then it wasn’t my decision to make, I don’t think. I don’t get to decide what you want to say or not, or how you should feel. You’re probably thinking, that’s a very basic thing to realize.”

“Aubrey,” he says simply, in a soft tone, though he doesn’t look at her directly for very long.

“I just mean that I understand. I wanted you to know that. I thought so long about what I wanted to say, and now I’m not really sure how to get it out right. But just know I’m sorry, and I’m trying to go about it differently.” She feels so ridiculous standing there in the middle of this kitchen, picking at her cuticles at the crack of dawn. She looks at the ceiling for a second, hoping somehow it might help. “What I mean is I only get to decide what I say, and now that I’m actually trying to say it, I’m realizing it’s absolutely terrifying to get the words out. And I’ve never actually done this, and when I saw it in the movies it looked so easy, and romantic, and like it would just make sense. I think this does make sense, but nothing about it feels easy or romantic, really. I’m just scared, and stressed, and I barely slept at all last night.”

Arthur starts to say, “What are you—”

“I’m just trying to say I have feelings for you.” She spits it out in one breath and nearly a single syllable. Her breath catches. “That’s all, honestly. I mean, almost everyone seemed to think it was obvious except for me, apparently, but I guess it’s caught up to me, and I’d be such a hypocrite not to tell you. So I’m telling you. I have feelings for you. I think about you deeply, and often. I think about us, the idea of it, and I think about your face. Not too much, just in the normal way people do when they’re attracted to someone. I think.”

She winces, then adds quickly before Arthur can open his mouth in return, “I thought I knew for sure you liked me, too, but I’ve been less and less sure about that. I really don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. Especially when I said that I think often about your face. I’ve been trying to be very mature and smart about the situation, because we’re friends and I get how scary it can be, but it’s very hard to be entirely rational about it. Because I like you, very much.”

Arthur says, “Okay.”

Shakily, Aubrey admits, “I can’t read your face at all right now.”

“Oh. Well, I can try to change it if you’d like.”

“No, no. But maybe—I don’t know, do you have anything to say?”

“Yes. A lot, I think. I just wanted to make sure you were done.”

“I don’t think I am,” Aubrey says, because she’s scared she’s forgotten something—surely there’s more to say. “But it might be best I stop talking now. I think that’s the gist of it, really.”

“That you have feelings for me.”

“Yes.”

When he stands up from his chair, Aubrey makes a conscious effort not to back up. Behind her, the kettle is whistling. Arthur walks over and around her to move it off the stove. He’s standing very close now. He says slowly, “And you’d like those feelings to be reciprocated.”

Aubrey nods. She doesn’t trust herself to speak. Her throat is dry and her heart thundering. She can’t think fast enough to decide if this is going as it should.

Arthur says again, “Okay.”

“Can you say anything else?”

“Sorry.”

She smells soap on him, and winter. Her mouth is impossibly dry. She begs, “Hopefully something that’ll put me out of my misery, one way or the other.”

“Well—mm. I don’t want to get this wrong.” His eyes are somewhere off to the side. Aubrey can’t think of what to do with her arms, or herself at all. Then he says, “You weren’t imagining things. When you questioned how I felt.”

“Oh.” She takes a beat. How hard it is to breathe. “Good.”

“I didn’t want to—I didn’t want to risk it. I thought surely there was no reason I should be the one, you know, the first guy you ever—”

Aubrey’s breath hitches. “You should risk it.”

“You have to see it the way I did. The way I do. Falling for this woman who’s never been with anyone—what if she changes her mind? What if she’s not sure, or I just end up ruining this for her? I couldn’t—” His hands hover up to her arms, then drop back to his side. He leans back and adds, “I didn’t want to be the one to hurt you. Or scare you off, or—I didn’t want to lose you, either. It’s a lot of things I didn’t want. So it seemed safer not to do anything at all.”

“Okay.” With every word he speaks, Aubrey finds herself falling a little further apart. She wants to say, fuck, and pull herself together. Again, she finds the ceiling to keep her eyes from spilling over. “God, sorry. A bit rough to hear this. But it’s fine. It’s good.”

He insists, slowly, “I don’t mean it was easier. Just safer.”

“I know.”