What If It's Us
Page 31

I swore that would’ve made me feel better. Except Arthur still doesn’t look happy.
Chapter Seventeen
Arthur
Stop. Talking. Arthur.
It’s like my mouth and my brain don’t even know each other. They’re not even in the same plane of reality. My mouth is the guy in the horror movie with his hand on the door. My brain’s the guy on the couch screaming, “DON’T OPEN IT.”
The Hudson door. I can’t stop opening it.
And tonight was supposed to be the night when everything clicked into place. I spent all week plotting every minute of it in my head. I was going to be funny and cool, and he’d be totally charmed. Not even charmed. He’d be straight-up enchanted. I imagined we’d end up on a bench in Central Park, sitting without an inch of space between us, and Ben would tap my arm to tell a joke or make a point, but he’d leave his hand there a moment longer than he needed to. I’d catch him staring at my profile. We’d watch all the tourists walk by, and he’d lean in close with whispered running commentary. I actually lost sleep this week imagining the heat of Ben’s breath on my ear.
And of course there would be kissing. My first kiss. Followed by the loss of my virginity in some quiet, starlit field.
But no. Not even close. Instead, it’s me bleeding out all my neuroses, looking for answers to questions I have no right to be asking. But I don’t know how to make myself stop asking them. People like me should come with a mute button.
“I mean, I understand why you have pictures of him. But do you really need fifty-six of them?”
“Why are you counting my pictures?” he asks.
I turn toward him, stopping on the path, but he grabs my hand and tugs me out of pedestrian traffic. Next thing I know, we actually are on a bench in Central Park, just like I pictured it. And he’s still holding my hand, which is more than a little bit wonderful.
“I wasn’t really counting.”
“You just guessed there were fifty-six.”
“Okay, I counted them.”
He smiles slightly.
“It’s just—your social media is basically a shrine to another guy.”
“Why don’t you just not look at those pictures?” Ben asks.
I untangle our fingers. “You’re missing the point.”
“Hudson and I were friends, too,” he says. “You’ve got tons of pictures of Ethan and Jessie.”
“Yeah, but Ethan and Jessie are Ethan and Jessie!”
Ben sighs. “And Hudson is Hudson.”
I watch him fidget with his shoelace.
“Okay, I’m just going to ask.” My voice is quiet, almost hoarse. “Why’d you break up?”
He meets my eyes, but I can’t read his expression. “Do you actually want to know?”
“Yes!”
“Are you going to hold this against me?”
“Did you do something awful?”
“No!” Ben shuts his eyes briefly. “It’s just—it was messy. He broke my heart. I told you he cheated on me, right?”
I bolt upright. “He cheated?”
Ben’s staring out into the park, jaw clenched. “Kind of? I mean, he kissed some guy, so—”
“Um, that’s not kind of cheating. That’s cheating.”
“But I guess he thought we were already broken up.”
“Were you?”
“Not that I was aware of.” Ben’s voice is tinged with exasperation. “We had a fight, and I told him to get out of my face, but I wasn’t like, hey, why don’t you go hook up with some dude at a party whose name you don’t even know—”
I gasp. “He didn’t even know the guy’s name?”
“He knew his gamer handle.” Ben shrugs. “Yung10DA.”
“Young tenda?”
“Spelled y-u-n-g. And, like, the actual number ten.”
“Oh my god.” I shake my head slowly. “Hudson dumped you for a guy named Yung10DA?”
Ben pauses. “Can we maybe stop talking about this?” I open my mouth to reply, but Ben cuts me off quickly. “Just for the record, though, I dumped Hudson.”
“Right.”
“Also, he didn’t pick Yung10DA over me. That dude was just there.”
“No, I get it—”
“And—”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it,” I say finally.
He exhales. “I don’t.”
“Okay . . .”
“Okay then,” he says. “Done deal. All good. We’re good.”
But when I sneak a glance at him, he’s wringing his hands, mouth pressed into a tight line.
Friday, July 20
It was brutal, I write.
Oh, come on, writes Jessie.
I’m serious. I bombed it. I trace the perimeter of a tile with the toe of my boot. I haven’t even been at work for an hour, and I’m already sending panicked texts to Jessie and Ethan from the bathroom.
How do you know you bombed it? asks Ethan, but he puts a bomb emoji in place of the word.
Well, for one thing, he didn’t ask me on another date.
And as soon as I write that, it’s real—so real, it makes my stomach lurch. I took this well past the point where a do-over could fix it. I can’t even blame Ben for cutting me loose. Why would he possibly want to see me again? So he can spend another few hours being interrogated about Hudson?
So what? You should ask him out, says Jessie.
I can’t do that.
Why? You have his number. Thinker emoji.
Because he’s not going to want to hang out again. I bite my lip. I don’t think you understand.
Were you a wet kisser? asks Ethan.
Shut up, Ethan. Arthur, ignore him.
I didn’t kiss him. Too busy asking him about Hudson, I write.
ARTHUR!!!!
I know, I know.
I can picture Jessie so clearly—lips pursed, frantically typing. You can’t grill him about his ex on the third date.
I frown. Actually, it was the third *first* date.
Suddenly, Jessie’s FaceTiming me. “Jess, I’m at work,” I hiss.
“You’re clearly in the bathroom,” she says. “Look, I’m not going to—okay. Here’s the thing. I know I’m not quote-unquote ‘experienced’ or whatever, and I’m obviously talking out of my ass here—”
I can’t help but smile.
“But Arthur, don’t listen to Ethan, okay? He is . . . not one to talk, trust me.” Jessie rolls her eyes. “But you actually like this guy.”
I shrug.
“Arthur, come on. You made a poster to find him. You stalked him all through New York—”
“I did not.”
“It was sweet! And yeah, you screwed up, but come on. Remember how hard it was for you to even find him? The fact that you did? Arthur, that’s a miracle.”
“I know, but—”
“Arthur, this is fate! Don’t you dare give up this easily.”
I spend the subway ride home drafting the text in my notes app—which of course makes the whole thing loom even larger. It’s hard to feel casual about a text that’s gone through three rounds of revisions. I might as well write the final version out in calligraphy. Or engrave it. Tattoo it on my butt cheek.
Hey. So I know last night was weird, and I hope it’s okay that I’m texting you. Feel free to delete this if you want, but I hope you don’t. I’m really sorry, Ben. I shouldn’t have asked about Hudson. It’s not my business, and you were right, I was jealous. It’s just, I think I like you a lot, and I’m kind of new to this whole thing of actually dating guys I like a lot. Or dating guys at all, really. And I honestly get it if you’d rather just end things (I wouldn’t want to date me either, lol). But if you want to give this another shot, I’m totally 100% super madly up for that. Maybe we could have another do-over?