Chapter 26The Red Line was quiet, just a few hyper college kids’ noise to tarnish the pleasantness Ray had left me feeling. Not the dynamic pleasantness of a possible impending romance, but a calm one, like relief. Relief I’d just had a normal kiss with a normal man. That I was capable of attracting one, and someday of finding one attractive in return. It felt so nice, I told myself to be careful not to lead him on in the coming weeks, greedy for a hit of his easy normality but unable to reciprocate the affection.
I switched to the Orange Line and got stuck waiting ages on the platform. A noisy cluster of teens halted nearby, talking loudly, pushing one another in that limply aggressive way males do when they’re at that age, that age when the pressure to prove you’re a man must be so suff
