ELEVEN YEARS OF US

Chapter One: ************* ‎Maya had known Jonah for eleven years, and in all that time, she had never once let herself think about his hands. ‎Not really. Not on purpose. Sure, she'd noticed them — how they were always moving, tapping a rhythm on the steering wheel, turning a coffee cup in slow circles when he was thinking. But noticing wasn't the same as I was thinking about. Thinking about it was a door she'd nailed shut a long time ago, back around year three, when she'd caught herself staring at him across a bonfire and had to physically look away before her face gave her up. ‎Now it was year eleven, and he was leaving in four days, and the door had come loose. ‎She stood outside his apartment building for a full minute before going up, bottle of wine sweating in her hand, rehearsing a version of the evening that involved absolutely no confessions of any kind. Help him pack. Make jokes about his terrible taping technique. Leave before things got weird. That was the plan. She was very committed to the plan. ‎The plan lasted about four minutes. ‎"You're doing the thing," Jonah said, not looking up from the box he was taping shut. His apartment was half-empty already, furniture wearing pale rectangles into the carpet where it used to sit, framed photos stacked face-down on the counter like they were embarrassed to be seen leaving. ‎"What thing." ‎"The thing where you go quiet and stare at nothing. You've been doing it since you got here." ‎"I have not." ‎"Maya." He straightened up, wiped his palms on his jeans, looked at her with that particular expression he only used when he was about to be annoyingly perceptive. Eleven years of that look. Eleven years of him seeing straight through her like she was made of glass. "You brought wine to help me pack. Nobody brings wine to help someone pack unless something's wrong." ‎"Maybe I just like wine." ‎"You like wine when something's wrong." He crossed the room and pulled the bottle out of her bag himself, like he had a thousand times before, like this wasn't the last time he'd ever do it in this apartment. His fingers brushed hers taking it, and she hated — hated — the way her whole arm went warm from that one point of contact. "Talk to me." ‎She busied herself with a stack of books instead, alphabetizing them into a box for no reason at all, just to have something to do with her hands that wasn't reaching for him. ‎"There's nothing to talk about," she said. "You're moving. It's a big deal. I'm allowed to be a little weird about it." ‎"You're allowed to be weird about it in your normal weird way. This is a different weird." He came and crouched next to her, close enough that she could smell the fabric softener on his shirt, the same brand he'd used for a decade. "I've known you for eleven years, Maya. I know your weirds. This one's new." ‎She looked at him — really looked, the way she'd been careful not to for years — and something in her chest cracked open half an inch. ‎"Can we just pack," she said, "and pretend I didn't bring wine for a reason." ‎"No," he said, gently, and it broke her heart a little how kind he made the word sound. "I don't think we can." ‎They sat on the floor amid the boxes, the wine open but untouched between them, and for a long moment neither of them said anything at all. Outside, someone's car alarm went off and then quit. The refrigerator hummed. Four days, she thought. Four days and then he's just gone, three thousand miles of country between them, and I never said a single true thing to him in eleven years. ‎"I don't want you to go," she finally said. ‎"I know. I don't really want to go either. But the job—" ‎"That's not—" She stopped, started again, her heart going so hard she could feel it in her throat. "I don't want you to go because I think I'm in love with you. I think I have been for a really long time. And I know that's a horrible thing to dump on you four days before you move across the country, and you don't have to say anything, I just — I couldn't let you leave without you knowing. That felt worse than this." ‎The silence that followed was the longest of her life. ‎Jonah just sat there, frozen on the floor of his half-packed apartment, staring at her like she'd started speaking a language he almost understood but couldn't quite catch. The wine bottle sat between them, forgotten. Somewhere outside, a dog barked twice and went quiet. ‎"Say something," Maya said, and her voice cracked right down the middle. "Please. Anything." ‎"I'm trying to figure out," Jonah said slowly, "if this is a joke." ‎"It's not a joke." ‎"Because if it's a joke, it's a really cruel one to play four days before I leave the entire life I've built to move somewhere I don't know a single person." ‎"It's not a joke, Jonah." ‎He exhaled, long and shaky, and dragged both hands down his face. When he looked at her again, something had shifted — some wall she'd never even known was there had come down, all at once, eleven years' worth of pressure behind it. ‎"I have been in love with you," he said, "since the Fourth of July when we were twenty-three and you fell asleep on my shoulder during the fireworks and I didn't move for two hours because I didn't want to wake you up." ‎Maya's whole body went still. ‎"I have been in love with you for so long," he continued, "that I stopped being able to tell if it was normal to feel that way about your best friend." ‎"It's not," she managed. "It's really not normal." ‎"No," he agreed. "It's not." ‎Neither of them moved. The apartment was too quiet, boxes stacked around them like the walls of some strange maze, and Maya could hear her own heartbeat, could hear the specific catch in Jonah's breathing that meant something in him was about to give way completely