CHAPTER 13
1405 Words
Tomorrow Night
Eli stands in front of his closet for twenty-three minutes wearing nothing but boxer briefs and panic.
He has tried on four shirts, two jackets, and one pair of jeans that suddenly feel like they belong to a man who no longer exists.
Everything looks wrong.
Everything feels like a costume.
Maya texted an hour ago:
wearing the green dress that makes my legs look illegal
fair warning
He replied with the only thing that felt safe:
I’m already dead
Now it’s 6:48 p.m. and he’s staring at a black button-down like it owes him money.
He finally settles on dark jeans, the black shirt with the sleeves rolled once, no jacket. Simple. Himself. The version of himself that existed before 2:14 a.m. became a religion.
He checks his reflection one last time.
His hair is still a little too long. His eyes are clearer than they’ve been in months. There’s a tiny scar on his left eyebrow from the night he ran to Lena barefoot and clipped a coffee table.
He decides the scar can stay.
It’s proof he survived.
The restaurant is a tiny Italian place in Carroll Gardens Maya picked because “the lighting is kind to nervous people.”
He arrives twelve minutes early and spends them pacing the sidewalk, hands in pockets, heart trying to punch its way out of his ribcage.
At 7:02 she appears at the end of the block.
The green dress is worse than illegal; it’s a felony. Silk, bias-cut, moving over her body like water. Her curls are loose, wild, catching the streetlights. She’s wearing the gold hoop earrings he once told her made her look like trouble.
She spots him and smiles (nervous, luminous, real).
He forgets how to breathe.
“Hey, you,” she says when she reaches him.
“Hey.” His voice cracks like he’s fifteen. He clears his throat. “You look… dangerous.”
“Good dangerous or call-the-cops dangerous?”
“Jury’s still out.”
She laughs, and it sounds like the first note of a song he’s been waiting his whole life to hear.
Inside, the hostess seats them at a corner table lit by a single candle in a Chianti bottle.
It’s perfect. Intimate without trying too hard.
They order wine (her: something red and expensive, him: whatever she’s having because his brain is currently offline).
The waiter leaves.
Silence settles, soft and loaded.
Maya breaks it first. “Ground rules?”
Eli raises an eyebrow.
“No talking about the past unless it’s funny,” she says. “No apologizing for existing. No treating this like an interview for a relationship. Tonight is just… tonight.”
He exhales. “Deal.”
The wine arrives. They clink glasses.
“To reckless,” she says.
“To jumping,” he answers.
They drink.
Conversation starts slow, then gathers speed like a train leaving the station.
She tells him about the shoot she did yesterday (a plus-size lingerie campaign that made her cry in the best way).
He tells her about the children’s book cover he just finished (a dragon who’s afraid of fire).
They argue over whether pineapple belongs on pizza (she’s pro, he’s passionately anti, and the debate ends with her stealing an olive from his plate like a declaration of war).
At some point their knees touch under the table and neither of them moves away.
The food arrives: burrata for her, cacio e pepe for him, tiramisu to share because she insists dessert is non-negotiable.
They feed each other bites like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
Halfway through the meal she reaches across and traces the scar on his eyebrow with one fingertip.
“Tell me the non-tragic version of how you got this.”
He smiles, slow and unguarded. “I was trying to rescue a cat from a fire escape. Turns out the cat was fine and I was the one who needed saving.”
She laughs so hard the couple at the next table looks over.
Later, when the plates are cleared and the candle is a puddle of wax, she leans forward.
“Truth or dare?”
He blinks. “We’re doing that?”
“We’re doing whatever we want. Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
She doesn’t hesitate. “When did you realize you were ready for this? For me?”
He thinks about it, really thinks.
“Day thirty-eight,” he says. “I was running across the Brooklyn Bridge at sunrise and I realized I wasn’t trying to outrun her anymore. I was running toward something. And the something looked a lot like your laugh.”
Her eyes go soft.
“Your turn,” he says.
“Truth.”
“What are you most afraid of tonight?”
“That I’ll wake up tomorrow and you’ll decide this was a mistake.”
He reaches across the table and takes her hand. His thumb finds the tiny tattoo on her wrist (a crescent moon she got the night they all graduated).
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. I’m exactly where I want to be.”
She turns her hand over, laces their fingers.
Outside, the air has cooled. They walk without destination, shoulders brushing.
At some point she slips her hand into his.
It fits like it was waiting there all along.
They end up on a bench by the river, city lights dancing on the water.
She rests her head on his shoulder.
He wraps an arm around her, pulls her close.
They sit in silence that doesn’t need filling.
After a while she says, voice small, “I used to dream about this. Exactly this. And then I’d wake up and hate myself for wanting something that wasn’t mine to want.”
He presses his lips to her temple. “It’s yours now. If you want it.”
She turns to look at him, eyes bright with unshed tears and something that looks a lot like hope.
“I want it,” she whispers.
He leans in, slow enough for her to stop him if she needs to.
She doesn’t.
The kiss is soft at first (tentative, reverent), then deeper, hungrier, like eight years of almost pouring into one perfect moment.
When they pull apart, foreheads still touching, she’s smiling against his mouth.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi,” he answers, grinning like an i***t.
They kiss again, slower this time, learning the shape of new beginnings.
Later, when they’re walking back to her place because neither of them wants the night to end, she stops under a streetlamp and looks up at him.
“One more truth,” she says.
“Shoot.”
“Do you still love her?”
He doesn’t flinch from the question.
“I always will,” he says honestly. “But it’s not the same kind of love anymore. It’s memory. It’s gratitude. It’s the reason I know what real love feels like when it finally shows up wearing a green dress and calls me out on my bullshit.”
She laughs through tears.
He cups her face. “I’m not comparing. I’m not settling. I’m choosing. You. Tonight. Tomorrow. All the nights after.”
She kisses him like a promise.
Inside her apartment, the lights stay low.
They don’t rush.
There’s no urgency, only discovery (the sound she makes when he kisses the spot just below her ear, the way his hands shake when he unzips her dress, the quiet reverence when skin finally meets skin).
After, tangled in sheets and each other, she traces lazy patterns on his chest.
“Tell me something true,” she whispers into the dark.
He thinks for a long moment.
“I used to think love was supposed to hurt,” he says. “Turns out it’s supposed to feel like coming home after being lost for a very long time.”
She presses her lips to his collarbone.
“Your turn,” he murmurs.
She smiles against his skin.
“I’m not afraid anymore.”
They fall asleep wrapped around each other, city humming outside the window, no clocks, no ghosts, no 2:14 a.m.
Just the sound of two people finally breathing in the same rhythm.
End of chapter thirteen.
This is what healing tastes like.
The story isn’t finished, but the hardest part just might be.
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