Page 26 of Later Bloom

It feels weird to meet his eye, so Aubrey drops her gaze to the ground instead, but she knows she’s smiling much too wide. He laughs again and says, “We’ll plan something, then.”

“Sounds good.”

When she looks back up, he’s walking away with his hand raised in a wave. She watches him for a second, his back highlighted by overhead streetlights, crisp shadows, and orange glow. Then she turns and heads up to the door.

A day goes by, then another. Aubrey changes her mind about writing to him first at least twenty times. She types messages and erases them, convincing herself he’s busy, and why wouldn’t he reach out, after he said he’d want to see her again, and why would it be a big deal if he waited three days? She distracts herself with folding linens and making up rooms for new guests, but much too often she checks her phone and finds it blank.

She’s off her game when Arthur comes with a delivery, her head half in a haze of worry, and she points at the pantry when he picks up a bag of frozen peas from the boxes.

“Big weekend?” Arthur teases on his way past her. She hums in response. He tells her about something that happened to him the day before, an amusing bit about a vengeful seagull. She forgets to listen. She also forgets to answer when he insists to know if she’s alright. Later, Louise tells Aubrey that Arthur’s told her he was concerned for her. This time she laughs and says only, “Come on.” Louise drops it.

On day three, Aubrey decides she’s a woman of her time and writes to Raphael first, asking how he’s been and when he’d be free to hang out again. She feels like a teenager. She erases five drafts of her three-line message before she convinces herself to press send. Then she hides her phone under a cushion in the living room and tells herself she won’t check again until she’s done vacuuming.

He still hasn’t replied by evening, and then the next day. She lasts almost half a day before she decides maybe she’ll send him another message just to make sure all is well. Just to wipe away the unsettling feeling in her chest and her compulsive need to check for new notifications.

After that, when she wants to text him, she sits and writes a long, excruciating email to Louise instead. She feels good knowing she won’t send it—lamentations about another failure, thoughts of hiding her secret like a shameful, ugly thing, desperate pleas for Louise to tell her what she’s doing wrong in life. The words pour out of her in dizzying waves. The draft joins the other in its folder.

On day nine, she deletes Raphael’s number off her phone. And she wonders how come she hasn’t learned yet.

Chapter Eight

Six years earlier

The week after she turns twenty-one, Aubrey meets Rami at a house party. It’s early September. The semester has just started.

Someone introduces them, it’s hard to remember who, but they quickly realize they’ve got a class in common. He offers to fill up Aubrey’s drink. She politely declines with a gentle tease that he might spike it, so instead he accompanies her to the kitchen, where a little plastic table holds an improvised bar. She makes her own drink and he asks her about herself, and suggests they find somewhere to sit so they can talk.

Her ears are hot and she has a hard time not smiling. They sit on a couch in the living room, and he says, “I mean, it’s crazy how easy it is to talk to you.” Aubrey can’t really tell if he’s drunk or not. Rami is attractive and smells musky like generic cologne, the kind her dad wears.

She finds him easy to talk to because he, like nearly everyone else, is looking to talk about himself, and she enjoys sitting there and giving him a little space to redefine who he is through polite conversation.

It’s easier, anyway, to listen—in conversations she often can’t seem to think of things to contribute, at least when it comes to most politics, or sports, or the career goals that await them after they graduate. Her friends always come up with quips and witty remarks that don’t come so naturally to her yet. In groups, Aubrey listens to insightful theories on school and popular TV shows, and she wonders how come she’s not brimming with opinions herself. It’s not the same when she texts Maggie or Ivory—then she comes up with long-winded paragraphs and has to stop herself from ranting.

“Meeting girls is just crazy these days, you know,” Rami is saying now, looking off to the side. In one-on-one situations like these, Aubrey finds it harder to blend into the background and nod along to others’ contributions, but she’s good at saying “Absolutely” and “That’s so true” to keep the attention off herself.

“It’s like no one really talks anymore,” Rami continues. “We don’t really connect. Like everyone’s constantly on to the next thing. Dating apps are poison. I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud. You seem like you get it.”

“I do, yeah,” Aubrey says. She wants Rami to continue to tilt his head to look at her, and to keep smiling with his knee close to hers.

“It was so much easier when we were younger,” he says. “Everyone was just friends with each other, just like that. And then sometimes we’d look at one another and think, hey, I think I’d like for us to make out. Relationships were just... I don’t know, simpler. Pure gut feeling, right? No question about long-term compatibility, childhood trauma, baggage from previous relationships and whatnot. Just restless to fall in love for the first time.”

“Mm. I think it can still feel like that,” Aubrey leans sideways into the thick cushions of the worn orange sofa. Her legs, folded underneath herself, are growing numb. “Falling in love’s still pretty exciting, I find.”

“Right, yeah. It is. It just gets a little harder not to settle into pessimism, doesn’t it? Like you know what heartbreak feels like, and getting over someone and all that, so it just gets a little harder to fall headfirst into something new.”

Relationships are the exception, the one thing Aubrey has almost too much to say about. She’s had too long to mull the topic over, to dissect it to its bare bones. “Maybe at some point, yeah, but don’t you think everyone goes through different experiences in their own time? And isn’t it exciting to meet someone at this unique point in their life, and discover just how different your paths have been? Doesn’t it always feel kind of thrilling to begin something new?”

She asks out loud questions she doesn’t have answers to. She blames the red cup in her hand. Rami is touching Aubrey’s knee, and he nods along to her speech.

“I think it’d be awfully cynical of me to disagree,” he says, amused. This is something Aubrey’s noticed when talking to men—they find it hard to disagree with women they’re flirting with, and they enjoy pointing it out.

Aubrey laughs and says, “It’s fine if you think otherwise.”

“I’m assuming you haven’t had any bad breakups and get along well with all your exes, then,” Rami says. He’s joking, entertained by the ludicrous implications of his assumption, and Aubrey doubts he even notices she’s not laughing along with him.

She shrugs and admits sheepishly, “I don’t have any exes, actually. Never had a breakup either.”

“Right, okay.” His sarcasm glares like a barking laugh.