Page 35 of Run Home

I finally have to take a breath, depleted of oxygen. Alice considers me with pure amusement, then says, “You’re not losing your mind. You’re not crazy. He would be crazy not to like you, and you have not gone insane.”

Melting off the couch onto the floor, I lie on my back and cover my eyes. “What is happening?”

“Yes, what is happening?” Alice echoes. “I need you to give me a bit more explanation here.”

Uncovering my eyes, I flop my hands to my sides on the floor. They don’t stay there for long, though, because they fly rapidly through the air, illustrating my sentences as I explain the night of the gala to Alice. The way my heart turned inside out when I saw him at the door. The look in Adrian’s eyes when he saw me. The way his hand sought mine out at every opportunity. How I liked it. His arm across my chair. How I didn’t move away. His breath against my skin, whispering in my ear. How I whispered back.

The dancing.

Good gracious, the dancing.

Alice is literally fanning herself by the time I finish recounting our salsa-turned-slow dance. “Girl, what? No wonder you like him after that,” she says.

“It wasn’t only that, though. It’s not just physical.” I play back through all the memories of the night. “It was the way he treated Marcia. The way he engaged with the whole crowd. It was the way he talked with me, the way he looked at me like I was the most interesting person in the world. The laughter and conversation over sushi.”

“What do you mean conversation over sushi?” Alice clarifies. “I thought you had dinner at the gala?”

Sitting up and crossing my legs, I tell her, “We did. But after it was over, he had arranged with the owner of my new favorite sushi restaurant to open late for our own private dining experience. The sushi restaurant he introduced me to a few weeks ago . . .” The strength in my voice trails off as I think back to that night getting sushi. I sift through moments since then—visiting Adrian’s house to help him pick an outfit, attending Jason’s graduation, our short conversations on the phone.

Like room-darkening shades slowly rising on the windows, more and more light dawns on my tangled mess of emotions. All the catches in my heart beat, the warmth flooding my system when he’s looked at me, the tightness in my chest when he’s called me cielo. I was feeling in my body what my mind hadn’t consciously acknowledged yet.

“Oh my gosh. I really like Adrian,” I gasp. Looking up to Alice, I say, “I’ve liked him for a while and didn’t realize it. This is terrible!”

She sighs in exasperation. “This isn’t terrible. Why in the world would you think this is terrible?”

Standing up, I start pacing, still talking wildly with my hands. “Because I’m a mess in relationships.” Alice takes a breath to interject, but I give her a hard look. “You know I’m a mess in relationships. And Adrian is . . . I can’t mess things up with him. He’s too important to me. To Griffin. We’re about to be half the bridal party at Griffin and Danae’s wedding. I’m doomed to see him for the rest of time unless I flee the country far away from Griffin. This is probably all in my head, and Adrian doesn’t even like me that way. He shouldn’t. And now I’m going to obsess over an unrequited crush and ruin our dynamic because I’ll be too busy trying not to cry or kiss him every time we’re in the same place.”

Alice strides over and gently places her hands on my shoulders. “Samantha West, you are spiraling. You need to step out of the spiral.”

Exhaling steadily through my nose, I look into her light brown eyes and whisper, “I know I am. What if I can’t get out of the spiral?”

Her eyes are kind as she says, “You know you can. You have before. And you can now.”

Closing my eyes, I think about three things I can feel. The pressure of Alice’s hands on my shoulders. The cool air-conditioning on my bare legs beneath the hem of my shorts. The warm air on my upper lip when I breathe out through my nose.

I think about three things I can hear. The decorative clock ticking on the wall. The clatter of ice cubes falling from the ice maker in the freezer. The slow, even breaths I know Alice is accentuating for my benefit.

My heart rate has calmed enough that I don’t have to continue through the other senses. I open my eyes to look at Alice. “What do I do?”

She purses her lips. “I don’t know. At least, I don’t know what you should do. But I know that right this minute, you should go home and get some sleep. Your eyes look emptied out, and you need rest before you can figure out what to do.”

Flinging my arms around Alice, I hug her tightly. “I don’t deserve you as a friend. I’m so lucky you keep sticking with me.”

She squeezes me back as she says, “I wish you’d stop saying things like that. Stop thinking things like that. I love you to pieces, and you’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had in my life. You’re the one who’s stuck with me.”

Sighing, I give her one last squeeze. “Thank you.”

“Call me if you start to spiral again,” Alice says. “But try not to think about it tonight. Sleep, and we can talk it over when your mind has had a chance to reboot.”

“You’re the best. I promise not to overthink it tonight. At least, I’ll try.”

I manage to remain calm on the way home to my apartment. Calmish.

I blast an oldies station on the radio to keep my thoughts from circling anywhere near the giant problem on my hands. Namely, the giant feelings I apparently harbor for Adrian.

Alice is right—I need to sleep. It’s after ten o’clock, and I need to put myself to bed immediately. No glasses of water, no bedtime stories, no existential questions, no stalling whatsoever.

As I cross the parking lot to my building in the cluster of red brick apartments, I loop the chorus of “Happy Together” in my mind, replaying the climactic drum beat over and over as I climb the looping wooden staircase to the third floor.