“What are those writers doing? Getting down on their hands and knees and licking the road? The tar? The gravel? Just so they know exactly what the wine tastes like?”
I gestured to my orange juice. “You know, my orange juice tastes like it came from the sunshine-kissed regions of Florida, with just a hint of a tropical flavor, and an extra dash of pulp.”
Bryan raised his hands up, palms out. “See, you can do it, Kat. You can totally do it. You know what I’d like to really write about in a wine magazine?”
“What would you like to write about?” I took another drink of my juice.
“I’d say, ‘I like going to Bob’s Java Hut down by the ball park and getting an egg salad sandwich before a Yankees game. That and a $2 Bud. And I don’t even like Bud. But it’s good before a baseball game.”
I started laughing again, but I’d just taken a drink of my non-drink.
“The complexity of the egg salad sandwich, the mayonnaise from the grocery store, the smoky balance between the mayonnaise and the eggs.”
I laughed more and wasn’t quite able to swallow my drink at the same time.
“Sometimes I can even taste the shell from the egg. I can almost smell the chicken from where they failed to clean the egg.”
I felt a cough building in the back of my throat. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying hard not to spit out the liquid. I put my other hand on my chest, looking down at the tray table. I kept coughing.
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Kat.” Bryan handed me a glass of water. I shook my head, still coughing. My throat had constricted. I couldn’t swallow the juice. That left two ways out for the liquid – mouth or nose. I felt the orange juice swim into my nose. I reached for a napkin to cover my face, coughing more as the juice made its way out my nostrils and into the napkin. Hiding as best I could, I dropped my face onto the table.
“Are you okay, Kat?” He placed a hand on my arm.
I spoke in a muffled voice through the napkin. “You can’t take me anywhere. You should send me back to coach.”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I banished you to the land of smelly feet. I’m keeping you up here.” Bryan gently pet my hair. Even the soothing touch of his hand after my display of dorkitude felt good. “Besides, it was all my fault.”
I sat up straight. “You’re right. It is all your fault. You made me laugh. You totally did it on purpose. You sit there and launch into one of your riffs and you make me snort juice.”
“They say laughter is the way to a woman’s heart.”
I lowered my voice. “You already have my heart. You know that.”
“I’m just trying to keep it then.”
“You’ve always made me laugh. You’ve always made me happy.”
Bryan looked out the window for a moment, at the dark of the night rushing past the plane. He turned back to me. The look in his green eyes was intense and unreadable.
“What is it?”
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.”
“This can’t be good.”
“It’s not bad, I swear.” He placed his hands on his thighs. He parted his lips but didn’t speak right away. I watched him as he fumbled for words. I watched his throat as he swallowed. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to hold my gaze, a tight sharp line between us. I felt as if I were hanging on to something that could crash in an instant. “Do you remember when you told me you loved me the first time?”
That memory never hovered far from the surface. It was always there, waiting to be harnessed. How would anyone forget her first love not loving her back?
“Yes.”
“And I didn’t say it back. I said I have to go?”
“Do we need to reenact it?” My face tightened, and I stared hard at the seat in front of me.
“No. Because it was a lie.”
I turned back to him, as if he’d just spoken Russian. “What?”
“It was a lie,” he repeated.
“Why?”
“I was crazy in love with you then. Just like I am now. I’ve always loved you. I never stopped.”
My head was spinning. My heart was sputtering. I felt as if the plane had disappeared and I was flailing in the cold, dark atmosphere, not knowing which way I was tumbling.
“Why did you say that then?”
“Because after we walked around NYU together all I could think was that I would be holding you back. That’s why I was so quiet that day. I just kept thinking it would be wrong. That it would be unfair to you if you went to college and were already saddled with an older boyfriend. I wanted you to go to college, and meet other guys, and figure out what you wanted in life. I didn’t want to be the guy who dragged you down. I didn’t want you to go to college and feel burdened. I wanted you to experience life on your own terms. And I knew I was going to be leaving the country, and it seemed so unfair to you to ask you to wait for me. To be a long-distance girlfriend when I was off working.”
I scoffed. “So instead, you broke my heart.”
“I know.” He reached for my hand, and traced a line across my palm. His touch was so soft, but still I felt raw and exposed. “Forgive me for lying. Forgive me for breaking your heart.”
I looked deeply into his eyes, pools of green I could lose myself in. How I’d loved getting lost in him, and being found by him again. He leaned closer, pressed his forehead against mine, and took my hands in his. He whispered to me, his voice soft and full of brokenness, full of tenderness.
In some ways, this was what I’d always longed to hear. That he’d loved me then as I’d loved him. That it had never been one-sided. Though in other ways, this admission was a wound re-opened in a new, fresh way. Because he’d thought he knew what was best for me. But he was wrong. Feeling so damn unwanted by my first love hadn’t been good for me at all.
I pulled away from him. “I wish you had told me that back then. I wish you had let us make that decision together. Instead, you made me think you didn’t love me, and it hurt so f**king much.”
“I’m sorry, Kat. I’m truly, truly sorry.”
He looked so anguished. But that didn’t make my heart hurt any less, and it was aching right now.
“Hey, do you want to watch a movie?” he asked, worry lining his voice. He tipped his forehead to the screen on the back of the seats. “I think I saw Love, Actually on the list for this flight.”