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Title: Call it Anxiety
Series: Ray, Lane
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: 3296
Summary: Az has problems with anxiety and Lane is the only one who can deal with it.
Notes: Spring 2009, I spent a lot of time experimenting with character voices.
There’s something wrong with Emily. I think she might have AIDS. Because, I mean, I know she’s been having sex with somebody and I saw this thing on the news, last night, and she’s been sneezing a lot all day and it seems possible, you know? That she might. And – if Emily has it, then what if Alex has it? Because I don’t know that they had sex, but what if they did, that would mean Alex and Emily and everyone who’s had sex with either of them and what if Lane, oh my God, I don’t think she would have, but what if –
I must have panicked, because I don’t remember getting from the café to the alley out back, but that doesn’t matter, because Lane is there and she's pushing my shoulders, holding me back against the wall. There’s something – almost comforting about brick walls. At least when Lane is there. She's standing close, and it makes me feel better, but what if I get her sick?
“Lane! I – ”
She touches my mouth. I shiver.
“Az,” she says. “I do not have AIDS. Emily does not have AIDS. None of us have AIDS. Okay?”
She keeps talking, but I don’t hear her, because how does she know? Has she been tested? Should she get tested? How do I make her go get tested? What does it mean if she already has been and she didn’t tell me about it? I would remember if she had told me. But what if she did tell me, already, and I don’t? What if I’m losing my memory? I think I had an uncle or something with dementia. Maybe –
“Az.”
Lane.
Her hand pushes into my hair. I shudder and she shakes me, gently, until I open my eyes. I didn’t even realize they were closed.
“Az,” she says, and leans in close, so close, what if – “Az. I need you cool, okay? Are you cool?” She’s almost whispering, petting my hair, rubbing my shoulder, and all I can do is shake. I hear myself whimper. Her hand moves to my cheek, brushes my eyelid. I must have closed my eyes, again. I wish I could stop doing that.
I open them, and I’m looking directly into Lane’s face. I twitch, but don’t close them. She smiles that self-satisfied smile that means ‘progress’ and caresses my face. I’m finally settling under her touch. Nothing in the whole world has ever relaxed me this much. It must be true love.
Unless. . .
“Hey,” she says. It’s amazing how she always just knows. “None of that.”
I tremble and close my eyes, again. Manage a nod. She slides the hand on my shoulder around and hugs me, carefully, like I’m something she doesn’t want to risk breaking, like she doesn’t realize I’m already broken. I feel myself relaxing into her, almost instinctively, and immediately feel guilty over how little I deserve this.
“Lane,” I say. “They must think I’m crazy.”
‘They’ are everybody. Everybody I’ve ever met and especially the ones in the café who just saw me break down, one more time to add to a list that goes on and on and on.
She brushes her lips over my closed eyelids. I don’t bother opening them, this time. That’s not what she’s after.
“You are crazy, Azzy-baby,” she says, but there’s nothing mean about it. I throw my arms around her and hold on tight.
“You won’t leave me, will you?” I ask, wishing my voice wouldn’t squeak like that. I sound hysterical. I usually am.
“Don’t be stupid.” She keeps one arm wound around me and rubs the other hand across the small of my back. Her lips are on my cheek. I shiver and wonder how long it will take her to reach my mouth, or if she’ll even try. I did just accuse her of secretly contracting AIDS in a room full of people. Silly thought. But it seemed so sensible at the time. It always seems sensible at the time. . .
Her mouth is against mine, barely there, a cloth-soft brush of skin against skin. I shake and melt and she laughs, quietly, laughs right up against my lips. And I feel. . . Good. I feel good. She feels good, pressed up against me, and there's nothing else in the whole world that matters, that exists in this moment, and I wonder why it can’t be like this all the time.
Someone clears their throat, inches away.
I nearly spasm out of my skin.
(That’s right, thinks the last rational part of me. It’s because I’m insane.)
“Holy shit!” I’m shrieking, again, and trying to hide under Lane’s jacket. Progress is hindered because she’s still wearing it. I am quite certain that my life is in imminent danger of ending. Why else would somebody approach us in a – a – fairly well-lit alley? Of course they want to kill us. It’s a good thing AIDS has compromised their immune systems so they coughed and warned us they were here, oh my God, what if they rape us and give us, holy shit, they’re going to kill us both, and it’s my fault that we’re out here and they're going to get Lane, but what if they already got to her, and that’s why she got checked, and why didn’t she tell me, but it didn’t take, before, and not they’re back to try again?
“Ngh.”
“Alex,” Lane says. “The fuck do you want?”
Alex?
I look up from where I’ve burrowed under one of Lane’s arms. It is Alex. I don’t think that Alex is physically equipped to rape us in an alley. And I know Lane came beat him up – I’ve seen her do it. Both way back in school, when Alex was Lexi, and within the last six months. I’m always nervous around Alex, now, because I’m always afraid I’ll slip and call him Lexi or call him a girl and then he’ll get all pissed off and Alex is scary when he’s mad and I know Lane wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, but what if she got hurt and it would be all my fault because I can’t even and who the blue hell is that, oh my God!
I give a little screech and am back under Lane’s arm in an instant, clinging to her and shoving my face into her chest.
“Az?” Lane says. She pats my hair, her other arm having managed to stay slung around my waist throughout my spasming. (Don’t deserve her, don’t deserve her, don’t deserve her, good God, I don’t deserve her. . .) “Az, come on. I promise Alex won’t kill you. I’ll kick his ass if he tries. Though he deserves to get his ass kicked, anyway. Who the hell sneaks up on people in dark alley ways?”
Alex does not respond. “I promise, too,” he says, addressing me, I guess. “I have neither the desire nor the intention to kill you. I just wanted to introduce you guys to my friend Ray.”
Ray? Friend?
“Helluva a way with timing, asshole,” Lane says.
I peek out of her arms, again, and look objectively at the man at Alex’s side. He doesn’t look like a murderer. I stand up straight, still pressed tight against Lane. Alex smirks at me.
“All right?” he asks.
Lane tenses, tightens her proprietary grip.
“She’s fine,” she says. And, too the other man, “You’re Ray?”
He nods.
“Ray Galilei,” he says. “And you are?”
“Lane,” she says. “And this is Az.”
“Az has an anxiety disorder,” Alex says. “Lane’s her keeper. We’ve known each other since middle school.”
“Az doesn’t need a keeper,” Lane snaps, even though we both know that probably isn’t true. “I’m her friend.” God, I hope that’s true.
Alex shrugs. His eyes are on Ray, now, and he doesn’t seem eager to look away.
“Middle school?” Ray asks. “How old are you?”
Alex laughs. “I’m twenty-one, Ray. If I’d bothered going, I wouldn’t even be out of college, yet.”
“Shit,” Ray says. “You’re just a baby.”
“From a certain point of view,” Alex says. “Shall we leave them to it?” he asks. He gestures to us, but I don’t think he’s seeing us, anymore. Lane is seething. A sort of nervous tension overtakes Ray, too. He looks at us and nods.
“Nice to meet you,” he says.
Alex gestures for Ray to precede him out of the alley, but I think he just wants to stare at his ass as he goes. Ray thinks so, too, I think, because he glares at him, but he goes, scowling. Alex is smiling when he follows, and it’s absolutely filthy. I shudder.
When they’ve disappeared – and I can’t help but watch them until I’m sure they’re really gone, because what if they came back? – I find that one of my hands has been disentangled from Lane’s shirt, and she’s holding it firmly. She’s always held my hand, even back before we were – whatever it is we are. It helps me find my center, such as it is, and it helps her. With something. I don’t really know what, but she says it helps, and she lies about a lot of stuff, but never to me. I hold into her.
“Lane,” I begin, slowly, carefully. I don’t want my voice to break.
She stops me. She doesn’t usually interrupt me, when I’m not raving.
“Az,” she says. “Don’t. Stop it. I – this isn’t – ” She’s holding back some emotion that’s building with more force than I’ve seen in a while. I tremble.
“I,” she says, “am not your keeper.”
“Lane. . .”
I’m starting to break now, just a little, and she holds me, tight, and drags me in close so I’m shaking up against her. She presses her face into my neck and I can feel her mouth moving against my skin. She’s saying something, maybe, but I can’t work out the words.
“Lane.” I hold onto her. I’m not sure what’s happening, I don’t know what’s wrong, and I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m so scared, but I can’t, can’t, can’t. . . I can’t let her down.
“Lane,” I say. “Lane, you - You sort of are.”
She hisses and I can feel her teeth sharp against the tender flesh of my throat. She almost bites me, but I know she doesn’t mean it, so I hold back my panic.
“No,” she says, and pulls away, taking my face in her hands. “No, I’m not,” she says and I don’t understand why she’s insisting on this. “I’m not – I don’t – You don’t need me, Az. You’re stronger than that, goddammit, and you can take care of yourself. Don’t ever think you can’t. You can – you aren’t – and I won’t be here forever.”
Despite the promises I’ve made to myself, I start shaking, violently, instantly, and my voice shatters when I find it, again.
“Lane, shit fuck, oh my God, Lane – ”
She presses me back against the wall and kisses me, desperately, and I let her, I don’t deserve her, I let her until, “Lane, Lane, oh my God, are you leaving me? Are you – You said you – but Goddammit, just say it so I can panic over something I know!”
It’s the most coherent I’ve been, in the midst of a break, something inside me observes. The rest of me doesn’t give a shit, because what if Lane does leave me? I haven’t got anything else.
She shoves me back, harder, until I’m pressed into the wall, and then her body is plastered against mine and she’s saying something, but what?
“Az. Az. Az! Goddammit, Az, look at me.”
I look at her. What else am I going to do? Even if she leaves me. . . Oh, God. . .
“Don’t close your eyes, dammit. Look right here.”
I meet her eyes. They’re beautiful, really, and strange. Dark navy, the color of new denim, and I don’t know if I can lose them, either.
“Az? Are you hearing me, babe?”
I sniffle out an ‘uh-huh’. It’s pathetic, but it seems like it’s enough.
“Az,” she says, “I am not leaving you, okay? I’m not. Not now. Not ever, if I can help it. But I can’t always help it. Now it’s nothing, okay. I shouldn’t have said anything, and I didn’t want to say anything, because it’s nothing, I promise.”
“What’s nothing?” I ask, and immediately cringe. It comes out stronger than I meant, especially since I didn’t mean it to come out at all. She starts, and then she laughs, and leans her forehead into mine. Her weight is on me, pressing me into the wall, and we fit together. We always fit together. I’m still holding her hand.
“Sorry,” she says. “My dad – it’s been – I don’t know what. But him and Mom have been fighting, again, and Mom wanted to send me to live with him, in Tuscan.”
My heart nearly stops. I’d follow her to Tuscan, I know I would. I’d follow her anywhere. But I’m in school here, and I don’t know if my parents would let me leave, and I don’t have any money and –
She nudges up against me, gently, a reminder that she’s here and she’s real and she’s not done talking, yet.
“But she can’t, Az. I’m an adult, and Dad doesn’t want me.” Though I know this to be true – he wants her sister – it still sounds strange. Who wouldn’t want Lane?
“The whole thing was nothing,” she says. “A nonstarter. But there was this big blow-up about it, over the weekend, with Mom and Dad screaming over the phone, and my sister – I am not leaving, stop looking like that. There was this blow up, and it got me freaked out. And I didn’t want you to know about it, ‘cause it was stupid and I knew you’d worry, because you always worry, but it was stupid, and that’s why I said that. I’m sorry.” She brushes her lips across mine, soft and tender. “Forgive me?”
I let go of her hand, finally, to slide my arms around her waist, and tuck my face into the crook of her neck. My heart is going like it’s about to explode and my voice shakes as I say, “Yeah. I forgive – I forgive you. I always – forgive you. It’s all right. Christ, Lane. It’s all right.”
She pulls me away from the wall and wraps her arms around me, petting my hair, again, and caressing my back. When at long last she coaxes my head up to kiss me, a little deeper, a little firmer, a little longer, I’m feeling okay, again. Not great – the moment for great is lost, and I suspect that Lane is a little bit pissed at Alex about that – but okay. I’m okay.
So when she asks, “Hey, Az. Can I run something by you?” I make a concentrated effort to not panic. I can only take so many meltdowns in an hour.
“Yes?”
She smiles, and runs her fingers through my hair and across the back of my neck, leaving behind trails of sensation. My hair is blonde and thick and I don’t generally bother with it. Too many other things to worry about. But Lane likes it and when she pets it something inside me settles, so I guess it has some use.
“I’m not going to hurt you, babe,” she says. “I just wanted to know what you’d think of living with me.”
“Huh?”
There are entirely too many variables, here. Entirely too many ways this can go and things she could mean and I know that this is Lane and I know she wouldn’t hurt me and she just said she wouldn’t hurt me but what the hell kind of decision is she putting in front of me and it’s too much, it’s too much, this is too much –
“Az.”
My attention is back on her and her hand is back on my neck, grounding me.
“I’m moving out of my mom’s house,” she says, “and getting an apartment around here. Close to the café. I want you to come with me.”
Oh. Well. There can be only one answer to that.
“Are you sure I won’t drive you crazy?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I meant to say ‘yes’. But it’s a fair question, so I leave it.
She wraps her arms around my neck.
“Azzy, darling, I’ve been with you since – how long have we known each other?”
“Eleven years,” I say, “and a few months. It was autumn when we met.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Exactly.” Her smile is wider and deeper than the situation strictly calls for, and the look in her eyes makes me nervous, but in that good way that I wish I felt more of. I hold onto her tighter and hide my eyes in her neck. I don’t deserve this.
“If you haven’t driven me crazy by now,” she says, “you’re not going to.” She kisses my neck then pulls my face up to kiss my lips. “Move in with me? Please?”
She kisses me, again. And she just said ‘please’. I honestly don’t think I can remember Lane ever saying ‘please’ to anyone, for anything. I know I should say no, because I know this can only end badly, because no matter how long we’ve known each other I know eventually she’s going to figure out what a fuck-up I am, but I can’t and at this point I don’t even want to any more. I really, really don’t deserve this.
“First floor, front-facing windows are the most likely to get broken into,” I say. “So we should avoid that. And we’ll have to be careful looking for potential fire hazards.”
“Is that a ‘yes’, Az?” she asks, fiddling with my hair.
“Uh-huh.”
“Then say ‘yes’.”
“Yes?”
I don’t really know what she’s looking for here, but I go with it.
“Yes to what?” she asks.
“Yes, I’ll move in with you, Lane,” I say, and again she smiles that smile that seems to mean far too much.
“Thank you,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Most of the time, adrenaline makes me feel like I’m about to die – heart attack, stroke, like I’m going to shake out of my skin. But when Lane smiles like that, touches me like this, kisses me like she thinks she can find something in me that what’s worthwhile. . . Adrenaline isn’t always so bad. And maybe Alex hasn’t really ruined things, because, when she takes my hand and leads me back inside, I’m feeling good, again.
I wish things could always be like this.
Series: Ray, Lane
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: 3296
Summary: Az has problems with anxiety and Lane is the only one who can deal with it.
Notes: Spring 2009, I spent a lot of time experimenting with character voices.
There’s something wrong with Emily. I think she might have AIDS. Because, I mean, I know she’s been having sex with somebody and I saw this thing on the news, last night, and she’s been sneezing a lot all day and it seems possible, you know? That she might. And – if Emily has it, then what if Alex has it? Because I don’t know that they had sex, but what if they did, that would mean Alex and Emily and everyone who’s had sex with either of them and what if Lane, oh my God, I don’t think she would have, but what if –
I must have panicked, because I don’t remember getting from the café to the alley out back, but that doesn’t matter, because Lane is there and she's pushing my shoulders, holding me back against the wall. There’s something – almost comforting about brick walls. At least when Lane is there. She's standing close, and it makes me feel better, but what if I get her sick?
“Lane! I – ”
She touches my mouth. I shiver.
“Az,” she says. “I do not have AIDS. Emily does not have AIDS. None of us have AIDS. Okay?”
She keeps talking, but I don’t hear her, because how does she know? Has she been tested? Should she get tested? How do I make her go get tested? What does it mean if she already has been and she didn’t tell me about it? I would remember if she had told me. But what if she did tell me, already, and I don’t? What if I’m losing my memory? I think I had an uncle or something with dementia. Maybe –
“Az.”
Lane.
Her hand pushes into my hair. I shudder and she shakes me, gently, until I open my eyes. I didn’t even realize they were closed.
“Az,” she says, and leans in close, so close, what if – “Az. I need you cool, okay? Are you cool?” She’s almost whispering, petting my hair, rubbing my shoulder, and all I can do is shake. I hear myself whimper. Her hand moves to my cheek, brushes my eyelid. I must have closed my eyes, again. I wish I could stop doing that.
I open them, and I’m looking directly into Lane’s face. I twitch, but don’t close them. She smiles that self-satisfied smile that means ‘progress’ and caresses my face. I’m finally settling under her touch. Nothing in the whole world has ever relaxed me this much. It must be true love.
Unless. . .
“Hey,” she says. It’s amazing how she always just knows. “None of that.”
I tremble and close my eyes, again. Manage a nod. She slides the hand on my shoulder around and hugs me, carefully, like I’m something she doesn’t want to risk breaking, like she doesn’t realize I’m already broken. I feel myself relaxing into her, almost instinctively, and immediately feel guilty over how little I deserve this.
“Lane,” I say. “They must think I’m crazy.”
‘They’ are everybody. Everybody I’ve ever met and especially the ones in the café who just saw me break down, one more time to add to a list that goes on and on and on.
She brushes her lips over my closed eyelids. I don’t bother opening them, this time. That’s not what she’s after.
“You are crazy, Azzy-baby,” she says, but there’s nothing mean about it. I throw my arms around her and hold on tight.
“You won’t leave me, will you?” I ask, wishing my voice wouldn’t squeak like that. I sound hysterical. I usually am.
“Don’t be stupid.” She keeps one arm wound around me and rubs the other hand across the small of my back. Her lips are on my cheek. I shiver and wonder how long it will take her to reach my mouth, or if she’ll even try. I did just accuse her of secretly contracting AIDS in a room full of people. Silly thought. But it seemed so sensible at the time. It always seems sensible at the time. . .
Her mouth is against mine, barely there, a cloth-soft brush of skin against skin. I shake and melt and she laughs, quietly, laughs right up against my lips. And I feel. . . Good. I feel good. She feels good, pressed up against me, and there's nothing else in the whole world that matters, that exists in this moment, and I wonder why it can’t be like this all the time.
Someone clears their throat, inches away.
I nearly spasm out of my skin.
(That’s right, thinks the last rational part of me. It’s because I’m insane.)
“Holy shit!” I’m shrieking, again, and trying to hide under Lane’s jacket. Progress is hindered because she’s still wearing it. I am quite certain that my life is in imminent danger of ending. Why else would somebody approach us in a – a – fairly well-lit alley? Of course they want to kill us. It’s a good thing AIDS has compromised their immune systems so they coughed and warned us they were here, oh my God, what if they rape us and give us, holy shit, they’re going to kill us both, and it’s my fault that we’re out here and they're going to get Lane, but what if they already got to her, and that’s why she got checked, and why didn’t she tell me, but it didn’t take, before, and not they’re back to try again?
“Ngh.”
“Alex,” Lane says. “The fuck do you want?”
Alex?
I look up from where I’ve burrowed under one of Lane’s arms. It is Alex. I don’t think that Alex is physically equipped to rape us in an alley. And I know Lane came beat him up – I’ve seen her do it. Both way back in school, when Alex was Lexi, and within the last six months. I’m always nervous around Alex, now, because I’m always afraid I’ll slip and call him Lexi or call him a girl and then he’ll get all pissed off and Alex is scary when he’s mad and I know Lane wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me, but what if she got hurt and it would be all my fault because I can’t even and who the blue hell is that, oh my God!
I give a little screech and am back under Lane’s arm in an instant, clinging to her and shoving my face into her chest.
“Az?” Lane says. She pats my hair, her other arm having managed to stay slung around my waist throughout my spasming. (Don’t deserve her, don’t deserve her, don’t deserve her, good God, I don’t deserve her. . .) “Az, come on. I promise Alex won’t kill you. I’ll kick his ass if he tries. Though he deserves to get his ass kicked, anyway. Who the hell sneaks up on people in dark alley ways?”
Alex does not respond. “I promise, too,” he says, addressing me, I guess. “I have neither the desire nor the intention to kill you. I just wanted to introduce you guys to my friend Ray.”
Ray? Friend?
“Helluva a way with timing, asshole,” Lane says.
I peek out of her arms, again, and look objectively at the man at Alex’s side. He doesn’t look like a murderer. I stand up straight, still pressed tight against Lane. Alex smirks at me.
“All right?” he asks.
Lane tenses, tightens her proprietary grip.
“She’s fine,” she says. And, too the other man, “You’re Ray?”
He nods.
“Ray Galilei,” he says. “And you are?”
“Lane,” she says. “And this is Az.”
“Az has an anxiety disorder,” Alex says. “Lane’s her keeper. We’ve known each other since middle school.”
“Az doesn’t need a keeper,” Lane snaps, even though we both know that probably isn’t true. “I’m her friend.” God, I hope that’s true.
Alex shrugs. His eyes are on Ray, now, and he doesn’t seem eager to look away.
“Middle school?” Ray asks. “How old are you?”
Alex laughs. “I’m twenty-one, Ray. If I’d bothered going, I wouldn’t even be out of college, yet.”
“Shit,” Ray says. “You’re just a baby.”
“From a certain point of view,” Alex says. “Shall we leave them to it?” he asks. He gestures to us, but I don’t think he’s seeing us, anymore. Lane is seething. A sort of nervous tension overtakes Ray, too. He looks at us and nods.
“Nice to meet you,” he says.
Alex gestures for Ray to precede him out of the alley, but I think he just wants to stare at his ass as he goes. Ray thinks so, too, I think, because he glares at him, but he goes, scowling. Alex is smiling when he follows, and it’s absolutely filthy. I shudder.
When they’ve disappeared – and I can’t help but watch them until I’m sure they’re really gone, because what if they came back? – I find that one of my hands has been disentangled from Lane’s shirt, and she’s holding it firmly. She’s always held my hand, even back before we were – whatever it is we are. It helps me find my center, such as it is, and it helps her. With something. I don’t really know what, but she says it helps, and she lies about a lot of stuff, but never to me. I hold into her.
“Lane,” I begin, slowly, carefully. I don’t want my voice to break.
She stops me. She doesn’t usually interrupt me, when I’m not raving.
“Az,” she says. “Don’t. Stop it. I – this isn’t – ” She’s holding back some emotion that’s building with more force than I’ve seen in a while. I tremble.
“I,” she says, “am not your keeper.”
“Lane. . .”
I’m starting to break now, just a little, and she holds me, tight, and drags me in close so I’m shaking up against her. She presses her face into my neck and I can feel her mouth moving against my skin. She’s saying something, maybe, but I can’t work out the words.
“Lane.” I hold onto her. I’m not sure what’s happening, I don’t know what’s wrong, and I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m so scared, but I can’t, can’t, can’t. . . I can’t let her down.
“Lane,” I say. “Lane, you - You sort of are.”
She hisses and I can feel her teeth sharp against the tender flesh of my throat. She almost bites me, but I know she doesn’t mean it, so I hold back my panic.
“No,” she says, and pulls away, taking my face in her hands. “No, I’m not,” she says and I don’t understand why she’s insisting on this. “I’m not – I don’t – You don’t need me, Az. You’re stronger than that, goddammit, and you can take care of yourself. Don’t ever think you can’t. You can – you aren’t – and I won’t be here forever.”
Despite the promises I’ve made to myself, I start shaking, violently, instantly, and my voice shatters when I find it, again.
“Lane, shit fuck, oh my God, Lane – ”
She presses me back against the wall and kisses me, desperately, and I let her, I don’t deserve her, I let her until, “Lane, Lane, oh my God, are you leaving me? Are you – You said you – but Goddammit, just say it so I can panic over something I know!”
It’s the most coherent I’ve been, in the midst of a break, something inside me observes. The rest of me doesn’t give a shit, because what if Lane does leave me? I haven’t got anything else.
She shoves me back, harder, until I’m pressed into the wall, and then her body is plastered against mine and she’s saying something, but what?
“Az. Az. Az! Goddammit, Az, look at me.”
I look at her. What else am I going to do? Even if she leaves me. . . Oh, God. . .
“Don’t close your eyes, dammit. Look right here.”
I meet her eyes. They’re beautiful, really, and strange. Dark navy, the color of new denim, and I don’t know if I can lose them, either.
“Az? Are you hearing me, babe?”
I sniffle out an ‘uh-huh’. It’s pathetic, but it seems like it’s enough.
“Az,” she says, “I am not leaving you, okay? I’m not. Not now. Not ever, if I can help it. But I can’t always help it. Now it’s nothing, okay. I shouldn’t have said anything, and I didn’t want to say anything, because it’s nothing, I promise.”
“What’s nothing?” I ask, and immediately cringe. It comes out stronger than I meant, especially since I didn’t mean it to come out at all. She starts, and then she laughs, and leans her forehead into mine. Her weight is on me, pressing me into the wall, and we fit together. We always fit together. I’m still holding her hand.
“Sorry,” she says. “My dad – it’s been – I don’t know what. But him and Mom have been fighting, again, and Mom wanted to send me to live with him, in Tuscan.”
My heart nearly stops. I’d follow her to Tuscan, I know I would. I’d follow her anywhere. But I’m in school here, and I don’t know if my parents would let me leave, and I don’t have any money and –
She nudges up against me, gently, a reminder that she’s here and she’s real and she’s not done talking, yet.
“But she can’t, Az. I’m an adult, and Dad doesn’t want me.” Though I know this to be true – he wants her sister – it still sounds strange. Who wouldn’t want Lane?
“The whole thing was nothing,” she says. “A nonstarter. But there was this big blow-up about it, over the weekend, with Mom and Dad screaming over the phone, and my sister – I am not leaving, stop looking like that. There was this blow up, and it got me freaked out. And I didn’t want you to know about it, ‘cause it was stupid and I knew you’d worry, because you always worry, but it was stupid, and that’s why I said that. I’m sorry.” She brushes her lips across mine, soft and tender. “Forgive me?”
I let go of her hand, finally, to slide my arms around her waist, and tuck my face into the crook of her neck. My heart is going like it’s about to explode and my voice shakes as I say, “Yeah. I forgive – I forgive you. I always – forgive you. It’s all right. Christ, Lane. It’s all right.”
She pulls me away from the wall and wraps her arms around me, petting my hair, again, and caressing my back. When at long last she coaxes my head up to kiss me, a little deeper, a little firmer, a little longer, I’m feeling okay, again. Not great – the moment for great is lost, and I suspect that Lane is a little bit pissed at Alex about that – but okay. I’m okay.
So when she asks, “Hey, Az. Can I run something by you?” I make a concentrated effort to not panic. I can only take so many meltdowns in an hour.
“Yes?”
She smiles, and runs her fingers through my hair and across the back of my neck, leaving behind trails of sensation. My hair is blonde and thick and I don’t generally bother with it. Too many other things to worry about. But Lane likes it and when she pets it something inside me settles, so I guess it has some use.
“I’m not going to hurt you, babe,” she says. “I just wanted to know what you’d think of living with me.”
“Huh?”
There are entirely too many variables, here. Entirely too many ways this can go and things she could mean and I know that this is Lane and I know she wouldn’t hurt me and she just said she wouldn’t hurt me but what the hell kind of decision is she putting in front of me and it’s too much, it’s too much, this is too much –
“Az.”
My attention is back on her and her hand is back on my neck, grounding me.
“I’m moving out of my mom’s house,” she says, “and getting an apartment around here. Close to the café. I want you to come with me.”
Oh. Well. There can be only one answer to that.
“Are you sure I won’t drive you crazy?” I ask. I’m pretty sure I meant to say ‘yes’. But it’s a fair question, so I leave it.
She wraps her arms around my neck.
“Azzy, darling, I’ve been with you since – how long have we known each other?”
“Eleven years,” I say, “and a few months. It was autumn when we met.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Exactly.” Her smile is wider and deeper than the situation strictly calls for, and the look in her eyes makes me nervous, but in that good way that I wish I felt more of. I hold onto her tighter and hide my eyes in her neck. I don’t deserve this.
“If you haven’t driven me crazy by now,” she says, “you’re not going to.” She kisses my neck then pulls my face up to kiss my lips. “Move in with me? Please?”
She kisses me, again. And she just said ‘please’. I honestly don’t think I can remember Lane ever saying ‘please’ to anyone, for anything. I know I should say no, because I know this can only end badly, because no matter how long we’ve known each other I know eventually she’s going to figure out what a fuck-up I am, but I can’t and at this point I don’t even want to any more. I really, really don’t deserve this.
“First floor, front-facing windows are the most likely to get broken into,” I say. “So we should avoid that. And we’ll have to be careful looking for potential fire hazards.”
“Is that a ‘yes’, Az?” she asks, fiddling with my hair.
“Uh-huh.”
“Then say ‘yes’.”
“Yes?”
I don’t really know what she’s looking for here, but I go with it.
“Yes to what?” she asks.
“Yes, I’ll move in with you, Lane,” I say, and again she smiles that smile that seems to mean far too much.
“Thank you,” she says. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Most of the time, adrenaline makes me feel like I’m about to die – heart attack, stroke, like I’m going to shake out of my skin. But when Lane smiles like that, touches me like this, kisses me like she thinks she can find something in me that what’s worthwhile. . . Adrenaline isn’t always so bad. And maybe Alex hasn’t really ruined things, because, when she takes my hand and leads me back inside, I’m feeling good, again.
I wish things could always be like this.
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