This Is My Brain on Tension

JOCELYN

James L. Brooks is a legendary director, but I’ve got to admit I barely register the featurette on his career due to my brain being on a continuous loop of: “He likes me! He put his arm around me and we’re snuggling! Holy shit, I think this is now officially a real date, not a non-date! OMG, Priya is going to. Freak. Out.”

At the end of the night, we still haven’t really said that we like each other, but it seems pretty clear to me. This is uncharacteristically optimistic, I know, but it’s not like I can’t think positively. I just prefer not to, to avoid disappointment.

When we’re out of extras, I rack my brain for how to further confirm my hypothesis that he is into me. Honestly, though, the longer we stay glued to each other like this, the more I feel like I’ve met the burden of proof.

“Did you like it?” I ask, though what I’m really asking is, “Do you like me?”

“I thought it was awesome,” he says, which is a satisfactory answer on all counts. “And I was thinking…” Will swallows, twice, and the edge of his cheek sucks in like he’s biting the inside of his mouth.

I hold my breath, not wanting to say anything that will mess up my data collection.

“… well, I was thinking how I’ve never watched When Harry Met Sally…, but my dad’s always talking about what a classic it is. Have you seen it?”

Have I seen it? How am I supposed to answer that question, without lying, in a way that doesn’t make him think that I’m a psychopath? Also, the fact that he chose a rom-com definitely supports my hypothesis that this is a date.

“Yeah, I’ve seen it,” I say. “It’s one of my favorite movies. But I’d love to see it again with you.”

Will’s smile transforms him into another person. It’s not that he’s normally a sourpuss, but before I’ve only ever seen him smile politely, or grin enthusiastically. The way he looks now, beaming like he can’t help it? It makes me feel like a freaking revelation.

“All right.” Will stands up, tidies up the couch cushions a bit, and holds his hand out to pull me up. “When Harry Met Sally… next Wednesday. It’s a date.”

“Yes.” I reach my hand out to seal the deal (and confirm the results of my scientific method). “A date it is.”

The air is as thick as butternut squash soup on the drive back to the library. After we pull into the now-empty lot, Will turns off the car, but neither of us moves to get out. With the engine turned off it’s so quiet I can hear the squeak of leather as he turns in the seat to face me.

It’s in that silence that in a flash of panic, like a switch flipping, my confidence evaporates. All of a sudden I’m certain that I’ve read Will all wrong. Maybe he’s going to turn to me and say, “Jocelyn, I think you’re getting the wrong idea.”

I’ve been waiting all night for this moment, when all of our plans run their course, and we’re alone and done with any activities or distractions, and there’s nothing else between us but air and words and potential.

Honestly, I’m terrified. Because now’s the moment that Will’s going to make his move, but if he doesn’t, if this opportunity passes us by, I know that I will never have the nerve to create another one.

WILL

The entire drive back to the library I have a buzzing under my skin that’s almost unbearable, like that moment after you get stung by a mosquito where you feel a vague tingling but can’t see the welt or feel the itch yet. I feel as if someone’s bottled me up and shaken me, but I make myself concentrate extra hard on the drive, as getting into an accident would be a less-than-optimal barrier to my endgame.

We’ve both moved our chess pieces onto the board, and I am convinced that I have a chance, as long as I don’t trip over myself getting to checkmate.

By the time I turn off my car and face Jocelyn, I’ve rehearsed a hundred lines in my head and discarded them all, starting with “I’m so glad that I got to work with you” (too formal; also, I should not remind her that I literally work for her), swinging all the way to “I think I’m in love with you” (which maybe comes off a bit too strong) to “So, was this a date?” (vaguely whiny and desperate sounding) to “I think we should take this relationship to the next level” (a little too on point to sound spontaneous).

I’m still trying to process what I really want to say other than “Jocelyn, I really like you,” when I realize that almost a minute has gone by since we parked. With the air-conditioning turned off, the air stills and thickens. As seconds pass I watch Jocelyn’s face morph from excitement to nervous anticipation to an emotion I never, ever want to see on her face again.

Fear.

It takes me a second to realize that the thing she’s afraid of is this unspoken thing between us, and another to understand how easily I can address it.

“Jocelyn,” I blurt out, because I can’t stand to think of her being afraid. “I really like you.”

Her eyes widen, her breath catches, and the frown that was just beginning to form flips into a watery smile.

“Oh, thank God,” she whispers.

Then she starts to cry.

For as long as I can remember, my mother has impressed upon me the importance of my words. “Remember, Will, your words have weight, and the capacity to harm.” Like I said in my interview at A-Plus, though, being thoughtful can be a double-edged sword.

Simple questions like, “What do you want to do?” stump me. I think about what I actually want to do, of course, but then I worry about whether the person who asked the question really cares about what my desires are, or whether they are just being polite. If that sounds exhausting, it’s because it is.

All this is to say that I am not known for speaking before I think. Which is why it’s so amazing for me to realize that with Jocelyn, it’s the best thing I’ve done all night.

“You took so long to say anything, I was sure you were going to tell me I was barking up the wrong tree,” she says, laughing through her tears. Tears of relief, I realize.

“Nope, the rightest tree in the forest,” I say, which doesn’t make any sense, but I’m feeling kind of giddy, like my heart is beating so fast and so inefficiently that it can’t get blood to my brain. My lungs can’t seem to pull enough air, and I don’t know where to look, or what to do with my hands. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that I was starting to have a panic attack. I finally decide to stare at Jocelyn, even though it kind of hurts my brain to, as if I’m a circuit that’s overloading. There’s something I need to tell her: “I’m sorry it took me so long to get my act together and tell you how I feel.”

“No, it’s okay,” she says, grabbing a tissue and swiping at her eyes.

“I mean, there shouldn’t be a double standard,” Jocelyn continues. “It shouldn’t always be the boy making the first move. I could’ve told you.” She squeezes the tissue in her fist, and her voice is kind of nasal when she says, “I really like you, too.”

My chest tightens, then it swells. All the emotions from the past hour, from the past week, month—from my lifetime, really—seem to surge through my body at once. And I understand why Jocelyn was crying.

JOCELYN

So, my vision of my reaction when a boy finally (FINALLY) said that he liked me did not include actual tears. But Will doesn’t seem to mind that I’ve turned into a snot factory. In fact, his eyes are kind of glistening in the streetlights, too, which quite possibly means that we are made for each other.

I feel like I’ve been lugging around this crush for so long, trekking through deserts and scaling mountains of feeling, so much feeling. And now I feel almost weightless.

Here’s another metaphor: I’ve been holding back my affection for Will for weeks now, but it’s been building up day by day like water beating up against a dam. And now there’s nothing keeping my feelings back anymore.

Will holds his palm out to me again, and I shiver at the tingle that goes down my back when our fingers touch. This time he puts his other hand over mine, and I’ve never felt so safe, so protected, and then he curves his wrists open, leans down, and I swear to God he kisses my palm tenderly (that’s the only word to describe it) like we’re characters in an Austen movie.

As my cold, angry heart melts, I realize: I am so gone for this nerd.

If my life were a CW show, this is the point where a croony song by Ariana Grande would start playing. If it were an arthouse flick, it would maybe break into an animated riff where line drawings of Will and me would take flight to blandly inspirational piano music.

But my life is barely Instagram-worthy, let alone Hollywood-ready, so instead Will and I just sit holding hands like the chickens we apparently are for what seems like eons. In my peripheral vision I see a jogger run by the parking lot with a running stroller, and a car pulls in to dump some books into the after-hours return box. When the stillness becomes unbearable I move my thumb so it brushes over one of his fingers in the briefest caress, and I hear Will’s breath catch, see his lips widen. His hand spasms as if he’s been shocked, but he doesn’t move. I don’t move. It’s as if we’re both afraid the moment will shatter if we try anything else.

But you know what? Screw fear.

“Can we just kiss now?” I ask.

Despite the fact that my voice sounds like I’ve lost a war with about a billion tons of pollen, Will doesn’t laugh.

“Yes, please,” he says fervently, and he leans in. I tilt my head slightly to the right the way I’ve seen on screens big and small, digital and projected. And because Will is suddenly overwhelmingly close, impossibly real, I close my eyes to protect my brain from exploding from sensory overload as my mouth finds its target.

Will’s lips remind me of the flour-covered mochi rice cakes my mom sometimes brings home as treats from her Chinatown runs. They’re soft but firm, and warm in a way that makes my whole body sigh, that makes me want more, and suddenly it makes sense to me why books always use food metaphors when they describe kissing, and desire, and love. All of a sudden I’m ravenous for Will, and this is just with a chaste touch of the lips that would almost certainly still qualify a movie for a PG rating by the Motion Picture Association of America.

When it all gets to be too much—I haven’t really gotten the knack of kissing and breathing at the same time yet—I break away and finally open my eyes. Will’s looking at me wide-eyed, and I’m surprised to realize that I know him well enough by now to guess what he’s thinking. So I know what I can say to help him relax.

“I had to catch my breath,” I explain. “That was almost too amazing.” Then I lick my lips, and his eyes get heavy lidded as he stares at my mouth, and I can hear his breath hitch as I move in for round two.

I’m not sure where to put my hands, so at first I just keep my left in his, and my right on my leg. But as my hunger deepens, as we try our damnedest to actually meld the atoms in our faces together into a single molecule, my hand creeps up to touch Will’s thigh. His very well-toned thigh. He groans, and as his mouth opens, I do the thing. The French kiss thing that I always told Priya sounded gross as hell, because spit.

In reality, French kissing is actually not too bad, which may explain its popularity.

Will is certainly a fan. And if I thought that lips were incredible, tongue is mind-blowing. It’s like, you’ve had this body part your entire life, and it’s a nice enough organ, one that allows you to experience both wasabi peas and chocolate peanut butter ice cream. You use it every day, and maybe you start taking it for granted a bit. I mean, it’s not as if the tongue is something you need to pay attention to, or maintain, like your fingernails or hair or God forbid your bladder or bowels.

But for the first time I’m realizing the tongue is a muscle. It can move. And no one ever talks about how much it can feel.

Using tongue is some next-level shit, and all I can think about is the YouTube video I once saw on how Hollywood special effects people use accelerants to turn ordinary fires (which are perfectly great for roasting marshmallows and boiling water) into spectacular conflagrations that make Tom Cruise/Vin Diesel/any actor named Chris look like total badasses.

Tongue is totally an accelerant, and not only for my heart rate. All of a sudden, Will’s hand is feverishly clutching at my waist, and when his thumb brushes a sliver of bare skin I feel a heavy, twisty sensation in what my mother calls my womanly areas, and seriously, why am I thinking of my mom right now?

WILL

Kissing Jocelyn is a little bit like jumping off a cliff and a little bit like sliding a puzzle piece into place. I don’t know if it’s possible to feel completely unmoored and completely grounded at the same time, but that’s the only way I can describe it.

Thank God she had the nerve to make the first move. I was sitting there like a complete doofus wondering if it was too soon to lean in for a kiss, trying to figure out whether it was still cool to ask a girl for permission to kiss her, or whether it’d make me look like I was trying too hard.

I’d just decided that consent is always sexy, when Jocelyn bulldozed through all my doubts. She planted her flag. And I, obviously, had no problems with being claimed.

Well, maybe one problem. In my pants.

It turns out that wearing jeans was a strategic error, as was waiting until I was crammed in the front seat of a Nissan Leaf to get my game going. But I make do, and when Jocelyn snakes her hand up around my neck to press me deeper into our kiss, it’s impossible for me to concentrate on anything other than the softness of her lips, the heat of her tongue, and the feel of the curve of her hips under my hands.

The trouble with being labeled the quiet kid in school has always been the massive contradiction between my rep with the outside world and how freaking loud my thoughts are in my head. It’s like when people look at me they think I’m just a pot sitting on a turned-off stove, but really my mind is constantly at that point just before a simmer—where you can hear the rumbling of water vapor evaporating against metal.

I feel like I’ve finally, finally broken into a boil. There’s a crack in the facade of reserve that’s kept me back, held me on the sidelines all my life. It’s possible to see myself doing so many things, if I’m here kissing a gorgeous, smart, funny girl. If she’s kissing me back. If she likes me.

I feel expansive. Invincible. I feel like I can control time, and that I’ll live in this moment forever, in this bubble of warmth and skin like silk and stuttered breaths.

And then:

Crack

I’m sure it’s a gunshot at first, and I break away from Jocelyn. It takes just a fraction of a second for a vise to close around my chest, and I’m breathless for an entirely different reason. The world closes around me.

CrackCrackCrack

The sound is too close, and I realize it’s someone pounding on Jocelyn’s window with something metal the same time a blinding light shatters my night vision. I close my eyes against the physical pain.

My hands are already up, the gesture automatic. Because if my mother has told me once, she’s told me a thousand times: Always remember to show my hands.

JOCELYN

My first thought is that it’s a cop, and I almost want to laugh, because how cliché is it to be caught necking in a parking lot? Not that we went that far. Next to me, Will freezes and puts his hands up. In the light that suddenly shines from behind me, I can see the whites of his eyes, and the terror I see there pierces my chest like a sliver of ice. Of course he would have a different reaction to seeing a police officer than I would.

“It’s okay,” I whisper, “we haven’t done anything wrong.” Will has turned his head to shy away from the sudden flash of light, so he doesn’t look at me. His eyes are tightly shut, the muscles in his jaw rigid.

I wince at another sharp rap on the window that’s so loud I can feel it in my bones.

“Hello, hello.” It’s a man’s voice, impatient, and heavily accented. An icy ball of fear forms in my stomach.

If my life were a feature film, this is the moment when things would drop into super-slow motion and the heroine’s eyes would open in recognition as a distorted voice suddenly sharpened into clear words:

“Xiao Jia, Xiao Jia, ni zai gan shenme?”

Then the camera would cut to the shot of an irate, slightly balding Chinese man trying to break down the car window with a handful of keys while waving around his cell phone flashlight in a furious attempt to get the attention of the dead-in-the-water teens inside.

“Hey, Dad,” I say weakly.