I WALK UP MY front steps, laughing so hard I’m crying. It’s evening, not chilly enough that I need a sweatshirt. Spring in Phoenix welcomes warmer nights and pleasantly hot days, the prelude to our dusty summers. Reed and I got dinner, then ice cream, and on the walk home he’s been doing the most perfect impression of our English teacher.
“You have to stop,” I tell him through my tears. “Let me breathe.”
Reed frowns, putting on intellectual curiosity. “Could you expand on that statement? Use descriptive language,” he instructs, channeling Mr. Curtis.
When I shove him lightly, he catches my arm for hardly a moment, until he holds his hands up in surrender.
I shake my head with joking consternation, my cheeks hurting from smiling. Since I joined improv, my new friendship with Reed, Lacey, and the rest of the team has finally started to feel like what I was searching for. It’s something I can call mine. Really mine. Siena’s, not SienaandPatrick’s.
What it’s led to hasn’t just been me embarrassing myself in skits after school. In fact, everything has begun to fit into place over the past couple months. I’ve been going to Reed’s house to hang out with the team and bringing Joe from time to time, which gave him the opportunity to ask Lacey out. I’ve had lunch every day with my new group of friends. What’s more, I genuinely enjoy improv. It has the performative element of Model UN in exactly the opposite context. The freedom to fail, to not make sense, to just have fun—it’s endlessly liberating. I feel like I’m uncovering the piece of me I was missing.
Now, with Patrick coming into town next week, I can’t wait to introduce him to my new life the way he brought me into his.
Recovering my breath, I unlock my front door. “I need some water,” I say. “Want to come in?”
Reed’s eyebrows rise a little. “Sure,” he says in his own voice, not Mr. Curtis’s.
I don’t know why he’s surprised by the invitation. Maybe it’s because we don’t often hang out here, what with how Reed’s house is the epicenter of the improv team’s social life.
I head into the kitchen, enjoying the quiet of the apartment. Robbie is out, luckily, and my parents have gone to a movie for date night. I reach into the fridge. “You want some?” I call to Reed while I grab the pitcher of water.
“Yeah, thanks,” he replies, dropping onto the couch.
I pour two glasses and walk them over to the coasters on the coffee table, which feature photos of Yosemite from when my family went when I was in fifth grade. “We could watch something,” I suggest between sips.
“TNG?” he asks. Lacey has gotten us really into Star Trek: The Next Generation, and we follow Picard, Geordi, Troi, and goofily suave Riker’s travels into “space, the final frontier” every weekend.
I turn on the TV, settling into the couch cushions. We’re not five minutes into the episode when Reed starts fidgeting in his seat, shifting his leg so his knee barely touches mine. I figure he doesn’t even notice. The well-worn pillows of our couch tend to sink, sloping people toward each other. I refocus on the Enterprise’s ominous encounters with the Borg.
Outside, the sun has set. The room is growing darker. We’re quiet, but it’s a nice, cozy quiet. I don’t get up to turn on the lights, enjoying the movie-theater feel of the living room.
“Okay,” Reed speaks up. “I feel like I know that guy.”
“Who?” I smile, squinting. “The Borg? Like you recognize the actor from something else?”
“No, like he lives in Phoenix,” Reed says.
I laugh. “He does not live in Phoenix.”
“Hey, lots of cool people live in Phoenix.” Reed pulls out his phone, where he swiftly swipes to IMDb. I know it’s to check the actor’s name so we can social-media stalk him.
The crisp light of the screen cuts into the pleasant darkness, distracting from the high-stakes Borg conflict happening on-screen. “You don’t know him. Turn that off,” I say. Playfully, I grab for Reed’s phone, laughing as he moves it out of reach. I struggle for the illuminated iPhone, the saggy couch cushions doing me no favors.
When my face is near Reed’s, he kisses me.
Stunned, I don’t react for a moment. Then I do. I pull back sharply. For good measure, I promptly scoot all the way to the other end of the couch.
“Okay, that wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for,” Reed says into the dark, with gentle yet unmistakable disappointment. “I’m sorry. I thought . . .”
I don’t reply, unmoving. The kiss wasn’t long or forceful, only the lightest connection of lips and faintest suggestion of Reed’s scent. While the show plays, the dialogue emptily indistinct to me now, I wrack my mind for explanations of what’s happening. Why would Reed think I wanted to kiss him?
The realization hits me horribly.
“I have a boyfriend,” I blurt.
I can’t believe he doesn’t know. Everyone at school knows about Patrick and me. Admittedly, I don’t mention him often because I’m trying to be my own person. But I never imagined I needed to. Surely Reed knew.
Except the mortified look on his face says he didn’t.
“You . . .” He falters. “Shit. Seriously? Who?”
“Patrick Reynolds,” I say, heart pounding with frustration, guilt, the confusion of the moment. I have to focus on the information just to get the words out. “We’re long distance.”
Reed slumps forward on the couch, hanging his head in his hands. “Then why did you go on a date with me?” he asks. He doesn’t sound plaintive, only puzzled.
I reach forward, pausing the show. We don’t need Patrick Stewart’s stately voice interrupting this conversation. “I didn’t!” I say, panic stirring in me. When he looks up, incredulous, the light from the TV coloring his face, I put together what he’s thinking. He asked me out to dinner and then ice cream. He walked me home, I invited him in, and . . .
Oh god, I accidentally went on a date with him.
“I see how it looked like a date. It wasn’t, though,” I say weakly.
“Right. Because you have a boyfriend,” he repeats, his gaze going distant like he’s processing the information. His eyes flit back to me, full of real remorse. “Siena, I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I just assumed you broke up because you never mentioned him. Please believe me when I say I never would have, uh, kissed you or any of it if I’d known.”
My cheeks flaming now, I can’t meet his gaze. I stare at the coffee table, sweeping my hair out of my face compulsively. “I know. It was an accident. Just a miscommunication.”
Reed nods slowly. He stands, his demeanor stiff. “Well, I should . . .”
My heart sinks. New nerves knot in my stomach. I don’t want this to ruin my new friendship, not when I was just feeling like I’d found my place. The visions of the life I wanted to show Patrick suddenly look precarious, like photographs held over fire.
“Yeah,” I say anyway.
Reed walks to the door, still rubbing his face in disbelief. I sit on the couch, motionless. Everything I’d just found sort of nice in our present setting—the dark, the quiet—now feels painfully stifling.
I’m turning off the TV when Reed speaks from the door. “Hey, see you at improv tomorrow, though?”
I feel a small weight lift off my chest. He’s not going to avoid me. I won’t have to leave the new space I’m finding for myself, won’t have to rebuild somewhere else. “Definitely,” I say, not ashamed of the relief in my voice.
With a forced smile, he walks out.
I pick up my phone. I have to tell Patrick, even though I did nothing wrong. Our iMessage conversation glares up intimidatingly from the screen. Chewing my lip, I hover over the keyboard, growing more nervous with each passing second I find nothing to say. Telling him feels impossible.
Which is why, I decide, I won’t do it over text. In person, I’ll have the opportunity to read his facial expressions, reassure him more easily and more emotionally, escape the impersonality of thin type on our white screens. I’m not even putting the confession off irresponsibly long—Patrick will be here in one week. In one week, it’ll be the ideal time to clear up this hopefully comedic misunderstanding.
I put my phone down. One week. Patrick will understand.