Page 100 of The Broposal

I slumped into the couch. I didn’t actually want to playInjustice. I just wanted to hang out with Han. I sighed and got up to go to my own room, but as I passed Han’s door, I overheard him talking to someone—probably Leti—on the phone.

“I don’t know. I just don’t think things are gonna go back to normal…”

My chest felt like it caved in on itself. I wanted more than anything to storm into Han’s room and beg for things to go back to normal. It was all I wanted. But I knew I couldn’t do that. If Han needed his space, I would give it to him.

I continued down the hall and sulked in my room until Han cracked my door open. I sat up so fast, it gave me a headache.

“Han, what’s up?”

“It’s about that time,” Han said.

“Time for what?” I hoped he’d say something like “time to be friends again!” or “time to kiss again!” or “time for everything to be normal again!”

Instead he said, “Time to go to your parents’ house? We still have some setting up to do. Nacho and them are gonna meet us there.”

I slumped against the wall. “Right. Okay, let me just…” I pulled off my tank top and threw on an oversized sweater, noticing from the corner of my eye that Han looked the other way when I took off my tank. I adjusted my glasses and grabbed my keys from the nightstand. “Okay, I’m ready.”

When we got to my parents’ house, I found that while I was off working double shifts, Han and the rest of our families had been busy putting things together for the wedding. Apparently Han couldn’t even use his ankle as an excuse to get out of helping. Everything looked ready except for the tables and chairs, which were all against the edge of the house in the backyard, waiting to be set up.

Leti and Mary were carrying a table out to the grass, whileNacho followed them with six chairs, three under each arm. Impressive. Han grabbed a couple of chairs in one hand and used a crutch in his other arm, while Leti and I reached for a table and carried it together. Leti nudged Han and looked back at me, but Han just waved them off. I sighed and followed him to set up some more tables.

When we’d set up all the seating, it was time to decorate the tables with tablecloths and flowers. My mom wanted each to have one white tablecloth with two long pieces of purple cloth crossing each other in the middle and hanging off the edges.

After she demonstrated what the finished product should look like, I went to work on the table Han was at, hoping to get something as small as eye contact from him. No luck.

But when I went to set the purple cloth on the table, Han was setting his down too, and our fingers touched for a brief moment. I looked up, and Han finally met my eyes. I was immediately thrown back to #ZBlaineSmithHyphenSmith’s wedding, when we’d done the same thing after forgetting whose turn it was to be chivalrous. This little touch was the most intimate thing we’d done since we’d made love. But then Han cleared his throat and pulled his hand away.

“Cheer up, you two! You’re gettingmarried!” Nacho put one hand on my shoulder and the other on Han’s and squeezed.

Then it was like a switch flipped with Han, and the pretending started up again.

“I know. I can’t wait! Can you believe it, babe? We’re getting married intwo days!” He willingly reached for my hand and squeezed. And this somehow felt a million times worse than being ignored. Han was just pretending. Any affection I got was just for show.

I played along even though it killed me. I wanted this tobe real again, but Han just kissed my cheek for a split second before going back to get more tablecloths. I brought my fingertips to my cheek, savoring the warmth. This was going to be torture.

Before Jackie ruined everything, fake flirting had beenfun. Flirting at work or in front of family had been one of my favorite parts of the day. Now it just felt like a slap in the face. A reminder that things weren’t back to normal. And I had no idea if or when they ever would be. I had no idea what I could do to make that happen.

When Han and I got in my car to head back home, the energy immediately got heavy again.

“Are we okay?” I asked.

Han nodded. “I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

I ignored the fact that he didn’t answer my question at all. I didn’t want our whole relationship to be centered around what we were or weren’t doing for each other. I just wanted things to go back to how they were before.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

HAN

It was weird being back in the apartment. Different. And it was my fault. But I just couldn’t bring myself to go back to how things were before. That level of intimacy, of vulnerability, wasn’t easy for me. Kenny had slowly brought it out of me over all the years we’d known each other, but now it was like we were back at square one. It was true that I still loved him. That I wasinlove with him. Maybe I always had been. But that didn’t help anything.

He had been picking up so many extra shifts lately that we barely had any time to talk, and even when he was home, he was constantly on his laptop working on who knows what. So, maybe he wouldn’t even notice what was going on with me. Maybe I’d get over it before it really made a difference.

I shook the thoughts away as Leti opened the apartment door and came inside with a box of doughnuts.

“You haven’t been eating. I can tell,” they said as they set the box down on the coffee table and took their seat on the couchnext to me. They had been coming over to keep me company while Kenny worked, which I really appreciated. They opened the box and smiled widely, waving their hands in the direction of the doughnuts. “Eh? Eh? I know you want one!”

Leti used their huge fake nails to pick up a chocolate cake doughnut like a claw machine at an arcade. They made a show of sniffing the doughnut and sighing happily. I laughed and picked up a chocolate sprinkled one of my own. It wasn’t exactly the healthiest breakfast, but it was much better than what I’d been eating lately, which—Leti was right—was nothing.

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