Page 133 of Heartbeat

When I got to his building, I considered going up, but it felt…wrong, somehow. So, I decided to text him instead. I pulled out my phone, only unlocking it the third time I tried because my fingerprint was too wet.

“Are you at your dad’s?”

“I have been texting you all day, where have you been? Yes”

“Can you come down?”

“You’re here? <3 “

I watched the messages for the longest time, then texted, “Come down”

“Yes, sir!”

I could absolutely feel—with an acute awareness I didn’t know was possible—as every piece of me that I’d so carefully tried to put back together fell, one by one. The first had fallen when I heard Dr. Foster say his name, the second, not long after, when I thought about him finding out. Upon leaving her house, I continued to have pieces fall around the city, some of them I consciously realized had left me, others did so without me having any say in the matter. Now, as he opened the door and smiled at the sight of me, a bigger piece fell.

“What are you doing? You’re going to get sick,” he said, taking a step forward, cupping my face, and kissing me before letting his hands slide down my arms and find my wrists, trying to pull me inside.

God, I loved it when he kissed me.

But I stood my ground, making him instantly worry.

“What’s wrong?” He furrowed his brow.

“I, uh—I need to talk to you.”

“Well, come inside. Ros is here; she’ll love telling you about that constellation or whatever it was she wanted to tell you that day. Plus, you can meet my dad.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You see, I didn’t know…” I was trying so hard to think straight.

“Know what, babe?”

“Did I tell you when I first saw you?”

“In class?”

I shook my head. “That little coffee shop on Charles Street.”

“You saw me there?”

“I did,” I said, smiling. “Almost every day, for weeks.”

“When was this?”

“Before classes started,” I said, almost transported back to the first time I’d seen him there. “You always had a book with you, and you would always order a different muffin. It took me so long to understand…” I stopped as I continued to vividly remember it.

“Tom?”

“I wasn’t feeling that great, back then,” I confessed. “That’s why it took me so long to get it.”

“Get what?”

“That everything I saw you do was so…lovely. It’s so cute how you only sort of destroy your food instead of properly eating it.”

“I never saw you there,” he said, trying to think back. “I’m pretty sure I would’ve remembered you.”

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