There are tears on her cheeks now, but she’s shrugging, letting me know that she’ll be okay moving on. And of course she would be. I mean, look at her. She could find someone new to love just by walking down the street.
“Okay,” she says. “I’m done now.”
“Okay,” I say. “I’m starting.”
I breathe deep. I look into her eyes. I wish I could take her face in my hands and kiss her, but I know she needs more than that right now. Even though I want to give her everything, I’ve learned enough in the last few days to only promise what I know I can deliver.
“I don’t want to let you down again,” I say. “I don’t want to be elusive. Last night, I was skeptical when you bought me that reading, but everything Kylie said made sense. All night long, all day today, I’ve been seeing those cards and wondering what they mean for me. I know that I’m holding myself back. I know that something needs to change, and that I need to be the one to change it. And I know—I know—that if you’re patient with me, what I find on the other end of it, once the towers have burned down, will be you.”
She looks like she wants to believe me, but then her face clouds again.
“Maybe I just moved too fast for you,” she says. “Maybe it was stupid for me to kiss you like that.”
“No,” I say. “It was amazing. It was the most romantic moment of my life. I’ve replayed it thousands of times since it happened. I want to kiss you again. Please trust me. I want to kiss you right now, but you deserve to be kissed by someone who has her shit together. So I’m going to get my shit together, and then, if you still want me, I’m going to kiss you.”
She cocks her head; a smile emerges.
“And until then?” she asks.
“It shouldn’t be long. That’s what Kylie said, right? And until then, I don’t know. Let’s just be together. There’s a poetry slam tonight.…”
“Yeah, everyone’s going,” she says.
“Will you go with me?”
“Sure,” she says.
“Oh, and Mark, too.”
She laughs.
“It’s a very good thing that Mark is so charming.”
She takes my hand.
“Is this okay?” she asks, and she bites her lip, looks at my mouth. She rubs her thumb along my palm. “I need something to tide me over until you’re ready for more.”
My knees turn weak again. I’m about to lose my resolve.
And then, “Um, hi?”
My body tenses. It’s Lehna. Of course. June and Uma, both wide-eyed, stand behind her.
I move to step away from Violet, but she keeps her hand in mine.
“Look who I ran into!” she says.
Her voice is so happy.
“Wow,” Lehna musters. “What a coincidence.”
June’s face reddens. She’s lucky Lehna’s looking at us and not at her.
“You just happened to be here?” she asks me. “By yourself?”
“Mark’s here, too.”
“I should have known that, I guess.”
It weirds me out, the way she says it—all chirpy and pleasant when I know she’s neither of those things.
“We’re gonna play the button game,” Uma says. “A new round starts in three minutes. Want to come?”
“I should find Mark,” I say.
“Violet?” Lehna says.
“I’m actually going to hang out with Kate tonight. She’s going to the slam, too, so can we reconnect there?”
Shock flashes across Lehna’s face, but she transforms it into a smile.
“Oh!” she says. “Wow! Good for you guys!”
And now I realize what’s happening. Violet doesn’t know that anything is wrong between us. Lehna, for some reason, has been pretending that she and I are fine when really we aren’t fine at all. Really we’re bad enough that the awfulness of us is creeping in even in this moment, even when Violet is stepping closer to me.
A beep comes from another wing of the museum.
“It’s starting soon!” June says. “We have to find some open buttons.”
Lehna nods.
“Right,” she says. “The button game. Well, have fun, you guys. Text me later.”
And then they’re heading away from us, back into the crowd.
“Is it just me or was Lehna acting kind of strange?” Violet asks.
“Things between us have been a little … tense,” I say.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Various reasons. It’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” she says, but she sounds unsure.
“Really,” I say. “I’m going to work it out with her, but not right now. Let’s go find Mark.”
She nods and we hold hands as we make our way back to the shadow room. On our way we pass a group of people at one of the button stands. They’re frantically hitting their buttons—some red, some blue—while others around them watch the score on a screen and cheer.
“What is the button game?” Violet asks.
“There are people at these stands all over the museum. You try to get your color to win.”
“Win at what?”
“Nothing, really. Just the number of pushes.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“Exactly,” I say. “It’s like a social phenomenon or something.”