Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (i am malala young readers edition .TXT) 📗

you all right? And before you answer, just know that you don’t have to say yes.”

Wesley doesn’t sound like he’s a whole ocean away. He sounds like he’s right next to me. “No. I am not. I am so sorry. I am so, so goddamn sorry.”

I curl inward toward a wall, hair falling across my face to shield him from inside the phone. “I wish you had told me you wanted to get off the plane.”

“I don’t even remember getting off it. I panicked. I went into the bathroom because I thought I was going to throw up, but it was so small in there, and . . . I’m very, very claustrophobic. I thought I’d be able to power through it, but then bam, there I am in the airport again, and there goes your plane, taking off into the sky.”

“But you . . . you lived in the loft. In that tiny space. It’s practically a coffin up there. And you slept in the tent.”

“It was different in those situations because I could have run, if I’d wanted. I could have gotten out anytime. But in an airplane, I’m a captive. There’s nowhere to run.” He hesitates. “That, and the alternative was unacceptable. If I didn’t sleep in the loft and pretend it was a second bedroom, you wouldn’t have taken the other bedroom. If I hadn’t slept in the tent with you when I had an opportunity to, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

I sink down against the cold wall to the floor, folding my knees to my chin. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

I can hear his fear, his self-loathing. “Because it was one more thing wrong with me, on top of everything else. I wanted to be fine. I wanted you to believe I was fine. If I told you everything that was wrong with me, Maybell, you wouldn’t want to be with me anymore.”

“I accept that challenge. Right now. Lay it out.”

His speech stumbles. “What?”

“Tell me everything that’s wrong with you. Give me your worst.”

He does.

“My brother got married in Rome. The flight was so bad that I seriously considered never coming back to the States—I went as far as looking into how to stay there on a work visa. I hate restaurants, because when I sit at tables I feel trapped. Something about sitting down across from someone and it being socially unacceptable to leave at any moment makes me panic. It’s one of the reasons why I can’t date. Dates like to go to restaurants. Forcing myself to ask someone out when I have social anxiety is hard enough, but adding to that, how am I supposed to explain to a woman that I get anxious at public tables? I don’t even like sitting at a table for holiday meals with my family. I stand up along the wall with my plate.

“I’ve sat at a table with you before, so you might not have noticed this. But with you, I know I can get up and leave at any time without having to explain. Knowing that makes all the difference. It’s the same panic whenever I’ve had to go to the doctor or the dentist, or when I bought my truck and had to sit in a tiny room on the other side of a desk from the car salesman. I start thinking about how I wouldn’t be able to just get up and leave if I wanted, for whatever reason, without grabbing people’s attention. Without being asked questions, and having to explain something I myself don’t entirely understand, and . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. Whenever I meet with clients, I always have them take a walk with me outside while we go over plans, rather than using an office. I don’t know if this is ever going to change. It’s just the way I am. I think that you are going to give up on me. That you are going to want someone easier.

“Until I’ve gotten comfortable around someone,” he continues, “I get nervous about communicating with them because they don’t know me yet, and they don’t know the issues I have. I’m putting all my energy into trying to present myself as normal, which I get into my head about. Whether it’s real or not, I can’t stop imagining that they’re judging me. Which makes it worse. My mind goes blank, and I just . . . I can’t find the words. I freeze up. It’s mortifying when the words won’t come. It’s so much easier to pretend I have a personality where I don’t have any words for anyone, that I don’t care to, rather than not being able to find them.”

I think about this intensely claustrophobic man up in that hot, airless attic closet, night after night, while I sprawled out in his big comfortable bed below. He did it for me, before he even liked me.

I think about how I crash-landed in his insular life—how difficult that must have been for him. But even on his gruffest day, he couldn’t help but slip up and be caring. The real Wesley was always shining through, rosy shafts of light, like a treasure chest with its lid ajar.

“Listen very closely: I’ve listened to everything you just said and I love you. Do you hear me? I’ve heard all of it, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to love you. You don’t have to hide anything from me, because I love all of it, every little bit. You have to let me love it all, okay? I love you. Say it.”

I think—although I cannot be sure—that he might be crying.

“I love you.”

The airport blurs into another realm, lights, sounds, and people fading out. My heart is back in Falling Stars. “No, you goofball. Say that you are loved.”

“You love me.”

“Yes. I knew who you were when I fell in love with you, Wesley Koehler. I fell in love with you just the way you are. Now say it again.”

“You love me.”

“You bet I