Out. Hold for three seconds.
His lips move over hers, and I hear her sigh.
In. Oh, God. In. Please go in. Just another breath. Please.
In. Just fucking go in.
The ground begins to shake beneath my feet. It moves up to my heart. To my head.
She pulls away and buries her face in his neck, another shy laugh. It’s high-pitched. It’s lovely. It’s beautiful, like bells. I can see the flush in her cheeks.
Earthquake. No, please. Oh no. Oh. Oh. Please.
I can’t breathe. I can’t.
“Kid?” Stacey says, looking a bit startled. “We didn’t see you there.”
Dom’s head snaps up. He takes a quick step back. “Ty?” he asks, his voice low. His lips are swollen. He licks them as if chasing the taste of her.
“I didn’t…,” I say. “I didn’t mean….”
He takes a step toward me.
I take a step back.
“D-didn’t mean t-to interrupt,” I stammer out. “I j-just….”
I just came to tell you I love you. I just came to tell you that I’ll stay. I just came to—
The ground shifts again.
Stacey is embarrassed. I want to hate her. I should hate her. But I can’t. Not yet. Maybe later, but right now I can’t. She fades out, and it’s as if she disappears and he’s all I see.
Something flashes across his face, something dark that I can’t put a name to, and he takes another step toward me. And then another. And then another and I can’t move. I can’t move and he’s in front of me and he’s so big. He’s so big and he fills the world until everything else is gone—like it’s nothing more than a dream.
He’s almost to me and I don’t know what I’ll do when he reaches me. Just as a big hand of his, the same one that was in her hair, stretches out toward me, I snap my own hand up, smacking the present against his fingers.
“I just wanted to give you your present,” I say, not looking up at him. “It’s not much. It’s not really anything. You’ll probably hate it. I’m sorry. I can get you something else. If you don’t want it. It’s nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Ty,” he says, touching my fingers with his. “I’m sure it’s wonderful.”
Oh, how I quake. “Yeah,” I say.
“That’s so sweet,” Stacey says, a smile in her voice. She comes up on the other side of Dominic and puts a hand on his arm. He flinches, but she doesn’t notice. I do. “Why don’t you open it?”
“Maybe it should just be me and Ty—”
“No,” I say. “It’s c-cool. It’s f-f-fine.”
Claws at my throat. A vise around my heart. My breath sounds like it’s whistling up from my throat. Can’t they hear it? Can’t they hear everything?
He digs through the tape and it snaps. The paper crinkles, little blue snowmen because I couldn’t find any other wrapping paper. I should have looked harder. I should have done better.
It falls to the floor.
“Oh!” Stacey says, sounding delighted. “It’s a digital picture frame! I’ve always thought these things were so cool.” She’s trying. It sounds like she’s trying. Maybe too hard.
“You h-have to p-press the b-b-b”—breathe, goddamn you!—“the button.”