One for the Angels

Danny and I never spoke about the . . . whatever it was that happened between us a few days before. I simply came back the next morning, brandishing coffee and a sandwich, and he accepted it and we sat in silence together until I had to go back in.

I agonized over going out to see him. “I don’t know what happened,” I moaned. “Everything was good, and then it just got . . . weird.”

“The only way to fix this is to go out there and talk about it,” Hannah insisted. “How do you think I solve problems with my boyfriend?”

“You don’t even have a boyfriend.”

“Exactly. Because I hate talking about my feelings. But that doesn’t mean you should too. Now go.” Hannah all but shoved me out the door.

Danny was sitting there, as usual. He didn’t wear a watch, and as far as I could tell he didn’t have a phone, but how else would he know when my lunch break was? He was never there in the morning or when I left, and he didn’t even bring the sleeping bag anymore, but somehow he still knew.

I stumbled out there with the grilled cheese and white chocolate mocha I’d made for him, and he blinked up at me, his brown eyes a lot darker and sadder than they’d been in a long time. “Hi,” I said quietly. Hardly anyone else was around; it was freezing out.

“Hey,” he answered. “Those for me?”

“Yeah.” I sat down next to him and offered them. He accepted without a word. I wondered what possibly could’ve happened to him in twenty-four hours that had made him go from the sarcastic, silly boy to the one I’d first met, silent and shut-off.

“Are we gonna talk about it?” I said finally, watching him pull apart the sandwich so the cheese oozed out in long strings.

“I don’t wanna talk,” Danny said, not looking at me. He ate the grilled cheese fast, as usual, like he was afraid someone would swoop out of nowhere and take it from him. “Not about that, at least.” He took a sip of his coffee and made a noise of surprise. “This is good.”

I watched him take another sip, and then a thought burst into my head, standing bold-faced, all-caps, at least four inches tall inside my brain: I want to kiss you. I’d been pushing it further and further back each day, but now it was here, and I did want to. I wanted to kiss Danny so badly that each minute I wasn’t hurt.

I was so lost in my own train of thought that I didn’t even notice Danny’s hand inching towards mine until he finally reached out and took it. I jumped a little bit, before turning and looking at him, confused. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this.”

“Doing what?”

“This. The hot and the cold. You being so . . . this, one day and then . . . like that the next. I just wanna know what you’re feeling, who you are, but you don’t tell me. You don’t tell me anything. I don’t even know you, and I don’t think all the games of 20 Questions in the world could solve that.”

He stared at me for a long time before he took his hand away, slowly. “Okay,” was all he said. “If that’s how you feel.”

“I just ‒” Now that I’d said something, I wanted to take it back. “I just want to be close to you. If you’d just let me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said flatly. “Sorry it’s just how I am.”

“Danny.”

“You don’t want to be close to me,” he continued. “Trust me.” When I merely clenched my fists, he added in a much softer voice, “I really am sorry.”

We sat in silence again until he said, “You should go.”

“Yeah, maybe I will,” I snapped, just to have the last word. “Bye, Danny.”

“Bye, Juno.” I pushed off the ground and went back inside, but this time I didn’t look back.

“How’d it go?” Hannah asked. I didn’t answer.