21 | lunation
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LUNATION
( — the period of time from one new moon to the next. )
☾ ⋆*・゚:⋆*・゚:⠀ *⋆.*:・゚ .: ⋆*・゚: .⋆
"WE, WE, WE, WE—I HAD NO IDEA LINCOLN SPOKE FRENCH," Kelsey comments, twisting her hair into a side-braid, letting it fall over her left shoulder as her expert fingers twirl strands of her dark mane. Michaela, standing in front of her closet while trying to choose something to wear, lets out a genuine laugh since what seemed like an eternity—it sure felt like it to her.
"He knows a word or two, but he's not fluent in the slightest," she replies, pulling yet another cashmere sweater out of the closet and carefully setting it over her bed, next to the three other sweaters she had picked moments before. Kelsey wrinkles her nose at her choice of clothing, and, for a split moment, Michaela's cheeks burn with embarrassment, worrying she'll overdress. "That was funny, though. Where have you been hiding all these dad jokes?"
"I stole them all from my dad. It's nice to know they're still recognizable as such, which means he has taught me really well." Kelsey throws her a triumphant grin, which Michaela can't help but return, even though she doesn't really feel that happy tonight, as it's borderline impossible to be in a bad mood around this girl, like what happens when Jillian is around.
Nevertheless, it's still a bit strange to have her here, as Michaela can count on one hand the number of times Kelsey has stepped foot inside her apartment, but it's pleasant. She has always been a breath of fresh air, even inside the office, and Michaela is just thankful Kelsey manages to remain cheerful in the middle of all the toxicity they're all constantly drowning in.
Michaela doesn't know why she's as nervous as she currently is, as this isn't something new and she has seen Lincoln play at that exact bar countless times before—except they were in a relationship back then and whatever they are right now can't possibly count as one.
They're avoiding each other, as if there was anything to be afraid of, when everything is already so familiar. She knows what he can do, much like he knows how far she can go, but they're still not willing to be around each other and behave like regular people for more than fifteen minutes, which means this night has everything to turn into a disaster if they don't get over themselves.
This isn't even about her. It's about him and his passion for music, that was there even before he met her, and she doesn't have the right to potentially ruin things for him once again. Even if the break-up was good for him work-wise, Michaela still knows it destroyed him as much as it destroyed her. Though both of them excelled at their jobs, as they were pouring their heart and soul into what they did because they no longer had each other, deep down, they were miserable.
They weren't healing—past tense. The problem is Michaela has had more than enough of that, now that it has been over two years since that day and she has gone through so many therapy sessions she has no idea why she still attends them, but she wants to move on . . . not necessarily from him. From the break-up, yes, at the very least, but letting Lincoln go doesn't really sound like a plausible choice anymore.
What else is there for them to talk about, though? His dead grandmother, who might have been Satan himself in disguise, and how her words destroyed whatever faith Michaela still had in their future together?
"Which skirt and sweater combination should I wear?" Michaela eventually questions, feeling like the room had been silent for too long. It's not like it was bothering her—it was quite the opposite, actually—but Kelsey is known for easily reading into other people's silent periods, reminding Michaela of her father's interns from law school. "Black and gray, pink and gray or black and blue?"
"Pink and gray," Kelsey suggests, finally setting down Lincoln's note, and Michaela wishes she had hidden her copy of 4W's first draft a little bit better, as it's simply chilling over her bedside table, next to her framed photograph of Brie Larson. The photo is there so Brie is the first person Michaela sees when she wakes up in the morning and the last one she looks at before going to sleep. "It brings out your eyes."
"My eyes," Michaela sighs, putting on the gray sweater over a white cotton tank-top and smoothing it down. Her pink skirt used to be tight around her hips and waist, but now she's forced to secure it with a thin belt to prevent it from sliding down, which is something she's certain Kelsey notices. She purses her lips together as Michaela rotates the belt around her waist, but still says nothing. "Heels?"
"Ankle boots with heels. Show off those legs." Michaela chuckles, supporting herself on the closet's door to put on a pair of black ankle boots, glad she has already taken care of her hair and makeup, as those are the tasks that take most of their time and Kelsey hates being late to anything—if Michaela had left those things for last, they'd certainly show up late at the concert.
She can tell Kelsey is already getting nervous about it when they leave Michaela's apartment at eight-thirty. Even if there's still half an hour to go before it officially begins—and nothing ever begins when it's supposed to at that place, with Michaela knowing it like the back of her hand—this is still New York City, she still lives in Manhattan, and the traffic is still terrible, even if they take a cab.
Michaela doesn't want her car in the middle of all the mess, so that's exactly what they do. Kelsey constantly checks the watch on her wrist, with Michaela thinking it's a little too passive-aggressive, as she didn't take that long while getting ready, but still decides to keep her mouth shut to avoid screwing things up for the millionth time. Even if she's leaving UD in a matter of days, weeks, or months, she wants to leave on good terms with everyone she gets along with, even if it involves sacrificing her own comfort.
They're the last to arrive. Obviously. They run inside the bar when it's already five past nine, but they're still setting up the stage of what once was a karaoke bar. All that remained from those times was the stage itself and the round tables in front of it, but the machine and the projector are long gone—not that Michaela, the most tone-deaf person she knows, was too bothered to find out about it.
Roya, with a notebook set in front of her, is the first to spot them and raises a hand above her head to wave at them and show them there are two empty seats at their table. It's not the closest one to the stage by any means, but there aren't any other tables on its way there, meaning they get a clear view.
Michaela grits her teeth, sincerely wishing they didn't do this because of her.
Still, the place is pretty packed, and Michaela hopes there won't be any screaming or squealing. It has been a pretty long week and all she wants to do is rest—she's even willing to not workout during the weekend just so she can sleep in—meaning any unnecessarily loud sounds won't do anything to help ease her throbbing headache.
When Lincoln walks past their table, she fears she might die or pass out. Somehow, he finds a way of ignoring the way her cheeks could potentially burn this place down to a crisp and slides a tiny black box across the table without uttering a single word. When she asks him what the hell this is all about, he gives her a playful shrug and quickens his pace as he walks towards the stage, with his guitar's strap swung over his shoulder.
She regrets opening it as soon as she does it, but, fortunately, she has the decency to open the damn box over her lap, hidden from the people sitting next to her—even Lennox and Ginny, sitting directly to her left and right, respectively, don't see it.
The diamond ring glistens under the colored lights above her head and it's almost blinding. She remembers exactly how it felt to have it on her ring finger, even if most people didn't know what it meant, even if people just thought it looked pretty. She doesn't know why he has given it back to her, as it's clearly not a proposal, but maybe he had no use for it—then why does he think she does?
"Sorry I'm late," Lincoln begins, occupying his seat on the stage, but Michaela can't bear to look at him for more than five seconds. The ring feels heavy on her hands, even inside such a delicate box, and she wonders if the people around her can hear the incessant thudding of her heartbeat. "You know how traffic works in this city and I drove all the way here from Brooklyn. Anyway"—he runs a hand through his hair, with his guitar set over his leg—"there are a lot more people here than I thought there would be."
"Shut up and play," Lennox retorts, and Lincoln lets out a nervous laugh. Michaela closes the box and stuffs it inside her purse.
Thus, Lincoln plays, and they listen. Michaela wants to pay attention to his voice and to the melody his fingers and the chords of his guitar create, but, instead, she stares at him—she looks at that rebel strand of dark hair that has freed itself from his bun, dancing in front of his eyes whenever he moves his head, and at his eyes whenever they manage to find hers.
Electricity shoots up her spine whenever that happens, and she clenches her fists over her thighs. She knows she's bound to start crying eventually, as his voice, even if it's not as firm as it used to be and is a lot raspier, still takes her back to their college years, when they barely had a single care in the world, when everything was so much simpler.
She knows she's the reason he sings a cover of Drops of Jupiter. She knows their break-up is the reason he covers Lady Gaga's Million Reasons. Everyone in the room knows it, much like they know this is him baring himself to all of them, possibly to the world, considering how many of these people are filming the small concert, and, even if they're not alone in the room, it still feels awfully intimate.
Michaela only notices she's crying when Ginny slides a hand towards her to squeeze hers. She lets out a tiny sob once she leans forward, setting her elbow over the table and covering her face with her free hand, and, even if she's mortified by thinking about all these people seeing her like this, she can't bring herself to stop.
And, God damn it, this hurts.
It's why he gave her the ring, as them being apart is so much more painful than letting them be together after all they've been through; though they clearly know things were messy and toxic when they ended, they also know how it all has changed since that moment. He left the city, possibly even the country, to take care of himself and distance himself from everything that threatened to destroy him, and Michaela sincerely hopes he has learned how to deal with it all.
Michaela, after all those therapy sessions, knows she's a lot stronger than the ghost she was two years ago. She's smarter, harder, and stronger, meaning she's not stupid enough to think things remained stagnated since the last time they locked eyes with one another.
When she drops her hand, barely managing to look back at Lincoln with the tears clouding her eyes, she knows what she wants. She wants happiness—the same kind of happiness she sees in Ginny's eyes when she glances at Roya when she thinks the latter isn't looking, the same happiness she sees when her parents are together, laughing about something she doesn't understand.
Lincoln has always been the one for her—especially after all their missteps.
They both had a million reasons to walk away, she thinks, and that's exactly why he chose that song, changing the male pronouns to female ones—it's not something he used to do, as he always kept the lyrics exactly as they were, regardless of whether the song was meant to be sang to a woman or to a man. He changed them to sing to her and to some other celebrity who caught his eye in Europe or wherever the hell he was.
It's her—she's the good reason why.
When the concert ends, Michaela knows she doesn't have enough time and that both of them are waiting for the exact same thing. She told him once in her freshman year, after drinking an entire bottle of rosé by herself, lying on his bed, with an arm dangling limply from the edge. Though she felt like dying after having thrown up twice and he didn't look that much better himself, slumped on the couch while Quentin snored a few feet away from them on his own bed, she managed to get past that.
She found him in the middle of the darkness and rolled around to face him, her fingers grasping the air around him. "You know I'd wait for you, right? If you ever went away."
"If I went where?" he questioned, in a slurred voice, and she sighed when her hand finally found his hair. "I'm not going anywhere. All I want is my bed, so scoot."
She chuckled, scooting closer to the wall, and thinking about what the hell she was going to tell Jillian when she showed up at their dorm room in the morning. "I don't know. Anywhere. Like, if you ever go to Australia and I stay, I'll wait. If you dump me, I'll wait."
Lincoln, sliding under the sheets and sliding an arm around her, huffed. "You know I couldn't do that to you. I'd want you to live your life."
"Still." She closed her eyes, tangling her legs with his and feeling his warm breath fan her face. "We'd find each other again eventually."
It's why she finds him outside, already standing by his Jeep. He's stunned when she steps out of the bar, livid, fingers tightly clenched around her purse's strap, but doesn't move. He waits, just like she'd do the same, and she wishes her mouth wasn't as dry as a desert.
"I see you decided to pull a Sam Smith on me," she begins, feeling like slapping herself, because who in the world still says stuff like that? "Even if people would have given me hell if I pulled a Taylor Swift on you."
The corners of his lips twist and he fixes the lapels of his leather jacket. "You'd kick them down anyway." Michaela thinks she tries to smile. "But I wasn't trying to call you out. Not every song on that setlist was about you."
"So you're admitting some of them were?"
He nods. "Of course. I wasn't hiding it."
She takes a deep breath.
The excuse she gives him as to why she really, really could use a ride back to his apartment, not to hers, is so flat she doesn't even believe it, being certain he feels the same way, but, for the sake of both her sanity and his, he still opens the door on the passenger's side. She doesn't have anything she wants to pick up from the apartment, like she claimed to, and most certainly can afford an Uber to go home from there—it's something they both know, but they also don't mention the holes in it.
The hallways are empty when they arrive. Brooklyn is rarely ever this quiet, especially on a Friday night, and it's not that late, but Michaela is thankful they get to have some privacy when they've had enough exposure to last them both for a lifetime.
"I'm sorry if I left you uncomfortable," Lincoln begins, once they step out of the elevator. Though the air inside is warm, Michaela's hands are gelid. "That really wasn't what I wanted to do."
"You've written a book about me and our relationship," she replies, trying to keep a casual tone. "I think we've already gotten past the discomfort stage."
"Right." He exhales, rubbing his palms against his jeans. The guitar stayed in the trunk of his Jeep and it's only now that Michaela realizes it, finally noticing how even taller he looks when it's not weighing down on him. "Listen, Mickey, I—I don't know if I can keep doing this. Going in circles with you, I mean. It feels like we take two steps forward and then start walking backwards again, and it's . . . I don't know. Exhausting." He stops by his door. "I just need to know what we are or what you want us to be, because I've always been pretty honest about it." Lincoln gulps. "All I want is to hear it from you."
"Lincoln"—she timidly looks up—"you know things are complicated."
"But we've never not been complicated, have we?"
Inhaling, Michaela steps forward, with a hand on the back of his head, and stands on her toes to let her lips meet. He's stunned at first, but he's quick to hold her waist to pull her even closer, even if that makes him stumble backwards and bang his shoulder blades against the door. Her hands slowly make their way down to his shoulders, feeling the conflict wandering inside his head, as he doesn't want to keep his own hands away from her, but he also needs to find his keys, with them being too exposed, even if there's no one else in the hallway.
When they stagger inside the apartment, with Michaela closing the front door with her foot, they realize they don't need light. Instead, they trip over the furniture and the rugs because, on the rare occasions their lips are apart, they feel like they're running out of oxygen and time—as if something could ever pull them away from each other at any given moment.
Michaela, on the other hand, feels like those two years of separation meant absolutely nothing—they were important for their personal growth, but now, with them panting, heartbeats racing, and clumsy hands not knowing where they should be, nothing matters except the two of them.
"Stay," Lincoln whispers, when her back hits the bed, and she raises a hand to brush his hair away from his face. "Please."
"I'll stay," she whispers back, sliding an arm around his neck to pull him down once more.
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