Chapter Thirty-three | Fade Into You
♫ Fade Into You by Mazzy Star

The best part of sleeping all day is sleeping all day.

The worst part of sleeping all day is being wide awake at night.

I feel this heavily as I lie across from Olivia. My eyes have even adjusted to the darkness in the room. I can make out the faint shapes of our wardrobes, our desks, and the door to the bathroom. There seems to be no way for me to fall asleep. When I tap on the screen of my phone, it's a little past midnight.

Impulsively, I push my bed sheets off of me and slip out of bed. I wear the first pair of sneakers I can find (my Converses, which don't fit my leg braces inside), and pull a sweatshirt over the plain, long-sleeved tee I usually sleep in. The air of the night is cold when I end up outside, shivering even underneath all of my layers, clutching my phone in one hand and having my other balled into an involuntary fist.

Sometimes, my nights look like this: standing on the sidewalk in the dark, staring into traffic and sticking to the wall of my dormitory. My Dad used to say a breath of fresh air helps you sleep afterwards. It was his excuse for dragging me outside to walk the dog late at night, when what I really wanted was to be unconscious in my bedroom.

Back then, I thought college would be liberating in the way a young, naïve high-schooler tends to. I thought I'd do whatever I wanted. I thought I'd never see nights as dark as those evenings were. I thought I'd at least take care of myself that way.

As it turns out, taking care of myself is hard and exhausting.

Someone catches my eye across the street. He walks slowly, keeping his eyes on the ground. Then, after a short moment of pausing in his step, he pulls out his phone, taps the screen a few times and holds it to his ear.

I pick up on the first ring. "Hey."

"Hi," Milo says, softly. He pulls at the string of his hoodie, unaware of my eyes on him. "Did I wake you?"

"No. I couldn't sleep."

"Me, neither." He starts to walk again. One slow foot after the other. "Maybe I should've texted you. Or, talked to you tomorrow. It's late."

"I'm glad you called me," I say, regretting the words the minute they escape my mouth.

"Yeah?"

"I was bored, anyway."

I can see a hint of a smile pass over his face, but it disappears just as quick. I consider his clothes, and the fact that he's all the way in Manhattan when he lives in Chelsea, the fatigue slowing his words and dragging at the tone of his voice.

"Do you want to do something?" I ask him.

"Now?"

"Yeah."

He rubs the back of his neck and switches his phone to his other hand. "I don't want to drag you out of bed," he says, finally.

"I'm already out of bed. Look across the street."

It takes a few seconds before he actually does. He furrows his eyebrows when he sees me, half disapproving and half surprised, then hangs up the phone and crosses the street to end up in front of me.

"First you neglect your need for food, now you keep yourself awake, too?" is the first thing he says to me.

"I'm rested. I slept all day."

"Why? Are you sick?" His frown deepens. He quickly scans me, from the top of my head to my toes, then returns his concerned eyes to mine.

I shake my head. "I was tired one day and it transitioned into a jet lag. What about you? Why aren't you asleep?"

Milo seems to hesitate. He averts his eyes now. "I guess I just... have a lot on my mind. It's nothing important."

I want to say something to contradict that. Something like, anything that keeps you awake at night is important enough to talk about, but he's too quick to smile again. A smile that doesn't quite do it like his other smiles, but a smile, nonetheless.

"Though, I'm starting to feel the fatigue now that I'm out," he says, swallowing. "I should go. Try to sleep, okay?"

"Okay," I say.

He nods in an affirming type of way. His smile broadens, but it isn't any more convincing. And he leaves it at that— a nod and a smile— as he turns and starts walking again, away from me.

"Wait."

He does wait, but he doesn't turn.

Only when I've taken a step, two steps, three steps towards him does he twist on his feet to face me. I only catch a glimpse of his face before I've thrown my arms around him.

We've been close like this once before, I realize as I embrace him tightly. He held me as I cried outside of a public bathroom, after I spilled hot chocolate all over the sidewalk and myself. But it's different. This time, the roles seem to be reversed.

For just a moment, I wonder what I'm doing. He might not be comfortable with this. I might smell bad, the fabric of my trusty old sweatshirt might feel uncomfortable, he might not want to be touched (he might not want to be touched by me).

But just as I think of letting go and stepping away, I can feel him enclose his arms around me, pressing me closer to him and burying his face in the crook of my neck. He lets his body sag, tentatively at first, then all at once.

"It's okay," I find myself saying in a voice that's softer than I've ever managed it, as if his embrace pulls the words out of me. "You can cry. It's okay."

Underneath my tensed hands, he starts to tremble. His shaky inhale hitches in his throat and comes out as a strangled sob.

Milo Macarevich is crying in my arms.

I hold him as long as he needs me to. I even close my own eyes, resting against him as he leans on me.

If it was anyone else, I'd be embarrassed to be doing this in the middle of the sidewalk. But it's him, and it's all I can think about. Milo Macarevich is crying in my arms. Why is Milo Macarevich crying in my arms?

A little while later, we've found a bench underneath a street light, somewhere around the corner of Washington Square. I've settled in close to him. Milo stares ahead blankly, his hands fidgeting nervously, his cheeks tainted pink. I try not to stare, and I don't just want to outright ask, but we both know that I'm waiting.

"Sorry about this," he says.

"Sorry about what?"

He gestures to himself.

"Don't," I say. "If this is something worth an apology, I owe you big time. Like that time I snotted all over your shirt."

"You don't owe me an apology," Milo says softly.

"Then you don't owe me an apology, either."

We lapse into another silence. He swallows a few times, adament on avoiding my curious eye.

I want to tell him it's okay to not want to talk about it. But in my experience, whenever someone says that, it feels like a door being shut on me. It's easier to start talking out of nowhere, than to have to admit that you want to talk about something before you do.

My theory seems to be true. Milo pulls at his collar, turns his head away from me, and says in the quietest voice, "I'm scared."

I open my mouth, but he continues. "Of Italy and stuff. Of my mother. And Maxwell."

"What's there to be scared of?"

Silence. Again.

"She might regret it. She might regret that it's me, and not him." Milo turns away from me even more. "If even the father I grew up with is disappointed with how I turned out, who's to say she won't be disappointed, too? Meeting her feels like a last chance. If she doesn't want me, it's final. What will I do, then?"

I look at my trembling hands. The way I open them with great difficulty, lift my arm and manage only a short, tentative touch against his face. He has no choice but to turn to me with his glistening eyes, that are restlessly darting around.

"I can't imagine a reality in which she would be disappointed with you, Milo," I tell him, retracting my hand. "If there's such a reality, it's not this one. There's nothing to be disappointed with."

He lets his head fall back slightly. "You know there is," he says.

But I shake mine. "There really isn't. I'm serious. In a few week's time, your mother will meet this tall, handsome, sensitive guy with the prettiest smile she has ever seen and the kindest heart she has ever known. Someone she can have meaningful conversations with, someone to get to know, someone to love more every day. I don't believe in the slightest that your mother cares more about your achievements than she cares about your heart."

He's staring at me.

Above us, the street light flickers, shifting around the shadows on his face.

In an instant, his skin colors from the soft glow of the flickering light to the reds, blues and greens of the Rockefeller Christmas tree. Then, I'm transported back to Thanksgiving, and the way the lights in the trees danced in his eyes, to Fresco's party and the pinks and purples the LEDs casted onto him, then the cold lights of the subway when he went to Brooklyn with me, all the way to that first moment I met him, his eyes peeking out from behind that tray of drinks, looking at me in a way no one's ever looked at me before, drenched in the golden sunlight that the dining hall windows allowed inside.

All versions of Milo sit in front of me, merged into one. I feel my own breath catch this time. Something constricts inside of my chest, where my heart beats heavily but flutters all the same.

Him staring at me makes me nervous, but I worry that if I look away, I will somehow break whatever this is. I like it when he looks at me like this.

"What?" I ask, cautiously. "Do I have something on my face?"

He inhales sharply, squinting his eyes as he looks away and clears his throat. "I was just thinking," he tells me.

My eyes linger on him. "I wasn't done talking, by the way," I say, but he keeps his eyes in front of him once again. "I meant to say that you have nothing to be afraid of. Even if something goes wrong, or Italy isn't what you want it to be, or you want to come back for any other reason... you'll still have me."

That catches his attention, but I'm the one to look away this time.

"And, you know, Liz and Kaitlyn and Atlas. You have some place to return to, I mean. Everyone wants you here."

A small smile grows on his lips, I can see it out of the corner of my eye. I wonder if I maybe said too much, or if I was too sentimental and cheesy. I might actually encourage him to leave, not because I'm so good at speeches, but because I'm so bad at them he wants to get as far away from me as possible.

"So, you want me to go?"

"I don't want you to go. But I want you to go. Because you want to go."

"Do I?" He jokes humorlessly.

"Yes." It is a resounding answer. "I haven't seen you want anything as much as you want this. The intensity of your want is probably exactly what makes it so scary, isn't it?"

"It's nearing one A.M.," he tells me. "Where do you pull this wisdom out of?"

I tap a finger against my temple. He can laugh at that.

"You're right," he then continues. "I do want it. And that's what makes it so terrifying."

"Is that fear the reason you were lurking around my building tonight?"

He nods slowly. "Among other things."

I think of asking him what other things, but he interrupts my thoughts once again.

"I don't know. I couldn't sleep. You were the person I wanted to see."

My muscles tighten and I can feel my heart beat in my throat. I look away from him and swallow. "You... You're lucky I was up," I stammer, hiding my hands by shoving them between the bench and my thighs.

"I don't think so. I mean, I cried, Nova. If we'd met in the morning, when my head was a bit clearer, it could've saved me the embarrassment."

"Hey," I say instinctively, turning back to him on a whim. "Crying is not something to be embarrassed about."

He grins.

I frown at him. "I mean it. I'd rather have you cry when I'm there than on your own."

"Wouldn't you rather not have me cry at all?" He teases.

"No. It's healthy to cry once in a while." I feel embarrassed about what I'm about to say next, but want to say it, anyway. "Just... if you cry, do it in front of me. And if you feel like crying and I'm not there, at least call me or something." The last words come out as a mumble as I turn my body away from him again, awkwardly pretending to see something extremely interesting in the distance.

"Hmm..." Milo hums. "Should I call you before, during or after?"

"Whatever."

I sneak a glance at him. He bites his lip, shaking his head. His shoulders are already buzzing with laughter.

I want a sinkhole to open up beneath me and swallow me whole.

"Okay. Well. Goodnight." I stand faster than the speed of light, ready to take off running if needed, but Milo's fast, too.

He releases his laughter. "Nova, I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you, I'm just glad."

"What?"

He puts his hands on his knees to push himself off of the bench and stands in front of me. "I'm glad to have you in my life. Obviously, Italy has been on my mind for ages, but you..."

I suck in a breath. It stings inside of my throat, but I hold it there.

"You are the first person I feel I'll miss. And the first person I feel might actually miss me back."

He manages to meet my eyes, and I don't manage to pull them away from his.

"Obviously," I say, stupidly.

His gaze softens, as if I've given him the answer he's been hoping for. "C'mon now," he says, resolutely. He buries his hands in the pockets of his coat and sticks out his elbow for me to take. "I'll walk you home, to sleep."

I don't want to keep him waiting. I take his arm. On the way back, I wonder if he can hear my heart beat as loudly as I feel it.

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