“Oh my god,” he said, throwing up his arms and breaking my hold on him in the process. “Haven’t we been through this?! What do you want me to say to you? That you’re my sun, my moon, my starlit sky, and without you I dwell in darkness?”
That took a moment to register, especially since stars were kind of on topic, but then….
“Are you… are you quoting Willow to me right now?!”
Will rolled his eyes. “I mean!” And he gestured at the star, like he’d bought himself a certain amount of leeway with it. Which is probably exactly what he’d been trying to do. To, as usual, let a gesture stand in for having to say how he felt.
“Will,” I said, trying not to laugh at how upset he was. “Is it really so hard to say those things? I mean, not those things, obviously. But… is it really so hard for you to just tell me why you want me to stay with you?”
Will purposely ignored the last part of my comment. “You actually want someone to say shit to you just because it sounds like a line from some romance?”
“No! I think we’ve established that I don’t need you to be… is it Val Kilmer? Jesus, you know that movie’s from before I was even born, right? Anyway, I just… come on. Can’t you just tell me how you feel?”
Again, Will gestured wildly between himself and me and the paper I held clutched in my hand. He was angry for real now. I could tell the difference.
But this time I wasn’t backing down. It was too important. I wasn’t going to let there be one more thing between us that lingered unsaid, guessed at, talked around. So I just stood there and waited. Will glared at me, clearly expecting that I would fill the silence like I usually did, but I raised my eyebrows at him. Will’s elegant nostrils flared, and he narrowed his eyes at me.
“You know how I feel. I don’t believe for one second that you don’t!”
Now I was getting pissed too. Pissed that he would deny me a simple explanation, pissed that he thought I was still enough of a pushover to let him get away with it, and pissed that he’d clearly planned the planetarium trip as an emotional shortcut—using the romantic gestures I’d once wanted to soften me up so I wouldn’t force him to express the feelings behind them.
“Then why can’t you just say it, Will? Just tell me why, and don’t you dare say money!”
“Christ! Do you want me to arrange a fucking flash mob for you too?” Will spat. “Or—oh!—get us on the kiss cam at Madison Square Garden! How about that?”
His face was flushed as he leaned toward me, hands on his hips, and yelled.
“Exactly how much audience participation would you like there to be when I tell you that I fucking want you with me, huh? Tell me! Give me a number of exactly how many fucking people you need to witness me tell you that I want you to come live with me this summer! That I’ll miss the shit out of you if I don’t get to see you because you’re too busy working two jobs! That I want to come home from work in the evenings and get to fucking hang out with you and watch those—god damn—those stupid fucking DVD extras? Just a ballpark fucking figure of how many goddamn people you need to hear me tell you that I fucking love you, Leo!”
Will fell silent, fists clenched, as people around us stared. After a moment, he narrowed his eyes in mortification and looked up slowly, cheeks burning, at the crowd that had gathered around us. One man walking a dog started to clap. He was quickly joined by a lady jogging, and soon everyone who had overheard was clapping and whistling.
“Oh my fucking god,” Will whispered.
My heart was pounding, and my skin felt like it couldn’t contain me. My breath came fast and my head felt light, like at the very end of a long yoga class when every worry I’d carried in with me had been purged in sweat.
I looked at Will, his cheeks flushed, his hair mussed, and his expression mortified. And none of it mattered. Because there, in the twist of his mouth and the corners of his eyes, I saw it. The truth. That I was his sun and his moon and his damn starlit sky. That, without me, maybe he did dwell in a little bit more darkness than with me. He might never say it. But, goddamn, his version of it was way, way better.
Then I looked around us and started giggling.
“Um, maybe like… I’d say about fifteen would probably do it. No, definitely more like twenty.” I gave a little nod and grin at the people who had gathered around us.