The Cheat Sheet

His smile fades into something more serious, and as I tilt his face slightly to the side, he complies easily. His jaw is scratchy beneath my fingers. I tilt his head the opposite way, sizing him up from all angles. He indulges me like he has every day of our friendship. No squirming or averting his eyes. He lets me swim through those deep, dark irises, and just when I’m almost to the glowing answer at the end of the tunnel, his phone blares an alarm.

He expels a breath and drops his head into my neck, and I’m able to register his full glorious weight pressing down on me before he pushes off the couch to get his phone. The alarm is silenced. He looks at his phone like he’d enjoy crushing it in his palm and tossing the debris out the window. “That’s my alarm telling me it’s time to go to work.”

“Okay,” I say, my breathy voice barely punctuating the air. But seriously, how am I supposed to respond after a moment like the one we just shared? We’re on the brink of everything changing, but we’re not able to jump quite yet.

He and I stare at each other for one long moment, and then he groans and shakes his head. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Can we talk later? About…everything?”

I smile. “Yes.”

You know what’s strange about being a

normal person and not living inside a Netflix movie? After significant moments, you don’t get a scene jump. After your best friend whom you’ve been secretly pining after for years and years maybe-sort-of-did-he? admits to liking you too, you don’t get to flash forward.

Nope. My life goes on, painfully slow and full of uncertainty. I get to live in the grey for three whole days. You’d think with how often I wear grey, I’d like living in it, but NO! I don’t. I want to take everything grey I own and burn it in a pile in the parking lot. I’ll do some sort of ritual dance around it to cleanse myself of its hold on my life. I’ll lift signs and chant, “WHAT DO WE WANT? NO MORE GREY!”

So anyway, Tuesday was rough. After Nathan left for practice, I had to go teach my new toddler class with a banged-up knee and elbows that felt like someone was scraping shards of glass over them every time they bent. And guess what? You bend a lot in ballet. It’s practically all we do. Bend all over the place.

I taught the rest of my classes that day and then was hoping I’d get to see Nathan that evening, but he had an event at the children’s hospital and I wasn’t about to be that girl who asked him to skip making tiny children’s dreams come true, so we texted a little (texting inside the grey is super awkward, in case you were wondering), and then I went to bed early.

Wednesday, my scrapes were scabs and I could remove my bandages. Why am I telling you this piece of unimportant information? Because it was the only interesting thing that happened that day. Oh, and I found the match to my favorite leg warmers that I’d been looking for for months. They were somehow behind a jug of milk in my fridge. Woohoo for buried treasure!

Nathan’s practice ran long that day and then he had another meeting about another thing that I can’t keep up with. Life during the playoffs is incredibly hectic, and it seems like somehow, Nathan’s days are only getting MORE full. I’m not sure how it’s possible when they were already stuffed to the brim to begin with. I’m worried about him. When I ask if he’s tired or if he’s slept at all, he just brushes it off. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Right, sure, I’ll just turn that switch off then. Easy-peasy.

This morning (Thursday), I finally did a big thing! I submitted my application to The Good Factory. It’s done and out of my hands, and that thought is as thrilling as it is terrifying. I still find myself trying to temper my expectations, but for the most part, I’m forcing myself to hope. To think about how wonderful it will be if my studio is granted the space. I even went by the factory and toured it just so I could be able to more accurately dream of how I would arrange everything—which wall I would have the mirror installed on, which one would get the barre. I took pictures for Nathan of every nook and cranny in the place, and he dreamed with me through text. It has felt unbelievably freeing.

It’s 9:30 PM now, and just as I’m crawling into bed for the night, I see Nathan’s name lighting up my screen. I lunge across my bed to grab it so hard I pull a muscle and accidentally fly over the edge and crumple on the floor.

“HI! HEY! I’ve missed you!” I say, rubbing my sore neck and completely forgetting that I’m supposed to be playing it cool.

His low chuckle races across the line and tickles the little receptors in my ears. “Hi, I’ve missed you too,” he says, not bothering to play it cool either. Chill bumps flood my arms. I wish I were there with him right now more than anything.

I climb back up into my bed and scoot against my headboard, pressing my phone between my ear and shoulder so I can pull my comforter up. It’s worth noting that I have a disgustingly dreamy smile on my face as well. I’ve completely sunk into la-la land where everything is beautiful and sadness is only a mythical idea. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He sighs heavily, and somehow I know he’s also lying in his bed. I hear him take a deep breath and imagine his hand resting above his head. If I were there, I’d run my fingers across his scalp until his eyes shut and he groaned with delight.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so busy.” He doesn’t say this in the way most people do—where it’s sort of flippant and really you hear, I’m not actually sorry and I haven’t thought about you once before now. He says it in a pained and guttural way, and I know he means it. He’s spread thinner than butter on toast, and my worry for him ratchets up again.

“No, Nathan, it’s okay! I understand what the playoffs are like.”

“But I don’t want to be too busy for you.”

My fragile little paper airplane heart gets launched into the sky. “I’ll still be here when playoffs are done.”

I hear rustling on his end and imagine he’s turning over onto his side. “I know we need to talk about the other day on the couch…I haven’t meant to leave it this long. I’ve just barely had time to even look at my phone for the last few days. Do you want to talk about it now?”

Imagine the Michael Scott gif of him yelling NOOO. That’s what my brain says. In no way do I want to potentially have a DTR with my best friend over the phone when he’s half asleep. Or…oh gosh, even worse, what if he’s had time to think it over and realizes he never should have hinted at anything? He doesn’t like me like that. He doesn’t.

“Bree?” Nathan’s voice cuts into my terrified thoughts.

Let yourself hope.

“Sorry, I’m here. But no, I’d rather talk about it in person.”

“Good. That’s how I feel too. So we agree to stick a pin in it for now?”

“That sounds painful.”

“It will be for me.”