Page 126 of Fade into You

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Happy New Year, Jessa,” Mom chimes in.

“Happy New Year to you both. See you in the next millennium.”

I close the flip phone and look at the clock face on the front. 11:53. Almost midnight. I’m sure Bird will spend the moment with her dad. I don’t blame her for it, but it is a lonely way to ring in the New Year. Cheerful conversation escapes from within the house, muffled out in the yard, all those people just like me, but happy, proud. I smile to myself, feeling that little bird of hope deep inside sing just a tiny bit.

The cold in the air finally breaks and a light flurry of snow starts up. It catches in the streetlights, white flecks in thegolden glow, magical almost. For a second I would like to be at a crossroads in a magical land. For a second it feels like Iamat a crossroads in a magical land. But this is my life, and I am at an actual crossroads, and I think I made the right turn this time.

I pull out my Discman and the new earbuds Dad gave me for the holidays. Inside the player is my newest mix. MyI Love Youmix, just for Bird. I cue it up, the very first song. But before it spins, the lamplight is blocked and I’m looking up at the best part of this past year and the next. Bird.

She hits pause on the player. It’s sexy, the confidence and ease in the motion. I pull out my earbuds.

“I thought you were gonna be with your dad.”

“I think he understands the importance of the New Year’s kiss. After all, what we’re doing at midnight tonight is a sign of what we’ll be doing for the next year.”

“Ooh, superstition. I wouldn’t have pegged you for that. Are there resolutions, too?”

She sits down beside me, interlaces her fingers through mine, leans her body against my side, her head on my shoulder. “Spend more time with you doing anything but fighting?”

“Wow, you have the same exact resolution as me,” I joke, looking out at the snow coming down thicker, fluffier, adding a beautiful shine to the night.

“So,” I say, and lean my head against hers. “Ready for the end of the world?”

I turn my phone toward her. 11:59. Sixty seconds left.

“I talked to my parents,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“They’re finally doing the right thing. And I got myself okayed for therapy.”

She squeezes my hand. “I’m proud of you.”

And she is, and I’m so fucking proud she’s proud of me. Something in my chest, in the place where the black hole lives, turns the other way, growing and expanding with warmth, happiness, potential. It feels like I have light in me and it’s opening out to the world and I learned how with her, somehow I learned how to love myself more from loving her.

Muffled chanting comes from all directions, counting down from ten. At eight, Bird says quickly, “One more resolution?”

Seven.

“What?”

Six.

“When we go back home, I want us to be together. Out and together,” she says, talking fast, trying to fit every last word in. “Because you set me on fire—every part of me—and I can’t keep hiding that, Jessa.”

“Okay,” I answer, not only because I want the same thing but because she has set me on fire too. Every part of me.

And then we whisper along with them: “Three, two, one.”

2000

BIRD

It’s after midnight. The snowkeeps falling, no screams come from inside the brownstone, no sudden planes dropping from the sky. In the distance, the city’s fireworks display kicks off in blossoms of gunpowder color over the harbor, illuminating the skyline.

We turn to face each other and I feel like I’m looking into her soul, like she’s looking right back into mine. She’s smiling as our lips press together, my tongue slipping in to taste hers, her teeth on my lower lip, the shivers passing between us more excitement than cold.