Page 48 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

J o nk o ping

The next morning I wake up alone and it takes my mind a minute to piece together where I am and what happened last night.

Blade kissed me. Not my mouth—but in a way I actually enjoyed, without laughing at me or making me feel insecure or strange.

He likes me .

This is all moving too fast. I’m starting to believe that maybe there is a planet where I can breathe and exist and love,

but then I think that astronauts receive years of training before they throw themselves out there, and I have only briefly

known this man.

I am sipping my cold milk when Blade comes in, a paper bag with baked goods in his hand. I move my mouth into a smile. He

sits down next to me on the fold-out-sofa bed I haven’t put back yet. He hands me something fluffy and sugary and still warm.

‘Good morning,’ he says softly.

‘Good morning,’ I reply with a hoarse voice. I worry my panic and want and confusion all show plainly on my face. But all

I see is a fondness in his gaze, as if I’m the only person he wants to see.

‘I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable last night, if the tears were because of me. Let me know if there’s anything you need me to do. Anything at all.’

‘I don’t know what to do with what I’m feeling,’ I admit in a burst of words.

‘If it’s any consolation, neither do I.’ He leans in, then hesitates for a moment, but finally kisses the top of my head.

I think that maybe I’ve started to change. I no longer identify as a grass flower but something else. I brush the hair off

my face and look up at him. There’s something he has to understand.

‘I’m currently a peace lily, Spathiphyllum . They’re lush and green and lively-looking. But God forbid if you forget to water them. Unlike many other plants that just

sit there without making noise and then suddenly die on you, the peace lily wilts like it has lost its soul, all within a

single day. You give it some love and it perks right up. Like nothing ever happened. Then once in a while when it’s feeling

super grateful it grants you a single gorgeous flower.’

He laughs.

I press on. ‘What I mean is this: I’m not an easy woman. I may look it. I’m all quiet and compromising. But when you really

get to know me, I’m not like that, not really. I have needs that I don’t even know how to meet myself.’

‘Not understanding what you need doesn’t disqualify you from having people try to give you what you need.’

‘I mean, yes, maybe? But I can only go so far away from what I need. I want to compromise, to meet in the middle more, but I can’t.

’ The not kissing. Touching the topsoil of houseplants when I’m in someone’s home.

Moving while I talk. The fact I wipe surfaces with two different types of antibacterial spray because they both are said to kill 99 per cent of bacteria, so if I use two, one of them will surely kill the 1 per cent the second one doesn’t and vice versa.

These things are difficult for some people to understand, let alone live with.

‘I’ve spent my life compromising. Isn’t that what life and love is? It doesn’t have to be a fifty-fifty thing all the time,

does it? Right now my mum and I have a zero-one hundred balance. It’s like the disposable-income split, exactly like that.

Give me ten per cent, Sophia, and I’ll give you 90.’

‘What if I don’t know what I can give? Or even what I need in return?’ Because it’s the truth. I’ve been raised to be like

everyone else, to hide everything that’s me. I grew up and continued the masking. I’ve tried to be every sort of person there

is, and not one of them has worked. Not even my own family can figure me out. And now I’m trying to figure out what part of

invented, made-up me this man likes, because if I don’t know that, then how can I continue to be what he wants?

‘Here’s what I think we should do, just for now. You go to work, I will go and do my stuff. We both come home this evening.

Then we repeat again tomorrow. Because remember what you told me about being ready? We are never ready for the day.’

I nod. That makes sense.

I lean into him and let myself be held—I’ve never had anyone to lean into before.