▪️Saturday, February 20th, 2018▪️

▪️Chicago, IL▪️

Walking through the Academy is like entering a computer game that turned into real life. The surroundings are so familiar. The Benjamin Moore Balboa Mist color on the walls is the one we've picked together. The gray engineered wood floor in the hallway is the compromise instead of using the cheaper linoleum and refinishing the old oak floors that outlived their lifespan.

The frames on the wall are the modern black version Mike replaced the seventies aluminum ones with. But the photos inside are still from various decades. One is of Mike and Ben as teenagers. I touch the glass, wishing it were a digital picture like the ones I have of Mike on my phone, so I could zoom in and examine the details of his face.

"I'm less awkward now," says Mike.

He's right. Nothing about Mike I've known over the last three months is awkward. Even his hesitation is at worst cute and at best too-hot-to-handle. "Are there more of these?"

"Many more. Mom has a shelf full of albums of Louka and me. She'll be crying with happiness if you let her spend a day or two telling you the story behind each and every one of them."

His words hold so much future behind them. My sitting down with his mother is not an if but a when. And the surety of it doesn't make my skin crawl. Does not make me want to break out of the grasp of his hand and run. I hold on to him tighter. To the promise he's making me. To the life I want for us to go through together. "That'd be lovely. I hope there are lots of naked bottoms in there."

"Loads." Mike grins. The lines by the corners of his mouth are my favorite ones, formed by laughter and smiles. By joy. I imagine Mike at forty, at sixty, at eighty, with more of them. "Maybe a full frontal or two. You'll be happy."

I'm already happy. We need to talk, clear the air, and make sure what I shared through my music is what he understood. I don't want any miscommunication between us. I took down all the fences. There are no more doors to block him from knowing exactly what's going on and from us making plans. I'm excited to make plans with Mike. Whether they are about staring at the photos of his naked bottom with his mom or about what's next for each of us. I'm prepared.

Mike closes the door to his office, and I recognize the table he sent me the pictures of. It's the same one the previous owner used. Even though I was begging Mike to reconsider and buy a modern one to match the rest of the decor, this is one of the points he would not budge on.

The photos had to stay. The logo had to stay. The desk had to stay, even though it's wide and takes up a quarter of the room. The smell of fresh paint that followed me through the hallway is less potent here. The walls that used to be covered in the seventies shabby paneling are smooth and tinted with enough graying beige to leave plenty of white to make up for a single narrow and long window on top that doesn't let too much light in.

I've seen snippets of this place: the torn up version, the floorless version, the version where Mike and Ben were covered in white paint as they were painting the ceiling. This version is a surprise. The colors and materials came together into a calm and welcoming space I can see Mike spending his time in.

"I like it." I let my fingers touch everything as I walk past the shelves, the chair, the table. The couch that is long enough to accommodate Mike's height also folds out into a sleeper, in case he has to crash here.

I brush the raised stitches on the stripy decorative pillows I ordered, because Mike insisted couch pillows were too girly. I missed the touching part. My fingers will never regain the dexterity I've been so proud of in my teenage years, but they are still the part of my body I use the most. The pads of my fingers slide across the fabrics, the textures, the smoothness, and land on the knot of Mike's uniform that's holding his jacket closed. "You fit in here."

Mike draws me into his chest. "You fit in here."

The beats of his heart are familiar. They are the reason for some drum runs in my songs. I love listening to Mike's heart pump under my ear, my palm, my lips. "I like it here."

"I like having you here."

We are dancing around the conversation we both know we need to have, because being front to front with each other is a heady and powerful state neither of us wants to interrupt. Our bodies sing in recognition. The undercurrents of lust, the distracting desire to forgo the talking, and the blinding craving in Mike's eyes scramble my brain. My skin is a heat map that's red hot in every spot we touch. I love this, us, but I'm here for a purpose. "Are you mad?"

"Are you?"

"Yes," I say. "At myself. For not handling my shit better."

"Don't be. Not worth it. It's in the past." Mike moves away, and I grab tighter, not ready for our togetherness to end.

"Hey." He takes my chin into his hand and caresses the line of my jaw while angling my face up so I can see his. "What doesn't break us makes us stronger," Mike sings in an almost whisper. "You know?"

"Way to quote a song." I smile at his attempt to cheer me up, but I do want to hear his answer. "So you are not mad at me?"

"Truth?" His thumb continues up to my lip, under it. Back and forth.

I give him a slow blink of my yes, because I cannot open my mouth and interrupt the delicious pattern he's tracing on my skin.

"I was. At you. At myself. At life. But I also wasn't." He furrows his brows. "I'm not making much sense." Mike stops his light zigzags, and I press my face into his chest again. "I was trying so hard not to feel anything without you around. Even when I got mad, I chose to let it go, because I couldn't let you go. Do you understand?"

I nod into his chest. Because I do. I'm sure what I have to say to him doesn't make much sense either. "I've done that so many times. Maybe next time, just be mad. Let yourself feel the feelings. I promise you, locking the bad stuff into a room of horrors and pretending it doesn't exist is not the way to go. I've tried it. You witnessed the destruction it wrecked on me, on us."

Every misstep, angry or unsaid word rushes through my head. The urge to fix everything I messed up overwhelms me and revs up my heartbeat. Mike settles his fingers on the center of my back and resumes the zigzags he drew under my lip.

I rub his bicep hidden under the white cloth and let the magic of his touch calm me. I don't need lucky taxicabs, or lucky statues, when I have him. He's more reliable than any good-luck charm. He's my wish come true. The rush of adrenaline slows to a more manageable pace. That's what Mike and I need. A pace we agree on. Our journey might've started as presto, very fast and very furious. But today is where our actual story begins if we are to have one. And I want it at a bright and lively allegro.

Mike's large hand is too gentle, striking my shoulder blades in a steady rhythm my heart adopts. He is more important than any drugs, if only I can have him. I let go of the jittery uncertainty and sigh my worries into the room. Baby steps.

"How are you doing?" Mike's voice is quiet and low. Still a cello. The bow of his concern runs across the string that connects us and brings out his care.

"Truth?"

Mike kisses the top of my head. "Always."

"It's a progress. I'm progressing. Not a straight line up, but with the ups and downs and flat lines. But I'm trending up."

"Up is good."

"I'm at this new point where I can both look backward and forward. It's unsettling. Looking down and only focusing on the step I was on, got me to this place in my life. I'm grateful, but I need perspective now. My therapist has been helping me a lot. I've been recording the tidbits that run on a loop in my mind and the memories and the hopes for the future. I have a file full of audio recordings of me rambling about the stuff I've never even let myself think of before."

"Songs of Angie."

Close. Some of them became the song I poured myself into on the tiny stage in the corner of the academy. Most of them will merge with the new pieces I'll collect along the way and become the material used for the patchwork of words each new song demands. "Would you like to hear them?"

"I. . ." Mike squeezes his arm around me. I'm wedged in the vise between his sternum and biceps. Any leftover anxiety whooshes out of me. "You don't have to share that with me if you don't want to. It's private. I understand."

"I want to share it with you if you'd like to hear. Most of it is rough and rambling. Lots of it is about you."

"Yes."

His shaky consent is my call to action. I take my phone out of my pocket and, without separating myself from Mike, find the first recording and hit play. My voice always sounds so different on the recordings. Nothing like what I hear myself as in my head. I pick up the cracks and the pauses, the heavy breathing, and the tiny sobs. "One more?" I ask when the first one ends.

"Yes."

I hit play again. And again. And again. And I keep hitting play as we stand in Mike's office.

The sun that was still shining when we walked in transforms the sky behind the window into pinks and oranges. My legs are tired of standing. My heart is tired of waiting, restless to know what Mike thinks about me now. Have I soothed the hurt I inflicted on him by sharing my hurt? Or can the result of two hurts together only be a more giant, more severe wound that spreads across two people?

The last recording plays out. My hand trembles as I put the phone back into my pocket and ready my ears for the verdict.