She seemed to consider my words carefully before saying, “That’s good to hear. But I’m not going to put up with any more of that stuff from either of you. I’m tired of it, Daya.”

Oh. My head dipped in a nod. My eyes found my feet. “Right. You shouldn’t.”

A beat.

“So?”

I glanced up. “So…?”

“Will I have to put up with any more of that stuff from you?”

“Uh… no? No, I mean. Definitely not.” I scrunched my nose at my clumsiness.

She studied my face. “Okay then.” Stepping a little closer, she raised her arms out in front of her. “Can you handle all this softness, or not?”

No sense ending this streak I was on. I walked into her hug while Woolf meowed her indignation from the floor.

We made small talk until the one customer left the store.

“It’s not too busy, if you want to keep talking here. Or we can talk after I’m done.” Shanti had me stacking books alongside her for a display at the front of the store.

“Um…” Opening up to Priam and Vicki had felt like a breaking open, like muscle tearing to grow stronger. Raw and painful but also fortifying. With Fee, I’d relayed so much of my story in one fell swoop that it was like I’d been assembling the pieces to keep them all together. To lay them out and observe them as a whole. Matter-of-fact.

Here, with Shanti, I felt like I was both trying to fix something and start over. I wanted her to know why I’d acted as I had, that I was sorry for taking my anger out on her and shutting her out, but I also wished I could just wipe the slate and move on. Coming clean about my feelings was new to me, after all, and it still felt foreign, blundering. All I really wanted to do was kiss her and have everything be the way it was that first night we spent together.

But I knew I had to do more than that. I started with the truth.

“This is really hard for me. I’m sorry it’s not going to be perfect.”

“I don’t care about perfect, Daya. I still wanted to kiss you after you wore a sweaty dinosaur suit, after all.”

I couldn’t stop one side of my mouth from curling upward. “True.” I felt like I was on the verge of tipping over. I turned to face her, a book in my hands just to feel something solid. I took a deep breath and began.