The party was maddening in its endless mediocrity. Like all the other parties this summer, it was filled with younger and cooler people than him, but unlike all the other nights of awkward small talk and thumbing through his phone, they somehow insisted on speaking to him. And so he tried to talk to them, ask them questions, and be there – when all he wanted to do was to find her.
But instead of listening to their words, he spent his time trying to decipher how they figured into April's life. The young hipster couple; the coworker; the utterly silent goth guy who stood in the shadows of the corner in a way that deeply unsettled Ben. Did she really like them, or were they just acquaintances? Did they even know her? Had they somehow, even if not by name, heard about him?
When he was in the middle of explaining the new way of formulating the city budget, he spotted April across the room. As he spoke, he focused on her, and as if by the mere fact of his thinking about her, she looked up to see him.
The couple kept asking him questions about whether he had met Mayor DeBlasio, and what Ben thought about stop and frisk. Occasionally he would catch April looking at him, and in a way imperceptible to anyone but her, he would shrug.
It went on like that, neither of them freed up long enough to find the other, to the point that it became a private, silent joke between them, told in knowing looks delivered across a noisy room.
He excused himself to the bathroom, and listening to the muffled sounds of the party behind the door, looked at a text from Ann.
I just asked out Chris. He said yes.
Ben couldn't help but grin. And then a second later:
If you think this isn't just for the summer, then go find her.
Love you.
Ben stuffed the phone in his pocket, and suddenly stood up straighter. This whole day, the whole party, he had only wanted to come to April to speak to her. He had no idea what he would say; he only that knew he had to see her. But now he had something to say to her, something that might turn this summer into something more.
When he exited and went back to the living room, he felt hand on his shoulder – a hand whose weight and warmth he's never felt – and found April next to him.
"Hey," he said, suddenly awkward and rigid and drymouthed. He tried to shake it off. "This is a nice party. I like the people, your friends."
"Yeah," April said, a little shyly, "they're cool I guess."
He thought maybe she didn't just mean them.
"Umm," she said, "can I talk to you? For a second?"
"Yeah, sure," Ben said, swallowing.
He followed April through the narrow side hallway and into the only unoccupied room in the party – the bathroom. There amongst the crowded tile and cheap shower curtain, April closed the door behind them.
He thought that now was the time. This was the moment.
"Sorry, I just needed to see you alone," she said.
Ben nodded too quickly, realizing all at once: he wasn't going to have to tell her. She was going to tell him.
"Umm, so," April began, tucking hair behind her ear as she avoided Ben's gaze, even in the tiny bathroom, "I just wanted to say thanks."
And in that second Ben wasn't thinking of everything he could finally say to her. He was thinking only of how final she made that sound. "For what?" Ben said.
"I've kind of gotten sick of the city. But this summer wasn't actually too bad. I mean, don't get me wrong, I really want to get out of here. And I need to see Natalie. But I thought I'd be glad to leave, and in a way I'm… not. So now I feel bad for leaving, and I guess I should, umm, thank you. For making it suck."
Ben knew then that his hope – that she would confess her feelings in a heartfelt monologue – wasn't going to happen. That wasn't her, at all. But he wanted it so badly he thought maybe it was. "Maybe New York isn't so bad," Ben said, shrugging like he didn't care, but trying to get her to agree. Trying to get her to feel the weight of the reason to stay. Ben wanted so badly to bring her close and to kiss her. To show her.
April looked at him, as if getting up her courage: "I mean, you're here. And I like thinking about how you're going to be here, just being you, making this place better when I'm gone."
Everything slowed down with those three words: When I'm gone.
The lingering remnants of Ben's hope disintegrated around those words, and once it was gone the floor felt as if it was about to fall from under him.
But then there was a pause, and somehow it didn't.
Because he finally saw what April was trying to say: This meant something, even though it was coming to a close. Her own life was full and complicated and so much of it wasn't about him. But this summer meant something to her.
Ben got – really got – what Ann had tried to help him see: It didn't have to last forever to be good.
April loved the summer for what it was, and didn't spend it wishing it was something else.
Ben stepped forward, and gently touched the side of her face, his thumb grazing the curve of her cheek. She looked up, into his eyes. And in that moment, Ben transformed his desire to kiss her lips into a singular need to embrace her, and so he crushed her into a hug, trying to press a part of her into him, something to carry with him from here.
"Thank you," he whispered against her ear. "I'm going to remember this summer."
"For a long time?" she pleaded quietly, clutching him tightly, resting her forehead against his collar bone.
"For the rest of my life," he said.
And as they disentangled, she looked at his lips a little too long, and then nervously tucked her arms back against her sides. He thought she might say something more, but instead she unlocked the door, the knob ratting with her shaking hands, and slipped out.
Ben stood in the bathroom, the look April gave him lingering amongst the muffled silence.
After a second he felt control return to his limbs, and stepped out of the bathroom as the music and the conversation and the crowded apartment hit him all at once.
It was impossible not to look at the people here and see the parts of April that he'd never know. But he was so, so grateful for the parts of her that he did know, and as he made his way through the couples talking he realized that he couldn't stop smiling.
He took a breath and headed for the door. On the way out, April's boyfriend caught his eye, and as they made eye contact Ben he nodded to him, suddenly filled with gratitude for anything he did to make April's life better. He found the door, jogged down the stairs, and rushed the few short blocks through Tribeca before he was on the Brooklyn Bridge.
He slowed down, trying to revel in this feeling, strolling by as the evening runners passed him and the setting sun glistened off of the East River. And as the day came to a close, he thought about how he'd get to have dinner with Ann and Chris. He thought about how this was the last day he'd ever see April Ludgate. But somehow he didn't think about the days after this one; he only thought about the nights he spent with her, the brief moments he would think of for weeks afterwards. He knew when this started that April would only spend the summer here. Because, in the end, it is what it is.
And what it is, is wonderful.
