9. Take a self defense class (Done.)
To: Danny
Class just ended. I'm six blocks away.
Headed to your place now.
May 27, 7:32 p.m.
Home was not an option. There was an excess of adrenaline coursing through her body and she felt far too empowered to waste her energy in the solitude of her apartment. Mindy shoved her phone to the bottom of her tote bag as she quickened her pace. She drained her water bottle in a vain attempt to cure her dry mouth, then tossed the empty bottle into the nearest trash can. Energized and only a tiny bit more hydrated than before, she counted the remaining blocks in excitement. Five more to go!
The past six weeks around Danny felt like a strange blur that was occasionally interrupted by a few lucid moments of flirtation or vigorous sex. In the beginning, their meetings were fairly straightforward. Mindy would stop by his apartment after a surgery or a particularly rough day at the practice, strictly looking for release. Foreplay was neither expected nor necessary. There were no romantic declarations and the cuddling was minimal. For once, Mindy was fine with the abruptness of all of it. In fact, she delighted in it, finally feeling like a modern Manhattanite who could compartmentalize sex from relationships with the same ease as tying her Fat Steps. She and Danny could have their fun while navigating the other more conventional areas of their friendship. No harm done.
Lately, however, it was getting harder to leave him right away. They'd finish and she'd find herself lingering rather than searching for her clothes - not necessarily needing to touch in a specific way, but not wanting the break their moment of togetherness quite so quickly. Danny never seemed in a hurry for her to leave, offering her free reign over his television or asking for her preferences in takeout. Even though there were never any concrete parameters placed around this new arrangement of theirs, the post-sex bonding felt like they were weirdly crossing that line between sexual magnetism and something more rooted in a quaint shade of romance. She liked it a lot, admittedly, but she feared it more.
Their meeting the previous Friday was the most perplexing. Their coupling wasn't nearly as frantic, both taking more time to simply enjoy each other. Afterwards, the exhaustion that Mindy would typically battle during her commute home overwhelmed her, causing her to burrow herself further into his bed. Almost automatically, Danny scooted behind her, draped an arm over her midsection and buried his nose into her hair. It felt dangerous to be cocooned in this way, but the thought of leaving made her sadder than she'd anticipated. His subconscious grip of her the following morning nearly broke her resolve. She used the weekend to recollect and remind herself of her original objective. As great as their time together was, she was apprehensive about diving back into dating. There was a moment when she considered talking to him about it, but their respective schedules kept them apart since that night. Probably for the best, she concluded to herself.
So this time was going to be different. She was going to strip down, rock his world until the headboard shattered, then go about her night at her own residence. This, she concluded, was how it needed to be for now, just until she could trust herself more.
Once inside his building Mindy pounded on the door with underestimated strength, surprised by the sound of the door rattling within its frame. She felt a little hypocritical, knowing that such a knock on her own door would have annoyed her greatly, but the need for him to answer as soon as possible overshadowed all reason and fairness. Her pulse sped up at the sound of the deadbolt clicking. As soon as the door opened to showcase a weary-looking Danny, Mindy dropped her bag and literally pounced. With her legs secured around his waist, she kissed him briefly, yet thoroughly, before trailing kisses from his jaw to his ear.
"Mindy, woah, hey Min," Danny blurted as he tried to pry her legs off of him.
"Danny, that class was so incredible," Mindy groaned, ignoring his protests and continuing to plant rapid-fire kisses all over his face. "I know how to legally break a guy's nose now. It's such a goddamn turn-on."
"Mindy," Danny repeated more forcefully. "Stop, we should -"
"I feel so badass right now!" She continued to kiss his face while simultaneously tugging her shirt free. "I demand to be on top this time. Don't refuse me. I can break your nose -"
"MINDY!" he shouted in frustration. When she finally stopped chattering, he sighed. Calmly, he continued. "I'm sorry, just...we need to talk before we do anything else, okay? So let's just..." He successfully unwrapped her legs from around his body and settled her down onto the floor with ease. "Can we just talk for a minute?"
Dumbstruck, Mindy gave a slight nod before adjusting her shirt. Now, as she got a good look of him, she noticed the beginnings of dark circles under his eyes. She couldn't remember a time when he'd ever looked quite this tired, not even during their residency days. Focusing on his hands, Mindy noticed that they were trembling faintly. She was beginning to worry.
With a shaky breath, he finally said. "Mindy, I've been having a harder and harder time with this...this thing we've been doing since Staten," he confessed, his tone strained. The possibility of him not wanting to continue hooking up never occurred to her. It felt like a sharp punch to the gut.
"Do you want to stop sleeping together?" she asked. She loathed how small her voice sounded.
"I don't!" Danny answered quickly. His eyes closed for a second, searching for a way to better explain himself. "I mean, I really want for us to continue whatever this is, but not under the guise of friendship. Mindy, who are we fooling here?"
The silence that followed felt thick beyond comfort. Completely blindsided, the adrenaline previously running through her quickly turned into nervous energy. As her mind reeled, he continued.
"This," he gestured back and forth between them with a lazy wave of his hand, "hasn't felt platonic for a long time, and I'm talking long before we started sleeping together. Min, I don't let my other friends in the way I let you in. I feel more invested in your happiness than anyone else's, even my own sometimes. I..." His eyes fell to the ground and his hands rested on his hips. "I think about you all the time and I miss you when you're not here. Do you wanna know what I caught myself doing two weeks ago after you left? I was sniffing the pillow like a deranged moron because it still smelled like your shampoo. I don't do moony shit like that, okay? But instead of checking myself - instead of getting embarrassed by it like I should have - I just wanted you more. Mindy, I want you, and not just for a night here and there. I want more."
Mindy was stunned. This was not anything close to what she expected to happen between them. Now that she thought about it, she wasn't quite sure what she expected from this, in the end. It's possible that she went into it assuming that things would either flourish on their own sometime down the line or fizzle out with little to no discussion. This admission was something she hadn't prepared herself for. And while it wasn't entirely unwelcomed, it certainly didn't feel like the time to act on it.
"Danny," she said breathlessly. "This is...I don't know..."
"You can't tell me that you didn't see this coming."
"I didn't!" she insisted. "I just assumed...Danny, this can't happen right now -"
"Well, I'm so sorry that this is coming as an inconvenience for you," Danny interjected, his tone laced with irritation, "but it's no picnic for me, either. You've been my best friend for so long now and who knows, maybe I've always felt something for you, but it seems way too big to just sweep under the rug. And I can't pretend that having you here for a moment and us having sex - sex on a level that I haven't experience in long time, mind you - only to watch you leave doesn't affect me, okay? I've kept quiet about it because I know you said you weren't ready for anything serious, but at some point...I've gotta be honest about what I want out of this, too."
Mindy wanted to run her fingers through her hair, but it was tied back in a loose braid. She let her hands run down her cheeks and then dragged them towards the back of her neck. Not knowing whether to sit, remain standing, or run out of the apartment made her fidgety. Though she knew that she had to say something, she struggled to figure out what that something was. "Look, it's not that I don't feel things, too. I do, Danny! No man in my life - aside from, like, family - has ever come close to meaning as much to me as you do! I'm just…you know what I'm going through right now, Danny! This is so crazy for you to spring this on me and just expect me to give all of myself to you – "
"Woah, I wouldn't call a month and a half 'springing' anything. And I never asked you to 'give all of yourself' to me, so relax. I'm not trying to hold you hostage and make you cook barefoot in my kitchen until you beget my sons, alright? You know that it's possible to be in a healthy relationship and still have time to yourself to go to your pottery classes or whatever else you have on that list of yours."
Mindy could feel herself growing hotter with anger. " You know that's not what it's about! Don't you dare trivialize what I'm doing to better myself!"
" Stop it! I'm not trivializing anything!" Danny shouted. "But you're using it as an excuse to run away! You seem to think that being with someone is synonymous with surrendering your independence or your identity and it's not; not with me, at least! It just seems like I'm being penalized for your shitty definition of dating when maybe that's what needs to change, not your hobbies!"
"Oh please, Danny!" she hissed, taking a small step forward. No matter how much of what he said might have rang true, the idea of him being the victim somehow offended her. "Maybe my perception of relationships is a little flawed, but you are hardly getting penalized here! We have had an enviable amount of sex in the past six weeks! Spectacular sex, might I add…none of which you've turned down nor have been denied. So don't make it seem like you're getting nothing out of this."
Danny's jaw tensed up and his eyes narrowed, a look of his that generally preceded a serious argument.
"So is that what you want, Mindy?" he asked in an eerily even tone. "You want me to just…what, fuck you silly then send you on your merry little way? Is that it?"
Mindy's mouth fell open in stunned outrage. "Jesus, you pig! Do you have to be so crass?!"
"I don't know, I think it's pretty crass to assume that all I want or need from you is sex!" Danny fought back loudly. "And pretty damn offensive! I go out of my way every day to show you that I care deeply about you, so for you to think all I want from you is a roll in the sack is pretty fucked up, don't you think?"
"God, I don't know what tell you!" Mindy yelled, throwing her hands in the air. "I know how incredible you've been and I appreciate everything you've done so much, but I can't help it if I'm a little confused right now! You don't get to snap your fingers and demand that I feel a certain way, Danny. For once, I don't want to rush into anything without...knowing. You forget that you agreed to this. I didn't force my idea on you. Jesus, I just...thought I was simplifying things for the time being! What do you want from me?!"
"I just want you to fucking stay!" Danny was shouting almost at the top of his lungs. "Stop running! I want something solid, Mindy! I don't want to just have sex with you and continue the rest of my day like it didn't happen! I want to…take you out! Go to a movie, cook dinner together…I want to wake up to you and not a pillow that kind-of-sort-of smells like you. I want to watch those weird MTV documentaries that you like so much with your feet in my lap. I don't have to be in your personal space all the time if there are days when you're craving distance, but I don't mind at all having you in mine. I'd prefer it, even. I just…I hate having this question mark hanging over our friendship that makes it difficult to define what we are. I just don't get what's so complicated about you being my best friend who also happens to be my girlfriend."
His voice had lowered almost to a pained whisper by the end of his speech. Mindy simply stood there, silent and swallowing desperately. She had no idea what to say or how to feel. Even after all the time they had spent together recently, something about actually hearing Danny wish for a serious relationship sounded like something out of an alternate universe. This, she recalled, was the man that resisted her friendship less than two years ago. He would jokingly call her dates and boyfriends "poor saps" and "victims." Even as their friendship became stronger, the idea of him ever wanting to develop their relationship into something deeper seemed other-worldly.
Mindy would never deny the prominent part of her that wanted this from him, the part of her that always existed deep inside. The timing, however, felt so completely off. She didn't want him like this, in the midst of them fighting and her still so unsure.
"I'm…I…" she stuttered. She gasped a noise that sounded like a cross between a laugh and a sob. "This is really insane to me right now. I don't know what to say or what to do. Danny…I know that I want this eventually – "
"Eventually?" Danny interrupted with a look of vitriol.
"There's just still a lot that I have to work out! Please don't be upset with me! It's not you at all; I just don't know what's best just yet."
Rolling his eyes, Danny repeated plainly. "You just don't know what's best. Still."
Mindy crossed her arms over her chest and averted her eyes as she began to feel that self-doubt she thought she had rid herself of. "You know I've made a lot of bad decisions in the past. You've been there for a lot of them. I do want you, okay? I'd never deny that. I'm still having trouble figuring out if what I want is the same as what's good for me."
She meant to continue, but the open-mouthed expression of incredulity on Danny's face stopped her mid-explanation. "Okay, so you're saying that you're trying to decide between whether I'm what you want and whether I'm good for you? You honestly don't believe that I could be both?"
"Danny, listen to me!"
"No, I think I'm done listening," he fired back with a sense of finality. "We're adults here, Mindy. You know me better than anybody else, so you know whether or not it's a good idea to be with me. There's no need to soften the blow, like you pity me or something pathetic like that."
Mindy felt her handle on the discussion slip, and she began to panic. "I don't pity you, Dan-"
"I can't make you want something that you don't want," he continued firmly. "And I'm not going to beg you to be with me if that's not what you want."
"Danny, now you're not listening to me! I never said-"
"You know, this is my fault." He sounded defeated. "Kissing you like that...hooking up even after you said..." He trailed off and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let's just forget about it, Mindy."
As uncertain as she was, she knew that this wasn't what she wanted at all. Her heart plummeted at the sight of him both physically and literally pulling away from her. She rushed forward and placed her hands on his chest, looking up at him with pleading eyes.
"I don't want to forget about it! That's not what I want at all! Look, I know things are a mess right now. Let's just...let's relax, watch a movie, and just hang out, okay? No hooking up, just two friends spending time with each other. We can revisit this when we're calmer..."
Danny reached up and grabbed her wrists in order to gently pry her hands off of him. "Mindy, I'm tired. I just want to go to bed and forget this day ever happened." He let go of her hands and started walking backwards. Mindy's eyes welled up at the look of utter hurt on his face.
"Danny," she croaked.
"I'll see you tomorrow." With that, he turned around, entered his bedroom and shut the door. Mindy remained rooted where she stood, hoping that he would return to her, even if it was just to yell some more. The silence made the room appear so much colder. The sight of his bedroom light disappearing from the bottom crack of the door seemed like the end of so much more than the argument. Amongst all the chaos in her life, her friendship with Danny was one of the only things that felt like a constant. Now she felt stripped of even that.
Devastated, Mindy quickly spun on her heels and grabbed her tote, bolting out of the door before Danny could hear her cry.
