Are You Okay?

When we walked into the party, we were holding hands. I knew my palms were sweaty and the skin around my knuckles was dry and cracking as it always was in the winter months, but he held tightly to me anyway, rubbing a thumb along my fingers to comfort me. I didn’t know anyone here and I always get nervous in new places.

“Aubrey! Kat!” Our names from the lips of someone I had never met. She must have known who I was from his social media. Aubrey smiled gracefully - that warm, welcoming smile that could disarm anyone in but a moment. 

“This is Sam,” he said, looking at me with that same smile before turning back to the friend who had greeted him. “Sam, this is Kat.”

That smile always made my heart skip a beat, no matter how many times I was leveled with it. It always made the world around me just… disappear. It could have just been the two of us in an empty room. But it wasn’t. We had just arrived at this New Year’s Eve party, and Sam was offering to take our coats. She had said something else to me, I was sure of it, but I couldn’t remember what it was.

“Oh, thanks,” I said, a little bit too late, as she carted our coats off to her bedroom. It was a nice apartment. More spacious than our own, a third floor apartment, and cleaner, too. It was hard to be motivated to keep things tidy with a messy roommate in a basement apartment. Her Christmas tree was still up, but I didn’t think twice about it; it was nice, it was cozy. It was one of those trees decorated in a specific colour scheme (red and gold) that I could never bring myself to do. Our ornaments never followed a theme, and we were always left with a chaotic tree. 

Fairy lights had been set up along the windows, over the shelves, and even along the kitchen island. It was beautiful, and it made the modern, minimalist decor seem more inviting. They were those warm white fairy lights, not overly bright, just emitting a warm, cozy sort of light. 

His hand on my shoulder - sturdy, comforting - pulled my attention away from the twinkling lights. Had I been staring at them for too long? I turned to face him with a smile. 

“You alright?” he asked, and I nodded. Yeah. I was okay. It was hard not to be okay with him by my side.

“Hey, you two don’t have a drink!” 

I wasn’t sure who had said it, but I was in no way opposed to a drink. Alcohol had always helped me come out of my shell a little bit, after all. 

“What are we drinking?” I asked, determined to speak on my own. 

“What do you want?” The man who had asked seemed friendly enough. He gestured at the island in the open kitchen, where there were plenty of open bottles. 

“Kat, this is Sam’s boyfriend, Mark,” Aubrey said, wrapping an arm around my waist. 

“Hi,” I said, grabbing a solo cup and pouring myself an admittedly generous portion of rum. I raised the bottle in Aubrey’s direction and he gave a nod, so I poured a second one for him, topping the cups off with a healthy amount of Diet Coke. 

It wasn’t a particularly big apartment, even if it was more spacious than our own, and there were plenty of people there. The alcohol wasn’t helping as much as I would have liked it to. It had always been hard for me, being in a room full of people I don’t know. I had been introduced to enough people that I couldn’t quite stick the names to the faces anymore, but they all seemed to remember my name. I felt bad, so I stuck to sipping my third rum and Diet Coke. 

It was easier for Aubrey but, then again, he knew these people. They were his friends. Or, if not his friends, they were at least acquaintances. He could move from group to group easily, chatting about whatever. I had always loved that about him. How easy it was for him to talk to people, to be fully involved with the conversation. Even with my own friends, I knew how easy it was for me to disappear from the conversation, to get distracted within my own head. To watch him, so engaged, was more fulfilling for me than participating in the conversation with strangers. I could feel my heart swelling with love for him just watching him make energetic hand gestures, watching him nod along as the other person spoke.

“How did you two meet?” 

It was Sam. I wasn’t sure where she had appeared from, but she had been flitting about the apartment, being a good host. Somehow I had ended up in a corner, leaning against the wall, with just my drink to keep me company. 

I gave Sam an appreciative smile. I didn’t mind being apart from the circles of conversation, but it was still nice to be checked up on. “Would you believe it was a dating app?” I asked, laughing lightly. It still felt absurd to me.

“Really?” she asked, eyes alight with curiosity. “Though I suppose that’s about the norm of it these days.”

“I’m from a small town about forty minutes from here originally - I don’t think we would have met any other way, honestly,” I admitted. “I was about to delete the app as a whole right before we met… I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Me too,” Sam agreed. “He seems really happy. I think you two are really good together.”

Sometimes I looked at him and I felt bewildered. How could someone like him fall in love with someone like me? How could I be so lucky that someone I loved so much felt equally about me? Every morning I woke up next to him I was grateful it hadn’t all been a dream. To hear that someone else thought it was a good match was more validating than it ought to have been, but I also knew how insecure my ex-boyfriend had made me.

“It means a lot to hear that,” I admitted. “Sometimes I wonder…”

“Well, you shouldn’t,” she said. “I know I just met you, but you seem like a good person, Kat. And Aubrey is wonderful. He’s happy, and he deserves to be happy. If you make him that happy, I think you make a good pair.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, but I could feel myself beginning to well up. Was I really that emotional, or were the holidays just getting to me?

“I’m glad he has friends like you,” I said at last, taking another drink.

It was growing later, and I could feel my social battery running low. I had never been very good at these things. Everyone was growing drunker, things were getting louder and rowdier. I didn’t recognise any of the songs on Sam’s playlist. I had lost sight of Aubrey when I went to get another drink. The rum was gone, so I was settling for Pink Whitney and Sprite. I’d have to remember to give myself insulin for that later. It wasn’t diet. At that moment, though, I didn’t really care.

How long until midnight now? My phone had died half an hour or so ago. I wasn’t sure exactly when, but I couldn’t really keep track of time anymore. I was getting itchy. I didn’t really want to be here anymore, in this crowded apartment with no one I knew. It wasn’t that they were making me feel unwelcome. It was exactly the opposite. Everyone had been so friendly, so happy to talk to me. I felt ungrateful, but I knew I needed to escape. Maybe just a little bit of air would help. Air and nicotine.

I slid open the door to the balcony, breathing in the frigid, December air. It was cold - I hadn’t put on my coat, I was just in my cardigan and dress, but it was refreshing. I set my drink on the little patio table and gripped the railing of the balcony, the cold of the metal seeming to radiate through my hands. 

It was a beautiful night. The sky was clear, and the moon was big and full. Breathe in, breathe out. Repeat. I closed my eyes and let the night wash over me before pulling a cigarette out of my pocket and lighting it with hands shaky from the cold. 

The nicotine eased my thoughts immediately, as it always did. It would be temporary, but the rush would let me float for a bit, get by for a bit longer. I could do that. I could do that for him.

The sounds of the party were muffled by the glass door behind me, but I could still feel the energy. I’d go in in a minute, when the cold became unbearable. Probably after I finished the cigarette.

That thought had just occurred to me as the door slid open again behind me, someone joining me under the moon.

“You okay?” Aubrey slipped an arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. He was warm, and he smelled nice. Like himself. 

“I’ll be okay,” I said, knowing full well that he wanted an honest answer from me. I turned to meet his eyes, and he was looking at me, concern on his face. “Really,” I said. “I just needed a moment, that’s all.”

“The ball’s about to drop,” he said, “do you want to come in and watch?”

“Can we stay out here?” I asked, leaning further into him, face resting against the soft fabric of his sweater - the one his ex had bought him, the one I always told him he looked so cute in. I think that was why he had decided to wear it that night. “I’d like to see the New Year in with just you, if it’s okay.”

“Of course,” he said with a smile. That same smile that he had looked at me with the day we had first met, when I had left work early just to be able to drive up and meet him after we had chatted nonstop that first day. That same smile that had made me feel so loved in those first few hours together.

“I love you, Aubrey,” I said, putting out my cigarette before wrapping my arms around him and pressing in close. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Kat,” he said, his voice soft, juxtaposed against the harshness of the cold around us.

The cheer rang out from inside. It was the New Year.

I placed a cold hand on his cheek, pushing upwards on my toes to reach him, kissing him. That was what you were supposed to do at midnight on New Year’s, wasn’t it? 

He returned the kiss, and once again there was no one else around us, everything, even the cold, disappearing to make way for the emotion within that kiss. 

This would be our first year together, and I knew, without a doubt, that it was going to be a good year.