Darcy wanted to respond to Danny’s theories about his new job, she really did, but her own words had temporarily ruined her ability to speak.
She wished that there was a way to take back her little fun fact, the casual dropping of the word intimacy after some of her dramatics of the past week landing awkwardly. The relationship between herself and Danny was platonic, obviously, but had she not just days prior indefinitely postponed their friendly mini golf prom in part because she had assumed he’d rather die than have any form of sexual intimacy with her?
She’d been able to rationalize the incident away, burying any complicated thoughts (as well as the memories surrounding the trauma she’d spilled to Danny that night) into her DO NOT OPEN mind box, but no time at all had passed and she’d potentially skirted a well established boundary yet again.
And why? She didn’t even…
But there were many forms of intimacy. You could be platonic friends with emotional intimacy.
Was that what she was feeling in the moment?
The tender gesture as a result of a gust of wind wasn’t necessarily surprising, but it was… confusing. It was a rare moment when Darcy didn’t know what was going on or how to proceed, but with very little warning her figurative vision had gone a little wonky. What she knew to be very clear lines were a little more blurry.
She had been in close proximity to Danny countless times before, so what was different? The fact that they were several feet in the air on a rickety carnival ride? Surrounded by stars and at some point maybe even fireworks? Was it… the eye contact? Had a short and sweet staring contest fostered maybe a little too much intimacy?
You really could never underestimate the tried and true results of a scientific study.
“I-” she started after a moment, losing the destination of the sentence before it could even really take off. Her voice had been barely a whisper anyway.
She let her eyes drop from Danny’s, but only for a moment. Like the death drop ride nearby, they’d only traveled a brief path down to his lips (why??) before they were back on his eyes.
The ride came to a screeching halt yet again, sending the small car they were in rocking and rolling and Darcy’s walls back up to where they should have been all along. The realistic place. Where looking into someone’s eyes and brushing hair out of their face didn’t mean anything. Because it was a very friendly gesture.
Whatever temporary spell had been cast over her (she was certain it was yet another misinterpretation) was broken.
“I don’t think that we really made eye contact while I was tutoring you,” she finally managed to say. Her eyes were no longer able to land on Danny at all. “If anything, you should have been making intense eye contact with the books.”
Danny could feel when all of the air was sucked out of the little space they shared. It was like something had shifted, something they had been working very hard to fight, to ignore, to push aside and figure out later. Whenever later eventually came.
If later eventually ever came.
But this song and dance of ignoring his feelings and trying to jump over conversational land mines was getting incredibly exhausting and it was starting to feel like just for a moment, him and Darcy might actually be in sync again. After years of orbiting each other, they had never managed to create that perfect alignment. It was better this way, he rationalized it to himself, so much easier.
He could always tell her tomorrow.
With Dani missing though, he was starting to wonder if there would be a tomorrow some days. Would Darcy still be with him a year, five years, ten years from now if he didn’t start walking towards his end goal? Was he comfortable with the idea of simply giving up and letting whatever happen be the end of it all?
She was looking at his lips. He could feel it. He knew it. Because this was not Danny’s first time with having a girl look at him like this, his first time with a girl wanting him in the way he thought that maybe Darcy might want him. He wondered, quietly, if maybe this was just what happened during moments like this. The air was thick with expected romance and their skin was touching and their eyes were locked and maybe that’s what the universe said was supposed to happen.
So why couldn’t he do it?
“Darcy, I-” Danny thought for a moment that he might kiss her. Might lean down and finally finish this business he’d started maybe five years ago.
The universe, it seemed, had other plans. The ride was lurching them forward as the ferris wheel’s sadist worker began loading and unloading people. It was just a more stops before they were forced to get off too.
And what then? Surely not this again.
“I don’t think we really made eye contact while I was tutoring you.”
Danny pulled back, looking out the window in a desperate attempt to avoid the fact that he thought he might cry. Maybe he really was imagining it all in his head. It wouldn’t be the first time he created an elaborate fantasy of something better than his life.
“Yeah, well, I probably should have paid attention more to chemistry than what color your eyes were.”
He tried his best not to sound too bitter.
The ride goes back around and they were able to get off at last. As long as Danny lived he never wanted to step foot in one of those things again. But he tried to smile, tried to keep it all together -- just like he always did.
“So about you winning me a stuffed animal from a rigged machine with your science skills?”