Chapter Text
All her life, Sydney Aisha Adamu has believed that to be in love, you just need to bother to know someone—and in turn, you need to be known. She didn’t think that should be as hard as it has been.
The philosophy was encouraged by a few things. Namely, various articles she would read from the New York Times on the CTA to high school, or in between classes at the CIA. Namely, her parents' love story.
Where most little girls found solace in their mother’s fictional princesses coincidentally bearing their name or in their dads reading from a worn copy of Goodnight Moon, Sydney found hers in yanking the pant legs of her parents and begging for stories of every date the two had been on. Why would she want fictional fairytales when she had one she could touch? The story went like this:
…
Emmanuel Adamu’s preferred third place was Skylark. It was a dive bar that only accepted cash, caught between his boss’s place and his shitty apartment, right in the heart of Pilsen. He saved his visits for Tuesdays and Thursdays, usually, when the jobs would be calmer; less burst pipes and more leaky sinks. He went for the first time with a coworker, a loudmouthed man named Chris who ordered a scotch neat. From then on, though, he’d go alone, order one bottle of Blue Moon with the perfectly cut orange slices shoved in the neck of it, drink less than half the beer and ride the El home with nothing more than a light buzz. He never did care for alcohol. He always left an obnoxiously large tip—leaving crumbled dollars he couldn’t really spare under his empty glass because—
Colette Brathwaite, a deeply impatient woman with a Cajun accent and silver tongue, was Skylark’s most beautiful bartender. She served one Emmanuel Adamu with a hesitant hand. He was far too nice, and far too quiet. He never finished his drink, after all, and if she didn’t only serve him beer and he didn’t leave a 55% tip, she would’ve been insulted.
He asked her on a Tuesday, once she finished her shift, one hand on the front door, if she would sit down and have a drink with him. Colette really looked at him, scanned his body like its stance might contain secrets or answers or something else that could tell her what to do. It must’ve, somehow—and she’d tell you it was in his crooked smile—because she agreed. Her coworker sized her up, asked her if she wanted her usual. Yes, please, she had said, put it on his tab, she added, jutting her chin to Emmanuel.
Where were you headed? He asked. If you asked Colette, he was shaking. Nothing about it was casual. She knew what was happening in that moment.
To a bar.
You’re in a bar. He said, glancing around like it may not be true. The other bartender placed a small bottle with a red and white label in front of Colette.
Yeah, my bar. I was going to be served. It’s kinda the trick of the trade, man. You end your shift at your bar and go to a different bar to unwind. Maybe get a midnight slice of pizza from one of the joints open real late. Then you go home, go to bed, wake up, and do it all over again.
And you like that?
It’s a way of life. It’s a community. She shrugged. The best part of my day is going to go see my friend a twenty-minute walk from here and letting her make me an old fashioned. Bartenders like to take care of people, even if we know we’re serving them poison.
This makes Emmanuel sad, even if he doesn’t have the guts to tell Colette as much. Instead, he responds the best way he can:
You could do so much more, he had said. You’re so smart, how did you end up here?
I am smart, she replied. And I chose to be here. There’s something in me that made it so I’m not meant to be in an office every morning or teaching kids how to read or anything like that, and I recognized that and decided that I loved this. I loved talking to people and serving people and making drinks and doing a hundred jobs at once with the title of one no one has any respect for. I made a lot of conscious choices to get here. We need these jobs and I am tired of people acting like those who actually perform them are any less worthy than they are. This is a community. You can’t deny that. It’s shitty sometimes, sure. I’ll get carpal tunnel by the time I’m forty, and will never get to retire, but I do love it. For me, it’s the thing.
Emmanuel, God bless his soul, never really got it—which is what makes his daughter, twenty-something years later, going and telling him a lot of the same things all the more painful. But he did listen. He was good at that.
You’re right. I’m sorry. He shook his head. And you’re very beautiful, he added as an afterthought, so genuine.
Colette’s serious expression evaporated then. And she just laughed. Probably harder than she had in a very long time, because this awkward man who never drank but was often at her bar, was so clearly nervous, so clearly slightly scared of her. Which made her all the more charmed.
Thank you, she said, and she let him have that one. She dropped the subject, which, ultimately, maybe was stupid, but it was okay, in the end. Because it led to a lot of love. On all ends.
Can I take you on another date? Emmanuel asked.
Another? She asked, appalled. This wasn’t a date. If you want to date me, you have to ask properly.
May I take you on a date? He tried again.
Colette grinned, and she had a chip on her left front tooth. Yeah, she laughed, I’d love to.
Emmanuel was giddy. Then he paused, and very earnestly, quietly, simply asked: what is your name?
Ten months and one flat tire later, they were married.
…
Sydney was a simple girl, if her father could go to a bar twice a week and waste money on a beer he never drank just to see her mother, she didn’t see why she should expect anything less for herself.
Emmanuel told her as much. Reminded her day after day, apropos of nothing, how she deserved someone who loved her as much as he loved her mom. A picture of their courthouse wedding still hung in the foyer of the apartment, beside a school portrait of seven-year-old Syd, and sometimes, she would catch her dad glancing at it on his way out, wistful, melancholy, and deeply, deeply in love.
Sydney believed, simply, that this was the sort of love she should get, the sort of love she should give. The Brathwaite-Adamu union occurred, after all, simply because Emmanuel had seen Colette, with her red lacquered nails and matching lips, and decided she was someone he wanted to know. In return, Colette let herself be known, from day zero; laying the groundwork to do the same for Emmanuel. Sydney didn’t think it was asking for a lot; to be known, to know.
Her first and only boyfriend, Cooper Leonardo—CIA classmate, five-foot-nine and a half, man bun wearer, Libra—thought her standards were hilariously low and told her as much every time it surfaced in conversation.
Cooper never loved Sydney, and Sydney never loved Cooper. He was brash and often condescending. He didn't listen to Sydney, surely didn’t try to understand her either. He didn’t leave her heart broken, but mottled. She still went on dates and accepted numbers from strangers at parties and had her fair share of one night stands that were lackluster at best, but she never let it amount to much more. No, not because of Cooper, but because of the larger party he represented. All these men who didn’t seem to see Sydney at all.
As she aged, her idealism for romance turned into a disdain for it. Her parents’ story was not something to aspire to, not anymore. It was merely some real-life fairytale—something she would never get.
Somewhere in her twenties, something shifted. She got tired. She was stretched thin. She felt everywhere, from her libido to her patience; something was different. And she knew, inexplicably, it would never be the same.
Love, on some level, became something inaccessible—at least to her.
Sydney built up her walls expertly. Love was inaccessible, both by her own doing and by the people around her. She lived in cobble stone. She left a doorway for her dad, and one in the ceiling for her mom, but really, that was it. Once she hit twenty-five, she didn’t think she could find more people she loved, that loved her in return.
Enter Carmen Anthony Berzatto.
She thinks if she had to place it, she started to realize her feelings for Carmy surpassed that of their friendly partnership in January. There was a windchill well below zero, and he silently shoved a pack of Hot Hands into her lap before she left The Bear for her trek to the El station.
Carmy ran warm. She saw him strip himself of his woolen jacket and brave Midwestern cold with bare arms and miraculously be without any goosebumps more times than she could count. He surely didn’t need the fuzzy packets of warmth, but he had them. Undoubtedly, he had them for her. Sydney would complain about her constant cold fingers and dry knuckles often, she shouldn’t have been surprised Carmy wasn’t just listening but cataloging the facts about her into some place in his brain. And yet—
It made her ache, to be thought of like that.
Sydney sat on the train and transferred from the Brown Line in a haze. She looked at her and Carmy’s text chain from the day before. If anything, it was proof they were becoming less and less formal with one another—as if any semblance of that hadn’t vanished the minute he hurled a Sharpie at her and she resorted to calling him ‘Carm’.
Carmy: do u believe in El or L
Syd: El is what makes sense to me. Ik the CTA doesn’t agree but… it’s ELEVATED railroads. not L-evated.
Carmy: I think our writers agree with you
Syd: Not Gwendolyn Brooks tho :(
Carmy: poets have less real estate to work with, she gets a pass
Syd: wbu?
Carmy: El too. But mainly bc L reminds me of NYC and that pisses me off. Can’t stand when ppl refer to it as the L Train and make it sound like it’s a line
Syd: LOLLL you would say this.
Carmy: …
Syd: dw. I agree
Syd: ;)
A white bubble and pink heart sat on top of the last message; Carmy’s reaction, and the extent of his tech knowledge. He came to her for simple iPhone problems like she was his own personal Geek Squad member more times than she could count. She stared at the useless, informal conversation and felt her heart flip. She thought of the dream she had a week ago where Carmy brought her back to his apartment and put his mouth and palms all over her. She thought of the Hot Hands, and of his hot hands.
Syd: thanks for the Hot Hands again btw.
The period seemed aggressive, but she sent it anyway. Carmy had his read receipts on like the old man he was, and he quickly revealed himself to be lurking on his messages.
Carmy: No problem. It was freezing today. I hope they helped.
Syd: They did
Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she sent a heart. She locked her phone and stared out the window of the compartment, watching the lights and buildings fly by. Her phone buzzed and she felt the El come to a halt and the tinny automated voice announced the stop, she froze.
The facts hit her like bullets. Carmy was hot. Sydney was cold. Sydney knew Carmy. Carmy knew Sydney. Therefore, this thing in her heart was something a lot more substantial than a simple crush.
…
The thing is, Carmy was always lingering. At the end of countless nights, they faced opposite lockers and talked. About service, about family, about food—which were all really about love. And he was always stalling—to the point where Syd though he was going to say something, ask something, do anything. But, in true Carmy fashion, he never did. He took his sweet time on nothing, picking nonexistent lint off his coat that isn’t warm enough for Chicago winter. He hummed in response to her words, mostly. Nodded, when they were facing each other. More recently, he talked about his niece and her baby habits. He looked as if maybe he was spending as much time getting REM sleep as he did listening to R.E.M. A feat which two years ago would've been impossible for him. Sydney treasured each sound that came out of his mouth.
On special nights, they waited for each other. He would come to her and watch her zip up her jacket. She would hook her arm with his and wordlessly, they would go.
Without fail, they found themselves at the same 24-hour diner, at a booth across from each other at midnight, splitting pancakes or hashbrowns or something else just slightly childish, only kind of ridiculous.
This time it was a Sunday and it was quiet—like the air knew the loneliness inherent to the day.
Nat told her Mikey died on a Sunday a few months before, whispered the fact, like there was something holy about it. Now she watches Carmy’s gold chain swing and wonders if it had a cross on it before. Before the end of Mikey, and therefore, before the beginning of her.
Carmy was tearing the wrapper of his straw into miniscule pieces when he spoke.
“What are you doing tomorrow? I was thinking about checking out this new cafe in Boystown, if you wanted to come.” Carmy asked, and it was a lot like pulling teeth, getting him to open himself to things like that.
Syd hesitated. Then said: “I have a date.”
“Can you cancel?” He said it slurred, soaked in honey, unclear. It reminded her of when the destination on the side of the bus was so long that the CTA left out some vowels. There was something missing there, but the point gets across regardless.
“No, Carm. Unlike you, I would like to have a life.”
He bristled, his mouth was slightly ajar like he wanted to argue, but stopped, already knowing it was a futile effort.
They ate their Belgium waffles, drowned in syrupy strawberries, and split the bill. The waitress, who they quickly recognized as Diana, wished them a good night and they waved in return.
Carmy was quiet as he drove her home using the old The Beef van because neither of them could justify purchasing a car of their own in a city full of public transportation. Syd thanked him when he pulled up in front of her dad’s brownstone, smiling at him. She turned to open the door and he grabbed her arm, his fingers clasped around its width. Then she waited, fearing whatever he was about to lay on her.
Sydney could see him hesitate. It was in the way his left eyebrow twitiched, how he licked his lips and bit into the bottom one. Nervously, her eyes flickered across his face, she even laughed.
“What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Just have a good night.”
“You too, Carm,” She smiled, and really exited the van this time.
Inside the apartment, she peered through the window to watch Carmy until he peeled out of the parking spot and became nothing but another faded fantasy.
It was a weird night. And if Sydney fell asleep with her hand still in her underwear and her bicep burning, that was nobody’s business but her own.
Monday had her looking like a fool. Emmanuel had heard about the date, and was making offhand comments about it—and about Andy—every chance he got. His humor was simple, and bless his heart for supporting everything Syd did, no matter how arbitrary it was, like going to a movie with a man she didn’t know anything about—besides the fact he was five-nine and wore glasses.
Nat was the one who set Syd up on the date, anyway. She thought it was a weird sort of thank you she decided to give her in return for buying baby Lenny Berzatto-Wangelin a predictably bear-themed onesie. Syd would guess it was merely Nat’s postpartum hormones that made her cry at the little brown piece of clothing, but the way she looked at her and thanked her made her think maybe, just maybe, it was something more. Pity, she would guess.
If Sydney hated one thing above all else, it was pity. And if going on some lousy AMC date with one of Pete’s younger coworkers got Natalie to stop looking at her like she was a wounded puppy, she would do it a hundred times over. She had a fear that everyone at the restaurant knew the way she was lusting after Carmy.
Tina would look at her sometimes, her eyes incredibly soft, usually after Carmy let a yell slip out of an argument, or when she would accidentally stare a little too long at the closed office door on bad days, a look that really made Sydney’s stomach turn.
Marcus knew, and Sydney knew that for certain. He had put the pieces together somewhere between her rejection and the penultimate mention of Claire.
“Let me know if you need me to kill that guy for you,” He had said as Sydney tried one of his new recipes, making her nearly choke on the almond matcha cake. That was that.
Richie thought they were fucking. He made that glaringly clear. He looked at them with a squinted gaze any time they were lingering around each other a little too long, getting in each other’s space a little too emphatically. Carmy denied his accusations with red cheeks and stutters, while Syd simply got her knife out and faked movement toward him. It worked every time.
Natalie, though, was more allusive. She had her fair share of questioning looks, thrown at both Carmy and Syd, depending on the day, on the circumstance, but didn’t say much. When Carmy gave her the Hot Hands, Nat watched like it was her favorite CW drama, eyes wide and grinning. All these actions, however, became all the more confusing when she insisted on setting Sydney up. Either way, she was thankful for the distraction from Carmy and his white t-shirts that had been plaguing her dreams three nights a week.
Which is how she ended up with a ridiculously overbuttered container of popcorn in her lap on a Monday night, watching an incredibly melodramatic film that could no doubt be dubbed as Oscar-bait beside a self-proclaimed cinephile with a handlebar moustache.
Two hours and three quarters of the bucket later, they were filtering out of the theater, Andy’s hand on the small of her back, guiding her as they weaved through the crowd. It made her feel sick.
“How’d you like it?” He asked as they walked to his car. It was an Infiniti, what Carmy liked to call the car of douchebags.
“It was alright. I liked it until the end. I’m not sure how I felt about the way they wrapped it up,” Sydney held out the bucket for Andy and he threw a few kernels into the back of his mouth. Sydney liked him fine, but she couldn’t stand that he chewed with his mouth open.
He began to go on some rant about cinema, and Scorsese, and his Bachelor’s degree in media studies, and Sydney tuned out after about a minute. Her phone buzzed and she pulled it out of her pocket, still holding the bucket out with her other hand.
Carmy: [1 attachment]
Carmy: douchebag
It was a picture, half blurry and at an odd angle, of Carmy’s left hand flipping off a black Infiniti double parked beside The Beef van. Sydney laughed out loud and tried not to think about the fact it was the first time she had done so the entire night. Before she could type out a response, another message popped up.
Carmy: I missed you today
Carmy: The food was okay. You would’ve liked the pasta
And with that, Syd, for the umpteenth time in her life, knew she was completely and utterly fucked.
But if Sydney were to name the initial domino in this perpetual fall, it would probably the the goddamn polaroid.
It’s of them at the holiday party, Frog-taped on the line in between Coach K and Mikey’s note. Sydney’s visibly drunk in it, mouth open in shock at whoever was taking the picture, Carmy beside her, leaning towards her like she was magnetic. His arm was around her waist and he was just barely smiling. His hand splayed across her hip. She wishes she could remember the feeling of it, remember what prompted the corner of his mouth to curve up, even infinitesimally. Nat’s karaoke and prosecco had gotten the best of her; left not even a memory to hold in her hand.
Somehow, putting it there, for everyone to see—for Sydney to see—makes it all the more personal. Carmy hates his apartment, it’s almost as if he couldn’t display it there because it was too precious for that barren landscape. Anything in The Bear, though, had to mean a lot to him. Sydney included, she supposes.
After the photo was taken, Sydney does have some semblance of a memory. She was wrapped in a jacket that wasn’t hers—maybe Marcus’s, maybe Carmy’s—and was shuffling her feet in the alley beside Carmy. He was the only one dead sober and wanted to smoke, something Syd apparently couldn’t let him do alone. She was tipsy, and when he pulled out his lighter she grabbed it from his hands, and he didn’t put up a fight.
She held out the flame like she knew what she was doing, and if she did it was thanks to birthday candles, not nicotine. He cupped his hand around the flame. His palm brushed her fingers and she felt hot for all new reasons.
Then she leaned into him, pressing her face into his neck and aligning her body with his. For the night she was taller, her red pumps gave her two inches on Carmy. He held his one arm out, away from Sydney, keeping the cigarette as far from her body as possible. His other arm hovered around her, delicately, hesitant to really touch her. She inhaled him deeply, pushed herself closer. She wanted to be as close to him as possible, wanted the smell of his clean sweat and smoke and lavender laundry detergent to consume her entirely. Sydney never felt that sort of obsession before.
Then, Carmy pulled away, albeit woefully. He looked at Sydney like it hurt, and shook his head.
“You’re drunk, Syd.”
Syd sighed and tried to return to the space between his neck and shoulder. “So?”
“So, you wouldn’t be doing this sober,” Carmy spoke slowly.
“You don’t know everything about me.”
“I know a lot about you. Since when do you drink gin of all things?”
“Always,” She lied and blew a raspberry at him, still incredibly close to his face. She could’ve counted the faded freckles on his nose if she were even a little bit more sober. “A bottle a day before my shift.”
Carmy bit back a smile, failing horribly, and it made Sydney giggle into his face, hot air against his cheek.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” She whispered, and that made Carmy frown.
“Like what?” He asked, grabbing her arm to keep her at least some distance away from his body.
Sydney just laughed, and moved away from him marginally, now standing side by side against The Bear’s brick walls, bumping shoulders. A beat passed.
“I thought that was love, for a long time.” Carmy blew out a plume of smoke and Sydney laughed, out of fear or shock, watching her warm breath form her own, smaller cloud.
“What?” She asked, worrying illogically that he had somehow unravelled the feelings she’d been harboring for him, probably from day one.
“Lighting another person’s cigarette.” He said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
She just stared at him, mouth gaping, his smoke seeping in through the seams of her teeth.
Carmy continued, shifting his eyes somewhere in the middle distance. “I remember lighting Donna’s cigarette for the first time. She talked me through it like it was my baby steps or something. Her hands were covered in yolk and flour and she was so grateful to me for those few seconds. I’d do it for Mikey, too. When he was on something that made his hands shake so badly he couldn’t get the spark. Being useful. Contributing to the same form of masochism you’re addicted to. I thought that was the epitome of love.”
Sydney just watched him take another long drag. He was flighty, and his eyes never found hers.
“Carm. Why are you telling me this?” She slurred her words and wrapped the jacket around herself even tighter. She wished, desperately, that she was sober.
“Because it’s easier to be vulnerable when I know you won’t remember it in the morning.” He glanced at her briefly, then fixed his eyes to the ground in front of him. He looked impossibly sad, with that thousand yard stare of his.
Carmy threw his cigarette onto the ground, then. Smashed it with the toe of his shoe. And before Sydney could respond, he held the back door open for her and held his hand out. Jerked his head toward the soft air conditioning and fuzzy light pouring out onto them in the darkness. The conversation was over.
She took his hand. And come morning, she remembered everything, said nothing.
When it came to love—when it came to Carmy—she so often said nothing at all.