First Comes Love (17 page)

“This is intense,” I tell her, my breath still shaky.

“It’s a good way to spend the afternoon,” she says.

I nod enthusiastically, my eyes are still on hers, and all these feelings are spilling out of my mind and pouring through my veins. My body is shifting into pieces and it feels like my lungs are in my throat and my brain’s in my chest and my heart’s in my hands and my hands are on fire.

“It’s too much,” I finally say. I wave my hand over the open space between our bodies. “It’s too perfect.” She presses her hand down on the mattress.

“It’s all right,” she says. “I think it’s a little hard, personally.”

I roll my eyes. “Not the mattress. You and me. I feel like I’ve known you my whole my life. I mean, shouldn’t sex be a little more awkward than this?” I point out how sweaty and naked and perfectly at ease we are together.

She reminds me what a nervous wreck I was the first time. She says I looked ready to pee my pants, but it was adorable.

I narrow my eyes. “Weren’t you scared?” I ask. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “I always knew we’d be perfect.” As usual, her confidence baffles me. I trace the smooth ridge of her collarbone. I tell Dylan I’ve hooked up with other girls. I’ve never had sex with them, but it came close a few times. And they would get so shy. So self-conscious. It made me inhibited because we were always holding back. Giving just enough because we didn’t want to look slutty and taking just enough because we didn’t want to seem greedy. It’s like we were skating, moving too slow and stiffly, overly careful that we’d fall and make fools out of ourselves or, the worst fear of all, not live up to each other’s expectations. And I thought that was
normal.

But with Dylan, sex has been like every other part of our relationship. Intense and exhilarating and effortless.

Dylan runs her fingers through my hair.

“Life’s too short to be bashful,” she says. “We’re all just human and far from perfect, so why not enjoy it?”

“Not many people are that self-assured,” I remind her.

She shrugs and says who cares what other people think? If you’re lucky enough to fall in love with someone, then forget about your imperfections. Because in their eyes, you’re perfect. You won’t get anywhere in life until you let go of your stupid ego.

“What do you think about during sex?” I ask, because I’m curious.

She stares up at the ceiling and says Ashton Kutcher.

“What?” I say, and she rolls her eyes and lightly bats me on the head.

“I think about you, Gray,” she says. She thinks about how lucky she is to be with me and she just wants to savor every second of it, and I’m amazed because that’s exactly how I feel about her and maybe when you take yourself out of the equation and let yourself be there for someone else, you lose sight of your insecurities. I take a deep breath.

“Maybe you should come to New Mexico with me,” I hint for the first time.

Dylan looks back at me and there’s a weighted silence and a seriousness to her eyes that scares me, so I try to make light of it.

“We have a lot more practice days left on my training schedule,” I inform her.

She cracks a laugh and it hurts a little because even though I’m skipping around the real reason why I want her to come with me, I’m still serious.

“You don’t need any more practice,” she says. “You’re a natural.” Then her eyes turn serious and she stares at me. “How am I?” she asks, and her words surprise me. She’s never asked me a question like this before. She’s never once asked me if I thought she was pretty or smart or why I like her—things my past girlfriends would always bug me about. Dylan doesn’t need other people’s validation to know how amazing she is. But she looks curious now. I stare at her face, golden against the white sheets. Sex with her is numbing and intoxicating. Something like a narcotic mixed with a miracle. I tell her it’s indescribable.

She tells me to try.

I lean back on the bed and do my best to explain it.

“Sometimes it’s a rush, like skydiving, and other times it’s just a smooth ride, like floating in the middle of a calm lake. It’s like standing next to a hot fire that’s shooting sparks, or walking on the sun and then rolling in the snow. It’s like plate tectonics and hailstorms and lightning and earthquakes and hurricane-force winds all happening at once but then everything suddenly stops moving and your mind draws a blank and everything’s really peaceful. It’s like your mind explodes and all that’s left inside your body is heat.” I cut myself off because I’m rambling and I turn to look at her and she’s just staring at me with this surprised look on her face.

“What?” I ask.

She blinks at me. “You said you couldn’t write poetry,” she said. I smile. I just needed inspiration. I needed to start living again to find writing material.

She leans back on her arm.

“I can make you feel like that?” she asks, and I nod. She looks at me and congratulates me and I ask her for what.

“For finally letting down all your walls,” she says, and I smile and she’s right and all this sex talk has made me ready to go again.

Gray and I take Boba for a walk in the late afternoon
at the park with the fountain and the circular path. There’s plenty of shade available to keep Boba from going into cardiac arrest.

Gray tells me he’s already packing for Albuquerque. He says he called Brandon and he’s going to start practicing with his team tomorrow and every day before he leaves for school. He’s starting to look into fall classes. My heart is soaring for him. A few months ago his life was shattered glass. His future a cage. Today, it’s a clear blue sky. It’s a solid path set out before him as wide as the desert horizon. He’s finally stepping into a world that always felt out of reach. He deserves it more than anyone.

I tell him I’m so excited for him, and Gray turns to look at me and he broadens his shoulders and raises his chin.

“I want you to come with me,” he says. It’s not a question; it’s a statement, as if he has no doubt I’ll say yes. But instead of leaping at the offer, my body wants to sink. I have to make an effort to hold myself up.

I want to look away, but his eyes are fixed stubbornly on mine. This is it. We can’t tiptoe around the issue. We can’t make light of it anymore. There isn’t time. I’m leaving in two days.

I don’t answer him; I just keep walking. Stalling. I can sense him starting to panic. Silence, for me, is usually a bad sign.

“This isn’t a spontaneous idea,” he says. “I’ve thought about it every day since Coach Clark made me the offer.”

Gray maps out our future together. He tells me I can move with him next month, find a part-time job, work on my photography, maybe take a few classes.

I’m quiet and Gray thinks I’m considering the offer. He promises I’ll love Albuquerque. It’s in a canyon and it’s surrounded with stacks of red rocks, deserts, and mountains. It’s a photographer’s paradise. There are hiking trails everywhere.

“We can discover it together,” he says. I smile at him, but it’s forced. I feel it stop short of my eyes.

“We could get a puppy,” he says, just to entice me. He lists breeds. A Great Dane, a Weimaraner, a chocolate Lab, one of those goldendoodle things, he doesn’t care. His words make tears splinter the back of my eyes. The more he talks, the harder my chest aches, because I know I have to let him down.

“We could adopt Boba,” he says. “The world’s smelliest mammal. It would be my housewarming gift,” he offers. “Best of all,” he reminds me, “I’ll be there.”

For the first time in my life, I’m speechless. He’s offering me his future. But that’s the problem. It’s
his
life, it isn’t mine. I could never follow someone else’s path. Can’t he see that? Doesn’t he understand? I’ve been waiting seventeen years to finally strike out on my own.

When there’s more silence, Gray keeps rambling, because he’d rather talk than hear an answer he can’t accept. He lists the reasons why he wants me there, needs me there. He lists off the fun things we can do.

“Think of all the road trips we can take,” he says. “Utah, the Grand Canyon, Colorado, Vegas…”

He tells me we can get married. I stop walking and stare at him.

“You’re joking.”

“I’m serious,” he demands. “I love you. Don’t you get it? You’re the one. We’re meant for each other. I could spend every day with you. I could build that house we designed on Camelback. Well, if I was a millionaire,” he adds.

I can barely swallow.

He tells me this is it. It’s what people wait their entire lives to find and we’re lucky enough to experience it. He tells me he doesn’t want to pass this up just because of bad timing. He says we can make our own timing. We can be in charge of time.

“Gray—”

“If you want to marry me, I’ll ask you right now. Or, we can look at rings first, whatever you want.”

“Are you seriously proposing to me?” I ask. Please say no. For the love of God and sanity and my emotional well-being, please say no.

He holds his head up high and tells me, yes, he is. He fixes his eyes intensely on mine.

“Dylan, will you marry me?” he asks.

I can only stare at him. My legs are frozen with shock. Boba yanks on the leash and nearly pulls my arm out of its socket. He starts dragging me down the sidewalk like he’s humiliated for Gray. I’m surprised that instead of feeling happy or amazed or even panicked, more than anything, I’m angry. Furious.

“You’re being ridiculous,” I say. I tell him he’s scared for all the changes that are about to happen and he’s grasping for something constant to hold on to.

He argues it isn’t true. He tells me he loves me and I’m the most important thing in the world to him. His voice cracks.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he says.

I stop because I finally know what I need to say.

“Gray, I’m not yours to lose.”

I watch her as the words slowly sink in.

Her eyes are sad and serious, brimming with tears, eyes I have never seen until this moment. It’s breathtaking to see pain behind them. She always saved her sadness. She kept it in. She let me be sad this summer; she let me be angry and hurt and lonely and depressed. Her eyes silence me. Nothing is more distressing than a sad angel. I know what her answer is.

“You’re not even going to think about it?” I ask. I’m not desperate, I want to add. I’m not trying to hold on to Dylan just because I can’t live without her. All I know is, I’m convinced I want her more than anything. So, my reasoning is simple. It makes perfect sense for her to join me.

“Of course I’ve thought about it,” she says. “And it probably all sounds perfect to you. But I need to get to know myself first, Gray. I need to be complete with who I am before I try to be there for someone else.”

I feel like the sky’s falling down around me. My forehead creases with confusion. “So I’m not enough?” I argue.

This question makes the tears stream down her face.

She tells me she wants to travel. She wants to see the world. She tells me she just broke the surface this summer. She came down here to start her journey, and this is just the beginning. She says she didn’t come down here to fall in love.

“But you
did,
” I remind her, and she winces as if my words hurt. Sometimes the simplest words cut the deepest if they’re aimed right.

“I love you,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up my life for you. I don’t want to pull over and park right now. I want to see places, Gray. I want to live
my
life. You’re asking me to give up who I am. If I move with you, I’ll just be living your life. Your dream. I’ll regret the things you’re going to hold me back from doing, and then I’ll probably blame you. And that’s not fair to either of us.”

My brain twists with anger to hear the truth. I have to make an effort to breathe. I try to make sense of her logic. And sadly, right now she’s the logical one. I’m crazy. Crazy for her.

“Where are you going to go?” I ask.

She tells me after her cousin’s wedding she’s heading out west. She wants to spend some time in California.

“I had a phone interview with a coffee shop in Shasta City,” she says. “They offered me the job. They said I can start next month.”

She has the nerve to smile, and it only fuels my anger.

“When did you decide all this?” I demand to know.

“I’ve known for a few days,” she says. “I started looking after you told me you accepted the offer from New Mexico.”

She keeps walking. She tells me she wants to live on the side of a mountain. Then she wants to live on the coast. Someday she wants to live in a huge city where she can ride a train to work and live in a studio downtown with creaky hardwood floors and old, drafty windows. She wants to learn Spanish and travel in Central America. She wants to get out of the States and spend a summer in Italy. She wants to backpack up the east coast of Australia. She isn’t ready to give up her future.

My heart sinks, and my shoulders sink, and my head and my neck and my life. Of course this is what she needs to do. Why did I have to fall in love with a girl as easy to tag down as the wind? I can’t ask her to sit around a college town for me. She would hate it. And she’s right. She would resent me for crippling her dreams.

Tears well up in my eyes, and I quickly blink them away.

We continue down the path and Boba pants between us. I’m walking but I feel like I’m wading through water. Every step takes effort. We’re both silent. What do you say when you’re not enough to make someone stay? What do you do when you meet the love of your life and realize it’s all about timing? How do you accept that no matter how perfect you are for each other, circumstances get in the way? How do you compete with that kind of fate?

I left this morning.

Last night Gray stayed up making me a going-away present. Ten mixes. He admitted it was a little extreme. He made two or three, then figured he might as well round it off with five. He told me that after he burned five CDs, he realized he didn’t make me anything with rap. I couldn’t be deprived of at least one hip-hop CD. So, one led to a few more. He realized he didn’t burn any Led Zeppelin, any Lenny Kravitz. Not one Jimi Hendrix song. Then, he almost forgot to make me the Ultimate Road Trip Mix. How can I possibly drive without Tom Petty, the Eagles, Bruce Spring- steen, and John Mellencamp? What kind of rustic road trip scenery can go unaccompanied by these voices leading me along, without “American Girl,” “Easy Feeling,” “Born to Run,” and “Jack and Diane”? It’s like watching a movie with no soundtrack, he said.