Memorizing You (14 page)

I only saw glimpses of the real world around me. Reality dissolved beneath the press of his lips against mine. I lost myself. In that moment there was
We
…

He enveloped me. I felt his strength. He seemed gigantic to me. And yet gentle. His breath was inside me. I tasted what he tasted like. All the scents of that instant cascaded upon me. His sweat. The roses. The nectar in the feeders. The wood that had been hammered into with nails. The sweet raspberries on his mouth.

It left a thunderous softness in me. My legs buckled. He caught me. Lowered me into the garden. Flowers crushed beneath me. I heard them bend and fail. The sunlight that fell on me was like sunlight refracted by a pool. Flashing and waving. Backlighting the scruff of his amber hair. I counted the colors in his eyes as he lay above me. I felt like I should be reciting poetry. But it was composing itself in movements that were beyond my compulsion. I closed my eyes and fell away into the feeling.

When I opened my eyes again, he was still over me. His hand rested on my chest from beneath my shirt. He was feeling my heartbeats.

“That kiss was bigger than my dreams.” The words found their way to my ear, softly.

I had no doubt that magic did exist in our world. It wasn’t with wands and wizards. It resided in plain humans like me and Ryan. In finding a pathway from one heart into another’s. Our bridge was in a kiss. It appeared from nowhere with the simplest of spells. Three words.$P"y fy

He fed me raspberries off his fingertips that day. We ran through a sprinkler until we were soaked. We dried in a breeze of a world that seemed only to contain us. We watched the sun slide toward the horizon, the bees disappear from the flowers. We saw our first robin explore its new home. Bluebirds would have to wait.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When you’re young and the world is full of fresh experiences, when you have the first one that bedazzles you, your feet want to dance, you want to write poetry and songs that match the feeling. I could do none of those things.

That night, in the darkness of my bedroom, I opened my window and crawled out to the shingled roof of the porch and sat. I stared at the sky, at the houses around me with darkened windows, of a world sleeping.

I wanted to tell everyone I was in love. I wanted to tell them how I felt. I wanted to scream it off the porch to complete strangers. It was a feeling that didn’t want to be contained in the small privacy of my mind. Of course, I knew there would be no telling anyone. I’d heard the word so many times. But I’d never contemplated its meaning.

Love.

It had explained itself to me. I was swept away by what it really meant. It was a word used to convey what had no language. It was a word used to explain a million things that couldn’t be explained. It simplified what the heart could not.

I couldn’t free my mind of him for a solitary second as I sat there watching the night spend itself. I must have been acting like an eight-year-old with a pair of new shoes. Even with so little sleep and three large lawn jobs in front of us the next day, I had the energy of two people. Finally, near the end of the day, my dad commented on it. Evidently he thought it rare as witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime comet.

I passed it off as part of a new workout routine and a protein shake with lots of vitamins.

Under his breath, I heard him say, “Yeah, your mom anyone who thought they jtty would be wanting me to drink that shake if she knew.”

I couldn’t wait to get home and shower off the heat and grime of the day. I grabbed the ham sandwich Mom laid out for me, and was out the door running, hair still wet.

Ryan’s father met me at the door to let me in. As usual, drink in hand. I could smell the bourbon on him. It was sweet in his hot breath.

“Remember give it to him hard,” he slurred.

I almost tore a gut holding back laughter.
Don’t I wish
, I thought.

Ryan met me at the basement door, nearly flung me down the stairs. He was as school-girl giggly as me. It looked hilarious on him.

“You know what was wrong with our kiss yesterday?” he asked, pulling me to the corner between the washer, dryer, and the shower. It was the only place that couldn’t be seen by anyone coming down the stairs.

“Wrong?” I was confused. “What was wrong with it?”

“It made me want more! Lots more.” He pulled me into him, and his lips found mine. The effect was still the same. I couldn’t believe I was there. With him. Hypnotized. Watching my world change in his eyes.

“I couldn’t sleep at all last night,” I confessed.

He pushed his mouth close to my ear. “You don’t want to know what I did all last night.”

I blushed. Heat spiraled in my cheeks. I don’t know why it embarrassed me. It was flattering that someone actually thought of me as a fantasy.

We heard his dad’s footfalls near the stairs. He always had to do his periodic check on our workout. We scrambled from the corner and began setting up the weights. Time to act
normal.

We were doing curls by the time he made it down the stairs, careful to not spill the precious contents of his glass.

“How’s it going tonight, men?” he asked, ambling over to the weight rack as if making a personal inspection. “You’re looking good, David. I see hanging with an athlete has been beneficial for you.”

I wasn’t certain if I should thank him. It sounded slightly insulting.

“Ryan’s scheduled to retake his tests next week. How’s that looking?”

“I’m gonna ace it, Pop. No worries,” Ryan reassured him.

“I don’t expect anything less. We have a goal, remember.” He looked pointedly at Ryan. “The future depends on you keeping those grades up. And that body in tip-top shape.”

Ryan stared at his dad. I saw the veins standing out on his neck. He was fighting the impulse to say something. Something not nice.

“Got big goals ahead. Next month is Ryan’s birthday and practice starts up.” He’d turned his attention to me.

Ryan flipped his head away and began loading weights on a bar. He screwed them on tight. His knuckles went white. There was no mistaking the tension in the room.

“Right, well…” Ryan’s father began backtracking his steps. “I’ll let you men get back to it.”

He took a large sip from his glass before he trudged back up the stairs and closed the door.

“What’s going on with that?” I was curious.

Ryan’s eyes retraced his father’s inebriated journey toward the stairs. There was no masking his anger. “I’ve had that bastard on my ass about being a football player from the first time I stood up on my legs. He called me his little bruiser. Said I was born and built for the sport. I’ve had it drummed in my head every second of every day, of every year of my life. I’ve listened to his macho crap until I want to puke.”

“He seems pretty determined,” I noted.

Ryan sat. Looked at me before he dropped his head into his palm. “How would you feel if your parents said you were going to be a doctor because you had hands like a surgeon? You don’t want to be a doctor. Being a doctor has absolutely no meaning to you. But they’re determined that’s what you’re going to be. And every waking minute, of every day, they drill that into your head.”

“You don’t like football?”

“Sure, I like football. It’s a fun game,” he said, looking around at the gym. “But a
game
should not be center of your life. Do you know how long an average football player’s career lasts? Ten years. Most of them are finished because of injuries before they’re thirty. “

“Why does he want it so bad for you?” I wondered.

“Why? Because he wanted it when he was in college, and he couldn’t make the cut. His friends never let him live it down. And now he’s just a real estate salesman. But if he has a son that makes it pro, well…that’s a whole different plate of ‘in-your-face’, isn’t it?” His sarcasm punctuated every syllable of every word.

“Whoa,” I could think of no other response.

“This isn’t about me. It’s about him.”

The door above opened again. We heard footfalls. We fell back into silence. I moved behind the bar as he laid on the bench. His mother had come down to do laundry. to the panties.

We resumed our workout in silence. The worse thing one can have when wanting an intimate relationship with someone…is a lack of privacy. Ryan’s mom and the laundry ran interference on any hope of conversation. She gave us less than five minutes to shower before she came back to iron and fold. Ryan decided to walk me home. That was met with the oddest of stares from his mom, but it was clear Ryan wasn’t seeking her approval.

As we started down the sidewalk, we could see his dad’s shadow cross the window and pull back the curtain.

“Wow. If that doesn’t make me feel like a dope-dealer, nothing does,” I

joked.

“Creeple Peeple,” he said, looking over his shoulder to the window. “I don’t know how they can stand each other.”

Once we were a block away, he seemed to settle down. Relax. Between each street lamp, we had a relative distance of half of block of deep shadow that made us feel safe from eyes as we talked.

“This is frustrating. I waited a whole day to see you, and I can’t even have one minute of privacy to be with you.” His voice was much gentler. “It was all I could think about.”

“Me too,” I admitted. “My dad thinks it’s the protein shake we’re drinking that’s making me act so…energetic.”

He chuckled at that. “I don’t know what mine think. Probably that we’re smoking weed. I really don’t care.”

He had his eye on the corner house at the end of the block. The one with the gigantic oak with a trunk that was about five feet wide. It was away from the street lamps and I knew what he was thinking.

He pulled me into the yard, into the darkness of the big tree. The sound of crickets was everywhere. He braced me against the trunk. His hands gently cupped my face. His lips found mine in the darkness. His body pressed tight against mine. Both our bodies, waist down, had the same reaction, simultaneously.Z cy fy

“Oh my God, I needed that.” His voice was urgent as he plunged toward my mouth again.

His hands ran up beneath my shirt and to my shoulders. One slid down to the waist of my shorts. He tried to work his fingers in past the top. It was too tight. I quickly unfastened them for him. He made his way in with both hands, caressed the naked flesh. I was panting. Enthralled.

His lips found a tender spot on my neck, teeth nipped it. I melted into him.

Voices came from a short distance away. We stopped all motion. Went dead silent. They were headed toward us. A couple. Boy and girl. They were probably looking at the tree for the same purposes.

Ryan retracted his hands. I quickly refastened my fly. We stepped from the darkness of the tree back to the sidewalk. In doing so, we almost ran dead on into the couple.

“Ryan!” The boy recognized him. He had a typical jock look. I knew he was one of Ryan’s team mates. He was with a girl I’d also seen at school.

“Connor. How goes?”

Connor looked at me, and then glanced behind me at the tree. He attempted to mask a look of suspicion with the typical jock smile. I read through it. Immediately he cast his eyes back on Ryan.

“Everything’s good. Good.” The nervousness in his voice was noticeable.

“Well, be seeing you at practice next month.”

“Sure thing. See ya ‘round.”

We continued our walk down the path. We could hear their feet leave the path for the grass. They were, in fact, using the shadows of the tree for the same reasons.$V"y fy

“That tree’s gonna get a reputation if this keeps up,” he quipped.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

It’s said the more one is deprived of something, the more they desire it. A thirsty man can only think of water. A hungry man can only think of food. The more I was deprived of the intimacy I wanted with Ryan, the stronger became my inclination for him. But there was no place of privacy for us. We stole kisses in furtive moments, looking over our shoulder all the time.

I masturbated day and night thinking of him. When I revealed that to him, he became a tease.

We’d be running, and halfway through he’d announce, “I’m not wearing any underwear,” just before he’d dash ahead of me, leaving me with the sight of his plump butt in wet, white shorts, unlined with underwear. I’d be doing squats with a one hundred pound bar on my shoulders, and he’d whisper in my ear, “Imagine me naked.” If you haven’t tried doing a deep-knee squat with a raging erection, you’ve no clue how difficult perfect execution of the exercise movement can be.

Given so little time to talk to each other, we began writing elaborate love letter/fantasies to each other before bed at night. We’d give them to each other before the workouts and read them later in bed. We promised to tear them up afterward and flush them down the toilet so there were no risks of their discovery. I couldn’t do that. I kept them. Hidden in the album sleeves of my records. I couldn’t throw away words that declared love for me. It would be sacrilege. In all there were twenty-four. I’d re-read them all every night.

Most were funny; ridiculous. Childish and sexual. He was a fireman saving me from a burning building. We fell in love. Blah, blah, blah. He was a lifeguard, I was the guy drowning in the ocean. He saved me. They were all pretty much elaborate stories whose purpose was strictly for bedtime private use.

Except for one. It was different. He titled it
My Secret LoveZ that y actually
. I don’t know why he wrote it.

When I knew I loved you, I felt like I changed. I felt taller and stronger and fearless. Before, I thought there were empty pieces to me like a puzzle that missed a bit of blue sky, or the rock in the lake where the little boy sat to fish. You found those pieces and I could finally see the whole picture…

My eyes stung. I could barely swallow for the lump in my throat.

You brought the smile inside me. The joy. And I wanted to show you off to the world. I wanted them to see and know the one who gave each heartbeat a purpose. But I couldn’t. And I can’t because that’s how a world with missing pieces is. It’s incomplete because they can’t add us to itself. We had to be a secret. And I came to hate that word—secret—because it made us sound like we were dirty and wrong, and had to hide from others. For all the happiness I found in you, that it had to remain a secret…made me unhappy.