When You Come to Me (21 page)

“You did, didn’t you? Well, aren’t you smart? Was that a year ago?”

Brandon pursed his lips. “Yes, I think it was…”

“Did you ever think that we’d be here in this moment, like this?” Natalie asked him, looking toward the sky.

“I think I prayed for it every night…”

“Don’t mock me on my birthday, Brandy,” she said, raising her head to look at him.

“I wasn’t,” he whispered, kissing her lips once.

“Well,” Natalie began with a sigh. “I sure didn’t think so…I was hoping to get rid of you come springtime…”

“And think about how empty your life would’ve been…”

His forehead found hers.

“I try not to think about it,” she whispered.

“I’m not the mushy type, Chandler,” he said. “I’m the arguer, remember? I’m the worst boyfriend that ever lived…”

“You were with a crappy girlfriend, Greene,” she replied. “So you had no choice but to be a crappy boyfriend…”

“I guess I’ll take your word for it…I just hate that you had to hear all that bad stuff about me…”

“Brandon, don’t act like we weren’t friends before all of this,” she told him, rolling her eyes. “God help me, I know all of your secrets. Sure it’s a lot to stomach now…but from now on, how about we just don’t think about her or that…
stuff
…you did with her…it’s you and me now…”

“I like what alcohol does to you, Chandler,” Brandon said, smiling.

“Well,” Natalie began, returning her head to its place on his shoulder blade. “Don’t get used to it, my darling…”

They returned to the house an hour later, changed into dry clothes, and stood awkwardly in the hallway by the two bedrooms in the back of the shadowed, quiet house.

“Not really excited about sharing the bed with a dude,” Brandon whispered.

They laughed and she reached for his hand slowly, taking a deep breath. “You don’t have to…”

She watched his face light up to the possibility. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying…?”

“Go in there and kick Scotty out of my sleeping place,” Natalie whispered with a smile.

There would be no need. Brandon opened the bedroom door, expecting Scotty to be sleeping placidly, but he was nowhere to be found.

While Natalie covered her mouth, attempting to hold back embarrassed laughter, Brandon patted her back, and said, “Go wait in my room, baby…I’m not sure that I want you to see this…”

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to see it either, so she did as Brandon suggested. She got settled into the full-sized bed with a white bed frame and pastel linens. Less than five minutes later, Brandon crept back into the room, laughing under his breath. Natalie sat up, hugged the covers close to her body, and whispered, “What? What is it?”

Brandon kept quiet until he climbed into the bed next to her, and pulled the up to his chest. “Take a wild guess,” he whispered.

“Bran, they aren’t…you know…are they?”

Brandon nodded. “They didn’t even notice that I came in there…”

“Oh…my…God…”

“Don’t worry, Tal,” he assured her. “They won’t remember this in the morning…and for their sakes I hope that they don’t…”

“I can’t believe Asha,” Natalie said, lying back down.

“Oh, baby,” he whispered, lowering himself down next to her. “Don’t worry about it…”

For the time being, she would try not to. She would try not to think about the fact that Brandon may be jealous of his friends having sex next door. She only hoped that he was satisfied with just laying there with her.

“Damn it,” he said.

“What?”

“I almost forgot…”

He sat up, swung his feet to the floor, and reached out for his duffle bag, sitting on an armchair in the corner of the room. He dug through it for several seconds before retrieving what he was searching for.

“Bran, what are you doing?”

“I almost forgot your birthday present…”

“Brandon…”

He handed her a square blue box, with a white bow wrapped around the center and sighed, “I hope you like it…”

“Brandon, you didn’t have to…if you spent more than twenty dollars on me…”

“Shut up, and open the damn thing…”

She unraveled the ribbon, and hesitantly cracked it open.

She gasped. Inside was a diamond dragonfly pendant on a long platinum chain. When she rolled her eyes close slowly, a tear escaped, ran the length of her cheek before she looked back up at him.

“You didn’t have to. You know you didn’t have to…”

He nodded and grinned. “Hell, I know that…”

“Why on earth did you do it?”

“Baby, do you really have to ask?”

“You spent too much, Brandon…”

“I spent what I thought was appropriate for your twentieth birthday…”

“How much did you spend?”

“Don’t ask me that question,” he told her. “There is never a limit to what I’d do for you, Natalie…
never
a limit…remember that…just shut up, kiss me and enjoy it…”

So, she did. And another tear fell.

And after she set her present aside, they laid down together, and as she held his face, she allowed him to kiss her…deep, and strong, and hard kisses…and she ran her fingers through his hair slowly, as his fingers coursed along the skin of her stomach and her waist and the protruding bone and curve in her hips. And she allowed his tongue to dart past her lips and invade her mouth in a way that she wouldn't let it before.

And she paused for a moment…yes, she paused for a moment and she took his hand…and after kissing each finger…slowly, meaningfully…she guided his hand to a place where she allowed him to touch her…and he knew exactly what he was doing, didn’t he? Yes…oh, Lord…oh, Lord, yes…everything felt right…everything that he was doing was just…was just…was just right…she would not feel guilty for this moment…she would only settle into this feeling…hope that it would last longer...and she would pray…yes…she would pray for the moment that she could breathe again…

An hour later, she watched him as he slept. She watched him inhale and exhale and inhale and exhale again. She watched shadows dance about his face and as she extended her fingers toward it, pushing his hair away, she leaned into him, kissed the warm skin of his forehead, inhaled deeply, smelled his proximity and breathed, “I love you…”

SHE KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN.

She’d crawled into his bed one hot night and his kisses had created a snowball effect. Before she could catch her breath, he was pulling his shirt over his head, she was kissing at the nape of his neck as she tugged at the brim of his pajama bottoms. They were wrapped in his navy blue sheets like a cocoon as the heat rose between them. She’d managed to pull his pajama bottoms down enough to where she daintily lay a hand on the side of his buttock.

Then, he stopped her.

They sat motionless for a moment, panting in the darkness.

Then, she whispered, “Maybe…maybe I should leave…”

He nodded slowly. “Yea, I think you should.”

Lying next to Brandon Greene each night became decreasingly easy. Kissing him had become a dangerous game, and she was certain that his body ached for more just as much as hers did. This trend had been in development in the weeks leading up to their one-year anniversary. She’d fall victim to the way his eyes looked in shadowed moonlight, and soon after, they’d get so hot, so heavy, so ready, so quickly that one of them had to stop the other. But he never asked her for more, as much as his eyes gave him away. He’d only sigh, roll over on his back, stare at the ceiling and apologize. Part of her knew that it angered him that he couldn’t have her. On those particular nights, after she’d stop from going any further, he’d excuse himself to the bathroom, without saying a word. He’d stay in there for several minutes and run a faucet.

She’d then miss the days where lying next to Brandon didn’t give her such grief. Heck, lying next to a two hundred pound, six-foot-four twenty-four-year-old always seemed to make her feel safe. But that in itself came with exceptions. He had the tendency to roll on her, smashing her up against a poster of The Who on the wall. It always seemed to take her several minutes to muster up the strength that it took to push him off. In most desperate cases, she opted to use her feet, which were generally icy, causing him to wake up and curse at her for placing the frosty planes of her skin on his bare back. He most often stole the covers from her, leaving her small body freezing. And when she didn’t feel like spending the several minutes that it took to get them back, she simply tickle him to retrieve them.

On special nights, he’d talk in his sleep. Sometimes, if she was lucky, she could have a conversation with him.

“Brandon…Brandon…Brandon…”

“Yes, Dolly?”

“What are you doing?”

“Playing with my monkey…”

“Do you like playing with your monkey?”

“Yes, Dolly, I do…I
love
playing with my monkey…”

“Tell your monkey I said ‘Hello’…”

“Yes, Dolly, I will…and you tell Natalie that I said ‘Hello’…”

"Dolly" was what he liked to call her most, but when she’d ask about the name in the morning, he’d simply shrug his shoulders, smile and say, “It’s my secret girlfriend…I didn’t tell you about her?”

In a year’s time, she’d become the type of girl that she once hated. She was lovesick and meek, doe-eyed and heart-strung.

Brandon was around all of the time. He was the figure that ate potato chips in the spot that she’d just vacuumed; he was the man who stuck his incredibly smelly feet into her face after he’d just got done playing basketball; he was the one who’d pick at the chicken in the kitchen at dinner before she had a chance to serve it; he was the one who relentlessly picked on her accent; the one who asked her to wash his hair and give him a haircut every few weeks or so, because he was too lazy to go get it professionally done; he was the one whose driving was so terrible that each time she rode with him, she was sure that it would be her last ride [“Brandon Greene, slow down! Brandon Greene, the light is red…
stop
! Brandon Greene, you can’t take off like that on a gravel road!”].

Yes, Brandon Greene was the one who initiated wrestling matches between them for kicks; the one who’d surprised her with a drawer of her very own in his bedroom, where she could put her pajamas, her panties and her socks; he was the once whose hair always smelled like coconut because he knew that she liked it; who gave her back rubs when he felt that she needed them; the one whose pink lips she never grew tired of.

He loved to stand in the mirror at night before they went to bed and watch her do her hair. He’d stare at her as if he’d never seen coarse hair like hers before. She’d brush it a little, making sure that there were no kinks and shortly following she’d tie her hair up with a thin silk black scarf. She knew that it completely fascinated him.

Sometimes he’d ask questions and sometimes he would just stare, grin slightly, and once she’d finished, he’d wrap his long arms around her small frame, the smell of his freshly-showered body consuming her nostrils, and he would kiss the side of her face, deeply, slowly. She’d close her eyes, and they’d stand still for several seconds.

Part of her felt that they’d been together for years.

The disparity between them never seemed to bother her anymore. He was simply Brandon, notably her best friend, who gave her more laughter and comfort than any sensation she’d ever known. He was a man, whose blue eyes she writhed under, whose touch was as relaxing and easy as rain on Sunday. Yes, when they were alone, nothing else mattered.

The polarity of his lightness to her darkness were at its greatest when they were in public. Where Brandon was, she was surely not far behind. And the stinging eyes of passersby seemed to only judge, scrutinize, affecting her in such a way that, on some occasions, she’d get so disgusted that she couldn’t look at him. They’d return to the house on Trent road, she, garnering the feeling that she had to get enough distance so that she could breathe. She knew that he’d give her time to just be alone. He’d allow her enough time to re-evaluate what he meant to her. And several minutes later, he’d usually find her hiding place, most times by the pond, her eyes, tear-smeared and heavy, staring out toward the expanding ripples she’d made with a twig.

“I’m sorry,” she’d say quietly, staring aimlessly. "It's so stupid..."

And he’d remain silent. He’d simply wrap his arms around her small body and kiss her temple.

#

They would go into Atlanta on a night in late May to celebrate their one-year anniversary. As Brandon showered, Natalie made up his bed, and she proceeded to pick up his clothes that were splayed about the room. In the midst of it, she rolled her eyes. She simultaneously suffered through an off-key rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”. Then she smiled.

Brandon’s new thing was singing in the shower. She figured that he only did it because he knew that she hated hearing it.

“You sound like a bag of dogs being thrown against the wall,” she’d commented an earlier day.

“Thank you, baby,” he’d replied with a grand smile. “I thought you might like it…”

She’d bear it. Whatever made him smile, she’d accept. She reached down to pick up a black jacket that he’d worn the other day. As she carelessly tossed the garment over her arm, rolling her eyes at her boyfriend’s sloppiness, something hit her foot. Natalie cautiously knelt down, swallowed hard, and wrapped her fingers around a small blue box.

No, no, no, no!

As she stood erect, she felt a million thoughts pace through her head.

No, no, no, no, no!

She didn’t want to open it.

But her curiosity prevailed as her heart began to race. She slowly cracked the box open.

A solitaire diamond ring was enclosed.

Natalie looked toward the closed bathroom door as Brandon sang. A wave of sickness fell over her.

She had to think rationally.

Yes, there was no denying that she loved Brandon dearly, but did he honestly believe that they could have a permanent future together? Could she roll over and look at his face every morning, smell those disgusting feet, kiss those same lips repeatedly? Yes, in an idealistic world, perhaps. They could exist as one in a world that accepted their visual discrepancy as much as they did.