You (You #1)(92)

“Let it out,” I say because I know when you’re drunk there’s no point in arguing the benefits of life without Peach and Benji. “But it’s not your fault.”

You huff. “Like hell it isn’t.”

“So talk to me,” I say. “I’m here.”

It’s fun to watch you try and decide whether to tell me about the massage session with Peach and you decide against it. “Peach left to go running, which she did every morning. But apparently, this time she filled her pockets with rocks. And it is my fault, Joe. I was the last one to see her alive. I should have known.”

I was the last one to see her alive, but never mind that. “Beck,” I say. “You can’t blame yourself for what she did. She was depressed. You knew that. You were a damn good friend and this has nothing to do with you.”

You motion for me to stop talking and I pour vodka into the dirty glasses and you dig around for your phone, which has fallen into the sofa with a lot of other junk and you scroll and find the e-mail that Peach wrote to you, the one that I wrote. I know I’m not a suspect anymore and I can’t help but think that it’s kind of hot, hearing my words come out of your mouth. You finish reading and look at me. “Virginia Woolf. I should have known. And I did nothing.”

“You can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.”

“But she did want to be saved,” you say and you pull your hair up into a high bun. “I just couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?”

You gulp and I remember you naked and I want my turn and take a hefty sip. “This has to stay right here for obvious reasons, but you have to know. She tried to fuck me, Joe.”

“Oh man.” Yes, you’re opening up, petal by petal, it’s happening.

“I pushed her off, of course. Right away,” you say and again you can’t resist lying, from stealing a little cash from the Monopoly board when the other players are out of the room. You are a cheater, to the bone, a renovator and I admire you, Beck. You never stop making improvements on life. You have charisma. You have vision. Someday, maybe we’ll have some beat-up farmhouse and you’ll paint the walls until you find the right shade of yellow and I’ll tease you but I’ll love the way you look with paint on your face. This is where you do your real art and this is where your magic happens. You need an audience, alive—me—not a shrink, not a computer.

“How’d she take it?”

“Not well.”

“Fuck,” I say.

“And the saddest thing is, it’s not the first time this happened.”

“Fuck.”

You take a sip and you’re too embarrassed to look at me. Or maybe you’re just too drunk. “Are you horrified?”

“Beck,” I say and I rest my hand on your knee. “I’m not horrified that your best friend was in love with you. I don’t blame her.”

You come at me hard and whole, sloppy and groping. You tear your top off and your hot hands are underneath my shirt—my shirt marked by your tears—and your kiss is wet and hungry and you bite my lip and there is blood, a sweetness, a saltiness, a touch. You have my belt off in no time, a professional under the influence. This time when I fuck you I am the mouse in your house and you can’t get rid of me and you want to get rid of me because you hate how much you want me, how I own you when I’m inside of you, how you’ll never want anything but me—Nicky who?—and at some point your emotions all turn into one, your tears for Peach, your cunt throbbing for me, your tits humming because of me, all of you exists solely because of me and I fuck the Peach out of you, I fuck the Benji out of you, and the Nicky out of you, and I am the only man in the world and this time, I wake up first. I go into your bathroom, into your tub and I piss all over the floor of the shower and mark my place, my home, you. I take the IKEA pillow out from under the table and rip off the tag and bring it back to bed. You’re half asleep when I slip the pillow under your chin and you purr. “Mmm. Joe.”

When we get out of bed, we know that we’re together now. It’s not about whether we’ll go out to breakfast; it’s just a matter of deciding where to go. We sit across from each other at a diner and we’re there six hours because we can’t get enough of each other. I finally manage to pull myself away and take a leak and when I’m gone, you e-mail Lynn and Chana: Holy fuck. Joe. JOE.

When I get back to the table, we start all over again.





42


OUR first eight days together are the best days of my life. You have these plush giant robes from the Ritz-Carlton. You tell me this elaborate story about stealing them while on spring break with Lynn and Chana. I love that you love to tell stories. You couldn’t possibly know that I know that you stole them from Peach’s place and I don’t tell! We live in these robes and you like to entertain me and you do.

Day Two of us, we’re lounging around in our robes and you declare the Rule of the Robes: “When you are in my apartment, you are allowed to be naked or in a robe.”

“And what if I don’t comply with the Rule of the Robes?”

You saunter up to me and growl. “You don’t wanna know, buster.”

I promise to abide by the rule and I like you all charged up, adult. Your therapy worked because your daddy issues are gone and with me, you’re a woman, not a little girl. You’re not sending e-mails to yourself anymore, and why would you? You have me to talk to and oh, do we talk. Van Morrison doesn’t know shit about love because you and I are inventing love in our Ritz-Carlton robes, with our all night conversations, with our moments of silence that are, as you say, “the opposite of awkward.”