Redeployment(22)

“So,” I said, “any new boyfriends or anything?” I gave her a smile to let her know it’d be okay if there were.

She frowned. “I don’t think that’s a fair question.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. She folded down her skirt with her hands and left them resting in her lap.

“You look great,” I said.

I leaned over, closer to her, and put my hand over hers. She pulled her hands back.

“I didn’t shave my legs today,” she said.

“Neither did I,” I said.

And then, since I wanted to and since I’d been to Iraq and since why not, I put my hand on her thigh, just by her knee. She put her hand on my wrist and gripped it. I thought she was going to pull my hand off, but she didn’t.

“It’s just,” she said, “so I wouldn’t, you know—”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” I said, stopping her. “Absolutely. Me too.”

I have no idea what I meant by that, but it felt like agreeing with her was the right thing to do. She let go of my wrist, at least.

The warmth of her thigh under my hand was killing me. That deployment, I’d spent a lot of time being cold. Most people don’t think you’d be cold in Iraq, but the desert’s got nothing to keep the heat in, and not every month is summer. I felt there was something important I had to say to her, or something she had to say to me. Maybe tell her about the rocks.

“It’s good to see you,” she said.

“You said that already.”

“Yeah.” She looked down at my hand, but I wasn’t about to take it off her thigh. Back in high school, she’d said she loved me. I still deserved that much. Besides, I was exhausted. Talking to her had never been this difficult, but touching her felt as nice as it always had.

“Listen,” I said, “do you want to lie down?” I nodded toward the bed and she drew back, so I added, “Not to do anything. Just…” I didn’t know what.

I looked at her and thought, She’s going to say no. I could taste it, hanging in the air.

“Listen,” I said again, and ran out of words. The room got narrower and tighter, the way the world does when you’re pumping adrenaline.

“Listen,” I said again, “I need this.”

When I said it, I didn’t look at her. Just at my hand on her thigh. I didn’t know what I’d do if she said no.

She got up from her chair. I let out a long breath. She walked to the side of the bed, stood there a second, and then lay down, facing away from me. She’d agreed.

Crazy thing was, now I didn’t want to. I mean, to curl up with this girl, who’d made me beg? I was a veteran. Who was she?

I sat there for a second. But there was nothing else to do in that room but get down on the bed.

I lay on my side, next to her, and spooned her body, fitting my hips against hers and resting my right arm across her waist. There was a warmth to her that flowed into me, and though she was tense at first, like she’d been earlier, she relaxed after a bit and it stopped feeling like I was grabbing her and more like we were fitting into each other. I relaxed, too, all the sharp edges of my body lost in the feel of her. Her hips, her legs, her hair, the nape of her neck. Her hair smelled like citrus, and her neck smelled softly of sweat. I wanted to kiss her there, because I knew I’d taste salt.

There were times, after dealing with the remains, when I’d grab a piece of my flesh and pull it back so I could see it stretch, and I’d think, This is me, this is all I am. But that’s not always so bad.

We stayed on the bed for maybe five minutes, me saying hardly anything, just breathing, buried in her hair. The cat jumped up on the bed and joined us, pacing about at first and then settling down near her head and watching us. Rachel started telling me about him in a quiet voice—how long she’d had him, how she got him, and the funny things he did. She was talking about something she loved, so the words came easy, and it was nice to hear a sound so natural. I listened to her voice and felt her breathe. When she ran out of things to say, we lay there and I thought, How long can we stay like this?

That close to her, I was afraid I’d get hard. I wanted to kiss her. There was no one but me and her in that room, and I knew she didn’t want me. In that little system of me and her, I was the nothing. I had this sense of looking at myself from above, like all of my wanting her was there in my body and I was outside of it, watching. I knew if I crawled back into my skull, I’d start begging.