Love and Other Words(42)

And I get that what he’s saying is the ideal reaction to the situation we’re in – it’s the well-adjusted, textbook version of this difficult conversation – but is that really how the human heart works? You tell it to chill, and it chills?

I stare at him now, with his arm across his eyes, and I’m trying to find that flicker of something bigger, of an emotion that consumes me. I do what I used to do with Elliot sometimes: I imagine Sean standing up, walking out the door, and never coming back. With Elliot, my stomach would react as if I’d been punched.

With Sean, I feel vague relief.

I think back to Elliot’s face when I told him I was engaged. I think about his face now: the longing there, the tiny sting of pain I see in his eyes when we turn to head our separate directions. Eleven years later, and he still aches for what we had.

I’m terrified of what I’m feeling; I feel like I’ve just woken up. I thought I didn’t want intensity, but in fact, I’m desperate for it.

I look over at Sean and it feels like I’m in bed with a one-night stand.

Pushing up, I climb out.

“Where are you going?” he asks.

“Couch.”

He follows me out. “Are you mad?”

God, this is the weirdest situation in the history of weird situations, and Sean is so… calm. How did I end up here?

“I just think you’re right,” I say. “Maybe I need to figure out what I want.”

then

saturday, september 10
twelve years ago
E

lliot was stretched out on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. He’d been that way for a while now, his worn copy of Gulliver’s Travels abandoned on the pillow next to him. He seemed so intent on what he was thinking he didn’t even notice the way my eyes moved over his body whenever I turned a page.

I was beginning to wonder if he would ever stop growing. Almost seventeen, he had shorts on today and his long legs seemed to go on forever. They were hairier than I remembered. Not too hairy, just a light dusting of brown over his tanned skin. It was masculine, I decided. I liked it.

One of the strangest things about going stretches of time between seeing someone is all the changes you’d miss if you saw them every day. Like leg hair. Or biceps. Or big hands.

In his update he’d said his mom asked him about having laser surgery so he wouldn’t have to wear glasses anymore. I tried to imagine him without his glasses, being able to look into his greenish-gold eyes without the benefit of black frames between us. I loved Elliot’s glasses, but the thought of being so close to him without them did warm, weird things to my stomach. It made him feel somehow undressed in my head.

“What do you want for Christmas?” he asked.

I jumped slightly, startled. I was pretty sure I looked exactly like someone looks when they’re caught staring at their best friend with less than innocent thoughts. We hadn’t kissed again.

But I really wanted to.

His question echoed in my head. “Christmas?”

Dark eyebrows pulled together, serious. “Yeah. Christmas.”

I tried to cover. “Is that what you’ve been thinking about all this time?”

“No.”

I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“I don’t really know,” I told him. “Any particular reason you’re asking me this in September?”

Elliot rolled to his side to face me, his head propped in his hand. “I’d just like to get you something nice. Something you want.”

I put my book down and rolled to face him, too. “You don’t have to get me anything, Ell.”

He made a frustrated sound and sat up. Pushing up off the carpet, he moved to stand. I reached out, wrapping my hand around his wrist. The light, lusty mood between us had been only on my end, apparently.

“Are you mad about something?”

Elliot and I didn’t fight, really, and the idea that something between us was off tilted my internal balance, making me feel immediately anxious. I could feel his pulse like a steady drum beneath his skin.

“Do you think about me when you’re back there?” His words came out sharp, exhaled roughly.

It took me a second to process what he meant. When I was back home. Away from him. “Of course I do.”

“When?”

“All the time. You’re my best friend.”

“Your best friend,” he repeated.

My heart dipped low in my chest, almost painfully. “Well, you’re more, too. You’re my best everything.”

“You kissed me this summer and then acted like nothing happened.”

This came at me like a blade to my lungs. I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands. It had happened like that. After I kissed him in his kitchen, I’d made everything go back to how it was: reading on the roof in the morning, lunch in the shade, swimming in the river. I’d felt his eyes on me, the shaking restraint of his hands. I remembered how warm his lips had been, and the way I felt like a lit fuse when he growled into my mouth.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Why are you sorry?” he asked carefully, crouching down beside me. “Are you sorry because you didn’t like kissing me?”

I felt my hands flush cold, looking at him in shock. “Did it feel like I didn’t like it?”