The Astonishing Color of After(65)

“Oh,” said Cheslin, turning her face. She blinked as if seeing us for the first time. “Does it bother you?”

He coughed and waved his hands out in front of him as if to say, Continue.

Cheslin shrugged. “It is, after all, just a body.”

Caro grinned.

My face burned. Did Axel think Cheslin was hot? She was nymphlike, with those elegant limbs and that long, honeyed hair. She had a natural grace to her that I would never have. While she shimmered, I was stained in charcoal.

Cheslin threw her hands wide and rolled her eyes upward. She looked like something out of a horror movie. A breeze poured her hair to the side.

“Yes,” Caro was saying. “Yes, that’s perfect.”

My body was tightly wound, tuned up like a piano string. I was pretty certain that I wasn’t interested in girls, but sitting there watching this felt voyeuristic. Heat funneled through my center, pooling in my stomach. I wanted to feel what Caro and Cheslin were feeling. I envied their thrill.

“Let’s go,” Axel said to me, standing up abruptly.

Simultaneously reluctant and relieved, I followed him out of the trees. Caro and Cheslin didn’t even notice us leaving.

It was stuffy in the car; we settled into the back and left the doors wide open.

“Sorry, it was just getting a little weird for me,” he said.

My eyes took in the amount of space between us. There was plenty of room for us to spread out, and yet somehow we’d ended up close enough to feel the heat of each other’s bodies, drawn together like magnets.

I swallowed. “It was kind of weird.”

Mere inches away from him. I thought of what Cheslin had said: It was just a body.

Ignore the fact that it’s Axel’s body. Ignore the fact that you saw that body almost naked just a month and a half ago. Ignore the fact that you want to see that body again.

Just. A. Body.

“It was almost like we were watching them have sex or something. Only they weren’t even touching.”

The word sex bloomed in the air like a match.

I shifted in my seat a little so I was in less danger of accidentally leaning into him. “You know, I used to see Cheslin occasionally—way before Caro had told me who she was. I’d see her in the street, or getting into a car, or just walking around in her uniform. Back then I would’ve guessed she was just a basic prep school girl. Goes to show how surprising people can be when you get to know them. Those two—they seem so different on the outside. It’s lucky they found each other.”

“Could just all be lust,” said Axel.

That surprised me. The crudeness of it seemed unlike him. “They’ve been together for a pretty long time. It’s got to be more than lust. At least on Caro’s side—I think she’s, like… actually in love.”

“Wow,” said Axel.

“What?” I turned to look at him. “You sound skeptical.”

“I guess I just—don’t know what that’s supposed to feel like. Like how does Caro know?”

“How does anybody know?” I felt defensive for some reason. “You just know.”

I turned my eyes out to that spot in the woods where we could see the crisscrossing lights through the trees. “You know it when you miss someone you just saw an hour ago. When you can’t stop fantasizing about kissing them. When you feel irrationally happy simply standing in the same room. When you’re addicted to just… being around them.”

Axel was watching me; I could feel it. I was afraid to look at him.

“But like, how can you be certain all of that isn’t just a passing thing?”

“You can’t, I guess.” I shrugged, and the motion made my elbow brush against his arm.

“You sound so sure about it. Like you’ve experienced it or something.”

“Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t.” The words felt silly, and that pitched me into silence. Then, “Maybe it’s hard for you to buy into because of your mom.” Because you don’t want to be left again.

He tensed and I immediately regretted what I said. I watched from the corner of my eye as he willed his shoulders back down, drew in a slow breath. “Maybe,” he said.

I thought about my father spending all his money dialing long distance to Taiwan to talk with my mother. I thought of Mom’s stories about the goofy things he did on their first few dates. Badly executed magic tricks and jokes that made no sense. We used to laugh so hard about it we couldn’t breathe, our stomachs close to bursting.

Was it just a passing thing? Were my parents still in love? Did they even know, themselves?

“I don’t think so, though,” said Axel, reeling me back to our conversation. “I buy into it.”

“You do?” I said, surprised.

“Yeah. Because all the things you described… I think I get those feelings, too.”

The full weight of what he was saying slammed into my chest and crushed me under the sharp heel of an invisible boot. Who did he fantasize about? Who made him irrationally happy? I imagined another Leanne Ryan coming into his life. Was this going to be his pattern—start every school year with a new girlfriend?

“Oh.” My voice sounded so very far away.

“I just never know what to do about it,” he said. “When I feel that way, I mean.”