Ugly Love: A Novel(29)

We tell our parents good-bye. Lisa tells Rachel to behave, but Lisa isn’t really worried. As far as Lisa knows, Rachel is good. Rachel behaves. Rachel doesn’t break rules.

Except rule number three. Rachel is definitely breaking rule number three this weekend.

We play house.

We pretend it’s ours. We pretend it’s our kitchen, and she cooks for me. I pretend she’s mine, and I follow her around while she cooks, holding on to her. Touching her. Kissing her neck. Pulling her away from the tasks she’s trying to complete so I can feel her against me. She likes it, but she pretends not to.

When we’re finished eating, she sits with me on the couch. We put on a movie, but it doesn’t get watched at all. We can’t stop kissing. We kiss so much our lips hurt. Our hands hurt. Our stomachs hurt, because our bodies want to break rule number two so, so bad.

It’s gonna be a long weekend.

I decide I need a shower, or I’ll be begging for an amendment to rule number two.

I take a shower in her bathroom. I like this shower. I like it more than I liked it back when it was just my shower. I like seeing her things in here. I like looking at her razor and imagining what she looks like when she uses it. I like looking at her shampoo bottles and thinking about her with her head tilted back beneath the stream of water as she rinses it out of her hair.

I love that my shower is her shower, too.

“Miles?” she says. She’s knocking, but she’s already inside the bathroom. The water is hot on my skin, but her voice just made it even hotter. I open the shower curtain. Maybe I open it too far because I want her to want to break rule number two.

She inhales a soft breath, but her eyes fall where I want them to.

“Rachel,” I say, grinning at the embarrassed look on her face. She looks me in the eyes.

She wants to take a shower with me. She’s just too shy to ask.

“Get in,” I say.

My voice is hoarse, like I’ve been screaming.

My voice was fine five seconds ago.

I close the shower curtain to hide what she’s doing to me but also to give her privacy while she undresses. I haven’t seen her without her clothes on. I’ve felt what’s underneath them.

I’m suddenly nervous.

She turns the light off.

“Is that fine?” she asks timidly. I say it is, but I wish she were more confident. I need to make her more confident.

She opens the shower curtain, and I see one of her legs make its way in first. I swallow when the rest of her body follows. Luckily, there’s just enough light from the night-light to cast a faint glow over her.

I can see her enough.

I can see her perfectly.

Her eyes lock with mine again. She steps closer to me. I wonder if she’s ever shared a shower with anyone before, but I don’t ask her. I take a step toward her this time, because she seems scared. I don’t want her to be scared.

I’m scared.

I touch her shoulders and guide her so that she’s standing under the water. I don’t press myself against her, even though I need to. I keep distance between us.

I have to.

The only things that connect are our mouths. I kiss her softly, barely touching her lips, but it hurts so bad. It hurts worse than any other kiss we’ve shared. Kisses where our mouths collide. Our teeth collide. Frantic kisses that are so rushed they’re sloppy. Kisses that end with me biting her lip or her biting mine.

None of those kisses hurt like this one does, and I can’t tell why this one is hurting so much.

I have to pull back. I tell her to give me a minute, and she nods, then rests her cheek against my chest. I lean back against the wall and pull her with me while I keep my eyes closed tightly.

The words are once again attempting to break the barrier I’ve built up around them. Every time I’m with her, they want to come out, but I work and work to cement the wall that surrounds them. She doesn’t need to hear them.

I don’t need to say them.

But they’re pounding on the walls. They always pound so hard until all our kisses end up like this. Me needing a minute and her giving me one. They need out now worse than ever before. They need air. They’re demanding to be heard.

There’s only so much pounding I can take before the walls collapse.

There are only so many times my lips can touch hers without the words spilling over the walls, breaking through the cracks, traveling up my chest until I’m holding her face, looking into her eyes, allowing them to tear down all the barriers that stand between us and the inevitable heartbreak.

The words come anyway.

“I can’t see anything,” I tell her.

I know she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to elaborate, but the words come anyway. They’ve taken over.

“When you move to Michigan and I stay in San Fran? I don’t see anything after that. I used to see whatever future I wanted, but now I don’t see anything.”

I kiss the tear that’s running down her cheek.

“I can’t do this,” I tell her. “The only thing I want to see is you, and if I can’t have that . . . nothing else is even worth it. You make it better, Rachel. Everything.” I kiss her hard on the mouth, and it doesn’t hurt at all this time, now that the words are free. “I love you,” I tell her, freeing myself completely.