Where We Left Off

by Roan Parrish

  I collapsed on top of Will, and he clenched his ass around me, shooting a final spark of pleasure up my dick and through my ass and my thighs and my stomach. I held his hips and inched myself forward, tensing every muscle against the last shudders of pleasure. When I slid from him, I was trembly and spent.

  “Mmmmm,” he said, reaching a hand back to pat my flank in a listless attaboy gesture. Then he rolled onto his side, avoiding the wet spot by throwing an arm and a leg over me as he stretched luxuriantly.

  I kissed him, tasting the metal of salt in his mouth until it faded into the heat of his tongue. We were holding each other’s faces as we kissed, inching closer and closer together like the space between us could be obliterated.

  In Zeno’s paradox, halving the distance between you and what you sought meant that you would go on forever, always moving closer but never actually reaching it. But maybe if you set your sights on a thing beyond what you sought then you would eventually find yourself smack in the middle of it, having tricked the universe into rendering up exactly what you really wanted.

  WE HAD fallen asleep tangled up in one another, and I woke during the night to feel fingers in my hair. I made a contented sound and pressed back against Will, but the second he realized I was awake he stopped.

  “You okay?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Go back to sleep.” He sounded half-asleep himself. I tilted my chin back, and he pressed a kiss to the side of my neck. I pulled the covers tighter around us, but then he sighed and kissed the back of my neck before rolling away to sit on the side of the bed.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I slid over to him and rested my head on his thigh, looking up at him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, what’s wrong.”

  He was quiet for a long time, and at first I thought he had fallen asleep sitting up.

  “I’m not used to sharing a bed with anyone,” he said softly. “That’s all.”

  “You never—with the guys you….”

  “Christ, no. Nightmare.”

  “What about with… that TA?”

  “Yeah right, like he would’ve ever let me spend the night,” Will said sharply. I wanted to kill this guy, but I didn’t want to say any more about it and make Will feel bad.

  “But you must have with Rex, right?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. That was a long time ago.”

  “What was the deal with you and Rex, anyway? How’d you guys end up dating?” I was totally awake now and hoped maybe Will was in a sharing mood.

  Will still stared ahead into the dark room, but his hand came down on my head, and he started playing with my hair again, brushing it off my forehead and running his fingers through it.

  “Rex is… you know. Rex-like. When I first saw him, I made certain assumptions.” He said this slyly, as if I knew what he meant, but I didn’t really. “I came on pretty bratty, you know, thinking he’d be into it. When it was clear that wasn’t the right tactic, I was just honest. Basically said, ‘hey, wanna bonk?’ Which he did. It started casual, but you know what a small town Holiday is. There wasn’t anything else to do, so we just kind of kept… doing each other.”

  I sat up and stared at him. “You’re not seriously expecting me to believe that you were with Rex for like a year because Holiday is a boring town. Get real.”

  “I’d just graduated,” he said slowly, and I tugged him back into bed, pressing him down. “I had no clue what I was doing. I had no money. And Claire….” He shook his head. “Things weren’t… okay for her. Nathan was five and Sarah was three and she was fucking up bad. Sarah’s father was kind of around, but he was a sociopath. Just completely morally bankrupt, seriously. And when Claire was with him, she was just as bad. They brought out the worst in each other, really.”

  I threw an arm over his waist and put my head on his shoulder, close enough to his chest that I could feel the reassuring thump of his heart against my ear.

  “I was scared of what she’d do, scared of what would happen to the kids, scared of what Darren might do to Claire. Just fucking scared of everything. So I went back to Michigan. And it was a shit show. She didn’t want me there, and then me being there was the only thing that would help. She wanted my opinion on everything, from what kind of bread to get at the grocery store to what color she should paint her nails, and then if I tried to tell her my opinion on something she’d scream at me that I was trying to control her life. She wanted me to watch the kids twenty-four-seven so she could go out with Darren or her friends, and then she didn’t want me anywhere near them because she was their parent, not me, and she was convinced I was going to turn them against her.

  “I helped as much as I could when she let me. Or I left her alone when she asked. Sometimes. Sometimes I couldn’t, and then she’d just hate me for doing what needed to be done. Rex—” He lingered over the name. “Rex was calm. Predictable. Consistent. He didn’t play games, and he didn’t fuck with my head. He didn’t stop me from leaving whenever I wanted because he never expected anything of me in the first place. Around him I was….” He shrugged like the memory embarrassed him.

  “I was shallow and capricious. And I couldn’t fucking believe this good person wanted to spend even one second around me. Couldn’t believe he thought I was funny, or fun. Couldn’t believe he just accepted it when I told him I had to take off and then disappeared for a week without a word, taking care of stuff at Claire’s. And after a little while I got used to him, I guess. We got along really well. Rex is smart, you know, even if he’s not smart like your friend Daniel.”

  “I know he is,” I confirmed, and Will hesitated before nodding, like he’d been prepared for a disagreement.

  “You know the way he and Daniel are,” Will said, “where they’re just kind of… attuned to each other? Like, they aren’t close together but if you were standing far enough back to see them both you would see that they were moving in relation to one another?”

  “Oh my god, yes.” I didn’t want to admit how often I’d noticed that and wished that I could have something like it. It was basically the most romantic thing I’d ever seen. Like even through space, even separated, their bodies or spirits or whatever it was, could sense each other and move accordingly.

  “Rex wasn’t like that with me. We weren’t like that. And we never would’ve been. It just wasn’t that kind of thing. It was a good fit at the moment. He got a little infusion of fun in his life, and I… was looking for a wall I could keep running into. Anyway, we’d never have actually fit into each other’s lives. But I was on pause, and he was kinda locked away. I felt like the girl in that book… what’s it? The Secret Garden.” He looked embarrassed and when he spoke again it was as if he was mocking himself.

  “I got to skip into Rex’s little garden, and I shook things up for him—he was so damned serious; even worse than he is now, for real—and at the same time I got a place to hide away for a while. A place I could relax, I guess. But yeah.” He snorted. “It would never have worked long term. Rex needed a safe space, and I… definitely wasn’t. Never would’ve been for him.”

  “Wow, and you think of Daniel as a safe space? I more saw Rex as a safe space for him, I guess.”

  Will bent his head awkwardly to look at me, his stubble catching my hair.

  “Everyone’s safe space looks different, kiddo. For some people, like messy, messy Daniel, it’s someone who takes care of them, sure. But for others it’s someone who they can act out certain parts of their personalities with. Or all of their personalities.”

  Maybe he was half-asleep, but this didn’t sound quite like the cynical description of a relationship made of self-annihilating compromise I’d heard from him before.

  He rearranged us so his back was to my chest, pulling my arm around his stomach, and smashed his face into the pillow, clearly done with the subject.

  I gave him a little squeeze and settled in. Just as I was starting to drift off, though, Will spoke, so softly, and so muffled by the pillow that I almos
t couldn’t make it out.

  “It just turns so easily.”

  “What does?” I said against his neck.

  “Love.”

  “How do you mean?”

  He pushed the pillow off his face and stared into the darkness beyond the bed. In the ambient light from the window, I could see that his eyes were open.

  “Love and beauty… they look good. On the surface. Perfect. So people think they are good. But sometimes they’re just… rotten.”

  I was afraid if I said anything, the spell would break. But I couldn’t let it go in case I never got another chance to be sure of what he meant.

  “Are you still talking about you and Rex?”

  “No, I wasn’t talking about me.”

  “Oh. So, who, then?”

  I nuzzled into his soft hair, and he pressed against me just enough that I knew now was one of those moments when he liked me, here, with him.

  “My sister. My parents. Whatever.”

  “What happened with your parents? They just stopped loving each other?”

  Will snorted. His voice, when he spoke again, was dark. “No. They were obsessed with each other.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They met in high school. Sophomore year. And that was it. They just… didn’t see anyone else. High school sweethearts.” Every word was a dagger.

  “Wow, that’s romantic,” I said automatically, but Will tensed the second it was out of my mouth, and I knew it was the wrong thing to say.

  “No. Not romantic. Or sweet.” He murdered the word. “All they cared about was each other. Couldn’t be bothered with me and Claire. It’s not sweet when your parents are making out in the living room when you bring friends over and run off giggling like a couple of kids when you interrupt them. Not romantic when you have to shoplift from the grocery store if you want anything fresh because the only food in the house is canned soup and boxed mac and cheese since they never hesitated to just go out for a date night.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I got caught once. Shoplifting. Apples and tomatoes. When my parents came down to the store to get me, my mom smiled this calculated smile. ‘Oh, he probably just wanted to make a surprise dinner for us. Isn’t that sweet?’ And everyone fucking agreed, because in a world of ugliness and divorce and desperation people will do anything to feel like they played some small part in someone’s tale of true love. Especially if they don’t have one of their own.

  “And they were fucking proud of it. Proud I played along. It was this big joke, like they were the romantic leads in some movie and everyone else was just extras. Like they didn’t matter. And forget trying to tell anyone that they weren’t perfect. That’s all anyone saw.”

  Pieces fell into place as he spoke, and I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but before I could say anything, Will was on top of me, kissing me fiercely. I opened my mouth to ask if he was okay, but he just slid his tongue against mine, grinding us together hotly. I groaned into his mouth, caught up in his whirlwind, and we moved against each other in the stillness of the night.

  Chapter 9

  January

  SOMETHING HAD shifted. We teased each other more. We talked more. Touched more.

  Will was still Will—he’d tell me that some innocuous thing I did was annoying him, I’d tell him that sometimes you just had to deal with people doing things like eating, brushing their teeth, and breathing in your space, and he’d say, “Not if you live alone, you don’t.” I’d say, “Well, I’m here too, now, and you’re being a dick,” and he’d snap, “Yes, I’m an asshole. True facts.” And he’d grumble about it and then wander away if he couldn’t deal with the sound of me eating, brushing my teeth, or breathing. But I wouldn’t become immediately convinced that he hated me and wanted me to leave. Mostly.

  We even wandered slowly through MoMA, like we were on a real date (though I made sure not to use the d-word around Will because I knew he’d cancel our plans). I was fascinated by a special exhibit on the fonts and design of the subway maps, and Will kept sneaking away to go stand in front of his favorite piece in the museum, Christina’s World by Wyeth, hung, strangely, I thought, just outside the elevator.

  “What do you think?” he asked. It felt like some kind of test, since he’d said it was his favorite.

  “I don’t really know much about art,” I hedged.

  Because I didn’t really get it. The colors were ugly and it was kind of boring. But I wanted so badly to see what he saw in it.

  “Um, well, it seems peaceful, I guess? Calm. Like she’s just hanging out in that field relaxing and looking at her house, but she doesn’t have to go there….” I trailed off because Will was looking at me strangely.

  Suddenly, he leaned forward and kissed me. On the mouth. In public.

  I pitched forward in surprise and grabbed his shoulders to keep from falling into the painting.

  “What was that for?” I asked when he leaned back, but he didn’t say anything. Just shook his head and leaned close enough to the painting that I worried he’d set off some kind of alarm. But there was nothing between him and the canvas at all. He could have reached a hand out and touched it.

  He studied it closely, one hand on my wrist. “What do you think that is?” He pointed to a tiny gray splotch between the house and the barn that I hadn’t even noticed.

  “Um, a bird, I guess?” I said. I had no clue.

  Will just looked at me, but when he led me into the next room to look at the Picassos, he didn’t let go of my arm right away, just held it like it was natural that we should be connected.

  IN HIGH school, the week before winter break was a strange animal. The energy would become more and more frenetic, then explode into temporary cross-clique camaraderie on the last day of the semester, everyone bonding over the one thing we all had in common: excitement about getting the hell out of there.

  I felt it too, but whereas it seemed like everyone else had plans for break—ski trips with their families, basketball training, group sledding, shopping trips in Detroit—I… didn’t. I liked the time off, of course, but it wasn’t really that much different than the rest of my evenings or weekends when school was in session.

  When I was younger and Carter and I were still friends, it was our prime time for movie marathons. Rewatching all the series we’d grown up with. X-Men, Harry Potter, Underworld. And without fail, we watched Lord of the Rings and our favorite DVD extras. Carter’s favorites were always about the sword fighting or hand-to-hand combat in the battle scenes. I loved the ones where they showed how they actually created the Shire—seeding it a year before shooting so that when the actors and crew showed up there was an actual world there. (I didn’t tell Carter my other favorite extra: when Viggo Mortensen kissed Billy Boyd on the mouth.)

  I was captivated by the idea that this epic series had an equally epic parallel story. That they created a world for themselves at the same time they were creating a world for us to view.

  Maybe that’s why, after Carter had dumped me as a friend, I still spent my winter breaks watching the Lord of the Rings extras. Yeah, I probably should’ve been out trying to make new friends, like my mom and Janie always told me to do. And I tried. Kinda. At first it was mostly just that I had nothing in common with the other kids I went to school with.

  Later, once I sort of accidentally outed myself during biology class, it was a combination of people keeping a bit of distance and macho fuckwads deciding that I’d given them an excuse to pick fights.

  So I watched DVD extras. Like, all of them. I fell into the world so hard that it started to seem like a movie in its own right. Or a reality TV show where I got to watch these people’s lives unfold. I felt like I knew them—knew what they would say or what their reactions would be. Okay, I was a little obsessed. But I didn’t have that. Friends, a purpose, a… world of my own.

  When I came to college, then, a part of me held that out as the model. I loved getting to know Milton well enough that I could predi
ct which parts of Felicity he’d think were funny. Or knowing the sound of Gretchen’s breath on the mat beside me in yoga, distinct from anyone else’s. Being able to anticipate the way that Thomas would weave bits of what was going on into the comics he drew during class. Knowing that when Charles started to bounce his knee up and down while he looked at the computer, it meant he was reaching the part of whatever he was reading that really convinced him—the part that made him believe there was truth to the conspiracy, no matter how farfetched.

  The neighborhood, with campus, the dorms, and the blocks surrounding Washington Square, was our own little Shire, and the city stretching beyond it Middle Earth. I was pretty convinced that the building that housed my Cultural Foundations class was Mordor, but when I told Will my analogy—thinking he’d laugh and call me a geek but instead being pleasantly surprised to find he was a fan too—he said, no, Times Square at peak tourist rush hour in the summer was absolutely the depths of Mordor. “One does not simply walk into Times Square!” he teased the next week when I told him about a harrowingly aggressive incident with a selfie stick outside the TKTS booth when I took an ill-advised shortcut.

  For all these reasons, spending winter break with Will was—possibly to a humiliating degree—basically heaven. The awesome sex didn’t hurt either. Even though he went back to work while I was still on break, just being in his space felt like I was connected to him. I spent a lot of time reading—Will had similar taste in fantasy, but also a lot of science fiction I hadn’t read—and I started writing. Just absently scribbling about New York and my friends. Not for anyone to see, just to remember everything.