First Comes Love

by Katie Kacvinsky

  Now I leave the back door open for her. I’m starting to like our sleepovers, even though it’s hard to get a second of sleep with her in my bed.

  I hold Dylan tight against my side and tell her she scares me every day, but in a good way.

  “It’s what I said at Tom-Tom’s,” she prompts. I gulp, one of those nervous gulps where your whole throat constricts like there’s a knot inside it. I know what she’s getting at. Those three words.

  “That I love you?” she adds, like I need clarification. “Is it so scary to hear it?” she asks. I look at her eyes, reflecting slivers of moonlight. I still can’t believe how easily she says it. Where does she get her confidence? Do they sell a prescription of this stuff that I’m unaware of? Can I get a bottle? Doesn’t she understand this changes everything?

  “It’s scary to say it,” I tell her.

  She sits up straighter and looks at me. “I don’t get it. It shouldn’t be scary at all. Shouldn’t it be, I don’t know, uplifting news?”

  “It’s a big deal. How many people have you said it to?”

  Dylan thinks this over. A few seconds go by. Then almost a minute. Have there been that many?

  “I’m sure when I was little I said it more often. I told a couple guys in middle school. Maybe ten guys in high school. I tell my girlfriends all the time. I told a guy at a gas station the other day I loved him because he helped check Pickle’s oil.”

  I stare at her with a frown. My bubble of self-absorbed assurance that Dylan loves me, only me, bursts in the air.

  “You tell that many people you love them?”

  She blinks at me. “Sure. Why not?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you should just throw the word around unless you really mean it.”

  “But I do mean it,” she says. I’m flabbergasted. And annoyed. I ask her how she can love me and a gas station attendant she’s known for five minutes. I tell her she uses the word too lightly.

  She looks away and ponders this.

  “I guess there are different levels of love,” she says. “There’s friend love and family love and platonic love and romantic love. And the levels of romantic love are endless. There’s all-consuming love and desperate love and tortured love and that love/hate kind of love—”

  I cover her mouth with my hand and tell her I get it.

  “I think you’re only meant to love a few people,” I say.

  “Why?” she asks.

  I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just the way it is. “Because that’s the way it works.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” she argues. “Why limit it? Love is the one thing you can give away for free.”

  “It isn’t free. People need to earn it.”

  “That’s so sad to me,” she says, “to think I can only use it on a select handful of people. Why can’t we love everyone?”

  “Because people are pricks,” I say. I brush a piece of hair away from her face and tuck it behind her ear. I try to kiss her but she leans away and stares at me.

  “You know what it is? We’re taught to limit love. When you’re a kid, you can say it to strangers. And then all of a sudden, one day you’re reprimanded for it. The older we get, the closer we guard ourselves and the more selfish we are with giving it. And the more miserable we all become.”

  She slumps back down in my arms. I watch her thoughts charge her eyes with energy.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” I argue.

  “But you’re right—we’re taught to love only a few people. We think it’s this sacred resource, like we’ll run out of it at some point. But the more you love, the more it’s returned to you. Hands down. You can’t argue with that.”

  “Maybe,” I say. “Or maybe you stop giving it so freely because one day it’s taken away and it hurts so much, you need to protect yourself.”

  She knows what I’m referring to. “Until you realize love’s the only thing worth living for in the first place,” she says.

  She leans back in to me and I wrap my arms around her. Of course I love Dylan. I’m crazy in love with her. But I don’t know where she came from and why I deserve her and where this is going to go. I still feel like she’s going to wake up one day and look at me. Really look at me. See that I’m not brave, I’m not the male lead in a romantic comedy, see that she can do better. Because I think she can. And where would that leave me? Crushed.

  ***

  I decide to test out her theory that the more you love, the more it comes back to you. I tell her I love her at Nella’s Irish Bar during a heated two-player game of Ms. Pac-Man. I figure if she can pick a strange place and time to tell me, I’m entitled the same liberty. I steal her line. I tell her I love her and Ms. Pac-Man and her better. I finally release the words trapped on the tip of my tongue. It isn’t forced and it isn’t awkward or embarrassing or even life changing. It just feels right.

  Dylan doesn’t take her eyes from the screen when I say it. She is about to clear the board and won’t be distracted. She just smiles and tells me she loves Ms. Pac-Man too.

  First Question

  Gray

  A few days later I check my cell phone and there’s a message from Coach Clark. Coach Clark, as in the head baseball coach at the University of New Mexico, who started recruiting me to play almost two years ago. He leaves this friendly message saying he’d like to talk to me and he wants me to call him back. He leaves his home phone number. He makes it sound like we not only have a past with each other, we have a future.

  I call him on my way to work and he sounds genuinely happy to talk to me. Happy. To talk to me. The kid that flaked out of his full-ride scholarship. The kid that let down his coach and his team because he wanted to stay home and be with his family. The schmuck.

  We start with small talk. He asks me what I’ve been up to. Not much. It takes about a minute to fill him in on a year of my life, because not much happens when you’re living in a shadow. I didn’t start living again until this summer. When someone forced life back into my veins.

  He asks me how I’m doing. He dances around the subject behind the question. And for the first time I can truly say things are better. I’m doing better. He’s happy to hear that.

  He tells me about last season. They ended up fifteen for eight in the conference. The guys are pretty young, but there’s a lot of potential and a close team dynamic. They’re great guys, he says.

  I wonder why he’s telling me all this. Is he trying to make me feel guilty? Did he roll out of bed this morning and feel a sudden urge to ruin my day? How thoughtful.

  And then he hits me with it.

  “Gray, when’s the last time you played ball?” he asks.

  I don’t lie. What’s the use?

  “I haven’t touched a baseball since last fall,” I say.

  There’s a long pause. Awkward silence?

  “Do you think you might be ready to pick one up again? We need a pitcher.”

  I’m too shocked to answer him. I can feel my pulse start to race.

  “Gray,” he says, “if you want to play, the offer still stands. We’d love to have you on the team.” He tells me one of their starting pitchers injured his shoulder last week and needs surgery. He’s out for the season, maybe permanently. There’s an open spot and he wants me to fill it.

  I remind him I’m out of my game. He tells me I can make a comeback, that one season won’t set me back too far. He can put me on weight training this fall, some conditioning in the winter. He tells me I’ll be ready for the spring if I’m dedicated to working hard every day.

  I can still register for classes, he says, and a couple guys on the team share a house and have an extra room this fall if I’m looking for roommates. I’m stunned. It’s too easy. Too perfect. Since when does my life work like this?

  My fingers turn to noodles. I almost drop the phone.

  “Uh,” I say. Am I dreaming this conversation? “Coach, what brought all this on?” I ask. “Why are you giving me another chance?”
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br />   He clears his throat and tells me it’s strange. He got this letter the other day, on the same day he found out he’d lost his pitcher.

  “Letter?” I ask.

  He said it wasn’t signed by anyone, but it mentioned I might be ready to play if the team still wanted me. It said he should give me a call if he’s still interested.

  “I assume your mom or dad sent it,” he says.

  I know exactly who wrote it, and I shake my head. “Yeah, you’re probably right,” I say.

  “Listen, Gray,” he says. “I want you to know that I’m not upset you gave up the scholarship last year. The whole team understands. But I’ve had my eye on you for two years. You’re the player I want on my roster.”

  I don’t know what to say. My throat feels tight. His voice drops a little.

  “When I was your age, my mom passed away. So, I can relate to what happened to you. You made the right decision to stay with your family. I stayed with mine for a while too; I put my life on hold to be with them. But at some point you need to get back in the game, you know?”

  I hear him sigh, this heavy sigh like he brought up something he wanted to avoid.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He says he doesn’t need an answer right now. He tells me to think about it. Talk to my parents. Let him know next week. If I want this, and if I’m willing to work for it, I’m on the team. I turn my phone off and stare out the window at a world that’s suddenly changed. In five minutes, my life just shifted off-course like it was struck with a meteor, and everything around me is showered in light. Life can change that fast.

  ***

  Friday night Dylan and I drive to a coffee shop in downtown Phoenix called McKinley’s to watch an open mike night. Dylan heard it’s mostly acoustic. She loves live music and Phoenix has a decent scene. I’ve taken her to Bash on Ash, Boston’s, and the Green Amigo, three bars that let in minors as long as you wear those paper bracelets so the whole world knows you’re a baby.

  We sit across from each other at a corner table and watch a girl perform “Show Me,” by the Cure. She isn’t too bad.

  Dylan informs me tonight she wants to ask questions. That’s it. Questions.

  “Like what?” I ask her.

  All categories, she says. Just random questions that make you think. She offers to go first. She asks me which albums I would bring if I were stranded on an island and could only bring five CDs.

  Next it’s my turn. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s say this island also has an eighty-four-inch TV and DVD player.” Dylan rolls her eyes. “Hey,” I say. “This is my question. If you could only bring five movies to watch, what would they be?”

  And the questions keep rolling and musicians walk on and off the stage and do mike checks and thank us for being there, but we don’t really notice. Lately, it’s like we’re in our own world and it’s the safest place I’ve ever known.

  “If you could go out to dinner with any famous person—any living famous person, who would it be?”

  “If you wrote a song about your life, what would you title it?”

  “If you could date any celebrity, who would it be?”

  “If you could shop at any store for free, which one would you choose?”

  Dylan proposes another challenge. She pulls her small journal out of her bag. She flips to a blank page and looks at me.

  “If you met someone and had to make out their character and you could ask them only ten questions, what would you ask them?” We take turns writing our questions down. We pass the journal back and forth. We cross some out; we star others. We compile our Top Ten list:

  At the end of the day, what do you want to come home to?

  Where do you see the world in twenty years?

  If you could bring one character in a book to life, who would it be?

  If you could unlearn one thing, what would it be?

  What’s your personal philosophy of life?

  What do you look for in a friend?

  If you could travel anywhere, right now, where would you go and what would you do there?

  If you could design your ideal life, what would it look like?

  What does family mean to you?

  If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

  Dylan and I each add a personal favorite to the list. Dylan’s is Dogs or cats? (She claims this answer conveys a critical look into a person’s psyche.) Mine is Are you a strict vegetarian? (I can’t hang out with someone who gets offended if I eat steak and bacon on a regular basis.)

  The music ends and Dylan and I head to the Tracks. We sit under the bridge and Dylan blows bubbles with her Big League Chew. She lays her head in my lap.

  “If you could have one superpower, what would it be?” she asks.

  “That’s a great question,” I say. “I’d teleport.”

  I ask her what she would do.

  She stares at me, sadly. “I’d control time. I’d make it slow down or stop completely with the flip of a switch. Like right now,” she says.

  We have only three weeks before she’s leaving. She’s heading back to Wisconsin to be in her cousin’s wedding. Then, she’s off on her next road trip to who knows where.

  “My turn,” I say. “How long have you been pen pals with Coach Clark?”

  Dylan sits up and her eyes are guilty. “Are you mad?” she asks.

  I stare back at her. Because of her, I get a second shot at my dream.

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “For meddling?”

  “I got my scholarship back to play baseball. So, yeah, I’m really pissed off at you, Dylan.”

  I explain everything Coach offered me and that on top of playing I still have time to register for classes, and I can live with some guys on the team.

  Dylan’s beaming. She doesn’t have to ask me what my decision is. It’s written on my face.

  “Now I just have to break the news to my parents,” I say. “There’s the challenge.”

  We’re quiet for a moment and Dylan takes out our Top Ten list and starts asking me the questions. My answers are easy. They all revolve around her. What do I want to come home to? Her, naked. What is my ideal way to spend a day? Having sex with her. All day. What do I love? Her and Ms. Pac-Man and her better. But I don’t want to freak her out, so I try to list other things I love and desire and want to come home to, but all those answers sound forced and trivial and fake. It scares me.

  By the time we make it through the list, the sun is climbing into the sky.

  First Discover

  Dylan

  I wake him up by tracing my finger along his profile. I’ve been sleeping over almost every night. It helps that he has a basement entrance and parents who never check on him past dinnertime. I told my aunt the truth—that I fell in love with a desert boy with blue eyes and it’s no longer enough to spend every waking moment with him. I need to spend every sleeping moment too.

  He opens his eyes and doesn’t have to look at me to know I’m restless. “What’s the plan?” he asks.

  “A little road trip,” I say. He sits up and the cotton sheet falls off his bare chest. He stretches his arms out and rubs his eyes and pulls his fingers through his messy tangle of hair. He asks me where we’re going.

  “Sedona.”

  ***

  Sedona’s a canyon town north of Phoenix, hidden inside tall walls of pink rock. As you drive north, the brown desert hills of central Arizona slowly transform into a pinkish-red valley. You feel like you’ve taken a wrong turn, fallen off the earth, and landed somewhere closer to Mars.

  We pull over five or six times before we even hit the city limits so I can capture panoramic shots. Gray never rushes me; he never questions why I want to take a photo. He never holds me back. He waits next to the car while I aim my camera at a stack of red rocks, pinned up under a blue sky. I tell Gray I’m going to make his dad a coffee table book of my summer photography.

  “You’ve never even met m
y dad,” he says. “Why do you want to give him a present?”

  I climb onto the roof of the car to get a better angle, and he watches me crouch down to take a picture. I wait until a minivan moves out of the frame.

  “You said he likes travel photography,” I point out.

  “Do you ever think about yourself?” Gray asks.

  “Sure.”

  He tells me he finds that hard to believe. I look out at the curving highway that snakes through the red valley and disappears inside a shadowed crevice of rocks. I love the way the road twists and fades in the distance, like it’s alive. It makes me want to chase it.

  “I think about the people I’m going to meet. Where I’m going to end up,” I say, and zoom in on a pink and white striped rock wall that looks like a candy cane.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice to know?” he asks.

  I take the picture and hop off the car. “I love not knowing. My entire life has been predictable,” I say. “I just want to imagine it for a while.”

  Gray studies me for a few seconds and slowly nods before he turns and gets back in the car.

  When we pull into downtown, we stop at a café called Brew with a View, a shop with stucco brown exterior and tall glass windows that look out at a red mountain called Bell Rock. I lean over the counter and ask the barista if he’s local, and when he says he is, I ask him where he recommends spending the day in Sedona. On the drive up, I told Gray that I detest travel books. How is surrounding yourself with a crowd of other tourists an authentic experience? It isn’t traveling. It’s just standing in line. You need to hit up the locals for the best spots.

  The barista grins at us, his bright white teeth framed by tan, leathery skin. “What do you want to see?” he asks.

  What I always want to see. “A place I’ll never forget,” I say. The barista looks at Gray.