by Amy Hatvany
“She can borrow from the ten million extra ones my mom has in the attic,” Amber said, laughing. Her cheeks were pink from the cold, highlighting the scattering of tiny brown freckles that peppered her nose, and her eyes were bright with amusement. I was happy we’d managed to resolve the tension between us on the drive to the farm, even if it had required me to lie to her about my hoping her relationship with Daniel would work out. I loved her so much, it made my stomach hurt, and that made me willing to do anything—say anything—to make sure I didn’t lose her.
“Remember the time we poured some of her boxed wine into coffee mugs and snuck it up there to drink?” I asked.
“Oh my god!” Amber exclaimed. “I totally forgot about that. How old were we?”
“You were a freshman and I was a junior. It was during spring break and we were bored out of our minds so we decided to see what it would be like to get drunk.”
“That’s right.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of her puffy black ski jacket and jogged in place a minute, presumably to warm up, which made me have to fight the urge to offer her my body’s heat. “You chugged the whole mug in, like, thirty seconds,” she said. “You were so dizzy when you stood up, you knocked over a box of ornaments.”
I cringed and shook my head, remembering the thud of the box as it hit the floor, the sound of shattering glass. “I was seriously terrified your mom was going to kill me.”
“But then I insisted that you keep your trap shut and she’d just assume it fell over on its own. Which she did.” Amber gave me a triumphant look, and I laughed.
“You corrupted me. I never lied to anyone until I met you.”
“Pfft, whatever!” she said, and then shot out her right arm, grabbing the noble fir near its tip, wiggling it. “Come on, your mom will love this one. Chop the sucker down so we can go get some damn cocoa and stop freezing our asses off!”
“Okay, okay!” I said. “Bossy, much?” I lifted the hatchet I carried, and then took a few steps over to crouch down next to the tree. I whacked at the base of the trunk a few times, while Amber stood by with her arms crossed over her chest, watching.
“You need me to do that for you, big man?” she asked. “I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“You’re so not funny,” I said, smiling. This was what I loved most about Amber. She forced me not to take myself so seriously. She made me feel like the absolute best version of myself.
“Oh, I’m hilarious. Just ask me.” This was one of our private jokes, after she had used the “just ask me” phrase at the party where we first met, and I later confessed that was one of the funniest things anyone had ever said to me, the moment I knew we would be friends. Her use of it now confirmed the fact that she had fully forgiven me for what had happened in August.
“Smart-ass.” I shook my head and put my focus back on chopping down the tree.
“Better than a dumb-ass.” She jumped up and down a few times, her arms still crossed and her fingers shoved under her biceps. “How’s your dad?” she asked. “You going to see him for the holiday?”
“Probably.” I hit the trunk with the hatchet with as much force as I could muster, and it finally began to lean to one side. “And he’s fine, I guess. We don’t talk that much.”
“You don’t see him at work?”
“Not really,” I said, glancing up at her. “We’re assigned to different station houses, so the only time we see each other on the job is if there’s an emergency that requires more than one team of responders and we happen to be working the same shift.”
“Ah, got it,” Amber said. “Is he still living with that one chick . . . what’s her name? The one with the smelly gray cat?”
“Diana. And no, he broke up with her. As usual.” Like my mother, my dad had never remarried; instead, he plowed through relationships with mostly younger women—some of them the same age as me—leaving a trail of broken hearts in his wake.
“I need to sow my oats,” he once told me, not long before I graduated high school. “Your mom trapped me into getting married too young, and I’m never gonna fall for that again. I spent too many years giving her everything she wanted. It’s about getting my needs met now.” He winked at me, like we were in on some kind of secret together, and I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t deny my dad’s ability to charm women. I’d watched over the years, when we went out for dinner on the weekends I had to spend at his house, how he had a way of talking and touching women—plying them with compliments, making them laugh, and discreetly brushing his knuckles somewhere against their bare skin. It almost always got him what he wanted—them, at his house, in his bed.
“Sorry,” Amber said, and I knew her well enough to understand that she wasn’t just referring to the fact that my dad had broken up with yet another woman. She was sorry that he and I didn’t have the kind of relationship that she had with her parents. She was sorry that I used to come home from a weekend at his condo and lock myself in my bedroom, wishing I never had to go back there again, that I never had to wake up to find some half-naked, strange girl in his kitchen—to make stupid, awkward conversation with her until my dad told her she needed to leave.
“It’s fine,” I said, giving the tree trunk one last strike. It fell over, hit the ground, and I thought about the other lie I’d told Amber in the truck—the one where I said that I wasn’t dating anyone. It’s just a white lie, I told myself as I picked the trunk up and Amber held on to the tip, slowly making our way back to the barn where, I hoped, our parents would be, too. I wasn’t dating Whitney, my twenty-year-old, college-student neighbor, I was sleeping with her. I’d met her back in September—not long after my argument with Amber—in our building’s parking lot, where she was lifting a backpack out of her car.
“Here,” I said, striding over to her. “Let me get that for you.” I smiled, taking in her petite frame, her straight, long black hair, and equally dark, almond-shaped eyes. She wore a red, form-fitting dress that was short enough to make it clear what would show if she bent over.
“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ve got it.”
“I can see that,” I said, “but I’m trying to impress you with my gentlemanly skills, so please, let me.” I reached out, took the bag from her, and she finally smiled, too.
“I’m Tyler.”
“Whitney Cho.” Her gaze swept over me, and I was happy that I was in uniform. I still was getting used to how much attention women gave me when I wore it.
“Well, Whitney Cho, are you busy right now? I just got off work, and I’m thinking about watching a movie. Want to join me?”
“I don’t know . . . I kind of need to study.” She looked upward, where I assumed her apartment was.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll just go home and try not to think about how lonely I am.” I fake-sniffled and wiped beneath my eyes with the back of my hand.
Her posture relaxed and she laughed. Five minutes later we were in my apartment, the television on while we sat together on the couch. We chatted a little, and I learned that she was a business major, and that she had grown up in Bellevue. Currently, she lived with three other roommates in a two-bedroom apartment upstairs, and she only got along with one of them.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” I asked, thinking about Amber sitting in the exact spot where Whitney was now, telling me about Daniel—the harsh edge in my friend’s voice when she said, “You’re just jealous.” My skin began to itch and my heart, to pound. I set my hand on the top of Whitney’s leg.
“No,” she said. “I kind of like older guys.” Her cheeks flushed, and taking this revelation as permission, I kissed her. I rolled to my side, pressing my erection against her hip, and she didn’t pull away. When I gently lifted her hand and put it on me, she hesitated, but didn’t protest. She kept her eyes closed.
It was over quickly, and afterward, when she had gone home, I lay in bed, telling myself that I deserved something like this—something fun, something casual—something that was nothing
more than no strings attached. Because the truth was, while Whitney was many things—she was young, she was hot, she was available—she would never be enough.
She would never be Amber.
Amber
It was snowing in Eastern Washington on New Year’s Day, making my drive back to Pullman more treacherous than usual. The roads over Snoqualmie Pass were icy, and chains were required, so I was happy my father had insisted I learn how to put them on my tires without anyone’s help. After a tense, seven-hour trip—an hour longer than it normally would take—I opened the door to my apartment to find Daniel stretched out on my bed, waiting for me, just as he’d told me he’d be.
“Hey, you,” he said, standing up to his full six-foot height.
“Hey,” I said, with a big smile. I dropped my bags to the floor and jumped up, locking my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist. He held me like that, neither of us speaking, his face pressed into the crook of my neck and mine in his, breathing each other in. I thought about the first time I’d seen him, back in July, when he started working out during the same hours I was on shift as a trainer at the gym. We’d smile and nod at each other, and sometimes I’d catch him watching me with a client as I issued instructions on how to use the medicine ball or free weights, until, finally, I approached him at the juice bar, putting one hand on my hip. “Are you trying to decide if you want to hire me?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” he said, and his mouth curled into an amused smile. He had short, thick, black hair and heavily lashed brown eyes. His skin was naturally tan, and I guessed that he was of some kind of Hispanic descent. He was muscular, but not overtly so, and he wore loose gray nylon shorts and a blue tank top.
“Then why, exactly, have you been staring at me?” I said, standing up a bit straighter. I was not a high-maintenance girl—I came to the gym to work, not to be the hottest chick in the room, so I was barefaced, sweaty, and my hair was in a topknot bun. I found myself checking out his biceps, wondering if I could bench-press as much as he could.
“I’m Daniel,” he said, holding out his hand, which I stared at for a moment before shaking it and giving him my name. “So, Amber,” he continued. “Would you like to go rock climbing with me this weekend?”
It took me a moment to respond, realizing that I’d been expecting him to ask me out, but to a frat party or a bar, like most guys my age would do, which was a huge reason that I’d never had a serious boyfriend. The ones I’d dated all seemed like little boys trapped in men’s bodies, and I wasn’t interested in having a long-term relationship with an adolescent. The fact that Daniel wanted to do something adventurous and physically challenging immediately made him stand out.
I accepted his invitation, and after we spent a long, sweaty Saturday afternoon together climbing rocks at Minnehaha just outside of Spokane, we went for sushi, which it turned out we both loved. I learned that his last name was Garcia, and that he was the youngest sibling in his immediate family. All three of his older sisters were makeup artists who’d started a business together in Los Angeles, leaving their parents in Denver with the rest of his numerous extended relatives. “Fun fact,” he said. “I have thirty-two first cousins.”
“Shut up,” I said, holding my empty chopsticks, midair, above my plate. “You do not.”
He laughed and nodded. “No joke.”
“How do you remember all their names?” My eyes went wide, trying to imagine how it would feel to be part of such a huge family. I had exactly three cousins, all of whom lived in Oregon, and who I saw only at our infrequent reunions.
“A lot of the guys are named Jesus,” Daniel said. “So that helps.”
We both laughed, and he went on to tell me that he’d chosen Washington State University for its exceptional premed, physiological bachelor of science program. “I’m going to be a sports medicine doctor,” he said. “Maybe work for the NFL someday.”
“No way,” I said. “It’s, like, my dream job to be a trainer for the Seahawks.”
“You like football?”
“Love it. Grew up watching with my dad.”
“Awesome,” Daniel said. “We should hit a few Cougar games this season then.”
“I’d love to,” I said, unable to eat anything more due to the giddy, skipping feeling inside my belly. Even though it was still the middle of summer and we were only on our first date, he was already talking about the two of us being together in the fall. I was attracted to Daniel’s looks, but even more so to his easygoing nature, intelligence, and sense of humor. I loved that, like me, he was a goal setter, someone who knew what he wanted out of life and was willing to work hard to get it. The arousal I felt in his presence, the chemistry between us, was undeniable.
When he walked me to my door after dinner, Daniel cupped my face with both of his hands. “So, that was fun,” he said, leaning in to kiss me, softly at first, then more insistent. I felt an ache between my legs that took me over, and then I did something I hadn’t done before on a first date—I grabbed him by the hand and pulled him inside my apartment, then led him to my bed.
“You’re sure?” he asked as we toppled over and I began to push down his shorts. He was above me, bracing himself with both arms so he wouldn’t squish me.
“Yes,” I hissed. I wanted to sleep with Daniel, and the fact that he paused to make sure of that made me want him even more.
“Do you have condoms? I didn’t think—”
“In the nightstand,” I said, pulling him back down to me and cutting him off with another kiss. I’d bought the condoms several months before, after a series of seemingly promising dates with a guy I’d met in my biomechanics class, who eventually revealed that he already had a girlfriend in Seattle.
Daniel opened the drawer, pulled out one square package from the still-sealed box, and then set it on the mattress. Turning his attention back to me, he began to work his mouth over my neck, pushing the length of his body against me. Frantically, we peeled each other’s clothes away, his hands moving over each newly exposed piece of my skin. I ran my hands down his arms to his well-defined waist, dipping my fingers lower, stroking.
He groaned with his lips on my breasts while his fingers brushed over the heat between my legs. He kissed my stomach, then shifted his body downward, his mouth following suit, tasting and touching me. I began to tense, feeling the pressure in my pelvis build and build. My nerves tingled, standing at attention, begging for release. Daniel went still, only for a moment. “Look at me,” he said, his voice ragged with lust, and so I did. I opened my eyes, locked them on his, and then, his fingers took over where his mouth had been.
A moment later I was falling, wild spasms pulsing through my entire body; a meteor shower of brilliant lights flashed behind my eyelids. He rolled on a condom and was inside me then, moving slowly until he, too, was trembling.
When he finally collapsed next to me, his legs still entwined with mine, both our bodies were slick with sweat. Breathing hard, Daniel kept one of his long arms around my waist and kissed the closest part of my flesh he could find—my elbow. “Wow,” he said, and I rolled over onto my side, resting my head on an outstretched arm.
“No kidding,” I said, smiling shyly. I hesitated to speak what came to my mind next, but felt compelled to share it. “That was the first time I’ve ever . . .”
“You’ve never had an orgasm?” Daniel asked, with evident disbelief.
“No, no,” I hurried to say. “I have, of course. But not . . . well . . . no one has ever given me one.” I paused. “Except me.” It wasn’t like I was a virgin, but I was particular about who I invited into my bed, and once they were there, I had a hard time relaxing enough to let go. Being with Daniel felt different. He made me feel safe.
“Ohh,” Daniel said. “Well, that’s tragic.” He raised a single eyebrow and grinned. “Want to do it again?”
Seeing him now, after two weeks apart, I felt the same sensation as I had that first night. I clung to him for a few minutes, until he finall
y dropped me back to the floor. He kissed me, set his forehead against mine, and then asked, “How’d it go?” We’d texted each other pretty constantly throughout our separation, but it wasn’t the same as talking face-to-face.
“I probably gained ten pounds, but otherwise, good,” I said, stepping back from him and patting my belly. I’d forced myself not to get on the scale when I was home, too afraid of seeing a number that might spin me into a negative place.
“You look exactly the same,” Daniel assured me. He knew about the struggles in my past, and was a huge help in making sure I stayed on the right track. He understood that my choice of career was my way of maintaining balance, both physically and mentally—focusing on being healthy and strong instead of being thin. He didn’t worry about it the way my parents did; they feared that my becoming a fitness and nutrition professional would keep me walking too fine a line between my illness and my recovery.
“You should check out your fridge,” Daniel said.
“What? Why?”
“Just look.”
“What did you do?” I asked, as I took a few steps over to the tiny kitchenette, which was on the other side of the studio. I opened the refrigerator door and saw that the shelves were filled with a week’s worth of my typical meals—baked chicken and brown rice, kale salad, baggies of chopped vegetables, and individual half-cup containers of plain Greek yogurt. “Babe,” I said, looking back at him. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“I know. I wanted to. I figured you’d be too tired to cook tonight, so when I made mine, I just made enough for you, too.” Daniel wasn’t quite as rigid with his diet as I was with mine, but he did like to eat clean, so it made it easier for both of us to stick to it. Unlike me, he gave himself one cheat day a week, when he enjoyed a cheeseburger or an entire pepperoni pizza, but he exercised enough that his body didn’t show it. Not that how his body looked was the most important thing to me. He could have weighed three hundred pounds and I was certain I’d love him just as much.