by A. J. Wynter
“Sabryna...” Cristina started, tears in her eyes.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want to hear anything from you. Especially you. Ever again.”
I sprinted up the stairs, tears blurring my vision as I absentmindedly tossed things into my suitcase. I heard Adam pounding softly on the door as I held back tears. Adam, who had always been calm and constant, the source of my comfort all this time...the boy who wanted to get married and settle in a house in the suburbs...he would do this?
And with Cristina, of all people. My best friend. The girl who I had stayed up with all night on the phone to discuss all of the big events in Adam and I’s relationship...our first date, our first kiss...she had been with me through it all, thick and thin, and together, the two of them had wrecked it.
This whole week was supposed to be about me and Adam. It was supposed to be about fun and family and connection. But I had been miserable. What was I thinking, doing a whirlwind wedding at the last minute, and thinking everything would just fall into place? I had been anxious and full of doubts all week, as the reality of my impromptu life decision had slowly dawned on me.
Strangely enough, I felt relief.
I called up a taxi and paced around the guest room for twenty minutes while I waited for it to arrive. An hour ago, I had been sleeping peacefully in my bed, a bride to be with a loving fiancé, a loving best friend, and her whole life planned out in front of her.
But right now, I had no plans. I had no ties. The road was open wide.
I grabbed my suitcase and sped down the stairs. Adam sat on the couch, looking horrible. Cristina was nowhere to be found.
“Sabryna...” he started, but there were no words. There never would be.
I opened the door to find not one taxi, but two.
I looked around in confusion, when suddenly I saw one of the taxi doors open...and there, in all of his disheveled glory, was Nate.
And at that, I burst into tears again.
I crumpled into Nate’s arms as he signaled for the other taxi to drive away. “What...what happened?”
“Um...well things were going horribly anyway, and then...” I choked, trying to catch my breath. “I found Adam and Cristina downstairs making out, and...”
“Woah,” Nate said. “That’s...”
“Yeah,” I said, as Nate ushered me and my suitcase into the back of the yellow taxi.
Nate instructed the driver to take us back to campus, and we sat in silence for a while, as I let everything sink in.
“How did you find me?” I asked. “How did you get to Adam’s house? And in the middle of the night?” I was still sniffling, and a bit of a mess.
“I just...” Nate sighed, and held his head in his hands. “I was rearranging my bookshelf tonight, stacking and restacking, organizing things by author or color or size, and I just found myself staring at these stacks and remembering all of these stories. I started thinking about the characters I liked and the ones I despised. And the characters I really loved, they weren’t people who let the world move around them, who let outside forces tell them what to do. They made their own rules. They went after what they wanted and took risks. And I just knew I couldn’t live with myself if I let you marry Adam. Not after what I felt after being with you, Sabryna. I love you. I don’t care if it’s too early to say it, or if what I did was inappropriate, or ridiculous, I had to do it. I found Adam’s address in the college directory, I called up a taxi, and I just went.”
I smiled as Nate lifted a hand up to touch my face. He was right. This was it. This was everything. “Run away with me,” he said.
“What?” I said, laughing through my tears. “Back to campus?”
“Far enough for me,” Nate said, and kissed me, and suddenly all the hurt, all of the heartbreak that had been suddenly thrust upon me in the past few hours, melted away like magic.
I was running, and I was free.
“I was scared before I met you,” I told Nate, gazing out the window of the taxi into the streetlights. “I’ve always been so organized, I’ve always had a plan. Adam was my plan. And I was just...so terrified of doing anything to change it. And then you came along, and I just...”
“You realized not having a plan is sometimes the best plan of all.”
“Exactly,” I said, and kissed him again.
“Can you pull in here?” Nate asked suddenly, and I looked out the window to see we were at a campground, with a forest of lush trees and a lake in the distance.
“What?” I asked, as I pulled my suitcase out of the back.
“I used to camp here with my dad all the time,” Nate said.
“Uh, that’s cool, but why are we going here now...at one in the morning?”
Nate just laughed. “I’m in a very romantic and spontaneous mood, and I like this place.”
I shrugged. “You better not get us killed.”
“No promises.”
Nate picked up my suitcase and carried it over to a small clearing near the lake. “This is the best spot.”
“For what?”
“For stargazing.”
I laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not really,” Nate said. “I’m exhausted. And also,” he said, spinning around to lay a blanket on the ground. “Sleeping under the stars is super romantic, I hear.”
***
The moon shone on the lake and the night was unseasonably warm. The plaid blanket was laid out on a small clearing and I was swooning already. Nate leaned in to kiss me, longer and deeper this time, and I sighed as his hands moved across my body. I tangled my fingers in his hair, and moaned, pulling him closer.
“Do you want to?” Nate asked. “I have a condom in my wallet.”
“Are you absolutely out of your mind?” I asked, eyes wide. “Here?”
“Wouldn’t be the first crazy thing either of us did today,” Nate said, biting his lip and looking down at me.
“It feels kind of improper...” I said. “I mean, I just left my fiancé. Shouldn’t I like...I don’t know, give it twenty-four hours?”
“Well, you could,” Nate said. “Or we could fully convert what was previously your misfortune into the romantic escapade it now totally is.”
“Thanks to yours truly, I assume?”
Nate just grinned. “Would have been more romantic if I had crashed the actual wedding, of course, but I was a bit early.”
“And you can never take chances with last minute traffic jams and such, I suppose.”
“Very overrated.”
Nate leaned back over me and kissed me again, and we rolled over on the blanket. I could already feel his hardness pressing into me and I sighed, letting my head roll back on the blanket as he kissed his way down my body. I had been lying to myself all these weeks. I had needed him.
I felt Nate’s long fingers slip under the waistband of my sweatpants and begin to stroke me gently, and I sighed, desperate for more than just his hands. He peeled my shirt off and unhooked my bra, and I leaned into his touch as I felt his hands move in circles over my breasts, stroking and kneading. We kissed and explored each other’s bodies for hours, the anticipation growing with each soft touch.
“Sabryna...” he whispered, gazing at me before laying his head on my chest. “How did this all happen so fast?”
I laughed. “I don’t know.”
Nate kissed me again, longer and deeper this time, and I wrapped my legs around him as we rolled around on the blanket, our touches growing more desperate by the minute. Nate pulled his sweater off, and my first reaction was to laugh.
“What?” Nate said, a bit offended.
“You’ve got an incredibly hot body for being such a massive nerd,” I said, cackling, and I wasn’t kidding. Even with his busy schedule, clearly Nate had found some time to get that six-pack.
“I’m full of surprises,” Nate said, as he leaned in to kiss me again, and pulled my sweatpants all the way off. There was something incredibly erotic about the whole scene that was intox
icating...this desperate consummation of our feelings, alone on an old blanket in the wilderness, dawn breaking through the trees.
Nate buried his face in my neck again, and looked up, the sunrise reflecting gold specks in his hazel eyes. “Are you ready? Are you sure?”
“Please,” I gasped, and groaned as Nate entered me. He was big, and the feeling of him inside me was already driving me mad. Nate grabbed my wrists and held them above my head, pressing them into the blanket. I moaned softly as he thrust into me, and I gasped at the sight of the trees looming over my head. I had only had sex in bedrooms and dorm rooms, and this experience was something else entirely. It was just the two of us in a way that was like nothing I had ever done before.
I groaned again as I felt my orgasm building, and held Nate tighter to me. I ran my hands down the strong muscles of his back, muscles that I could feel convulsing under my hands as he kept thrusting into me. I came with a gasp of pleasure, and felt Nate follow soon after. He collapsed into a tired heap in my arms, and I giggled.
“What?” Nate said, looking up at me. “Why are you smiling?”
“I have no idea what I’m going to do next,” I said, staring up at the sky. “Isn’t that extraordinary?”
Epilogue
It was the second time this week I had woken up in London with a strange dent in my arm. I sighed and turned over to find a half open copy of Agnes Grey lying in between me and Nate.
“Again?” I said, and gently whacked Nate’s arm with the book. “Again?”
“What?” Nate murmured, and then saw the book in my hand. “Oh.”
“Listen, Professor, you’re allowed to prepare for lectures in bed, but you are not allowed to forget to remove the books before you fall asleep!” I scolded, laughing. “It’s beginning to feel like I’m falling asleep in a book cart every night.”
Nate grinned. “But you wouldn’t have it any other way.” I leaned down to kiss him, and felt his arms move out from under the sheets to pull me towards him. The air in our flat was freezing this time of the morning, but Nate was wonderfully warm, and I sighed as I leaned in and cuddled deeper into the hard lines of his muscles beneath his cotton tshirt.
“No,” I said, grinning at Nate under the covers. “I don’t think I would.”
***
Buses drove in lazy circles around Piccadilly Circus as I rushed by and struggled to open up my umbrella. The weather in London was a nightmare, and the city’s infamous rain was always bound to fall on me eventually. I wasn’t complaining, though. In a city this old and this majestic, the rain only served to make everything look more romantic. After a long life of small towns and quaint college campuses, I would take a backdrop of St. Paul’s Cathedral surrounded by clouds any day.
The walk to campus from our tiny rented flat was a gorgeous one—I passed the stately beauty of Somerset House and the Royal Opera House each day as if they were just another coffee shop or mom and pop diner. After three years of grad school, I still wasn’t quite used to the views.
The London School of Economics was a towering, gothic beauty of a campus in a way that universities only really are in Europe. Whereas at school in America I would sometimes slouch across campus in sweatpants, here I came to school impeccably dressed and standing tall. Here, I got the sense that I was an important woman setting out to do important things. And having a boyfriend who was already a leading Professor in his field didn’t hurt either. Nate was amazing, but better yet, he gave me the chance to feel amazing. He gave me the chance to follow my dreams, and follow my heart. We supported each other through our academic obstacles, held each other up, and got Indian take-away on Thursday nights...and it was everything I could have dreamed of.
I walked into the coffee shop near campus and ordered my usual Monday morning café mocha. It has been a long week of finals, but I had done well, and I was proud. I put in my order and waited near the window, watching the rain run in tiny streams down the city streets. The barista called my name, and I quickly waddled over to the other side of the shop, avoiding briefcases and umbrellas leaning against tables.
I reached out to get my coffee, when I suddenly heard a ringing from my purse—a number I didn’t recognize. I moved to the corner of the coffee shop and picked up the phone reluctantly.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Have I reached Sabryna?”
“Yes?”
“This is Jonathan Torver of the Torver Corporation. How’s London? Rainy?”
“When isn’t it?”
“How would you feel about moving somewhere even wetter?”
I took a sip from my coffee and grinned.
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