Adrenaline: An Ode to Love and Heartbreak

by Sunniva Dee

  My orgasm is long and slow. I pulsate, hips meeting, wanting, and he gives me all of him until I am full.

  “Inga, this was bullshit. Why did we do this?” he says before he comes apart too.

  “Because we can’t help it,” I whisper into his ear.

  All night, I sleep in his arms the way we used to do. We wake up in the morning, his scent on my skin, bodies entangled and warm. “Shower?” I ask while he kisses me like we’re lovers, boyfriend and girlfriend, like we don’t always break up.

  “More first,” he murmurs, morning-groggy and sweet. My Bo, my Bo. His sounds ignite my body, and I am ready again, always ready for him. Once we’re sated, we kiss in the shower. Then, we love in the shower.

  We stay clear of the common rooms until my roommate has left. It’s a tacit agreement. We have too much going on between us to be social with anyone else. “You aren’t leaving today, are you?” I ask, hoping.

  He peers out from under wet bangs, midwinter-ice hitting my own gaze. “I’m not. The ticket’s for Tuesday night.”

  Four whole days with him.

  I’m jittery with the possibilities. He knows no one here. There’ll be no band business or school. He’s in Deepsilver for me, all mine for this entire time.

  “Want to hit a matinee?” I suggest.

  He sucks a grape into his mouth and chews. “Sure.”

  Arriane calls to check on me while we’re in line at the theater. I tell her how long he’s in town for, and she wants us to come by. He’d be fine going, but I can only live in the now. For me, I can’t promise anything.

  Bo is my heart-wrenching, temporary prize, one I can’t easily share. Maybe I’ll get my fill and be able to introduce him to everyone, going, “Yes, this is a friend of mine. Yep, he just came in from Sweden, uh-huh…” and delve into more small-talk about whatever. If we go to Smother, they’ll all fall in love. Guys will want to chat on and on—and the girls? Well.

  In the theater, Bo and I are close. Touching and kissing. We’re on a break from being broken up, and life is what it was meant to be. Afterward, we do Thai food. I insist on chopsticks because somehow this guitarist never learned how to use them, and to appear awkward is not something Bo takes lightly. Which means he now eats slowly and digresses often to keep me from laughing at him.

  “Where’s your guitar?” I ask later, realizing I’ve only seen his backpack and one duffel bag.

  “At the train station,” he replies. “I shipped most of my stuff directly to Los Angeles but brought one guitar as carry-on luggage on the plane.”

  Bo’s fingers dance over the guitar strings. He was getting antsy so we picked it up from storage today. Now it moans out lazy riffs on my bed, and that faraway look on his face, like he’s dreaming of a better place while he composes little tunes, is part of what I fell for long ago. Before everything else.

  He’s been here three days already. I still haven’t worked up the courage to share him with my friends. The only one who’s met him is my roommate, Maria, and that was in passing.

  My phone rings with Cameron’s sunny face on the screen. He has tried a couple of times, probably because I haven’t been in to work. Arriane’s got my shifts covered with Jade’s extra hours, though. I wouldn’t miss work if they needed me… I think.

  I pick up.

  “Hey, Inga. Finally. Are you okay?” Even though he’s concerned, Cam’s voice brings the sun in.

  “Hi—yeah, I’m great.” Because I am. Just, tomorrow I won’t be, once Bo leaves. I have a nugget of hope that we’ve repaired what we broke, though. Maybe he’ll want to try out the long-distance thing? I’d spend every penny visiting him. Anything for this love.

  “I’d have expected you to come by, at least. You’re always here, Ingela,” Cameron reminds me. “You sure you’re all right?”

  This is where I’d usually laugh and insult him. And Cameron should already have launched into some ridiculous sexual thing involving threesomes or, as of late, me being a cat in heat. I feel my face tug at a grin, but I don’t laugh. With Bo around, I rarely do.

  “Yeah. Bo leaves tomorrow. I’ll probably go straight from the train station to Smother.”

  “Early?” he asks, sounding eager. I smile again. Happy Cam, excited to see me. It’s good to have friends.

  “Yeah, I bet I’ll make it in time for Robin’s song-testing if he’s planning on it tomorrow.”

  “He is,” Cam promises. “Okay. Miss you,” he lets out last, surprising me.

  I look over at my charcoal-colored love behind his guitar and reply to my orange, sunny, mostly platonic friend. “Me too.”

  “This, Inga—this—is why we should never hook up again. I told you I can’t. I don’t have it in me. Why do you still ask this shit of me?”

  Bo and I just had a huge fight. I’m bawling on the bed, and he’s pacing.

  “Because you fucking love me!” I scream.

  His hands fly into his hair and rake through it. Even mad, frustrated as hell, I adore every sinuous muscle along the arms he raises. His perfectly shaped, milky white nose, his lips. God, I worship him—I want to hit him.

  “That’s not the point!” he exclaims.

  What the hell goes on in that idiot brain of his? “It’s fucking everything, you piece of shit. I hate you!” I roar at him. He stops. Turns and stares at me, chest heaving and air forcing its way out his nostrils in an effort to not explode. He never does. Fuck him.

  “Inga, don’t say stuff you don’t mean.”

  “How is it hard for you to hear me say ‘I hate you’ when you can’t stand the way I love you?” As I scream it, I realize it’s true. If I loved him less, the two of us might have worked out.

  Bo’s mind, though, it’s in a different sphere. I—

  Don’t know how he can be what he’s been with me for four full days, and now, as he’s packed and ready to leave for the train station, now he tells me he has no intention of getting back together.

  “All I said is we should try. What’s wrong with that? Or are you planning on screwing every star wannabe as soon as you get off that train?”

  “Ah. Shit. You’re so jealous, Inga. That’s not it at all. Plus, you shouldn’t even be thinking about what I might or might not do.” He stabs the knife deeper. “We’ve tried before. Over and over, am I right? Now is not the time to try again. It’s time to let go.”

  “Fuck you.” I’m getting hoarse. I’ve been yelling for an hour while Bo’s voice has remained low as always. I don’t understand him.

  He’s so close I can still reach him. Hug him. Lose myself in what we used to be if I give in right now. But I’m dying the slow death of heartbreak again, again, and all because I was brave and said “yes” to love yet again.

  This is the ultimate evil.

  He is.

  No.

  I’m the stupidest girl in the world.

  I don’t go with him to the train station to say goodbye. Before he leaves, he hugs me. Holds me. Pets me. Makes love to me. Bo does everything he always does to make me feel better. He’s dying too, from seeing me this way. But he’s not dying from leaving me.

  Once he’s gone, the tears keep pouring. I faintly notice how it’s getting dark outside. He calls, to check up on me, I’m sure, but Bo can only make it worse. I’m realistic enough to understand he isn’t calling to tell me he has changed his mind—that we’ll be together again. God, how much easier it would be to miss him if we were a couple.

  The phone keeps ringing, but I’m under the covers. Naked, breaking down, smelling him on my pillows and my sheets. I don’t really see a reason for anything. Faintly, I wonder about giving up right now. Just lie here until I die. If I didn’t drink or eat, how long would it take?

  It’s pitch-black outside. I should call Arriane or Leon. Let them know I’m okay, just feeling under the weather so I can’t come in after all. My voice doesn’t work right, though. In the moments when I think I can pull off a phone call, I try talking, but my pitch scratches an
d wobbles with grief.

  I doze off for a minute. Once I wake up, it’s early morning. I instantly remember Bo, how we left things, and begin sobbing. My phone starts ringing again, so I turn it off.

  Later, someone knocks on the front door. A rush of hope spreads in my chest but dies at the realization it can’t be Bo. Whoever’s out there doesn’t give up, though. They knock. They pound. Maria’s up and opening.

  Short raps closer now, on my door. It’s Maria asking if I’m awake. I hold my breath, praying she take my silence as a “no.” She cracks the door.

  “Ingela? Are you all right?” Besides housing, she and I share nothing. Whoever’s at the door has her worried about me. I remain quiet under the comforter, peeking at the door and hoping she’ll leave. Instead, a tall figure pushes past her and into the room.

  “Hey,” she says, but it’s without conviction. She’s not going to enforce keeping him out. Yeah. It’s a he. Definitely not tiny Arria.

  “It’s okay,” Cameron murmurs, “I’m her best friend.”

  She isn’t moving on the bed. In the semidark of her room, the duvet forms along the slight curves of her body. I’m hoping she’s simply asleep. Stranger things have happened than my gut instinct sucking—Inga could have just flaked on us at the club. She did say she was okay on the phone the other day.

  “Hey there,” I whisper. Behind me, her roommate closes the door and leaves. I drop down next to Inga’s head and crumple the sheet away to see. She stirs. Backs toward the wall and curls in on herself. I grab her hands and pry them from her face.

  I frown at what I find. “Are you sick?” I touch her forehead. She’s cool. Damp. Definitely doesn’t have a fever.

  She suppresses hushed sobs. Then, she relaxes, giving up on hiding from me. Shit, I should have come earlier. Perhaps her ex is abusive.

  “What the hell happened? Did he hurt you or something?” Did he force himself on her and keep her locked up here for days until he left? “He did, huh? What the fuck did he do to you? Do you need a doctor?”

  “Cameron, no… it’s not like that.”

  Her voice. Jesus. “Inga, you don’t even sound like yourself.”

  “Sorry…” She fades into whispering, concealing how hoarse she is. I’m fucking confused as shit right now. I reach for the side lamp and make the light flood her.

  Then, it’s blatantly clear. Her eyes are so swollen from crying, it’s a miracle she can meet my gaze through those slits. Scarlett-rimmed, they burn red, filled to bursting with sadness.

  “Oh hell no,” I mutter. “You’re a mess—look at you. If this is that asshole’s doing, I’m going to kick the crap out of him.”

  Inga shrinks under a pillow, but I pull it out of her hands. “Come here.” I get up on the bed and rest on an elbow, facing her. When I stroke her face with my broken-finger hand, she lets me.

  “It was him, right?”

  “Not really. He did nothing. I just torture myself. I’m stupid and a masochist, ha.” Inga’s fake laugh doesn’t work for either of us. There’s a knot in my stomach. Feels like I swallowed a rock and allowed it to slide all the way down.

  “What did he not do, then?” I ask, trying to be clever. Even though I can’t boast experience with exes, it’s obvious he’s on her brain.

  “Yeah.” She faux-giggles again. “Exactly. He was supposed to… agree to… picking up where we left off.” Her forehead wrinkles with pain. Maybe embarrassment. Then, without further prodding, she tells me the story of a disturbing relationship. Of fraying nerves and emotional torture. On and off, on and off. Jesus Christ, how can people do that stuff to themselves?

  Much later, I swirl her tighter in one of her blankets so her body doesn’t keep mine awake. I hop out of my pants and bury myself under the comforter with her. She nestles against the hollow of my neck. For peace, I know, and it’s strange and sort of touching that someone seeks me for that.

  She breathes out slowly, unleashing air that sounds overdue. I check the alarm on her nightstand and read five a.m. I’m going to sleep with this girl in my arms, now, because she needs me. And that’s all I’m going to do.

  There’s nowhere else I want to be right now. I need to get Ingela back to the insolent, hot, silly chick she is. I fucking hate seeing her like this.

  Inga doesn’t exit her house without a layer of black rimming her eyes and red on her lips. Usually, the red is so bright it’s hilarious and erotic as fuck at once. But today when we woke up, I had to remind her to take a shower and she didn’t put on makeup afterward.

  Turns out she has a pale mouth. Light pink lips I’m not taking my chances on kissing today. Since our first fling a week or two ago, I’ve tasted those fruit-flavored pillows every chance I got, but the ex’s visit has set me back hardcore.

  I’m craving a high, but it won’t come from Inga today. In my early teens, I dabbled in drugs to sate my craving, but heights and speed—in addition to sex—provide the same rush without the low. The destruction is different too. With my sports, it’s just external damage. Bruises and broken bones, concussions and whatnot—nothing permanent. Unless I croak, of course.

  I stare at her across from me in the Ferris wheel. From a sandwich place en route to this rickety old thing, I grabbed us each a sub, and now she’s staring back at me over crumpled-open wrapping paper. The girl’s hardly even nibbling.

  “Eat,” I demand. “All of it. What you’re doing right here is bullshit.” She blinks at me with blonde lashes, not taking in my order.

  “What a stupid machine.”

  “What machine?”

  “This huge, mmm, metal tire or whatever you call it.”

  “The Ferris wheel?” I’m smiling. “I figured it’s dangerous enough to be fun. Look down, Kitty.”

  She narrows her eyes, suspicious. Then, she peers over the edge and the hundred-and-fifty feet down. There’s no amusement park in town, but a few weeks before spring break, a couple of the hotels join in on city efforts to draw people instead of having the student crowd escape and leave the town deserted.

  This sad excuse for a pleasure wheel is hungry for a dash of oil. It creaks on its axis, a main reason for our excursion; Inga’ll focus on something besides Swedish exes, and I might get a rush from imagining a bungee jump from up here.

  Hmm. A bungee jump.

  When did I last do one of those? The prickle of excitement I’d hoped for from the so-so height of this thing skims up my scalp at the thought. The bridge. Hell yeah, the bridge.

  Hips bent and torso vertical over the side, Ingela’s leaning out far. It looks entertaining, so I shift closer and copy her. We’re almost at the top. Unfortunately, with a measly one hundred-and-fifty feet, the experience doesn’t scream danger. Inga holds her sandwich out as far as she can and drops it. We both watch her breakfast plunge to its splashed-by-asphalt death. We exchange a glance, and a ghost of a first smile sifts over her mouth.

  “Not afraid of heights, huh?” I ask.

  “Nope. Never was. Guess they’re not real enough for me.”

  “Interesting. Want to try something fun?”

  “Are you fucking serious?” she screams, sounding a whole lot like herself, cusswords and all. Damn, her eyes are wide. I chuckle out loud.

  “Of course I am—this is safer than watching TV.”

  “Yeah, right.” She scoffs and shakes a stray chunk of hair off her forehead. “Sitting in your living room is more dangerous than hopping off a bridge, now?”

  “The radiation can give you cancer—” I begin but get interrupted.

  “Oh no, Cameron—you’re, like, a total… fuck face if you think that.”

  Fuck face? I slam my hands together, laughing out loud. God, I love how absolutely out of her mind she is with English sometimes. Who says that? My funny as shit, brash, overly genuine chick—pal, whatever—is poking her head out again.

  I hand her one of the harnesses I’ve brought. A body harness for her. An ankle harness for me. Really, I don’t expect her to t
ake me up on the offer. I do, however, look forward to her reaction.

  She’ll watch me while I bounce off. I’ll tell her she’s in charge of the rope. That should keep her mind on me instead of her own sorry self.

  “Here, let me put it on for you. You can go first.”

  “Oh shit no. In the entire world of the… uh.” Her mind is roaming for expletives. When I grab her arm to “help” her, she hollers, “Fan i jävla helvetes!” From former prodding, I think it means something to the effect of “Satan in devilish hell,” apparently quite the bomb of an expression in her mother tongue. To me, it’s fucking hilarious.

  “That a no?” I’m trying to remain serious.

  “Oh hell yeah, it’s a no, you freaking… kukhelvetes.”

  “Which means?” This is going to be good.

  “Uh, a… cock hell. Yeah. You’re a cock hell for thinking that I’ll, at any moment of any time, would want to…” Ingela’s lips twist upward. She’s trying so hard to stay vehement over this. Until it sinks in how ridiculous the translation is.

  “Really? I’m a cock hell? You sure you don’t mean I’ve got one hell of a cock? Cuz… we both know I do.” I waggle my eyebrows.

  Within seconds, she surrenders. Cracks up until she’s bent over with a fist clutching the steel railing of the bridge. Her sense of humor is like no other girl I’ve met. If she weren’t a foreigner, she’d be desert people. A backwoodser—a swamp chick. Anything not civilized—or a guy. I fucking love her. She’s probably the only girl who’s never once bored me.

  Damn, that’s heavy.

  Four minutes later, the pre-jump rush is setting in. I’m as giddy as a kid. It’s been a hell of a long time since I jumped like this. I’ve done the Deepsilver Bridge before and loved it, but circumstances have kept my buds and me from bouncing off it all year.

  “You’re a fucking lunatic,” she mumbles, hands on hips as I climb onto the banister. I make a crazy-face, which has Inga rolling her eyes and emitting a piggy-sounding chortle. “Dork.”

  “You ready?” I ask her like she’s the one who needs to prepare for this. The adrenaline’s pulsing through me, nice and strong.