“Don’t talk,” I begged. “Please, don’t talk.”
Already I’m forgetting. Already the drug is going to my mind. Already I’m thinking only of him and me, and not of anything else.
I grabbed his shoulders and lifted, bringing us to our feet. Warm wind swept across my exposed breasts. Johnny’s eyes lingered on them. Mine lingered on the masterpiece inked on his right arm.
I stepped back, pulling him to me, and stopped against the rough bark of a tree.
The ache was mad in me, bursting.
We looked at each other for a long moment, all the world stopping, our chests heaving.
It was as if we were letting go of the last vestiges of civilized thought, of rational understanding.
I didn’t want rational. I didn’t want civilized.
“I want you,” I said.
And then he took me.
I fought his zipper and got it open. My hand felt his hardness and I groaned.
He ripped my own zipper apart and stuck his hand down my center.
My moan traveled a mile.
I spread my legs, feeling his fingers dance and play, and then—
“Oh, God”
—out of nowhere, he thrust into me.
“Oh, yes, Johnny. Oh, fuck...fuck...oh, God.”
He plied me and I rocked over his hand, hearing my sounds of wetness as his bicep bulged and burst.
I pushed him back abruptly. Turned.
And I bent over.
I want reality. Hard, simple reality. People fuck. And people live. And people die! Beyond that, I can’t think of anything else right now. I can’t think of happiness, or love, or joy, or peace or any of these abstract things. I can only think of this.
Maybe tomorrow...
Maybe tomorrow, I’ll think of love.
“I don’t have a condom, Cat.”
Routine had kept me on the pill. Pure, robotic routine. Like going to school or sleeping or breathing.
I was sick of routine.
I didn’t answer him. I just shimmied my butt back and maneuvered my jeans down to just above my knees.
And I waited.
His fingers curled inside the seam of my red underwear.
And he pulled down.
-3-
His right hand caressed the cheek of my butt. He slid it lower, and spread me with his fingers.
The sound I made was something between a moan and a whimper.
In my mind, I fought the pictures. They kept slamming their way into my vision—the red, the smash, the crash—
“Johnny, fuck me, baby. Don’t make me wait. Please don’t make me wait!”
I looked at the bark of the tree, pressed roughly against it with my palms as I lowered my back and exposed myself to the man I...
What? Love? Want? Need?
Need. That was it. And there was nothing else.
It was no time to be moralistic.
Johnny’s hands curled around my upper thighs, pulled me back.
His own jeans dropped abruptly. Then his shorts.
And then—
My insanity and wild desire had spread to him. The rabid want had poisoned his own mind as well so that he was thinking now like I was thinking—raw and unholy; just lustful want.
He pulled me from the tree so that my back touched his chest!
His hands kneaded my breasts while his tongue tried to reach mine.
His manhood teased me from behind.
The moan I made came out as a plea.
He kept kissing me, rubbing against me as his hands had their way with my skin.
But I couldn’t wait.
I bent again, and braced myself with my hands against the tree for the second time.
There was no warning.
He parted my lips, grabbed himself...and then he was in.
My call was low, demanding. My mind empty.
There was no time, now world.
There was nothing.
Nothing at all.
Except Johnny.
Inside me.
Pumping.
His need was furious, evinced by how deep he thrust, how low he groaned.
As he approached climax, he sped up. The slapping of his pelvis against my butt was the tempo of a savage rain dance. I went taut as a halyard, every muscle. I was ready to burst, ready to cry into flames and come crashing down.
“Wait,” I begged.
He kept going, caught in the rush.
“Wait, baby, wait,” I hushed.
He slowed, just slightly, but I felt him quiver inside me. “Oh, God, Cat, I’m so close... I... I love you, Cat. I’ve never stopped loving you!”
Our voices were whispers. “I love you, too, baby. I love you too!” And in that moment, I did. “Just...” He started to pull out, no doubt misunderstanding me. “No, no!” I held him inside me. “That’s not what I mean. Stay in me. Just...wait. I want it to last, baby. I need this. I...I’ve needed you, Johnny. For so long. I just didn’t... I was...” He rocked into me, slowly, and I forgot my words. They were replaced by moans and hums and a wordless murmur. I felt my lips move but nothing came out.
With my right hand, I found myself and rubbed.
“Oh, God,” I said, close now. “Oh...”
I rubbed harder.
Johnny felt me tighten, and thrust even deeper.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!” I rubbed furiously, madly, just trying to get it ready to—
And then it was there.
Johnny felt it as well.
“Oh, dear God!”
And we detonated.
-4-
Our relationship became predominantly sexual. We hung out again, we went to movies, we listened to music, sure.
But we mainly had sex.
We had a lot of sex.
And when we had nothing to talk about, we had more sex.
Neither of us wanted to admit that there was maybe something wrong with this. Not with the sex as such, but with the fact that it seemed to be the only thing we had left between us.
The chasm which life had wrought had not yet been crossed, merely hidden.
Until one of us took a step over that non-existent bridge.
And the fall was catastrophic.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
~ Goodbye ~
-1-
As I slowly, slowly, pulled out of my own funk, I began to notice my mother’s one. I wish I could say I’d been there for her initially, but I hadn’t been. Thankfully, Iliana was.
Almost five months had gone by since my father’s death. School was over. I graduated with mediocre grades, but I had some good reference letters from teachers for when I was ready to apply for college.
I was gonna wait a year. Mom was cool with that.
Mom seemed to have ended the relationship with her mystery man some time ago. Probably around the same time that Johnny and I had started to drift.
I could understand it. Sometimes you’re too far into yourself to think of love.
Five months, summertime. Johnny was on his way to Portugal in a week.
I wish I could tell you that the passion got us through. But it didn’t.
In the end, it was our friendship that got us through.
It was our deep, loving friendship that allowed us to be there at least physically for each other.
We both knew it. Neither of us wanted to confess to it.
Until it was time for him to leave.
Johnny came by, a glower on his face.
“Where do we stand, Cat? Just be honest with me. Where?” It was dejá vu. But I owed him more this time.
I looked up at him from my bed, played with my cuticles, and then I forced the words out. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, Johnny. And I love you with all my heart...“
“Just not that way,” he finished.
“It’s not...quite like that, babe. It’s... I just... I don’t know what happened. You and I fuck, and it seems that’s all we do. Don’t you feel the same?”
His eyes told me he did.
“No magic?” he said.
The words sent a sudden sharp pain through my heart. No magic. Right.
I nodded.
“It’s like we’re fifteen again,” he said. “Only now you’re the one running off with Nicole Ferman.” Nicole and I had planned a road trip with my mom for the summer. Just us three girls.
His statement brought a tear to my eye. What was I supposed to say? The magic was gone.
The sex was beautiful, amazing, incredible, cosmic—but it was all we had.
And there was nothing else to it.
He took a long sudden stride to my bed, pressed his hands against my cheeks, bent down and kissed me on the forehead. “I hate you, you know that?” he said softly. “I so hate you. But I also love you. I’ll always love you. Just tell me this—is there a future in this? A romantic future?”
I knew the answer. But I couldn’t say it. “It’s been five months, Johnny,” I hinted.
He pulled me up off the bed and lifted my chin so I was looking up at him. “So the answer is...?”
I waited a second, lost in the passion of his eyes. There was torture in those eyes. I couldn’t torture them anymore.
They were eyes I loved, just “not that way.” Not right now.
And I didn’t know why.
My vision blurred as the answer to his question came to me, blindingly clear.
I shook my head.
He said nothing, but I noticed his eyes also watered.
We hugged, and we shuddered together as the realization of the truth of it coursed through us.
Five months. And now there was no more denying it.
“I couldn’t have made it through this without you,” I told him eventually.
“So I was a good lay?”
I laughed, still crying. “Yeah, you were.”
“You don’t wanna try?” he asked. “I mean...I’ll wait. I promise you, I’ll wait longer. Maybe something changes.”
I pulled back. Again, his eyes—agony this time. This had to end. It had to. I couldn’t do this to him. I couldn’t. I didn’t know where my life was going, but romance had no part in it. Not now. Ever? I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.
I needed to find myself. I needed to get lost on the road and forget everything.
I needed to disappear, and to find happiness in me again. Maybe then I could find happiness in someone else.
I couldn’t make him wait a year, five years, ten years and then let him down.
“Tell you what,” I said, rubbing the tattoo on his arm. “I won’t date anyone else until you do. But if you find someone where there is ‘magic,’ just...” My bottom lip trembled madly. “Just...go for it...OK?” I couldn’t see him my eyes were so wet. “Don’t wait for me, Johnny.”
“I will.”
“No! Don’t! It’s been five months, baby! I’ve... Five months. And I still can’t promise you—”
“I’ll wait.”
“But you don’t have to, OK? Please. If you meet someone—”
“I won’t.”
I shook my head, buried it in his chest. “But if you do...”
The incomplete statement lingered in the air.
Johnny found someone in Portugal.
He never came back.
EPILOGUE
~ Childhood ~
-1-
At eighteen, I discovered that I had a loving mother, a new best friend, and that I could survive the worst.
At eighteen, I was on the road to discovering myself.
Nicole and mom and I took our road trip that summer—and it stretched out into almost an entire year. We spent a total of eight months on the road, Thelma and Louise style, only it was three of us, not two.
Mom carried the six-shot that had once belonged to dad. It made me nervous that she was carrying a gun, but it made me feel safer when we had to stop at a motel in the middle of nowhere.
The time was wild. We did Route 66; the Blue Ridge Parkway from Virginia to North Carolina; Going-to-the-Sun Road in Montana; “The Kanc” in New Hampshire during the fall, red trees lining the road for twenty-six miles; Highway 12; Pacific Coast in Cali—we did it all.
Mom was given time off by Pat, as much time as she needed. Dad left us some money behind as well, quite a bit actually, and mom told me that “he would want us to enjoy ourselves.”
Nicole, of course, didn’t have any trouble getting cash from her godparents. It was sad to realize that some people were willing to give money away so freely when love is really what is needed. Nicole never said as much, but I knew it hurt her.
It’s cool. I had her back, and she had mine.
It just goes to show that what happens in High School rarely has any bearing on how your life will turn out.
Nicole had a new family now. And she and I grew closer in a way I would never have imagined possible. She became my sister in a way.
Johnny and I hardly texted while he was away.
It hurt too much to text him, and I didn’t want to confuse him or even myself. Our friendship was more important than anything else. I needed to get a rein on my emotions, and just go through the grief or sadness incumbent upon “losing him.” I knew we’d still be friends when he got back from his summer vacation, so why confuse it all with romance?
Besides, there’s that old adage about letting a bird go and seeing if it comes back to you...
I wanted to see if he really was mine.
I had no idea yet that he wouldn’t come back.
It was on the road that I came to realize he wasn’t returning. Summer was on its way out, our road trip was coming to an end, and I texted Johnny’s U.S. number just to say hi. He never texted back. After I texted a few more times and finally called, I asked mom to check if the Abreus were back yet.
They were.
And then Pat told her.
“Johnny’s not coming back, Alice. He...he met someone there. He’ll be staying there for a while.”
Mom hesitated to tell me.
When she finally did, it felt like a hammer to my stomach.
I didn’t cry, because I’d cried all I had left to cry in the last year. But the understanding that it was truly and finally over between me and him was a little harder for me to deal with than I’d expected.
Nicole got me through.
Mom got me through.
And we survived.
What had initially been planned as a three month road trip, became what would turn out to be the road trip of our lives. We stayed on the road until we had nowhere left to go.
And we just let the wind sing through our hair and the radio blast off under the sun or snow, depending on the season or part of the country.
By the time we got back to New York, my mother’s eyes had regained their brightness, her blonde hair its luster, her skin its youthful warmth.
But when we got outside the door to our suburban home, eight months after leaving it all behind; when we arrived at what was supposed to be “home;” when we saw...the house—the house my father had lived in, the house we’d both suffered in so much—a change came over us both.
A ton of bricks fell on us.
We were buried in it again, as if no time had gone by, buried in the pain and the suffering of it all. Instantly.
Too much history, I thought, looking up at the foreboding home.
I saw it in her eyes, and I felt it in my stomach.
The house just felt...wrong.
We’d spent almost a year forgetting everything, starting a new life, only to come back here and have it hit us in the head like a sledgehammer.
We didn’t stay home that night. Neither of us could bear it.
We drove out to the city and booked a hotel. Nicole was with us.
A week later, we rented an apartment in Brooklyn.
And mom put the house up for sale.
It was the final nail in the coffin of my childhood.
POSTSCRIPT
~ Explosion ~
<
br /> -1-
I dream of you at night.
I dream you’re holding me tight.
I dream of your eyes so bright.
I dream of us making things right.
I dream of our pasts in the day.
I dream of you going away.
I dream of me begging you to stay.
I dream of repairing the fray.
I dream of losing my fears.
I dream of forgetting the tears.
I dream of turning back the years.
But the years won’t turn back. They’re stubborn.
And so the dream becomes a nightmare.
A world of blood and pain I don’t wish to share.
I see your eyes, your smile, your hair.
I see the pain you had to bear.
I see the moment it all came to an end.
The moment that truck came round the bend.
I hear the screams, the shattered glass, the rend.
I feel the loss of my greatest friend.
And then the agony took over my life.
The smallest breath was too much strife.
My eyes were open, but I saw him not.
His love was ripe, and I let it rot.
I made my bed. I know it.
I’ll reap my harvest, because I sowed it.
But I’d give the world to take it all back.
To repeal the words which formed my attack.
A lover said, “I’ll wait for you.”
I should have said, “Yes, do.”
-2-
“Hey, what’s up?” Johnny’s voice was soft over the crackling phone line.
“Hey! How you doin’?” I tried to feign joy. The stab of hearing his voice again after so long was maddening.
“I’m OK.” He sounded down, hoarse. “I...miss you.”
“Johnny...” The words were almost a plea. “Don’t do this.”
Silence.
“Jay, c’mon,” I continued, “let’s...be cool about this. It’s been...forever—we’ve survived so far. How’s, uhm, what’s her name?”
“Marina.”
I swallowed hard at hearing her name. “Yeah—how’s...Marina?” I wasn’t really interested.
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