Tempus

by Tyra Lynn

  “So, no forewarning then? One day I’ll just wake up, and you’ll be gone?” I trembled slightly, but tried to hold myself still. He noticed anyway, and his arm came around my shoulder.

  “I wish I had answers for you, Jessie.” His blue eyes probed mine. “Do you think—do you want to—remember me? If this all ended tonight, if you could start all over before we ever met, would it be easier to never meet?”

  Looking into those blue, blue eyes, I couldn’t imagine never seeing them again. Would life be easier? Maybe it would, but I didn’t want easier, I wanted everything, good and bad. I tried to pull up Steve's face, those green eyes. I closed my eyes and tried as hard as I could, but there was only Gabriel, eyes full of sadness, eyes full of hope, eyes full of fire, eyes full of laughter…only Gabriel's eyes. Blue, blue eyes.

  I opened my eyes, and there they were, looking so deeply into mine that I could feel them. “I could not forget you. I wouldn’t want to. I don’t want to. You find me.”

  His lips met mine so fast it stole my breath. Warm, soft lips.

  I fell backwards on the bed and pulled him with me, wrapping my arms around him as tightly as I could. What if this were the last time I saw him? What if he couldn’t find me? What if he, or his father, decided it was best for me that we never meet. There would be nothing I could do.

  My hands found his waistband and I un-tucked his shirt and ran my hands up his back. I wanted to feel his skin, wanted to burn it into my memory. He gasped as I tucked my hand under the back of his pants just enough to pull his hips closer to mine. I could feel his heart pounding against my chest.

  He tore his lips away long enough to pant the words, “Oh, Jessie, you must stop.”

  I didn’t listen. I pushed from beneath until he rolled, confused, onto his back, gasping for air. I threw my leg over his waist, landing on top of him and locked him between my thighs. “Just this one thing.” I whispered. “For me.”

  I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew what I wanted. Just this one thing couldn’t hurt. I wanted to see and feel his skin against mine, that’s all. Just that one thing. Just that one.

  I pulled his shirt free in the front, started lifting it up. I could see his smooth, flat stomach and his perfect belly button. I placed my hand on it and felt it flutter.

  “Jessie, please.” He could barely speak, but he made no move to stop me.

  “Just this one thing.” I pulled his shirt higher, wouldn’t stop pulling until he raised his arms for me to remove it. I threw the shirt on the end of the bed.

  His chest was beautiful, perfect, and smooth. I saw chests all summer long at the public pool, this wasn’t anything bad or wrong, I told myself. I ran my hands along every muscle, played with the hollows at the collarbone, memorizing every single contour, learning it by sight and touch. I ran my hand down the center, between the pectoral muscles and all the way down across his abdomen. He trembled violently.

  He moved his hands to rest on my hips, his arms locked and muscles rigid, eyes searching mine. I ran my hands along his arms, the bulges at the biceps, and the indentations at the elbows, down the forearm to the knobby bone at the wrist and around to feel his racing pulse.

  I could feel his internal conflict. There was a constant battle between pushing me away and pulling me closer. It felt like a vibration in his whole body and mine. Other than the invisible vibration, he held perfectly still.

  I placed my hands back on his stomach, sliding them slowly up, leaning closer as my hands went higher, until we were chest to chest and nose to nose. I breathed in deeply, and watched his eyes close. I brushed my lips across his, then down the side of his face, down his neck. His arms went around me, low on my back, holding me in a vice grip.

  One of his hands found the skin beneath my shirt, at the hollow of my lower back. The feeling was exquisite, and I pressed against him with my whole body. It felt like we were melting together.

  I reached down with one hand, pulled my shirt up in front; just a little, just enough the skin of my stomach could contact his. It was like a lightning strike—sudden, bright, thunderous, beautiful, and dangerous. We were surrounded by an intense heat, warm waves of it crashing against us. Both of us gasped and froze, not moving one inch, not even to breathe.

  When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, it came out in a rush and I collapsed on top of him. I felt him breathe again, slow, and unsteady, his heart striking with mine in perfect rhythm. Still we didn’t move, and our breaths slowly began to fall in line, matching in speed and depth. Complete unison.

  It could have been forever, or only seconds, but for a while time seemed irrelevant. I listened to his breath moving in and out, felt the little currents of electricity mix and mingle, traveling between and through us. I could hear it, like a low hum.

  Finally he spoke. “You’ll be the death of me, I feel it. Funny thing is, I don’t care. I’d rather die in your arms, than live a hundred years without ever feeling them around me.” His grip tightened, and he rolled to the side, pulling me with him.

  “What was that? What happened?” I asked quietly.

  He bit his bottom lip. “I don’t know, exactly. It was similar to a discharge of static electricity, I think, but,” He licked his lips, unintentionally making my thoughts scatter, “but it was something else entirely. I’ve never felt it before. It was incredibly—incredible.”

  I smiled a very satisfied smile as I pushed him back over. I wiggled to the side a little, slipping one leg between his, letting my arm rest across his chest, and burying my face in his neck. I couldn’t imagine a more comfortable place in the world.

  I began to let my fingertips slide along his warm skin, feeling the muscles tense in response, feeling his breath stutter and catch, watching goose bumps rise on his arms. I slid my hand lower, toward his belly button, and traced around it with a single finger. His stomach sucked in, and the muscles rolled like a wave. He grabbed my hand.

  “Stop, Jessie. I’ve told you I’m no angel, and you’re playing the devil with me. I can’t breathe.” His breaths were short and shallow, his face looked pained, but his eyes—they nearly glowed when he looked at me.

  “But, if it all goes back, why not—what would it matter? I mean, it would matter to me, and to you I think, but to the world…”

  “You think? You think it would matter to me?” I couldn’t decipher the sound in his voice. “If you only think it would matter to me, then there’s your answer why not. You don’t understand at all.”

  He tried to sit up and I panicked. “I’m sorry. Don’t, Gabriel, please. Don’t get up, don’t leave me.”

  “I wasn’t going to leave you. I should put on my shirt. I need to put on my shirt. I need something between us—for me.”

  I let him sit up, watched him snatch his shirt off the end of the bed and pull it over his beautiful shoulders. I scooted to the head of the bed and grabbed a pillow, my notebook was beneath it. I picked it up and started to place it on the floor beside the bed.

  “Wait.” Gabriel said, holding out his hand for it.

  “What do you want it for?” I asked.

  “May I?”

  “But what do you want it for?” I couldn’t help but be suspicious.

  “Do you trust me, Jessie?” The breathy way he said my name sometimes…

  “Yes.”

  He simply waited, hand out. I handed him the notebook and he turned through the pages quickly. He stood up, looked around the room, and found a pencil. Holding the notebook where I couldn’t see, he wrote something, closed it, then shoved the notebook under the edge of the bed.

  “What did you write?”

  “Look in the morning, then meet me at the big park. How early can you be there?”

  “Umm, my dad leaves early for the store. I could probably be there by eight, I think. Why? Are you leaving now? I wish you would stay.” I was hugging my pillow, my knees up in front of me.

  He smiled and walked back to the bed. “I’ll stay a while if you will try
to go to sleep.”

  I nodded, and watched as he turned out my lights. The moon was bright outside, but it still took a moment for my eyes to adjust. I still had on the clothes I had worn all day.

  “I need to change.” I said.

  “I’ll wait.”

  I was afraid to leave my room, afraid he wouldn’t be there when I got back. I opened my chiffarobe, pulled out a drawer, and grabbed my pink pajama shorts and tank top. “Turn around.”

  He gave me a look for a second, then turned his back. I jerked off my pants and shirt, pulled on the shorts and top, and checked myself in the mirror the best I could in the pale light. I shook some tangles out of my hair.

  “Okay, I’m done.”

  He turned around; halting the second his eyes fell on me. His breath drew in sharply, and he held it. Even in the dimness, I could see his eyes rake over me—no, I felt them—leaving fiery goose bumps in their wake.

  “The death of me.” He whispered.

  I walked slowly toward him, not sure if I should approach, or just jump in my bed and pull the covers over me. He looked both fascinated and terrified, the closer I came. I only wanted to make sure that there would be no way he could ever consider not coming to find me, nothing his father could say, nothing he could imagine in his own head, no excuses. That’s what I wanted.

  “You asked me earlier if I could be anything in the world, what I would be.”

  It took a second to sink in what I said. His eyes widened slightly, never leaving mine. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

  “I’ve decided.” I said. “I know what I want to be.” I took a step closer.

  “Yes?” He held his breath.

  “Yours.”

  I felt the pull the instant the words left my mouth. I covered the short distance in two steps, almost plowing him over, but his arms were already open, and he was waiting. I could feel the warmth of him through the thin cotton I was wearing, feel the electricity again, jumping and sparking.

  “I won’t let you down.” He murmured into my hair.

  I found his hand with mine, and tugged him toward the bed. I threw the covers back and climbed in, pulling them back over me. “Lay down beside me.”

  He climbed in the bed as I turned my back, scooting up against him and pulling his arm over me. I held his hand with my own two. I could feel his whole body down the length of mine, warm and strong and comforting.

  “Go to sleep.” He whispered. “I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”

  “What if I can’t sleep?” I asked.

  “Then we will both be in trouble tomorrow. Sleep.”

  I knew there was no way I could go to sleep with him so near, but I closed my eyes anyway. “I’ll see you tomorrow, at the park, right?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Okay.” I said, suddenly yawning. I didn’t even know what time it was, and I was too tired to open my eyes and look. Maybe I could sleep after all. I felt so secure, so warm, and so content. I could sleep like this every night, feeling him next to me. It would be heaven. Archangel.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.

  —Antoine de St. Exupery

  The sun was already bright when I woke up. I yawned and stretched and rolled and made noises, then opened my eyes. I couldn’t have moved much all night. My eyes went to the clock. Seven forty-five.

  “Oh, my god!” I jumped out of bed.

  Eight! I had to be at the park at eight! I didn’t have time to do anything! I ran as fast as I could go to the bathroom, brushing my teeth with one hand, washing my face with a cloth in the other. My hair was a tangled mess, so I grabbed the brush, tearing it through my hair as I ran back to my room.

  I jerked out the first clothes my hands landed on; I didn’t even care if they matched. I was going to have to run all the way there! I was jerking things on, hopping around, and pulling on shoes without socks.

  The notebook!

  I leaned under my bed and snatched it out, hastily turning the pages. I tried to find the back first. I had no idea where he had written.

  It wasn’t the back page. It wasn’t on the last page where I’d written. I flipped and flipped, and then I saw. The page with the list.

  I turned to it. At the bottom of the short list, below the erased words ‘Too Old,’ were three new words.

  Gabriel loves me.

  He loves me? He loves me! I already knew that, didn’t I? Yes, I did, but it was different seeing it in writing. He had never said it to me, not that I could remember, but he had showed it—and that was even more important than saying it.

  I closed the notebook, shoved it under my pillow, and ran.

  I had forgotten to remove my watch last night, and today I was grateful. I tried not to look too often, but whenever I got tired, when I felt myself slowing down, I would look at it and find new strength, new air. I was going to be late, but I knew he would wait. I thought maybe I should call, but I looked down, and I had forgotten my phone.

  I tried to concentrate on his face, see his eyes. I imagined speaking to him. ‘I’m coming, Gabriel. Wait for me.’ I didn’t know if he could hear me, but it made me feel better to imagine he could.

  As I turned the corner, the park came into sight. I looked at my watch. Eight-fifteen. I ran faster, using the last burst of energy I could dig down and find. I ran down the slope, across the street, and in through the entrance toward the back. I flew past the big birdbath and benches. I knew where I was headed.

  I saw him in the shadows of the trees. He was leaning against one of them. He was wearing jeans, sneakers and a regular black tee shirt. Even in the shadows, I could see his blue eyes. He held out his hand.

  I ran to the trees, to the shadows, and grabbed his outstretched hand, twining my fingers through his.

  “What took you so long? I was worried.” He had a concerned expression on his beautiful face.

  “I’m fine, just running late. I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” I was panting, trying to catch my breath.

  There was a blanket under the tree. He pulled me over to it, and we sat, never letting go. After we were seated, he took my other hand and held it tightly. “I was a little worried.” His eyes were dark, searching mine. “I was afraid you decided not to come.”

  “I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that. I woke up late.” I pulled one hand loose and put it on his cheek. “I couldn’t hurt you.”

  “Did you read what I wrote?” He asked.

  I knew my face was red from running, but I also knew he had to see the blush that deepened the color of my cheeks. “I did.”

  He raised my chin with his fingers, looking deeply into my eyes. “And?”

  “Did you mean it?” I asked.

  “With all my heart.”

  “With all your heart, what?” I wanted to hear it.

  “I love you, Jessie. Maybe I loved you before time even began.” He put my hand on his heart. I could feel the steady, fast rhythm, felt it pulse through me. My own heart felt connected—his set the pace and mine beat with it.

  He smiled, then suddenly rose to his feet, pulling me with him. “I have to show you something!” He guided me to one of the trees. “Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes and he took me a few more steps. He placed my hand on the bark of the tree, and moved it over the surface. I could feel something irregular, out of place. I knew what it was.

  In my ear, his soft voice whispered, “Open your eyes.” So I did.

  There was a carving in the bark. A heart, and inside J + G. It looked like it had been there for ages. I turned and smiled at him, then turned back. “I remember this. I’ve never seen it awake, that I recall.”

  “I know. I carved it for you yesterday. It’s a hundred years old, you know.” He smiled, showing his beautiful teeth.

  “I love it. Thank you.”

  I turned my back to the tree and he stepped closer, until his arms slid around me and he pressed his body to
mine. “You’re welcome,” he whispered, just before our lips met. It felt as if we were breathing each other again, the charge around us stronger than ever.

  He leaned back a moment. “I heard you.”

  My mind was still on his lips. I closed my eyes a second. “You what?”

  “I heard you telling me to wait. I was still worried, but I heard you. I knew you were coming.”

  That delighted me. He had heard me, and I was only half way here. That was pretty good! “I was afraid you would leave, and I forgot my phone because I was in such a hurry.”

  “I can take you back to get it. We need to be together—I need to be with you.”

  Something in the way he said it made me take notice. “Why?” I wasn’t arguing, it’s what I wanted, but there was something in the words, something unsaid.

  “I’ll tell you when we get to your house. Or we can go to my house. Your choice.”

  I took a deep breath. I was suddenly afraid, and I didn’t want him out of my sight. I could feel something coming. I knew it was today. I knew it was soon. I felt dizzy and unstable for a moment.

  Gabriel held on to me. “What’s wrong?” His hand was on my face again.

  “It’s coming. I feel it.”

  “What you feel is…” He stopped, and squeezed his lips together, stepping away and pulling me with him. “My car is over there.” He pointed to the other side of the park and started walking that way.

  “What I feel is what?”

  He walked silently toward the car, his shoulders slightly stiff, and his arm tight around me. I waited for his response, biting my tongue. I knew he would tell me. I knew he didn’t want to. I knew I didn’t want to know.

  We crossed the park quickly, went straight to the car, and he opened the door. “You forgot the blanket.” I said, sliding into the seat.

  “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.” He closed the door as soon as I was inside.

  I watched him cross in front, quick and deliberate. No slow, sensuous walk today. Walking served only its basic purpose, getting from one place to another. The door opened, he climbed in, and the motor roared. He gave it more gas than necessary a few times before shifting into gear and pulling out.