The Truth About You & Me

by Amanda Grace

  Then we sat down and ate and talked.

  And talked.

  And talked.

  We talked all night, until we fell asleep right there in the light of the fire, and we never even kissed.

  Love you forever,

  Madelyn

  Dear Bennett,

  I had to start a second letter, one not meant for them.

  That last part was a lie, and not even a good one. You’ll probably laugh when you read it. But see, when I wrote everything up to that last page, it was for a reason.

  I was going to send it to the police station as a way to clear your name. As a way to show that you’d been honorable, that you were the victim here, that you hadn’t conditioned me, hadn’t groomed me to fall for you. Those are words they used when they talked to me. Ugly words that sounded like total garbage. Words that angered me. Disgusted me.

  They didn’t understand what we were.

  But it turned out that writing that fake ending may not matter at all, so now I might as well write out the rest of it. Because I can’t bear to write so many pages of truth and end it all with a lie.

  I didn’t unpack some bogus picnic while you were building the fire. I simply sat and watched.

  Your efficient hands built the fire in no time, creating a little kindling teepee and setting it all aflame, not so different from the warmth that was growing inside of me. As that fire took off, that candle burning within me burst, grew into an inferno. I didn’t sink into the couch, like I once had at your house, because every nerve ending in my body was standing on end. Every second, we were creeping toward a moment of no return.

  Every day I spent with you, every word we said, every innocent touch, we’d crept toward this night, the night you would kiss me.

  But the thing you should know, the thing everyone should know, is that in that moment your back was to me—as you stoked the fire, leaning in and blowing and poking at it, shepherding it from a tiny flame into a roaring fire—I had time.

  I had time to tell you the truth.

  I had time to confess.

  I had time to look at you and tell you that no, I couldn’t do this, that I wasn’t who you thought I was, that taking one more step down this road could lead to disaster for both of us.

  It was me, Bennett, that let this all happen. I held all the cards. I looked at them, knew what they all meant, and I surged ahead anyway, dealing you a hand from which you could never recover.

  I wanted what I knew would come next. I was desperate to kiss you, finally, and it meant more to me than anything I’d experienced before it. I wanted to know what it would feel like to be with you without a thousand things between us.

  I’d once promised myself that you would know the truth that night. December 13th, the day we’d been waiting for. Before anything serious happened, I’d confess it all. But as I sat there, picturing just how I’d say it, the words simply didn’t form. They ran through my head, the million ways I could tell you:

  I’m sixteen, I could blurt out.

  I’m actually still in high school, I would say.

  Do you know what Running Start is? I’d ask.

  But as that fire warmed the room with its orange glow, I said none of those things. I simply watched as you walked away, tossing our backpacks onto that little island countertop, your back to me, your shoulders so square in that jacket. And then, as if you’d heard my thoughts, you turned around and crossed the living room in front of me, hanging your jacket on a peg I hadn’t seen before near the front door.

  I wasn’t wearing a coat, and I shivered a little, and you smiled down at me, like you’d seen it all.

  And then a moment later you were next to me on the couch and your warmth wrapped around me like a warm blanket, not intrusive or overwhelming, just … perfect and comforting.

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve thought about this … ” you whispered, your breath hot on my ear, intense in a way I’d not expected, and I leaned into you, melting.

  Your lips brushed my earlobe, lightly at first, and then you teased it between your teeth, nibbling in a way that set me on fire, made me crackle and burn like the fire growing in the hearth, the one that was shockingly warm already … or maybe that was me, warming from the inside out.

  “God I want you,” you said, and with those four words, I was yours. Any real thoughts of telling you the truth melted somewhere in the back of my mind.

  I leaned back against the couch, pulling you into me, and you responded in kind, falling against me until we were halfway horizontal, and then you seemed to have a better idea, and you halfway stood, pulling me with you until we were both on our feet, swaying, me against your body, more unsteady than ever.

  “Follow me,” you said, your voice huskier than I’d ever heard it.

  I would have followed that voice anywhere. The voice that made my stomach squirm and my skin turn hot.

  Your grip on my hand that night wasn’t the same as it had been before. It was hot and tight and it pulled me in a way that held urgency, and I couldn’t resist it.

  In an instant, we’d crossed the main room and I was standing in a bedroom, a place where the only light came from the reflection of the white snow outside. It cast the room in a romantic glow, soft, serene, pale. It couldn’t have been staged that way, but it was like a movie set, perfect for the night.

  I stood there awkwardly for a moment, my heartbeat out of control, until I felt your hands on mine again, then on my hips, and then your lips on mine, hungry, desperate.

  And then we were kissing in the way I’d craved weeks ago, on the porch at High Rock as we’d looked down on the world and you denied me what I wanted most.

  That night you gave it to me. Finally, you gave it to me.

  You were all over me in that second, hungry, touching, feeling, exploring, needing, and I met you in every way. That candle that had flickered and bent and grown inside me turned into a five-alarm fire, and I was aflame.

  You kissed everything, cheeks and chin and lips and neck and collarbone, and I couldn’t stop the hungry exploration of your skin as I did the same, until a mattress hit the back of my knees and I toppled onto my back and you followed, until you were lying on me, just as hungry as ever, kissing, touching, caressing, your hands sliding under my shirt.

  In that moment, there was nothing else. Nothing outside that room, that cabin, the world, that would have torn me away from you.

  Not even the truth.

  My skin grew hot and when you pulled away a little, I followed, unwilling to let your touch go so easily. Once you were upright, your fingers found the lower edges of my shirt, and then it was slipping over my head, my hair tangling and then falling around my shoulders, the sensation silky and sexy all at once in a way I’d never experienced.

  I stayed sitting up as you kissed me, your tongue darting in and out of my mouth, your hunger seeming to match the burn inside. An atomic bomb could have gone off and I would not have noticed.

  I was lost to you.

  I reached down and grabbed at your shirt, eager to feel your skin on my fingertips, and you pulled it over your head, then slid your hands over my hips, up my back, until they found the place my bra clasped. In a breath, in an instant, the elastic let go.

  I should have felt something, then. Shyness. Embarrassment. Fear.

  All I felt was hunger and certainty. I wanted this.

  You should know that, even now as I look back, I don’t regret a moment of that night, not for me, but I do regret it for you. I would never rewind it except maybe to save you from what happened afterward.

  But for me, for everything that fell apart in my life, I wouldn’t change it for that, because it was a night I will never forget, never let go of.

  You lay me back again, and the rough quilt, the one with elk and moose all over it, the one so suited for this cabin but so unex
pected for my first time, felt vaguely rough against my skin, but I couldn’t stop touching you, feeling you, wanting you, so it barely registered.

  There were zippers and kisses and whispers, heat against the cold—I remember that with amazing clarity, how cold it was in that room, so cold I could swear our breath fogged into the night, but in the dark, I couldn’t be sure.

  And then there was me and you and the moment, the moment we finally jumped.

  Me, you, and the night.

  We jumped.

  Hours later, I untangled my limbs from yours as the dawn crept into the room. Not through the curtains, but from the main room, the place we’d never returned to after.

  The air in the cabin wasn’t as cold as it had been when we arrived, though, so I figured you must have gotten up in the night, stoked the fire. It cast a warm orange hue around the living room, the one with all that log furniture and kitschy cabin memorabilia.

  I stood in the middle of it all for a long moment, the blanket from the foot of the bed wrapped around my shoulders, looking at it, taking it all in, memorizing it.

  It’s weird how I had this feeling, like I needed to memorize that dawn moment, like I wouldn’t experience it again, like I’d need to catalog it and hold on real tight, make sure I never let go of the memory.

  I must have known, right? That it would go all wrong.

  I was sixteen, but I wasn’t stupid.

  All that time, all those weeks, and there I stood, in the afterglow of us finally, truly being together, and I felt oddly … lost.

  Because I’d focused all my time, all my thoughts, on that moment. And now that the moment was over, it hit me with shocking clarity. There, standing in the middle of that cabin, I realized I’d been willing to do anything for twelve weeks, been willing to lie and create a whole new me for you …

  But I hadn’t told you the truth yet, and I couldn’t hold on to my lie for another two years.

  Years, Bennett. That one word hit me like a hammer to the head as I stood there alone in the glow of the fire, listening to it crackle and pop, warming the room while I felt suddenly so cold, down to my toes. I reached over, found your discarded Seahawks hoodie and pushed my arms inside. I pulled it over my head, breathing in the scent of you as my emotions warred.

  I wanted you so desperately, I loved you so thoroughly, and in that moment, alone in the dawn light, I realized I would probably lose you.

  Even then, I never thought it would actually happen the way it did—so abruptly, so cruelly—but some part of me realized that I could never keep you, that you’d never belong to me in the way I so desperately wanted to belong to you. No more than a child can bring home a puppy and keep it a secret, because at some point the hidden lie grows and barks and demands attention. And that was to be my relationship with you.

  You would want more … and my parents would figure it out … and I was only sixteen.

  I closed my eyes and took in a few deep breaths, calming down as your scent wrapped its way around me. It wasn’t just the hoodie. You were on me, on the blanket, and it calmed me, reminded me that I was still with you, at least for now.

  So I decided to ignore the future, ignore the growing secret, the one that would be too much so soon, but the one I could hold for now, the one that could be just me and you and nothing else.

  I had no way of knowing the days, weeks, maybe months we could have together before it got complicated …

  No way of knowing that everything would fall apart in the next hour.

  I walked to the bathroom and slipped inside, flicking the light on only once the door was almost closed. But it seemed stuck, like I’d have to give it a shove for it to fully click, and I didn’t want to wake you, so I allowed a crack of light that probably filtered into the bedroom.

  Under the harsh light of three incandescent, yellowy bulbs, I stared at myself, trying to see me the way you did. Like a pretty college girl, someone you could be attracted to. A girl who didn’t look like the one my mom and dad and brother saw.

  I did look older, different, sexier in some way. Worthy of your attention, wrapped up in your hoodie, my hair wild around my shoulders.

  And then I began to hope that somehow, someway, this wouldn’t be a one-time thing. Somehow I’d hold it together. And I knew you didn’t see it as a one-time thing—you’d waited twelve weeks so that we could be together.

  Not one night, not one time, but forever.

  And as I stared at myself in the mirror, I had trouble seeing myself as the girl who would sit on her bedroom floor and pretend to work on homework just so her dad would be happy.

  I used the bathroom and washed my hands and then arranged my hair around my shoulders in a sexy way, just in case you’d woken up while I was in there.

  I wanted you to see me and want me again. I didn’t know how long I had with you, but I had that morning, and somehow I’d make it stretch on and on. I’d figure out a way.

  I walked out of the bathroom, flipping the light off as I stepped back into the bedroom. I glanced up at the bed, surprised to see that you were awake, pulling a blanket off the floor into your lap. In the process, my backpack tumbled over, spilling the contents of the front pocket.

  I was just in time to see you reach for that pumpkin-orange sheet of paper, the one that fluttered at your feet. And in that moment, my entire world shattered, and nothing else I’d been thinking, not the fears or the hopes, the reality or the dreams …

  None of it mattered, because you’d just found the truth.

  I froze, halfway between the door and the bed, halfway between what we’d become and where I knew we were about to go. Every ounce of blood drained from my body as you unfolded the sheet, your eyes darting across the words on that stupid, stupid piece of paper.

  I wanted to lunge at you, yank it out of your hands and come up with some way to explain it in a way that would make you understand.

  You jerked slightly as you finished skimming, and then you went still, your breathing turning labored as your fingers tightened, gripping the paper so hard your knuckles turned white. You didn’t look up at me at first, but you knew I was standing there, waiting.

  Dreading, fearing, breaking.

  “Why?” Was all you said, your face gray and ashen, your control unraveling.

  “I—” And on that one tiny word, my voice cracked, just like the fissure splintering through my heart. You still didn’t look at me, just stared right at that page, unblinking.

  “Why. Do. You. Have. This?”

  And then you stood and were across the room in an instant, standing so close I was forced to crane my neck to look up at you. And when I saw the fear and the rage swirling in your eyes, it became impossible to breathe, let alone speak, and in that moment I knew the thoughts racing through your head, knew that every thing you knew about me was rearranging, creating an entirely new image

  You tipped your chin down, just the tiniest bit, until our noses were nearly touching, and you met my gaze with such fire I stepped back.

  “Why,” you growled.

  You knew why. You had to have known. There’s only one reason why a girl would have a high school newsletter, the one I’d grabbed from the mailbox at home two days ago and shoved into my backpack without giving it a second thought. Every professor at GRCC knew that Running Start existed, that a small percentage of the overall student base might be high school students. They’d probably mentioned it to you in passing, sandwiched between budgets and construction and mandatory office hours, and you’d never thought of it again.

  As you stared down at me, those thousand puzzle pieces clicked back together and you finally saw the picture you’d somehow missed all along. You knew, but you wanted desperately for me to give you some other reason.

  And in that moment, I wanted desperately to have another reason, to lie, to patch up the giant crack that gaped between
our feet, separating us. That beautiful vision I’d had earlier—of us together, somehow surviving the next two years—it fell into the ocean that now separated us.

  “Because I’m still in high school,” I whispered, closing my eyes, bracing myself. For what, I’m not sure. I didn’t expect you to hit me or shove me, but I had to brace for the impact of the truth.

  “How old are you?” The words came out so low and guttural, so drawn out, that it must have been painful for you to speak them out loud.

  I took a deep breath as the dam holding my lie back finally broke, and the impending wave washed us away. “Sixteen,” I whispered, still not opening my eyes, still not facing you.

  Not facing the truth of what I’d done.

  The door crashed open and slammed against the wall so loudly I jumped, my eyes popping open because I hadn’t heard you crossing the room, and yet once I looked at the place you’d been, all I saw was dead air, emptiness.

  And before I could move, I heard you. Heard you retching into the snow bank outside, heave after heave, such an ugly sound compared to the things you’d whispered last night, compared to the heavy breaths and the soft, sweet sounds that had torn from your throat. I slumped to the floor and curled over, closed my eyes against the sting of the tears already spilling over my cheeks, listening to what my lie had done to you.

  You went silent a few moments later, but by then it was hard for me to breathe. Yet I couldn’t bear the idea of you seeing me that way so I scrambled toward the bathroom, desperate to pull myself together, like that would somehow fix the ugliness of what I’d created. I turned on the sink, splashed cold water over my face, then blew my nose and stared at my reflection in the mirror for only a moment before turning away.

  I couldn’t look at myself.

  I stepped out of the bathroom and there you stood, near the front door, one hand on the door jamb as if it was all that was holding you upright. You stared me down and it took everything I had to meet your eyes. You didn’t speak, not even a single word. Not one. The moments swirled around us, the clock ticking but the moment stuck.