Die for You

by Amy Fellner Dominy

  I was right, what I said to Lauren—he has come to see it my way.

  Our house is a split plan with Dad’s bedroom at one end and my room and bath at the other. The third bedroom is Lauren’s, though she’s never really used it. Dillon carries me past my room and into the bathroom. He sets me down and locks the door. It’s a big room, decorated in white wicker with two sinks, a mirror framed in blue, and white globe lights above. The shower is at the far end, enclosed by sliding glass doors with white and blue tiles from floor to ceiling. I turn on the shower and then face him.

  His eyelids are already heavy, his lips parted. “You’re wearing too many clothes,” he says.

  My stomach feels hollowed out. “You’ve been surrounded by girls in bikinis.”

  “I never noticed.”

  “Liar.”

  He pulls his shirt over his head and sets it on the counter. His shoulders are wide, muscles flexing across his hairless chest and down the contours of his abs. His skin is deeply tanned from the cruise and I can feel warmth coming off him as if he’s radiating sunlight.

  My throat is dry, my breath shallow as my pulse jumps. “The girls noticed you,” I say.

  He ignores that, his eyes on my chest. “Your turn.”

  I lift my tank. I’m wearing a new lacy push-up bra in Dillon’s favorite color, blue. I bought it yesterday with this moment in mind.

  His breath hisses out with a groan. “Oh hell.”

  I smile. The bra is worth every penny I spent. He slides off his shorts and boxers as I slip off my shorts and then, more slowly, my underwear. A blush prickles over my chest and neck. I don’t know why I suddenly feel shy, though this is still pretty new for us. We’ve been together for nearly a year, but we only made love for the first time two months ago. I didn’t want to rush into it. Part of it was wanting to be responsible—seeing a doctor and getting started on birth control. But the other part was wanting it to be right. Dillon wasn’t a virgin, but I was, and it mattered to me, even if I couldn’t say exactly why. History, I suppose. Not past history, as in the idea that my virtue as a human being was somehow wrapped up in my virginity—not everything from the past deserved to live on. It was more about my history—the moments I would carry around with me always. You don’t usually know what things you’ll remember forever, but having sex for the first time? I figure that one was pretty much a guarantee. I wanted to be sure it was a memory that would make me smile—not cringe.

  And it was.

  “Don’t,” he says.

  I blink. “What?”

  He slides one finger beneath a bra strap and pulls me close. “Don’t be shy with me.”

  “I don’t mean to be.”

  “It’s because we were apart.” His gaze is full of love, but there’s also a hint of pain in the tired puffiness beneath his eyes. It’s the fight we had. It’s the time away. Then his mouth closes over mine. He kisses me, bending me backward over his arm. His hand circles my waist and his fingers tighten over my hip bone.

  He pulls back, breathing heavy. “I missed you so much,” he says. “Too much.” His fingers press hard and I exhale from the sting of pain, but he doesn’t seem to hear. His eyes are all pupil, as if something dark inside has come to the surface and swallowed him whole—as if it’s ready to swallow me.

  “Now,” he says. “Come with me now.” He tugs at me, and my body responds. Heat rises inside me like the steam that fills the room and fogs the mirror. We’re a blur of skin, dark and pale, one ending where the other begins. I forget everything but him as he pulls me into the shower.

  We’re lying under the sheets, the pillows damp from our wet hair. The cream duvet is pushed to the floor. The bed is a queen—a present from Dad when I moved in with him. Though we have room to sprawl out, Dillon always takes the middle so we touch, even when it’s too hot to want anything against my skin. Now we’re both lying on our backs, our fingers entwined on top of the sheet.

  “It’s good to be home,” he says. “It’s good to be here.”

  I smile and squeeze his fingers. Afternoon light filters through my blinds, turning the buttery yellow paint to a rich gold. My gaze skims over the shelves of treasures on the opposite wall. The blue and green mosaic glass plate. The Egyptian pottery jug in deep red with an angled handle that took me hours to piece together. They’re both models I reconstructed in junior archaeology camps but the shards of pottery on the bottom shelf all came from actual dig sites. And there’s the engraved trowel from Marissa and Dad’s old I Dig It! camouflage hat that I wore to every summer dig until it started to fall apart. I smile and squeeze Dillon’s hand again. All my favorite treasures are in this room, including him. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”

  “We’re never getting a bigger bed,” he says. “We’re not going to be one of those couples who end up at opposite sides. Not even when we’re eighty years old and you snore.”

  “I snore? By then you’ll be too deaf to hear if I do.”

  I can feel his smile. “I should get us one of those cruise ship beds. That’ll keep us close.”

  “How was the cruise?” I tilt my head to look at him but he’s staring at the ceiling.

  “Long.”

  “Come on. You must have had a good time. You love the beach.” I let go of his hand and shift to my side. I trail a hand over his pecs. I would come back from a cruise five pounds heavier but Dillon looks leaner if anything.

  “I love my mom,” he says.

  “Buuuuut?”

  “But she’s always there. You know? It feels like I’m always onstage, trying to give her the reaction she wants.”

  “What does she want?”

  He sighs, his chest rising beneath my hand. “To know that I’m happy. To know that I’m not going anywhere.” He turns to face me. “We had a talk about you.”

  “Oh, no.” I prop myself on one elbow.

  “Don’t say it like that.”

  “She doesn’t like me.”

  “She doesn’t like the idea of you. At least, she didn’t. Before.”

  I brush away a clump of wet hair that’s stuck to my cheek. “That must have been some talk.”

  He smiles, but it fades almost immediately. “I told you about Kiersten.”

  I nod. Kiersten was Dillon’s one serious girlfriend before me. She went to a private school in Phoenix, but they met at the community center where he lifeguards during the summer. They had one of those intense summer romances, and when it broke up in September, he took it hard. He never said why it ended, just that it didn’t work out. I didn’t ask for details. I’d had a dozen passionate crushes (mostly unrequited), but I’d never had a serious boyfriend. I didn’t want to think of him that close to someone else.

  “The breakup was hard on me, and you know my mom. She’s overprotective.”

  “I know.”

  “Thing is…I went through a tough time when my dad died.”

  “You were fifteen, Dillon. Of course you did.”

  He wets his lips. “I started having nightmares. I’d dream that my dad was at the door. And when I answered…” His breath shudders through him; I’m not sure I want to hear this. I find his hand again and lace my fingers through his. “He’s standing there in one of his white button-downs, his hair combed back and still a little wet as if he’s going somewhere special. And he’s smiling. Just…smiling. And under his foot is a bomb.” His eyes squeeze shut. “Sometimes it’s not a bomb. Sometimes he’s holding a grenade. And the pin is pulled. And then—”

  “Oh, Dillon,” I breathe.

  “My mom sent me to a therapist.” He opens his eyes to look at me. “Did I ever tell you that?”

  I shake my head.

  “Just the one time. Anyway, it turns out I struggle with the idea of losing people.” He forces a half-smile and I want to crawl inside him and never let go. “So I let the thing with Kiersten get to me more than it should have. My mom worries that you’ll turn out to be another Kiersten. That you’re going to break my heart. I
told her you’re not like that.” His gaze locks on mine. “I trust you, and so can she.”

  “Wow.” I let that sink in.

  “And I want your dad to know the same thing,” he adds in a low voice. “That he can trust me.”

  “It isn’t that he doesn’t trust you, Dillon, because he does. He worries that we’re too young to be so serious.”

  “But your mom is okay with it?”

  “My mom has lost the right to vote on anything related to relationships.”

  He sighs. “So how was it? Going over there, I mean.”

  “Hard,” I say.

  “You sad about the house?”

  “More than I expected,” I admit.

  He raises my hand and tickles my palm with a kiss. “I knew you would be.” He kisses the round knob of my wrist bone. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

  “I know.”

  His lips press against the inside of my forearm. “I hate to think of you hurting.”

  “It was okay. I had Lauren there.”

  “And you saw Marissa?”

  Marissa! I shoot straight up and nearly knock him in the jaw. “I forgot to call her.” I lean over for my phone. “I promised I’d call yesterday.”

  “She’ll understand.”

  I shake my head. “I promised.”

  He tugs at the arm he’s still holding and plants a kiss on my shoulder. “Can’t you wait and call her when I’m gone? What’s one more hour going to matter? We’ve hardly even talked.”

  I meet the intense blue of his eyes and my fingers go slack on the phone. “Don’t let me forget, all right?” I set the phone down and reach for a bottle of water. “What a mess of a week.”

  “What else happened?”

  I hand him the water as he sits up. “I was supposed to tell Dad that the house is sold and Mom is moving in with Henry. But I still haven’t, and now Lauren is mad at me.”

  “Why doesn’t she tell him?”

  “She wants to, but you should see him, Dillon. He’s making a birthday present for my mom and he’s just so happy. I don’t want him to go off the deep end.”

  He takes a drink and gives me the bottle. “What happens if you go away next year?”

  The plastic crackles under my suddenly tight grip.

  “It’s okay, Em.” He takes the bottle from my nervous fingers and sets it on the bedside table. “We need to talk about it, right?”

  “We do,” I say. I glance at the clock. We have at least another hour before my dad will be home.

  “You still want to apply?” he asks.

  I hold the sheet tighter to my chest. “Yeah, I do. But that doesn’t mean I want to leave you.”

  “I get that.”

  I shift to meet his gaze. “You do? Really?”

  His lips curve in a smile. “Really.”

  My breath whooshes out. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t understand.”

  He shakes his head. “If we’re going to be together—I mean really together—we have to think about each other. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And I’ve had time to think, Em. I can see why you’re so excited.” He props a pillow behind one shoulder. “I’m guessing Mrs. Lyght said the word Rome and that was all you needed to hear.”

  I bow my head, but not enough to hide my smile or a small nod. He’s not far off.

  “I just…” He swallows. “I want it to be everything you hope it is. I do. But I have to wonder if it actually is.” Beneath the sheet, his foot rubs my knee. “Don’t tense up. I have questions, that’s all. You’re the most important person in the world to me. If I’m going to let you go, I want to know more about it.”

  He’s looking at me so calmly, so rationally. Still, the air is humming with tension and I don’t think it’s all from me.

  “Okay,” I say. I push my hair back. It’s still damp, though it feels like it’s been a long time since our shower. “What kind of questions?”

  “For starters, what kind of internship turns up a few months before you’re supposed to leave? Working at a museum, attending university there…it’s the kind of thing people apply for years in advance and still end up on waiting lists.”

  “I told you—the candidate dropped out.”

  “And there’s no qualified backup?”

  “They already made other plans.”

  “Plans they can’t change or drop for a huge opportunity like this?”

  I take a deep breath, wanting to deflect his words but with what? “You think Mrs. Lyght is lying?”

  “Of course not.” He rubs a hand down my arm, which makes my skin prickle because it feels almost condescending. “But how much did she really tell you? You’ve told me that archaeology takes years of study. Not just a bachelor’s degree—you need grad work. And yet, here you are, with no college experience. What kind of work could you do?”

  “The point is that I’d be in a museum.”

  “For all you know, the museum could be a glorified gift shop and you’d be working the cash register.”

  “I’d be working a cash register in Rome.”

  “Exactly,” he says. His voice roughens as he ticks off each point one finger at a time. “In a country where you don’t know the language, the money, the customs, or the people. You really want to be uprooted? You went through all that less than a year ago. You said you never wanted to go through that again.”

  “Things have changed,” I say. “I’ve changed.”

  “You really think so?” he says. “What happens when you get over there and discover you’re living in a run-down dorm with ten other students and none of them speak English?”

  “It’s not going to be like that.”

  “But you don’t know, do you? You hardly know anything and you’re ready to fly off.”

  I slide my legs off the side of the bed and reach for my underwear. I’m pissed at his logic and his assumption that I’m acting irrationally, but mostly I’m pissed that he’s right. “Fine,” I say, tugging on my thong. “I’ll go in tomorrow and talk to Mrs. Lyght.”

  “Good. I think that’s good.” I feel his hand on my back and that pisses me off, too. “You need to wait for the right opportunity, Em. Rome is always going to be there. Hell, I’ll take you there myself once we graduate.”

  I snap my bra together and twist it into place. “It’s not about a vacation.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “That’s how it sounds.” I spin to face him. “You have to remember that this is a career opportunity.”

  “And you’ll have a lot of those, believe me.”

  I turn my tank right-side out and pull it over my head. I’m mad again when I wasn’t going to be. “Let’s wait and see what Mrs. Lyght says, okay? If she can answer all of my questions.”

  “Even if she does,” he says, “you’d miss me as much as I’d miss you.”

  “I would,” I say, though all I’m feeling at the moment is frustration. And irritation. “But it’s nine months. We’ll get through it.”

  His eyes cloud over. “How can you say that? This past week felt like a year.”

  “Because we were fighting.”

  “Are we fighting now?”

  I sigh. I shake my head as my anger fades.

  “Come here,” he says gruffly.

  I climb back into bed and he pulls me closer. His hand presses over my hip and his fingers find the spot where he squeezed earlier.

  “Ow.” I wince and he pulls away, frowning. He pushes up my tank and exposes my hip. “Oh, Em,” he breathes as he runs a finger over the bruise that’s already forming. “I did that, didn’t I? I didn’t even realize.” His face pales as he looks into mine.

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay. I don’t want to hurt you. I would never hurt you. You know that, right?” He runs a hand over my hip, his thumb circling the bruise. It’s in the shape of his finger, as if he’s imprinted himself on me. “You’re so delicate,” he murmurs. “I can see your
veins, feel your bones.” He spreads his hand wide, his skin dark against my pale waist.

  “I’m not that fragile.”

  “You are.” He looks into my eyes again. “I’m trying to take care of you—to protect you—and it’s like you don’t see it.”

  “You don’t need to protect me.”

  “Yes, I do. You’re the most important thing in the world to me.” Gently, he kisses the spot where I’m bruised. “That’s why I’m going to keep you safe. No matter what.”

  He slides up beside me and holds his arms open.

  I settle against his chest and let him pull me closer. I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of him, feel the press of his strong arms that have come to mean safety. I bury my face in his neck. Bury my questions in a kiss.

  Bury the prickly feeling that everything is not all right.

  “It begins again,” Hannah pronounces in a voice full of doom. She holds up a cup of coffee and toasts us from her spot at the bottom of the bleachers.

  Dillon and I wad up our breakfast trash as she and Spence climb up to join us. The parking lot is starting to fill and first bell will ring in about ten minutes. I feel a strange sense of anticipation and dread. I woke early and went for a run, burning off as much nervous energy as I could before meeting Dillon here. I brought peanut butter toast and we shared it on top of the empty bleachers, the sun warming our backs, the birds circling for any dropped crumbs. Now Hannah and Spence are here, clomping up the bleachers, and I’m glad for the distraction.

  Spence and Dillon smack palms in greeting as Spence shoots me a smile.

  “How was Disneyland?” I ask.

  “Shitty,” he says. “Literally. My little brother had the stomach flu the whole week. My dad’s got it now.” He sits on the top bench and rests his elbows on the rail. In a white tee and long board shorts, with his blond hair dipping over one eye, he already looks like a San Diego college boy. “So what exciting things happened here?”