38
After I calm down, we walk over to one of the paths along the river. It’s evening now, but the powerboats and Jet Skis are still zooming around. The mighty Colorado seems less like a major river than a paved aqueduct. Like everything about this trip, it’s not what I hoped for. I tell Ben I can’t believe that this is the grand Colorado River.
“Follow me,” he says. And I do, down a boat ramp, to the edge of the water. “I used to have a big map over my bed.” He kneels down next to the water. “The Colorado River starts in the Rocky Mountains and cuts through the Grand Canyon and goes all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. It might not seem like much here”—he leans over and scoops a handful of water—“but when you hold the water, you’re kind of holding a piece of the Rockies, of the Grand Canyon.”
He turns to me with his still-cupped hands, and I open mine as he lets go of his, and the river water, which has come from places unknown, with stories untold, flows from him to me.
“You always know the thing to say to make it better,” I say, so quietly I think my words have gotten drowned out by the Jet Skis.
But he hears. “You didn’t think so when you first met me.”
No. He’s wrong. Because though I hated him, there has always been something about Ben McCallister that made it better. Maybe that’s why I hated him. Because it’s not supposed to be better. And certainly not with him.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He reaches over and takes my wrists, and I clasp his, my own hands still wet with the mysterious river.
I don’t let go and neither does he, and the river water stays between us all the way back to our motel, where, inside our overheated room, we start to kiss. This one is as hungry as the one at his house months ago, but it’s different, too. As if we are opening ourselves to something. We kiss. My shirt falls to the floor, then Ben’s does, too. The feel of his bare skin against mine is astonishing. I want more. I tug off his jeans. I unzip my skirt.
Ben stops kissing me. “Are you sure?” he asks. His eyes have changed again, to that inky blue of a newborn’s.
I am sure.
We make our way to the bed in a tangle of limbs. He is warm against me, hard, but restrained, too.
“Do you have a condom?” I ask.
He leans over, pulls a shiny foil wrapper out of his wallet. “Are you sure?” he asks again.
I pull him to me.
When it happens, I start to cry. “Should I stop?” Ben asks.
I don’t want him to stop. Though it is painful—more than I expected it to be—I’m not crying because of how much I hurt. I’m crying because of how much I feel.