“I think about not being near you like we are right now, and I…can’t take it.”
Landon’s hand around mine squeezes.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say, surprised to find my throat is tight. Out here in this field, with trees around us and the cauldron of clouds and stars above us, I feel like we’re in another world.
“Maybe you should stay away from me.” His voice is hoarse. His eyes are strange.
“I don’t think so.” I swallow, looking back down at our joined hands. “I don’t think I can. It seems impossible.”
His fingers stroke between mine, and I feel it in my lower belly. “Why is it impossible?”
“I don’t know why.” I feel a piercing sensation in the center of my chest, as if my heart is getting penetrated with a real, live cupid’s arrow. I look up at him, at his eyes—now soft in the cloudy light—and his familiar, trusted face. “You’re just…my favorite person,” I whisper.
He smiles again, just slightly, and it’s a smile that makes me want to cry. “I don’t know why that is. Why is anybody anybody’s favorite person? Sometimes I feel like it’s a miracle that we can find those people.”
I close my eyes and try to focus on the feeling of my hand wrapped up in his. Because, even right now, in the soft grass, on this moon-drenched night, I have the strange sensation that it’s all about to end. I’m going to lose him. I can feel it coming.
“I don’t think it matters why, do you?” I draw his hand nearer to me, up against my lower belly. “I just want to be near you. I’ve never wanted anything this much, Landon. Never.”
And I know somehow, I’ll never want anything like this again.
“You shouldn’t say that,” he says softly.
“Why?” I’m surprised to see I’m peering at him through the gleam of tears. “Is it just one-sided? Just me?”
His mouth tightens. “You know it’s not.”
He lets go of my hand and wraps his arm around me—tight.
“I want you all the time, Evie. It’s like…a thirst. I saw Gabe, but I had seen you in there, too. All I fucking wanted was to tell you. I can’t even talk to you without losing a hold on myself. So,” he says—inhaling, then exhaling. “I tried to dull it, but it didn’t—getting drunk. Now it’s so much worse. Now all I can think about is how much I want to touch you… Evie, go now. I’ll walk back behind you.”
“No.”
I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want Landon’s mouth on mine. I want to feel him, hear him…touch him.
“I want your hands on me,” he rasps, “my hands on you. I want to do things I shouldn’t want to do, keep you out here in this field for hours, just the two of us, so I can— Ev, I’m telling you, you have to go.”
My body is aflame. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” I hear myself tell him.
Landon groans, and that is all the warning that I have before his mouth covers my own, his hands stroking behind my neck and clenching in my hair. He holds me to him as he kisses me. My body thrums, as if begging his mouth to visit every part of me.
I know—as he holds me in his hard, strong arms, as our frantic mouths wage tender war—why they call it falling.
I feel as if I’m in a free-fall, grasping at him reflexively. Needing to hold onto him.
We take gasping breaks between our frenzy. Words pour out.
“Oh, Landon.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.”
We kiss so long and hard, I wind up on his lap, and I can feel the fire between our bodies even in my lungs. I can’t remember how to breathe without gasping his name.
“Evie,” he whispers between the onslaught. “Evie…” And I love the way he says it. Like a prayer.
I’m on top of him, and his lips are on my throat; his hands are on my shoulders, and they’re sliding down. My hands are rubbing his muscular belly, and he’s jolting, groaning, stretching out beneath me.
“Oh God, Evie…”
I kiss his neck, and Landon jerks away. “Evie—you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because…I’ll— Evie…” he swallows. “I can’t help it,” he says hoarsely. “Being near you, it will make me—”
“What?” I whisper.
His eyes shut. “You overwhelm me, Evie.”
“I want to overwhelm you.”
So he shows me—with my hands and with the best part of him.
It doesn’t end that night. Because we just keep falling—on through weeks.
In his better moments, Landon tries his best to keep me from forbidden fruit, but it’s as if the more he tries, the more I want it. Need it.
He stays far away from me for nearly a whole day after the night at Jake’s house, and after that, I see him every night in his bedroom. Our bodies come together—and our hearts do, too.
I kiss him until he can’t endure it anymore, and he drives me over the same ledge, and then we’re tired enough to sleep.
As fall turns into winter, we meet on the basement stairs at odd hours, at all hours. Nothing can dampen our flames. It’s like a forest fire that grows and grows, consuming everything.
I lie to everyone except Makayla; even to my best friend, I give little.
Everything for Landon.
I learn him better than I know my own poor, thirsty heart. We lie in his bed in the deepest part of night, our gazes flitting toward the floorboards over our heads and our hands busy, our hearts pumping, our words turning the old basement into a place of heady magic.
It happens on the airplane sheets I picked for him. It happens in my parents’ house. It happens on the days we’re both at home with flu, and on the weekend that my Mom and Dad go out of town for their anniversary—instead of going to our friends’ houses, we both stay home.
I feel as if I’ve been half-dead for sixteen years, and now my heart beats. Overnight, and weeks, then months, I come to understand why people fight in wars. Why people leave their families and get on ships and sail to far sides of the world. I understand why crimes of passion happen, and why sometimes, there are tales of married couples who die hours apart.
Loving Landon is like breathing. My lungs expand, and my head spins.
Eleven
Landon
“What kind of doctor?” I ask, the question muffled against her hair.
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe one that deals with brains.” As she speaks, her hair tickles my chin.
“Brains, hm?” I lean back a little, not loosening my grip on her, but just enough so I can look into her eyes.
“What’s so appealing about brains?” I ask her.
Evie snorts. I feel her little breath against my throat, where her lips rest.
It’s the middle of the night one snowy evening just after our Thanksgiving break. We’re in my bed, on our sides, facing each other.
“They seem like the most important part, you know,” she tells me. “Cardiology is considered so glamorous, at least it is from what I gather, but the heart is just a big ol’ boring muscle.”
That makes me chuckle. “I’d say you’re under-rating it a bit.”