Hannah spent this morning trying to convince me to stay at her place until I could find an apartment I could afford, but I could feel myself already questioning my resolve. It would be too easy to slip back into the same pattern and just hide behind her the rest of my life. So I checked into a seedy pay-by-the-month hotel this afternoon and told her I’d be back for the few things in her apartment that are mine when I had somewhere to put them. I shaved, slept for a few hours, then got in my car and drove to Tino’s.
About half a block up, I see her car. She reaches into her pocket and the lights flash as she clicks the lock. She lowers herself into the driver’s seat, but when I try the passenger door, it’s still locked. She slams her door and cranks the stereo. Arctic Monkeys shake her windows.
It’s been a long time since I’ve let myself listen to that song.
When she makes no move to unlock the door, I pace to the car parked ahead of hers and lean against the trunk. Inside her car, “Do I Wanna Know?” plays on repeat, asking if this feeling flows both ways. I pray to God her answer is yes.
Her forehead is propped against the wheel. She doesn’t move.
For the next half hour.
So I wait. If she drives away, I’ll let her, but only because I know she understands what she’s leaving behind. She’s making her choice, and I have no choice but to let her.
Finally, she lifts her head and her eyes find mine. I hold her gaze and try to convey everything I’m feeling with a glance. I want her to feel me to her soul and know everything I am is hers if she wants me.
She opens the door and gets out. I shove off the car and face her.
“Do I want to know?” she asks.
I nod and take a step forward, but her expression is one of a feral animal, cornered and scared.
“Do I want to fucking know, Caiden?” she growls through gritted teeth, shoving both hands into my chest and knocking me back a step.
I hold my arms to the side, bearing myself open for whatever she needs to do. “Whatever you want is yours, whether it’s just my body, or my heart and soul too. You own me, Blaire. You always have.”
She comes at me again, but this time, instead of pushing me, she slams into me, her arms reaching around me and gripping so tightly I feel my ribs pop.
I fold my arms around her and press my face to the crown of her hair. “No more holding back. I’ll tell you everything.”
“Tell me,” she says into my shirt.
I lift her face and look into her eyes, trying to make her feel my words. “I agree with almost everything you said in your poem just now. We all spend our whole fucking lives grabbing at shiny things we think will make us happy—all the ridiculous benchmarks that we or people around us have set to measure our worth. We get so caught up in it that I think we lose sight of the things that matter, and when that happens, life is going to feel pointless. But I don’t think it is. That’s the part I disagree with.” I shake my head and thumb the tears from her cheeks. “All I can tell you for sure is I don’t have many answers, but I’ve got one. There has never been a time through any of this that I stopped loving you. You are what matters. When I lose sight of you, life is pointless. With you here, in my arms—” I lean forward and press my lips to her forehead. “—not so much.”
She breathes a shaky breath. “Tell me again. That last part.”
I lift her and crush her body to mine. Nothing has ever felt more right. “I love you, Blaire, with everything that I am. As long as you want me, I’m not going anywhere.”
Her ankles lock around my hips and she hikes herself higher up my body with her hands around my neck. “I thought I lost you.”
“What do you want, Blaire? Tell me what you want from me.”
“Take me home,” she says, and from the look in her eye, I know she doesn’t mean to her parents’ house.
I take the keys from her hand and load her into the passenger seat of her Mini. I duck into the driver’s seat and pull onto the road. She reaches for my hand on the stick shift and weaves her fingers between mine, then leans her head against my shoulder.
We pull into my cheap no-tell motel fifteen minutes later. I scan my key and guide Blaire through the door into the cramped, musty room. She kicks off her shoes and climbs under the covers in all her clothes. I toe off my Vans and go to the other side, sliding in next to her and wrapping my body around hers.
She falls asleep quickly, exhausted, no doubt. She looks so beaten down. But her body twitches, still wound too tightly to relax, even in sleep. I hold her and send her any shred of peace I can find within myself. I breathe her in and live in this place, where I never thought I’d be again. Eventually, I drift off and dream of being right where I am.
∞
I wake to pale morning light and a warm body draped over mine. When I open my eyes, Blaire is on top of me. Naked.
She smiles down at me and traces the lines of my mouth with the tip of her forefinger, making me smile in return. She pushes herself up so she’s straddling my hips and starts on the button of my jeans.