“Because I’m about to be really close to your face, and you might think this is inappropriate, in which case, punch me. Okay?”
Jackson gets on his knees and tells me to do the same. He puts his hands on my waist and leans in, but not toward my lips. “This is a butterfly kiss.” I tense up as he brushes his eyelashes against mine. “This is a caveman kiss.” He bumps his forehead against mine, gently. I’m shaking a little. “This is an Eskimo kiss.” He rubs his nose against mine with closed eyes, expecting me to do the same, but I’m scared of what I will do if I move. “And this is a zombie kiss.” Jackson nibbles on my cheek, doing a very stupid growl. He stares into my eyes afterward and smiles. He’s pretty happy he shared something so intimate with me.
He doesn’t know that I know all of this.
You taught him something personal to me. You taught him a routine I had with my parents as a kid. You taught him something I never thought I would share with anyone else until you came along. You taught him a kiss I personally created for us when I grew up needing a fourth.
I get it.
People are complicated puzzles, always trying to piece together a complete picture, but sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we’re left unfinished. Sometimes that’s for the best. Some pieces can’t be forced into a puzzle, or at least they shouldn’t be, because they won’t make sense.
Like Jackson and me on this odd day, or any day.
I grab Jackson by the back of his neck and kiss him—not a butterfly kiss, not a caveman kiss, not an Eskimo kiss, not a zombie kiss—a straight-up kiss where my tongue finds its way into his mouth and his massages mine back. Jackson wrenches away from my lips, looks me in the eyes with confusion, but I’m not sure I find regret there. He takes a deep breath and flies back toward me. Jackson kisses me with the same aggression I surprised him with.
His fingers rake my lower back as he pulls me so close to him our chests are pressed together, hearts hammering against one another. I push him backward, and he probably thinks I’m done, that I’ve come to my senses or something, but I take off my shirt and send it sailing across the room. I’m used to seeing a smile when reaching this stage in bed, a smile because someone is excited to be doing this with me, but Jackson must be struggling with this, except not enough that he can stop himself from pulling off his own shirt and dropping it on the bed.
“Where are your condoms?”
Jackson manages to reach into his bedside drawer.
“Should I turn off the lights?”
“Nope.”
I want you to watch me have sex with your boyfriend.
This is someone who’s grieving over you, another human with his own human feelings who shouldn’t be used as a weapon against you. But I’m a human too, with my own human feelings. You used our intimate history to create a future with someone else, and that’s a thousand times worse.
You used our love against me. Now I’m using your love against you.
When we’re done, sweating despite his shitty air conditioner, I stare up at the ceiling. Jackson does the same.
I’m naked with Jackson in Jackson’s bed in Jackson’s bedroom in Jackson’s home in Jackson’s state in Jackson’s time zone.
I want the lights off more than anything right now.
If there’s anything I want more, it’s for you to go away. I spent so much of my time being loyal to you, even when we weren’t dating, because I thought we had our endgame plan. Look where that loyalty got me. I’m stuck here trying to figure out my next move. What I’ve now learned is, going forward, I have to be careful whom I trust with my heart. I have to be suspicious that someone will use the love I give and carry it over to someone else.
You did this to me.
History is nothing. It can be recycled or thrown away completely. It isn’t this sacred treasure chest I mistook it to be. We were something, but history isn’t enough to keep something alive forever. You’re not the best friend and love of my life I’ve spent this past month mourning, and missing long before that.
I don’t want to talk to you anymore.
Wednesday, December 14th, 2016
Whose dog is barking?
It takes a minute for everything to click, but I know I’m in Jackson’s bed where we had sex last night. Wow, I had sex with him while Chloe was in the room. There’s something wrong about that scenario. I don’t know, it’s like having sex in a room where a baby is sleeping, except there’s no way his dog slept through that. I’m facing the wall with the poster for The Goonies.
Another difference: there are no arms wrapped around me like whenever I woke up next to that asshole, Theo.
I slowly turn. Jackson is also at the very edge of the bed, an entire island of space between us. Neither of us had cuddling on the brain.