“God, no,” Emil says so forcefully that a woman at the table next to us glances over. “I think he’s strong as hell. The Ménière’s is shitty and I hate it, but people see my hearing aids and they know something’s wrong and they accept it. It’s not the same for him.”
Lionel said as much to me once, how so many of the same people who are quick to empathize with physical disabilities don’t understand why someone with depression can’t just get up and get on with their day like the rest of the world. It’s like they need a receipt that proves someone is actually going through some shit before they can care about them.
I slide my hand across the table until our fingers are touching. “I don’t think you’re weak, either.”
Emil takes my hand in his and squeezes. “Thanks.”
I squeeze back.
“So, what are you going to do about your brother?”
“I’ll tell Mom and Saul if things get bad.” He doesn’t say anything, but I feel him wanting to say something, so I keep talking. “Lionel said I’m the only one he trusts.”
“Yeah, but… some secrets aren’t worth keeping, right?”
“Ours are.”
“Why?” he presses me. “What’s so special about your secrets? He could get really sick, Suzette.”
My blood runs hot. Maybe irrationally so, but I don’t like him talking as if he knows more about Lionel’s illness than me. “Don’t you think I know that?”
“Hey, hey,” he says in a quiet voice. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to regret this.”
“I can’t betray him, Emil. He feels…defined by his bipolar. Like he’s lost himself somewhere in all the meds.”
He nods but says nothing.
“Emil. You won’t tell your parents?”
“I’m not a dick.” He gives me a small smile. “Are we cool?”
I say yes and return his smile.
Later, when Emil brings me home, we tread the perimeter of the house, sidestepping Mom and Saul in the living room, and go up to the tree house.
I climb up first and feel around in the darkness for the lantern we usually keep by the doorway. Lionel must have moved it. Emil is right behind me, and before I can tell him to wait for me to find the light, his hands are on my hips. Turning me around to face him. I can’t see him, but I can tell he is smiling, just from his energy. I like the moment before we kiss; his warmth becomes my warmth, and its combined force envelops me before I even touch him, like we’re in a cocoon built for two.
Emil gathers my dreads in one hand and pushes them away from my shoulders. His lips start at my neck and graze across my earlobe, and my skin ripples with goose bumps as his mouth meets my own. We stand in place for a while. A breeze skips across the night, lighting on our skin and fluttering the chimes above the back porch as we kiss.
We feel our way across the room and onto the futon, and then we’re lying down. I silently marvel at how Emil’s lips can touch mine in the softest, sweetest way, and then in the next instant leave me breathless. We pull apart after a while and we are still. The room is softly lit by the dim moonlight filtering in through the windows, and I look at the outline of Emil beside me, run my fingertip along his temple and over the hearing aid behind his left ear.
I trail my finger down his neck and shoulder and along the soft part of his arm until he shivers. He lightly catches my arm by the wrist and pulls it toward him, and I rest my palm flat on his chest, against his heart.
“Suzette,” he says with an ache in his voice.
It’s cool up here, almost cold, but I want to be as close to him as possible, so I begin to unbutton his shirt. Once the buttons are undone, he shrugs it off and peels off his undershirt, too. I sit up and turn my back to him, holding my dreads up with one hand while I gesture with the other to the zipper that falls down the back of my dress. Emil has it undone in seconds and, when I point to the clasp, my bra, too.
I slowly push down the top of my dress and toss my bra to the floor, and I almost wish the moon were hidden behind clouds tonight because when I turn back around he’s looking at me so intently that it makes me self-conscious. I want to cross my arms over my chest; no one has seen me without clothes on since Iris, and she was the first. But I sit here, completely still, and I let him look at me.
I breathe out as he touches my breasts, first with his hands and then with his mouth. It feels so good that I moan softly, and I’m embarrassed at being so audible, but he kisses just above my navel and says my name again. I lie back and his hands move to my thighs, to the hem of my dress and then under it. He bends his head to kiss between my legs and I jerk away.
“Sorry,” he says, sitting up and moving his hands away from me.
I sit up, too. “No, it’s okay. I’m…”
“It’s cool if you’re not ready. Sorry if that was too fast.” He keeps his hands clasped together in his lap. “I didn’t mean to push you into anything.”
“You didn’t. I’m just…”
Do I explain how it wasn’t too fast but how that reminded me too much of Iris, and how jarring it was to see her face when I liked, so much, what I was doing with Emil?
I don’t have to tell him about her. It wouldn’t change anything between us, either way. But I trust Emil. So much that it freaks me out, thinking about how open I want to be with him. Maybe I won’t overthink the physical if I tell him.
“The last person I was with was a girl.” I pause in case he wants to say something, but he just waits for me to continue. And in that pause I wonder if I would have stopped him if he were Rafaela; I wonder if I would have been uncomfortable, if I would have felt the need to explain why. “She was my roommate at school and we’re not together anymore and… we had sex. I liked her. And I think I like girls.”
“Okay.” Emil nods. “Okay,” he says again. “But it feels like what’s been going on with us… you seem into it. Is this…?”
“I’m into it.” I place my hand on top of his, still firmly glued to his lap. “I just wanted you to know because… I’m still figuring things out. And if I’m weird about some things, I don’t want you to think it’s because of anything you’ve done.” I swallow. “I like you, Emil.”
He looks down at my hand before threading his fingers through my own. “Good. Because I like you, too. A lot, Suzette.”
He leans over to kiss the apples of my cheeks. Then he presses his mouth to mine, just as the wind chimes dance their way through a new song.
fifteen.
The next morning, my mother offers to drive me to work and I’m probably happier about that than I should be. I don’t want to talk to Lionel about his date because I’m feeling strange about what happened with Emil. We didn’t have sex, but we would have, if I hadn’t stopped it.