Authors: Amber L. Johnson
15
.
IT TAKES ME A SECOND TO PROCESS exactly what just
happened. To understand her words.
“Do you want me to leave?” I ask, the sound of my
voice hollow in my own ears.
She doesn’t speak, but just nods her head and turns
away from me, her arms wrapped around her torso like she’s about to fall apart.
I’m faced with two options: stay and make it worse, or leave like she’s asked.
Feeling bruised and deflated, I choose the latter option because, really, what
choice do I have?
Coco is nowhere to be seen, and a quick glance at
the parking lot confirms that she’s left the apartment. When the door clicks
shut behind me, I lean against it and close my eyes, fighting the urge to push
it open and go back inside.
I count to ten and wait, wondering if she’ll come
after me, but she doesn’t.
Yet I can’t make myself get in the car and leave.
Instead, I go to my trunk and retrieve my old track bag. The parking lot is
empty, and I’m feeling numb, so I don’t bother with modesty in the back seat of
my car while I change clothes. The entire world could see my ass cheeks, and I
wouldn’t even care. Emerging from the car, I take a moment to survey the area
before deciding on the direction of west. With the decision made, I tighten my
laces and roll my ankles, stretching just the slightest bit before taking the
first step.
And so I run. I run until I’m so thirsty I feel like
I might die – which is probably only a mile, given how little I’ve been able to
run like this recently. But I am stronger than I gave myself credit for. All of
that doctor recommended exercise is proving just how much stamina I had before
getting sick in the first place. My mind becomes clear, and so razor focused,
that I forget where I am. I’m not even sure of how far I’ve gone before I turn
and begin to run in the opposite direction backtracking until I start to see
stuff I recognize.
My car is still at Hannah’s apartment, so I point my
feet east this time, sweat dripping into my eyes, and skin flushed hot from
exertion. I can barely feel my legs when I finally come to rest beside my ride,
leaning against it for support, staving off the rolling nausea that is
threatening to overtake me. But I know I have to do something, so I push
through. Because the idea that formed as I ran is so insane; I’m inclined to
think it might work.
Lifting my shirt to wipe off my face, I take a deep
breath and stare at Hannah’s door. I have survived public school. I have
survived living under the same roof as a man whose job hindered my social
status amongst my peers my entire life. I have survived cancer. And I’m pretty
sure it’s all paved the way to get me to this moment.
With confidence that has lain dormant until now, I
approach Hannah’s door and knock three times. After what seems like forever,
she opens it a crack and looks up at me with swollen, red eyes. But before she
can speak, I do.
“Hi. I’m really sorry to bother you. But I was just
taking a run around the complex, and I forgot I didn’t bring any water with
me.” She’s confused, so I press on. Extending my hand like a gentleman, I
introduce myself. “I’m Oliver. Oliver Bishop. I live in Perry and graduated
last spring. I’ll be starting school here next semester.” She takes my hand and
I have to stop from pulling her in for a familiar kiss. “What’s your name?” I
ask, hoping she is beginning to understand.
“Hannah,” she says with narrowed eyes, opening the
door wider.
“Nice to meet you, Hannah.” I wait as she stares.
“I’m sorry. I know this is awkward, but I really am thirsty.”
Leaving me at the door she grabs a bottle of water
from the refrigerator and hands it to me, still staring me down. “What are you
doing?”
“Rehydrating. It’s essential when you run. Are you a
runner?”
“No.” She folds her arms and steps out of the door
onto her stoop.
After taking a long drink from the water she’s
handed me, I thank her. “You might have saved my life,” I say, looking her in
the eye. “Dehydration is a serious thing. Especially around here.” Looking
towards my car, I nod my head. “I should get going.”
“Okaaaaaay.”
“Oh, before I go, do you know of any good vegetarian
restaurants in the area?”
“You’re a vegetarian?”
I shrug and toss the water bottle in the air,
catching it and pointing it toward her. “A plant based diet can cure a lot of
illnesses. It’s good for you.”
“Oh, yeah? Who told you that?”
“My doctor.” I lie to get a reaction.
“Is that so?” She tilts her head and looks me over
like she’s seeing me for the very first time. “Your doctor told you that. Are
you sick or something?”
I smile and shake my head slowly. “Nope. Not
anymore.” The heat of her stare on my back could cause a burn by the time I
make it to my car. After opening the driver’s door, I turn to regard her one
last time. “It was nice to meet you, Hannah. Maybe we’ll run into each other
again when I start school.”
I’m almost behind the wheel when I hear her yell my
name. Leaning out of the car, I call back to her. “Yeah?”
“There’s a good restaurant on The Square that makes
veggie dishes that are to die for.”
“Thanks. I’ll look into it.”
She’s so pretty when she smiles, and I feel like
it’s been a lifetime since I’ve seen it. It’s brief, but she does. “Well, let
me know how you like it.”
“Sure thing. But, Hannah?”
“Yeah?”
“How will I get in touch with you?”
She shrugs a little and lifts her hands in the air.
“You seem to be a
really
resourceful guy. I think you’ll figure
something out.”
Her back is fully to me when I sprint from the car
and stop her from closing the door. “Go to dinner with me.”
Hannah, her eyes shining with the faintest glimmer
of hope, presses her fingers to her mouth and looks away. “I don’t know. I just
got out of a weird relationship and—”
“Sounds awful. You should eat some quinoa to get
over it.”
“Holy shit.”
“What?”
“You said quinoa right.”
“I know my grains.”
Her smile falters and she leans against the front
door. “What are we doing, Oliver?”
I run the back of my fingers across her now dry
cheek. “You think you don’t know me, but you should have figured out by now
that I know everything about
you
. I know your favorite band and your
favorite song, and that they aren’t from the same musicians. I know about your
family. Your favorite foods. I know that your heart is made of gold and I was
such an asshole to hurt it in any way. But I
know you
, Hannah.”
She’s shaking again, but she reaches for me and
presses her face to my neck as I continue.
“I know that I fell for you the second you bought me
pie, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself until my birthday. You are my favorite
part of every single day. No matter how big or small. You helped me get here. I
couldn’t get through these past six months without you. And I don’t want to go
through the next six if you’re not with me. I think I would rather have died
than imagine being here, so close to you, and not—”
She doesn’t allow me to finish my sentence; she
silences me with her mouth.
And then Hannah lets me in.
16.
THE FIRST TIME I SEE HER
,
we’re in her
bathroom, stripping down to get into the shower. She’s not shy. She lets me
look. Then she lets me touch.
And I do. I touch her like I’ve never done before.
Water drenched and soft beneath my fingertips, she lets me love her. Hannah
allows me to kiss her from forehead to toes, and I refuse to waste one inch of
skin. Even when the water runs cold and I can’t feel my lips against hers
anymore, I continue to touch her.
She’s shivering against me, but laughing between
gasps of pleasure. I want her and she knows it, because she’s touching me too.
There are certain effects that chilly water can have on a guy, so I let her
lead us out of the shower to dry off and start from scratch in her room, on her
bed, across those paisley sheets I’ve only just now become so damn fond of.
We kiss more. Long and slow, as she stretches up
against me, her toes pressing into my ankles while we balance on our sides. We
search with our hands, with our eyes; and it occurs to me that I must have
survived for this one single moment here in this bed.
“I love you,” I whisper, pressing an open palm to
her cheek while the other is busy between us. She doesn’t have to say it back.
The spreading blush across her neck and chest is enough for me now. It’s just
so compulsive to say the words aloud.
When she rolls to her back and scoots up far enough
to reach her bedside drawer, I follow. There isn’t a part of her that I don’t
want to know. There isn’t an inch of skin that should be left undiscovered.
She laughs when I pull her too tightly to my chest,
righting herself in my embrace to settle back onto the mattress. “I was trying
to get something,” she sighs against my cheek. There’s an unopened box between
our chests, causing my gaze to shift upwards, meeting hers. Lids at half-mast,
she licks her lips and nods - just once - that this is what she wants. It’s
awkward, working around the box and the packet, my attention continuously
bouncing back and forth from what I’m doing to what I’m about to be doing. But
she lies in wait, her hands roaming a circuit over my side and thigh until I’ve
accomplished the task at hand . . . and
then . . .
“I love you,” she whispers, softer than before. The
first time she says it, I not only hear it, but feel it from the inside out.
***
By the time Coco comes home, the sky outside is dark
and half of the box has been discarded into Hannah’s bathroom trash can. After
the run and finally getting to be with Hannah, I needed a nap.
She did, too,
not to brag
.
A few hours later and we’re on the couch in the
living room, eating dry cereal right out of the box and watching something that
I can’t focus any attention on at all. Hannah’s head is in my lap and I’m not
hiding the fact that I’m a nineteen year old guy who hasn’t had his fill for
the day. She doesn’t acknowledge it, yet her cheek nuzzles lower every once in
a while just to assure me that she knows. I’m just about to make a move when
Coco shows up with a couple of bags in her hand, banging loudly to let us know
that she’s home.
“There’s a party two over,” Coco says while filling
the fridge with groceries she got from the store. “It’s a costume party,
obviously.” She peers around the kitchen wall and eyes the two of us like she
knows. “I guess you two made up. Are you gonna stay the night, Dickup?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that it was an option
today, so I look down at my lap as Hannah glances up, a four leaf clover
marshmallow dangling between her lips. “Would Stella mind?”
I steal the clover and pop it into my mouth, smiling
as I chew. “Not much longer and I won’t have to ask to do anything.”
We end up two apartments over, crushed between
strangers, dressed in the couple’s costume that had nearly ruined it all.
Except tonight I’m wearing the doctor’s coat. And Hannah isn’t wearing the wig.
Coco pulled out some thigh highs and a corset, fashioned a pair of wings, and
is towering above both of us as the tooth fairy.
“I guess I could be a dentist,” I had
laughed when she cleared the door.
Hannah had taken my hand in hers to lead
us into the night. “I don’t care what you are, Oliver. You’re alive.”
Living is a tricky thing. Because there’s a
difference in living and just being alive. Standing in this apartment, holding
onto Hannah’s waist, I feel completely and effortlessly alive. The music is
loud, and the people are rowdy; drinks are being passed around us and above us,
in one long pulse of movement. It fills me with something new: excitement for
the future. Hope for something previously thought unattainable.
She kisses me without thinking about it, and we’re
free to do so. Nothing holds us back. Not even her ex when she points him out
across the room. He’s smaller and less threatening than I’d imagined. And for
one stuttering heartbeat, I feel sorry for him. Because he’d been so, so stupid
to have let her go. And I had been smart enough to fight.
We dance and we laugh. And I don’t stop touching her
the entire night as she introduces me to everyone that she knows. There isn’t a
trace of embarrassment in her eyes as she explains that I’ll be moving up in a
few months. It’s no one’s business why I didn’t start in the fall. No one knows
what has shaped me and brought us to this place. They simply know that Hannah
is with me, sitting on my lap, dancing in my arms, kissing my lips.
And frankly it’s all they need to know.
***
Just before sunrise, we find ourselves lying in the
dewy grass behind her apartment, a blanket haphazardly thrown across our feet
as I hold her against my chest and we stare up at the ever brightening sky.
It’s a gorgeous blend of gray and orange, and I lean
up to speak, but Hannah places a cold tipped finger to my lips to quiet my
thoughts.
“Wait for it,” she says softly, her lips turned up
into an anxious smile. When the sunrise is in full bloom, I can only see it
reflected in her dark eyes.
Leaning down to kiss her, I hold her as close as
possible, grasping the moment before it slips away. Before I’m too exhausted to
keep my eyes open a second longer. “What do we do now?” I ask into her ear.
She shivers against my chest and holds me just as
tightly.
“Whatever the hell we want.”