shallows.
“ Keep showing it off that way,” you called from the kitchen, “and J.’s never going to let you leave the house.”
I laughed at that. “J.’s too late,” I said. “The only person I’d ever give it to is already…”
I froze before the mirror.
I watched myself pale as the words were choked off, and I had no idea how I’d managed to say them. I knew why I’d said them, though, the sudden realization flowing through me like ice water.
The only person I’d ever give it to is already here…
I had always had a bit of a thing for you. That seems like a trivial statement to make now, after being overwhelmed by the understanding that night. Nothing dangerous, mind you. But you were almost the perfectly clichéd icon of what my parents and their medieval morality would have called “the bad boy.” The bad boy was a thing I had always been denied and thus watched from afar. And so I had always watched you.
Staring at myself in the mirror now, a rush of emotion flooding through me, I couldn’t look back at you, hoping that your silence meant you hadn’t heard me.
“ The only person you’d give it to is already what?” Your slow footsteps sounded out from the kitchen, getting closer. Coming to a stop at the bedroom door.
I heard the edge in your voice. All your normal confidence, all the humor in your quip from a moment before, was gone. I heard your breathing quicken behind me. Moving closer. I felt your hand touch my shoulder.
“ The only person you’d ever give it to is who?” you said.
For three years, I had watched you, with your motorcycle and your leather jacket and jeans, and your love of expensive Scotch and your libertarian rhetoric, and your dark sense of humor. But what only those close to you ever understood was how much of that image was just a comfortable front. You rode a bike because the secret environmentalist in you couldn’t stand the thought of driving a car as long as you were the only one in it. You drank because you got overwhelmed by the world in a way that made you need to take the edge off, but anyone who watched closely enough would see you nurse a glass of single-malt all night.
I had spent a lot of those one-glass nights with you. Most often with J. and the others in our circle, and sometimes just the three of us, and sometimes just you and I. You and J. had been friends for so long that when he and I started dating, it felt like I was getting both of you for the price of one. A new lover on the one hand, J. as my soul mate. You, a new friend and confidante on the other.
I wanted to answer you now, but I couldn’t. All that came out was a whisper. “If I say it, everything will change.”
“ Everything always does…”
I wanted to answer you. I need you to understand that now, because I want you to understand how right it felt when you leaned in to kiss me for the first time.
I was shaking so hard that I felt my knees begin to buckle. I felt lightheaded, flushed like the heat of the shower was flooding through me again. I felt your arms come around me from the back, holding me up. I felt you lift me, carrying me back to the living room and the couch. I thought about that a lot afterward. The fact that you could have carried me to the bed in two steps but you didn’t. Needing to not take advantage that way. Needing to see where this went all by itself.
As you set me down, it was all I could do to clutch my towel to myself, my back and ass bare but my front covered as you touched my forehead with visible concern.
“ Are you all right?” you said.
“ I love you,” I whispered in response, and it was true. And I saw the look in your eyes that told me you already knew. A thing so much stronger than mere lust. So much more than the hunger for physical passion that I’d seen you apply to so many of the women who passed through your life.
In those three words as they escaped me, I felt all the emotion wrapped into every late-night conversation
“ Keep showing it off that way,” you called from the kitchen, “and J.’s never going to let you leave the house.”
I laughed at that. “J.’s too late,” I said. “The only person I’d ever give it to is already…”
I froze before the mirror.
I watched myself pale as the words were choked off, and I had no idea how I’d managed to say them. I knew why I’d said them, though, the sudden realization flowing through me like ice water.
The only person I’d ever give it to is already here…
I had always had a bit of a thing for you. That seems like a trivial statement to make now, after being overwhelmed by the understanding that night. Nothing dangerous, mind you. But you were almost the perfectly clichéd icon of what my parents and their medieval morality would have called “the bad boy.” The bad boy was a thing I had always been denied and thus watched from afar. And so I had always watched you.
Staring at myself in the mirror now, a rush of emotion flooding through me, I couldn’t look back at you, hoping that your silence meant you hadn’t heard me.
“ The only person you’d give it to is already what?” Your slow footsteps sounded out from the kitchen, getting closer. Coming to a stop at the bedroom door.
I heard the edge in your voice. All your normal confidence, all the humor in your quip from a moment before, was gone. I heard your breathing quicken behind me. Moving closer. I felt your hand touch my shoulder.
“ The only person you’d ever give it to is who?” you said.
For three years, I had watched you, with your motorcycle and your leather jacket and jeans, and your love of expensive Scotch and your libertarian rhetoric, and your dark sense of humor. But what only those close to you ever understood was how much of that image was just a comfortable front. You rode a bike because the secret environmentalist in you couldn’t stand the thought of driving a car as long as you were the only one in it. You drank because you got overwhelmed by the world in a way that made you need to take the edge off, but anyone who watched closely enough would see you nurse a glass of single-malt all night.
I had spent a lot of those one-glass nights with you. Most often with J. and the others in our circle, and sometimes just the three of us, and sometimes just you and I. You and J. had been friends for so long that when he and I started dating, it felt like I was getting both of you for the price of one. A new lover on the one hand, J. as my soul mate. You, a new friend and confidante on the other.
I wanted to answer you now, but I couldn’t. All that came out was a whisper. “If I say it, everything will change.”
“ Everything always does…”
I wanted to answer you. I need you to understand that now, because I want you to understand how right it felt when you leaned in to kiss me for the first time.
I was shaking so hard that I felt my knees begin to buckle. I felt lightheaded, flushed like the heat of the shower was flooding through me again. I felt your arms come around me from the back, holding me up. I felt you lift me, carrying me back to the living room and the couch. I thought about that a lot afterward. The fact that you could have carried me to the bed in two steps but you didn’t. Needing to not take advantage that way. Needing to see where this went all by itself.
As you set me down, it was all I could do to clutch my towel to myself, my back and ass bare but my front covered as you touched my forehead with visible concern.
“ Are you all right?” you said.
“ I love you,” I whispered in response, and it was true. And I saw the look in your eyes that told me you already knew. A thing so much stronger than mere lust. So much more than the hunger for physical passion that I’d seen you apply to so many of the women who passed through your life.
In those three words as they escaped me, I felt all the emotion wrapped into every late-night conversation
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