by Noelle Adams
Tish is silent now, reaching over to put a hand on my forearm.
I stare down at my mostly empty glass of beer and say in a hoarse whisper, “If I lose her, I’ll lose everything.”
“Shit, Shipley,” Tish says after a tense moment of silence. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say with a faint smile. “I’m used to it. I’m happier now than I’ve ever been before. I don’t need to be happier than this.”
I’ve lived for the past year knowing what I really want. I’m not hiding from the truth anymore. But when you’ve loved someone you can’t have for so long, you get used to the vacancy, the empty spot in your heart. It’s your constant companion, and you learn how to shape all your other emotions around it so it doesn’t always feel so raw.
But it’s raw in me now. Because I’ve put it into words.
And I’ve never done that before.
I clench my hands into fists in my lap.
“I get what you’re saying,” Tish says after a long silence. “But I hope you don’t really think that we’d all drop you like that. We really care about you, and that’s not going to just go away. Plus I’ve seen Courtney start to change, and as she changes she’s gotten even closer to you. I think there’s more changes to come. I wouldn’t give up hope yet.”
I mentally grab at her words like a lifeline, even as I try not to believe them.
I don’t want to let myself hope.
It will only make it worse to not have her all the way.
A HALF HOUR LATER, Courtney and I walk home together.
She’s definitely had too much to drink, and I have to keep an arm around her to keep her from wandering off into the street.
She’s quiet now. Subdued. She’s always been a weepy drunk. I’ve known that from the first night I met her.
“That was fun,” she says as our apartment building comes into sight. “Everyone seemed to have fun.”
“Yeah. They did.”
“Did you have fun, Shipley?”
“Sure, I did.”
The smell of her mingled with the scent of beer surrounds me. She’s got her finger hooked in one of my belt loops. “Do you have your bracelet on?”
I lift my left hand to show her my wrist. “Of course. I always wear it.”
She made the bracelet for me and gave it to me on my last birthday. It’s a thin leather cuff with a small silver medallion on it that she engraved herself. I’ve never been a jewelry person, but I wear the bracelet every day because she gave it to me.
“I made it for you,” she whispers, like it’s a secret. She lifts my hand so she can kiss the medallion.
The little gesture touches me so much I almost stumble. I catch myself, which is a good thing since I probably would have taken her with me if I fell.
“It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever given me,” I tell her.
We’ve reached the stairs in our building, so we start up for the third floor.
She almost falls a couple of times, so I have to grab her by the waist to get her upright again. We reach her apartment first, and I open her door with my key.
Her place looks like it normally does—warm and comfortable and pretty and messy with clothes and books and craft supplies scattered around in piles.
She scans the living area and kitchen, drops her purse on the floor, and then turns around to face me. “Dance with me, Shipley.”
She’s definitely had too much to drink. “There’s no music.”
“We don’t need music.” She hooks both her hands around my neck and rubs her body against mine.
The soft press of her breasts and the brush of her hair feel so good that I gulp and stiffen. “Courtney, honey, I think you should get to bed.”
“Dance with me first.” She moves her body in a semblance of a dance, but it’s mostly just grinding against me.
My groin tightens, and my skin heats up, and I gently push her away from me. This doesn’t dampen my arousal because now I can see her pink cheeks, her rumpled hair, and the deep shadow of her cleavage at her low neckline.
I want her so damn much.
I just can’t talk myself out of it.
I’m half-hard in my pants as I walk over and put a firm hand in the middle of her back to push her toward her bedroom. “Why don’t you go lie down, kid? You’ll feel more yourself in the morning.”
She comes with me willingly. She’s always been compliant when she drinks. But she huffs as I urge her toward the bed. “You called me honey before.”
“That was an accident.”
“I liked it.” She falls onto the bed and starts to undo her shirt. It has a row of little buttons down the front, and before I know it, while I’m pulling off her high-heeled sandals, she’s undone the buttons and pulled the fabric apart to reveal her smooth fair skin and her lush breasts barely covered with a white lace bra.
I stare down at her in a daze, my erection hardening all the way, so quickly it actually hurts.
“See,” she says with a blissful smile. “You do want to dance with me.”
Dancing is not what I want to do with her. I’m trying so hard not to touch her that my hands are shaking.
I turn away with a jerk and go to get one of her oversized T-shirts out of a drawer in her dresser. “Here,” I say, handing it to her and forcing my eyes to stay on her face. “Put this on.”
When I see her start to take her bra off, I turn around and stare at the door so I won’t see what I’m not supposed to see.
“I’m done,” she tells me after a minute of rustling.
I glance back quickly to verify that she has indeed put the T-shirt on, and it’s only then that I turn around. “Take your jeans off too so you can get in bed,” I tell her. “I’m going to get you some water.”
In the kitchen, I splash cold water on my face, and I don’t bother drying it before I grab a water bottle from the refrigerator.
Her jeans are on the floor next to the bed with the rest of her clothes when I return to the bedroom. She’s sitting on the edge of the bed.
I hand her the water. “Drink some of this.”
She does as I say, and it reminds me so much of the first night I met her that my stomach twists.
It’s been three years.
My whole life has reshaped itself around her.
She drinks until the water starts to dribble down her chin, and then I take the bottle from her hands.
“Lie down, honey,” I murmur, easing her into a reclining position. “I mean, kid.”
She giggles. “Honey.”
“That was another accident. You’ll feel better tomorrow.” She’ll have a hangover in the morning, but at least the anniversary of her father’s death will have passed.
“Will I?”
“Yes. I promise you will.”
“Okay.” She settles herself beneath the covers I draw up over her. “I hate today.”
“I know you do.”
“It’s been three years since I met you,” she says.
I grow still. “I know.”
“You didn’t forget?”
“Of course not.”
“Me either. I love you, Shipley.”
She’s never said the words to me before, and my breath hitches at the sound of them. But she’s had so much to drink that I don’t know if she really wanted to say them.
“I love you too,” I murmur, brushing her hair back from her face as I stand next to the bed.
She reaches out to hold on to my arm. “I want you to stay with me.”
“I don’t think I should do that.” I’m still so aroused my groin throbs and my hands shake. I can’t forget how she looks in just a bra.
“But I love you. I love your hair and your freckles and your arms and your whole body.” She slides her hand down my chest over my shirt. “I want to feel it for real.”
“I don’t think you mean that, so I’m going to go now. I love you too much to take you up on that offer.” I can’t help but lean over and press a ki
ss against the corner of her mouth. She turns her head slightly and tries to cling to my lips, but I make myself straighten up and walk away.
I turn the lights off as I leave, and I lock her front door behind me.
When I get to my place, I’m hot and aroused and anxious with every molecule in my body straining to get back to Courtney.
Instead of indulging the urge, I turn my shower on to lukewarm, strip off my clothes, and get in under the spray.
I grab my erection and start to squeeze and pull, trying and failing not to picture Courtney as the pleasure builds and then releases.
I’ve always stopped myself from seeing her face as I come, but I just can’t stop myself now.
Even after I climax, I keep visualizing everything that happened tonight, and I’m hard again in a few minutes. I have to bring myself to another release, once again closing my eyes and seeing only her.
Maybe it’s a betrayal of our friendship, but I just can’t help it anymore.
I’m limp and exhausted when I finally turn the water off. I pull on a pair of sleep pants, brush my teeth, and fall into bed.
It doesn’t take long for me to drift off, but my sleep is restless and fretful, and I wake up a few hours later when I hear an unexpected noise.
A voice.
“Shipley.”
I sit up straight in bed at the soft sound of my name. “Courtney?”
It’s dark in the room, but the voice is coming from the doorway to my bedroom. “Yeah. It’s me. I used my key. Sorry.”
“Are you okay? What’s the matter?”
“I’m sorry to wake you up. Can I... can I sleep in here for the rest of the night?”
I wouldn’t deny her anything, but I hesitate at that question, remembering how hard it was for me to control myself earlier.
“I’m not drunk anymore,” Courtney adds. Her voice is soft and uneven, like she’s close to tears. “I won’t do anything but sleep. I don’t want to be alone.”
“Okay,” I say, responding immediately to the neediness of her voice. “Of course you can sleep in here.”
She comes to the bed and crawls under the covers beside me. I can’t see her very well. “I’m sorry about before,” she says. “About—”
“Don’t worry about it. You had too much to drink.”
“I shouldn’t have had so many beers. I was trying to drown out—”
“I know you were. I understand everything. You don’t have to apologize to me.”
She makes a little sound like a sob, and I pull her into my arms.
She’s not really crying, but she shakes against me, pressing her face against my bare chest.
I would have expected to struggle with arousal with her in my bed, all pressed up against me this way, but my other emotions are far too strong to process physical desire.
If any part of me swells and explodes right now, it’s going to be my heart.
“I’m okay,” she says after a few minutes. Her body is finally starting to relax. “I don’t know why it’s hitting me so hard this year. It hasn’t been like this for a long time.”
“It’s okay,” I murmur, stroking her hair. “It’s going to be okay. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She lets out a long sigh, and her body softens even more. One of her hands has moved up to play in my hair. “I’ve felt guilty all day.”
“About what?”
“I’m not sure exactly. I think because... because I’ve been feeling better lately. Because I’ve wanted to move on.”
My body twitches in surprise, and I try to hide it by shifting against her. “You don’t have to feel guilty about that, Courtney.”
“I know rationally that I don’t, but feelings don’t really work that way.”
“I know they don’t.”
“I think that might be why it hit me so hard today. Because I haven’t been hurting about it like I used to, and that makes me feel like shit, like I’ve forgotten...”
My breathing is slightly uneven, but I manage to keep my voice low and soothing. “You’re not going to forget, but you’re allowed to move on. You’re allowed to feel better.”
“Yeah.” She rolls over onto her other side, but she’s not pulling away from me. She fits herself against my front so I’m spooning her.
I’m thinking maybe she wants to go to sleep, but she says into the dark, “I was sixteen.”
My hand grows still on her stomach. She’s never told me about her father’s death. It’s been sacrosanct, her hidden pain, and I never dared to intrude. “You were?”
“Yeah. My mom and dad were going through a divorce, and it was terrible. Every time they saw each other, they ended up fighting. Mean, nasty fighting. It was the weekend, and my dad wanted me to spend it with him. They hadn’t reached a divorce settlement yet, and my mom didn’t want me to go. They had a terrible fight. I hid upstairs for a while, but I finally couldn’t stand it, so I screamed that I was leaving with Dad and went out to wait in the car. He came out a little while later.”
Her body is getting tense, and I rub her belly soothingly. When she doesn’t continue immediately, I prompt softly, “What happened then?”
“Me and my dad drove away. He was angry, and he was driving too fast. I didn’t know what happened while it was happening. We ended up running off the road and into a tree, and I got knocked out. When I woke up in the hospital, I found out that my dad had accidentally run us off the road. He died.”
I could only imagine how a tragedy like that could break a soul as sweet and sunny as Courtney’s. My arms tighten around her, and she grabs at my forearm like she’s trying to hold it in place.
“He could have had an accident at any time,” I say softly, when it feels like it’s my time to speak. “It wasn’t just because he was fighting with your mom.”
“I know that logically, but it still feels like... It’s always felt like it was because of me.”
“Oh, honey, of course it wasn’t because of you. I get why you might have felt guilty, but you’ve got to keep telling yourself that what you’re feeling is a lie. It’s not your fault he died. And it didn’t happen because he broke up with your mom.”
“I know.” Her voice is very small. She’s clutching tightly at my forearm. “I think I... I think I even believe it now. I kept holding on to it—that guilt, that sickening feeling of how much my parents hated each other at the end—since it was the only thing I’ve really had left of the family I used to have, of the time when I felt perfectly safe and happy. I know it wasn’t right or... or healthy. But I couldn’t let it go.”
“I know. I understand.”
“That’s why today hurt me so much. Because I think I can finally... let go.”
She’s shaking again, so I just hold her until she grows still.
The room is so quiet that I swear I can hear my heartbeat. Or maybe it’s hers.
I finally say, “I know how it feels. To feel guilty.”
“You do?”
“I took care of my mom for as long as I can remember. I’d make sure there was food for us to eat and that the house was basically picked up and that she didn’t pass out anywhere unsafe when she was high. I made sure no one else knew our situation so they wouldn’t take me away from her. It was my whole life. I never had any friends. My whole world was going to school and taking care of my mom.”
“Shipley,” Courtney breathes, like she can predict what I’m going to say next.
“When I was seventeen, a girl from school started talking to me. She seemed to like me, and then she asked me if I wanted to go to the movies with her one Saturday night. I liked her too. It was my first date. Going to the movies with this girl.” I take a ragged breath. I can’t believe I’m telling her this. I can’t believe I’m telling anyone. I never have before, but this dark, quiet room and Courtney’s warm body are safe enough to allow the words to come. “When I got home, my mom had OD’d.”
“That was the night she died?”
“Yes. That was the nig
ht she died.”
“It wasn’t your fault either, Shipley.”
“I know. She was broken from the moment I was born. I never should have been put in the position of having to take care of my mother. But still...”
“But still.”
She turns around again so she’s facing me, and we hug each other under the covers. Silent. Needy. More emotional than physical. Like children clinging to each other in the dark, trusting in the other to hold back the night.
“I love you, Shipley,” Courtney finally says, her voice breaking on my name. “I didn’t say it earlier only because I was drunk. I want you to know I mean it.”
“I love you too. I always have.” There’s something freeing in being able to say it even if nothing else between us has altered.
She sighs deeply and nestles against me. “I’m going to sleep now. It feels like something has changed.”
“Maybe it has.” I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it too. We’ve turned some sort of corner, and I don’t know what’s waiting for us there. But I know that Courtney is with me, that I’m allowed to hold her this close. “Good night, hon—kid.” I catch myself just in time.
Not everything has changed, and I can’t start to act like it has unless I want to get my heart crushed completely.
It sounds like she’s smiling in the dark. “Good night.”
Five
Two days ago
I’M TEACHING AN UPPER-level history class on the Civil War this session, and it’s a lot different from the lower-level survey courses I normally teach.
For one thing, students always linger afterward, wanting to talk to me.
It’s usually questions about assignments or follow-ups on how I grade their papers, but today a girl stays until the other students are gone and wants to know more about one of the points I made in class about nineteenth-century domestic life.
Since it gets close to my dissertation topic, I’m pleased with her interest and happy to give her more information. Because there’s a class that meets in the room after mine, I talk to her as I walk to my office.
When I was a PhD candidate, I shared an office with someone else, but I have my own office now in a building about half a mile from the classroom building.
