Fluffy

by Julia Kent

  Why do I do this to myself?

  The same can be said for what my teenage self does to my adult self. Insidious and silent, she just acts, forging behavior paths that seem adult on the surface but are driven by a child underneath.

  I'm not just done with this reunion.

  I am done letting the past dictate my present.

  Each breath makes my body feel more real, like those moments when Will touched me. Behind closed eyes, I connect with all the parts of me. Fingertips, toes, lips, ears, belly button–they're all me, and they're all done, too.

  Being done means closing a door. And when you close a door, you move into a new space, one you get to assess and experience on your own terms.

  “Mallory!” Will's urgent, worried voice startles me, making my muscles constrict, the edges of the mulch chips digging in, scratching me. My thighs rest against the cold concrete edge, eyes opening to find him standing over me, blocking out the stars.

  “Did you fall? Are you hurt?” A gentle hand goes to my cheek as he crouches, the faint scent of his cologne, of sweet beer, and a thumping beat between us that has its own olfactory trigger, all coming together.

  I should sit up. I should react. I should say something.

  Instead, I just look up and stare at him, a bleak hollowness reassuring in its truth.

  Anticipation is a two-sided coin that feels like it's all heads or all tails, depending on the situation. What I'm experiencing right this moment, as Will moves his hand from my face and sits next to me, bending back, imitating my child's position on the landscaped space, is the absence of anticipation.

  It's so freeing.

  “You know,” he says with a soft chuckle, “for someone who never left town, you sure do run away a lot.”

  I don’t laugh. I don’t say anything. His words don’t hurt, but he has a point.

  “You're not hurt,” he finally says.

  “Not my body,” I reply with brutal honesty.

  “Good. I'm sorry about your feelings.”

  “Are you?”

  “I just told Gemma and Alisha off. Or, well,” he chuckles lightly, the sound incongruent, “I came in second.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Rayelyn Boyle beat me to it.”

  “Rayelyn?”

  “She ripped Alisha and Gemma a few new holes. Didn't make a difference, of course. Nothing you say to soulless Barbies ever does.”

  “You mean nothing Rayelyn said made a difference.”

  “No. I mean nothing anyone says makes a difference. But you have to say something, don't you? Otherwise, they think it's acceptable to treat people like shit. I thought I was doing the right thing by depriving them of attention. I was wrong.”

  “They've always been like this.”

  “I can't believe I didn't see it ten years ago.”

  I snort. I can.

  “Mallory,” he says, his fingers scraping along the dirt to find mine. I don't pull away. Twining our fingers, his palm flattens against mine, the connection warming me. “I told Alisha and Gemma they were petty bitches who were embarrassing themselves with their childish putdowns.”

  “You did?”

  “Ask Fiona. She was there.”

  “I don't need corroborating witnesses, Will. I trust you. If you say you did it, I believe you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you trust me?”

  “Because–why wouldn't I? You've never given me a reason to think you're not trustworthy.”

  “That's your default? Assume trust until someone breaks it?”

  “Yes. I suppose so.”

  “And you make life choices based on what feels right? Inside yourself, intrinsically?”

  “We talked about this already,” I say with a long sigh. “I know, I know. I turned down Harvard.”

  He squeezes my hand. “No. That's not what I mean.”

  “Then what?” Turning toward him, I open my eyes. In shadow, his profile is a work of art, throat moving as he swallows. Greys and browns, black and the flash of light as doors to the building open and close, cars coming into and out of the parking lot, all mingle to make him look like an Escher etching, a Picasso, but 3D and with movement.

  “You seem like the kind of woman who likes to take it slow. I’ve known for a while now that I wanted this,” he says, sitting up, hand still holding mine, waving at the ever-shrinking space between us, “and I knew you wanted it, too.”

  “Then why not say that?” I sit up, too, unable to stop myself.

  “I tried. Repeatedly,” he says pointedly. “You need a soft sell, though. Pinning you against the wall and kissing you madly next to the coffee machine didn’t seem like your style.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “With a woman I want? Who wants me, too? Sure.”

  My entire body ignites.

  “But not with... me,” I say slowly, emphasizing the word me, setting it apart from the others the way he's setting me apart from his... others.

  “You’re a smoldering fire, Mallory. Not a sudden blast. You’re deep. Shallow bounces right off you. I don’t want to skim the surface. I want to explore the uncharted waters with you.”

  “I don’t need this,” I explain to him. Beseeching him, really. Almost begging him to understand.

  How can he? He’s not me. Wasn’t me. Never had my role back in high school.

  “Need what?”

  “For you to make some grand, empty gesture that doesn’t mean anything. It’s sweet, Will. Really. But I don’t need it.”

  “Did you ever consider the fact that maybe I do? Not the empty part. No part of how I feel about you is empty. It’s full. Overflowing. So intense that I need help breathing sometimes.”

  His words are a firehose to the face, a siren to the ear, a million ping pong balls flooding a dorm room through the cracked door. Will is a tsunami of hope carrying me off with the tide, pushing me so far inland I smack against the side of a mountain, unable to climb it to safety.

  “To those people–your high school crowd–I’ll never be anything more than Mallory Monahan, the high school nerd. The chubby chick who blended into the lockers. I might as well have painted myself blue and turned my belly button into a combination dial,” I hiss in his ear, knowing his words are fueled by hyper-emotion. By nostalgia. By the fact that Will is a decent guy who’s swept up in the moment and trying to do the right thing.

  “You really think that?”

  “Your friends just proved it. To them, I’ll never be anyone but who I was in high school.”

  “Seems like it works both ways.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Sounds like I’ll never be the man I am to you. That you’ll always see me as the teenager in high school. Maybe my friends aren’t the only ones stuck in the past, Mal. You’re back there, too.”

  I stiffen.

  “Here’s the question, Ms. Monahan: where do you want to live? In 2009 or 2019?”

  I want to be with you.

  I’ve always wanted to be with you.

  The words are stuck, caught at a gate held shut by an enormous deadbolt that my raw, prying hands can’t move. No matter how hard I push and shove, heave-ho and grunt, I can’t do it.

  I can’t.

  Or perhaps it’s more than that: I can’t do it alone.

  “Do you have any idea how I felt about you? In high school? You were my biggest crush.” The words whoosh out of me like a hot air balloon descending too fast, rushing toward the ground, out of control. “Crush. What a word. It's perfect, really, because the emotions all crush you from the inside out. They crowd out who you really are and put these hollow, carved-out warehouses of hope inside. Impossible hope. I imagined you out of thin air. Created entire worlds–no.” I laugh, the sound old and new at the same time. “I created parallel universes where we were together, because it would take quantum physics for that to have happened.”

  One eyebrow goes up, the cocky lo
ok on his face making me mad with desire and equally mad with rage, both feelings true and co-existing inside the very same Mallory here before him, confessing everything, shaking in her heels and all too certain this is the right thing to do.

  Feeling the fear, doing it anyway, and knowing she'll pay for it.

  “You have no idea. No idea how hard it was to say yes when you asked me to be your date to this reunion, Will, because I knew I wouldn't just have to pick a dress and do my hair and makeup. I'd need a U-Haul for all the ghosts and baggage I'd bring here tonight. And it turns out I was right. Ramini and Fletch and Osgood and you confirmed it.”

  “Me? What did I do? Or... not do?” His eyes search my face for an answer.

  “Let me ask you the same question you just asked me, Mr. Lotham. Where do you want to live? Past or present?”

  “Anywhere you are, Mallory. We’re in a parking lot again. This time, you don’t get to run away. I shouldn’t have let you ten years ago, and I’m sure as hell not going to let you now.”

  He breathes into me, and I take him in with deep, delicious inhales that slowly surrender. The bolt that has held the gate closed for so long slides open, foot by rusty foot, until one final, coordinated effort removes the barrier and our parallel selves finally meet.

  And touch.

  With our lips.

  No audience this time. No dance floor, no public display. This is about us and us alone. If Will's trying to make a statement to the crowd, he's found an awfully private place to do it. As he kisses me, our breath mingling, words earnest and real, it hits me, full throated and revelatory, the heady feeling of being in Will's arms righting the world.

  Because he's showing me our truth.

  I am the crowd.

  18

  Three weeks later

  * * *

  You ready? Perky texts me as I chop the last red pepper to put in the stir fry. Onions are caramelizing on the stove already, the house filled with the scent.

  Will's coming over for dinner. He's ten minutes late and while I'm not worried about being stood up, I have to keep myself busy in order not to spontaneously combust. Chopping vegetables seems like a good outlet for my nervousness.

  As long as I don't cut off a fingertip.

  The text stands out on the glass screen of my phone, more metaphysical than Perky could ever imagine.

  Am I ready?

  Am I?

  Wiping my right hand on a kitchen towel that hangs on the oven handle, I text back, Ready for what?

  Sex, she replies instantly. Third date. It's a requirement.

  What?

  You really don't know a person until you're naked and in bed with them, she replies. Third date's a sure thing.

  Is not! I reply.

  Is so. You know he expects it, she answers, adding a donut and an eggplant emoji.

  Great. Now I'm imagining Will's penis as a big purple nightshade. She's not helpful.

  You need to quit reading those erotic sci-fi romance novels where the aliens are blue and purple and have three tongues on their penises, I answer.

  Quit deflecting. You have protection? she replies.

  From you? I have a sage stick and decaf coffee, I type back.

  I get a meme about condoms in return.

  You want memes? I threaten. Because I'm pretty sure you don't want to go there.

  You said you deleted all memes you have about me! You swore! she replies.

  Damn. Caught.

  I hope he's good in bed, she says. Did you WD-40 your labia so they don't creak when they open?

  My phone starts to slip and I grab at it desperately, fumbling in my panic to prevent it from cracking on the floor. It falls anyhow.

  And... whew. No spider screen.

  I resume our texting with, My cooch is just fine and freshly detailed and I'm sure Will has a huge eggplant cock and knows how to use it!

  I hit Send.

  And realize the text window is open to... my mother's phone number.

  Three dots appear.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  Was something wrong with your gynecological parts, Mallory? Mom asks.

  No, but there sure is now.

  That text was meant for someone else, Mom. Sorry! I reply.

  What is an eggplant... you know? Mom asks. Does Will have some sort of disease that made you sick?

  MOM STOP, I reply, hating Perky, whose texts keep coming through, ever more insistent and graphic about all the ways I need to make sure I have sex tonight.

  You initiated the conversation, Mom replies. You can tell me anything, you know.

  Can I untell you this? I beg.

  I'm not sure I understand what THIS is, she answers.

  It's hell, Mom. It's hell. We're in hell, this conversation is hell, and my BFF is turning my night into–

  Ding dong!

  The doorbell.

  Will and his purple eggplant cock are here, I text Perky.

  Gotta go, I text Mom.

  And then I turn off my phone. Power down. Buh-bye.

  Will is standing outside my door, head bent as he reads something on his phone.

  “Hi!” I say, breathless, thrilled to see him as I shove aside the last minute of painful texting.

  Gorgeous but very alarmed eyes meet mine. Phone in hand, he turns it around so I can see.

  The words Will and his purple eggplant cock are here are on the screen.

  Oh, no. I texted him by accident.

  And, of course, his phone is charged to 93 percent. Show off.

  “I can explain,” I choke out, beyond horrified.

  He clears his throat. “Before I come in, I think we need to work on some expectations management for this evening, Mallory.”

  “It's all Perky's fault.”

  “Perky thinks I have a purple eggplant in my pants?”

  “No!”

  “Because we've never dated. I don't think we've even hugged. No way she knows about the purple tuber in my boxer briefs.”

  “You wear boxer briefs?”

  “You'd rather talk about my underwear than my grotesquely huge, extremely thick –”

  I kiss him. His arms wrap around me, the crinkle of a paper bag crushed against my back stealing a tiny sliver of my attention away from the taste of Will. My nose picks up the scent of chocolate, his cologne overriding it as my cheek rubs against his.

  “If you think kissing me to get me to stop talking about your eggplant fantasies is going to work, you're right.” He snuggles in, forehead to forehead.

  Inspiration strikes. “Remember that promise you said you'd give me?”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise we’ll never speak of the eggplant again.”

  He looks down at his package. “I… can’t make that promise. It likes to speak its own language.”

  I swoon a little.

  “Well, then, how about we just don’t talk about it now?”

  “Deal.” I stand on tiptoes and kiss him lightly. The eggplant stays quiet.

  “Now that is a much better way to invite me in,” he says, stepping across the threshold into the living room. “I brought dessert.”

  “You brought brownies?”

  He holds up a small white paper bag. “How did you guess?”

  “I can smell.”

  “And a pint of ice cream and some sauces.” He also has a plastic grocery bag. Walking into my apartment like he already lives here, he puts the ice cream in the freezer, takes out a small box of baked goods, and folds the bag, setting it next to my coffee maker.

  “Why? I–I made dessert already. Pots de crème.”

  Will comes back to me, reaching for an embrace. “Because,” he says, kissing me on the cheek, lips so tempting in my ear, “I want to be clear: I’m a sure thing when it comes to dessert, Mallory. This date doesn’t end before that. You told me you never make it to dessert. I'm here to break that streak.”

  I laugh. “You're not some guy I met onli
ne and we're not on a first date. We've had dessert numerous times now.”

  “No. Third date.”

  He lets the words hang in the air. I know exactly what he means. Damn that Perky.

  “Third date give or take ten to fourteen years,” I venture.

  His turn to laugh. “Excellent point.”

  “Good. Because I’m a sure thing, too.”

  “Then how about we add breakfast to the food lineup?” Self-assurance radiates from him. It’s a huge turn-on.

  “You want to spend the night?”

  “And the morning.”

  “I'm not sure I have enough coffee to share.”

  He laughs. I don't. My heart thumps so hard inside my ribs, like a marimba player in a jazz group.

  I knew tonight was the night.

  I didn't realize tomorrow morning was in the mix, too.

  But of course it is. Why wouldn't it be? This isn't just sex. It never was. Will isn't here for a booty call. We aren't exploring dating.

  What we're testing is the long haul.

  The long game.

  “I don't generally let guys stay and use up my coffee.”

  “Is that a euphemism for some freaky position in bed? 'Use up my coffee'?”

  “No.”

  “Your coffee is that good?”

  “I guess you'll have to spend the night to find out.”

  “I don't want a cup of pity coffee, Mallory.”

  The song changes from an energetic Lindsey Stirling violin ballad to Stephen Swartz's “Hello.” The beat takes over, new ukulele sound plucking my past emotions and forming a duet with the very intense present as Will kisses me, slow and deep, our hips meeting in a sway that bends time itself.

  Breaking the kiss, he whispers, “Am I coffee-worthy?”

  “You're everything-worthy.”

  “That's my line, Mal. You're stealing all my good lines.”

  “Then make me stop talking.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I'm pretty sure you have a few clever ideas. You were salutatorian, after all. Rhodes Scholar. You're kinda smart.”

  “So I've been told.” The smile he gives me–serene, excited, full of promise–intensifies with passion as we hold each other's gaze.