“Hello?” Her voice sounds hoarse and just...off.
I feel my stomach sink. Something’s wrong. I think of her friend Julia.
“Hey, is everything alright?”
“Yes, sorry. I was just—Can you come get me? I can’t drive. I’ve been drinking and I...I need to get out of here. I want to see you.”
The more she talks, the more it sounds like perhaps she has been crying. Or maybe my call woke her up. Which is equally strange, considering she’s supposed to be hosting a dinner.
“Where are you?”
“Home.” She says the word woefully. You’d think the word is synonymous with ‘hell.’
“I’m on my way.”
XXV
Alexis
It’s well into the night when Leo finally picks me up. At first, neither one of us speaks as he drives us somewhere. I'm not sure where and I don't ask. All I know is that we are heading south on Interstate 5. I’m not sure he has a plan but it doesn’t matter either way. I just want to feel him near me.
At some point he asks, “Are you okay?”
“No.” I clear my throat because my voice comes out as a croak. I’m still groggy from sleep.
After Emily returned, she and I got into a huge fight about our mother. I accused Emily of coddling and enabling our mother's addiction, Emily accused me of being a cold-blooded sociopath. We both said things we didn’t mean and we said them as loud as we could, until our words squeaked from the strain. She left the house and didn’t tell me if she was coming back. I cried until I fell asleep. My throat aches now, a dark veil clouds over my mind and lead weighs down my limbs.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
I don’t. But the words come anyway. “My mother showed up to dinner. I haven’t seen her in years but nothing’s changed. She was high out of her mind and she screamed awful things to me at the top of her lungs. It was awful, having everyone hear that. Emily left to take her home and when she got back, we got into a blowout fight. I called Emily an enabler, she called me a sociopath.”
“Why would she call you that?”
His tone is measured, as though he’s only trying to understand.
“Because I don’t talk to my mother. She fell apart after my dad left and turned into a selfish heap, an emotional black hole. Or maybe she was always that way and I was too young to notice. Anyway, like I said, I haven’t talked to her in years. I don’t answer her calls, I don’t even bother to check on her to make sure she’s still alive. I could care less about her. That’s why Emily thinks there’s something wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you.”
I laugh without a shred of humor.
“You don’t know that. Maybe there is. I hate my own mother.”
“You don’t hate her. It’s obvious you do care.”
He is staring ahead, but he has to feel my hard glare. I want to be angry with him, for telling me what I feel. But the glow of the road lights around us illuminate his features and the sight of him loosens the invisible noose around my neck.
I say, “You’re wrong. I don’t care. I'm not saying it to be dramatic. I really do hate her.”
“You wouldn’t get upset if you didn’t care. The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference.”
There’s no fight left in me tonight. I lay my head back on the seat and stare at the road. He’s right. Of course he’s right. But it doesn’t change a thing. As much as I try to not care about my mother, I can’t seem to be able to disconnect from her completely. I don’t know how not to care.
He reaches out his hand and lays it over mine. I expect it to slip onto my lap and caress my leg, but he laces his fingers into mine, instead. The innocence of the act takes me by surprise.
“I’m really sorry, Alexis.”
His voice is a soft whisper that floats over me.
I don’t say anything. We fall into a warm silence, listening to the muffled sounds of the road. I guess I doze off to sleep at some point, because the next thing I know, I’m jolting awake.
Leo turns off the engine. I squint, a number of things coming to me at once. I don’t recognize our surroundings. We are parked in an empty lot but I hear the occasional car swooping past a nearby road. The windows are cracked open and the air that drifts in smells of cool saltwater. But there’s something else, too. I look down at the cup holders.
“Oh my God, is that coffee?” I ask.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The rich roasted scent envelops me and nearly lifts me from my seat. My mouth instantly waters as I snatch up the cup and press my lips to the opening to taste the scent.
“You’re amazing. Thank you.” I drink some and shut my eyes as the taste explodes on my tongue. Before Leo, coffee was my drug of choice. I examine the embellishment on the cup. “Starbucks? Where’d you find one open this late?”
“Found an all-night drive-thru,” he says, pulling open his car door. “Come on, those weren’t meant to be drank in the car.”
By the time he comes around to my side, I’m already out. I look around the empty lot and start piecing together our location. We’re by the ocean; Torrey Pines beach is down the hill.
Leo must notice the realization dawn on me because he says, “I hope you don’t have objections to sand in your shoes.”
This feels like a date. I know I said no dates, but this feels so right that I forget to be stubborn about it. Because the moon disarms me with its pearly glow, peering through the overcast sky. The ocean conspires as well, luring me in with the faint but discernible soundtrack of crashing waves. I’m instantly at ease. I forget that I’m tired and a bit sad. The cool breeze has a slight bite to it, enough to stir my senses awake.
“Leo—Thank you. I needed this.”
His lips twist up when I say that.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
His kiss takes me by surprise. I nearly drop the coffee but he wraps a hand around the cup and places it somewhere overhead. On the top of the car, I think. He does it without breaking our kiss. Our hands free, he tastes me like it’s the first time and he’s burning from the inside out with a craving to know what lays beneath my clothes. He’s grazing, pulling, tasting, breathing me in. I’m sure he could take me right where we stand, against his car.
I’m breathless when he pulls away; the breeze swoops in between us and tinges my swollen lips. He grabs his cup of coffee from behind me and hands me my own.
“Come on,” he says, and he guides me hand in hand toward the beach.
We climb up to a lifeguard tower that sits halfway to the shore. Leo is disappointed to find it locked but I am secretly glad. Going into a wooden box in the middle of the night isn’t my idea of fun. We stay on the deck of the tower and drink our coffee. The higher vantage point gives us good views of the road behind us and the dark velvet sheet that is the ocean in front of us. The moon provides enough light for us to find our way around, but other than that, the beach is dark and deserted.
The breaking waves bask momentarily in slivers of moonlight that break through the clouds before diluting into the sandy shore. I can’t believe how far away my problems feel. It’s like nothing can reach me out here. On the deck of this wooden structure, stranded in sand and bordered by the cliffs on one side and the ocean on the other.
It doesn’t take long for Leo to start kissing my neck, his cup long forgotten on the ledge. When his lips meet mine again, I taste the malt-like flavor of coffee on his tongue. I relish in the taste so deeply that I nearly devour him. Soon we are all heavy breaths and squirming bodies, angling and inching for closeness though we are as close as we can possibly be. He reaches down and unbuttons my jeans. I let him slide them down until they fall at my ankles.
He lifts me up by the waist and props my bottom onto the ledge. The wood’s surface is cold on my skin, as my thong does nothing to shield me from it. “I’m going to fall,” I say, peering down at the dark sand a good twelve feet away.
“I won’t let yo
u,” he says into my mouth. He wraps an arm around me as the other reaches underneath the material of my panties. His fingers begin to stroke me; I feel them slipping against me. He bites my lower lip then says, “Fuck. You’re so wet.”
He kisses my neck and the sensation ripples over me, reaching places that burn for his touch. I should care that someone might see us. But it’s hard to care when I’m still tipsy from drinking and newly drunk off his touch. No one’s around. Even if someone lurked in the shadows, they would see only the silhouettes of two figures kissing on the ledge. It’s too dark to make out anything else.
He can perceive my thoughts because he whispers, “I’ll be stealthy. Don’t worry.”
I hear the zipper of his pants. The sound cuts through the night air and I nearly laugh at the irony.
“Do you have—” I gasp as his fingers plunge into me.
Answering my unfinished question, he dangles a condom wrapper in front of my face with his free hand. “Care to open this for me?”
I don’t mind at all, mostly because I can’t stand the thought of his other hand leaving me. But a moment later, after he wraps himself single-handedly, both of his hands grasp at my waist. I feel him touch my opening. A shiver of anticipation runs through me.
“Shhh,” he says, and I realize I’ve let out a resounding moan.
He slides into me slowly, inch by inch, until he fills me completely. Until we are left holding each other for a few seconds, silently admiring the way our bodies fit perfectly together. We breathe unevenly into each other’s mouths. We can’t focus on a kiss, just on keeping our lips grazing and our foreheads pressed together.
We are in the shadows and no one can see us for what we really are. Lovers, quivering in a moment. He holds my waist tightly as he begins to pulse into me with slow but steady thrusts. He brings himself all the way out, leaving just the tip, before forging into me again. Light moans trail from my throat.
The entire world falls away and there’s only us, right here, right now. He weaves simple, deliberate movements into pure, gilded pleasure. Like a sensual alchemist.
I’m not sure how. I’m not sure if it’s the pull from the silvery moon overhead, or the hypnotic rhythm of the waves breaking behind me, but I feel complete and in tune with every nuance of my own body. And of his. I fall under an enchantment of sorts, aware not just of the sensations, but the surrealness of the moment. We sway to the sounds of our pounding hearts and drink up the intoxicating aura that rises up around us. When we finally forge through the rapture and into elation, my moans rise and entangle his groans into knots in the air around us. Neither one of us cares who hears us.
Afterward, he stays inside of me for a few minutes, as my heartbeat settles into a normal tempo.
“That was nice,” he whispers.
“Yeah.”
We break out into laughter, aware that the word ‘nice’ can’t touch the experience. But there is no use in forcing our currently flaccid minds to dig further. There are no words, anyway. That wasn’t just sex. I’m floating higher than the moon right now. There is only air between my toes and not a damn thing above me.
“Alexis?” His eyes are closed, our lips a hair’s width away.
“Leo?”
“Would it be so bad?”
“Hmmm?”
“If we had real feelings for each other?”
My eyes open. The moment slips as the dark flames of my past lick away at the edges of it.
“It’s not a good idea.”
In reaction to my words, he pulls out of me. The emptiness it leaves behind is unwelcome.
“Why?”
Why? Of course he wants to know why. Of course it’s not enough that we agreed what this was supposed to be about and, in doing so, agreed on what it was not supposed to be about. Of course. Because when and where was the line drawn? Why didn’t I realize that we crossed it? At what point did our touches translate to affection? When did the sound of his voice attach to strings that tug at the inside of my stomach?
I tell myself that Leo doesn’t know me. Not well enough to feel anything real for me, anyway. What if what he feels is just intrigue? What if I’m simply the shiny new toy atop the shelf that he can’t quite reach? What happens when the novelty wears off, as it undoubtedly will?
“Because sometimes people want what they think they can’t have. And once they have it, it’s useless to them.”
His eyebrows rise slowly and I can tell he doesn’t receive my words well. He cleans up and zips up his pants. Then he lifts me again and sets me down onto the floor so that I can pull my pants back up. I ignore the awkwardness of my wet underwear.
He leans back on the rail and looks at the subtle reflection of the moon on the tower’s windows.
“I didn’t realize you thought this little of me.”
He’s not even looking at me and I can feel the hurt in his eyes. I lean in the opposite direction and stare out toward the ocean. I can hear it and I know it’s there but all I can see is a black, lumpy cloak.
I know this conversation is going nowhere good, fast. The ghost of the words I spoke clump up in my throat. It’s not what I think of him. I think he is captivating. Intense. Smart. Real. He means the things he says and only says the things he means. But that doesn’t guarantee the validity of them. You can mean something that isn’t true; conviction and truth are often mutually exclusive.
“You realize this isn’t about you. I’m just…” I trail off, unsure of what I’m trying to say.
Broken? Messed up? Unable to trust? Unwilling to risk?
He answers for me.
“Damaged? Who isn’t? Everyone’s damaged. What does that change? What does it matter?”
It matters to me. Maybe other people can rise from the dust, brush it off and keep going. But I had to peel myself from the ground, and hoist myself up with pieces of tape, lines of glue at my sides. For me, the damage changed everything. I stare off into the dark, once again trying to think of the words to explain to him where I’m coming from. Because he does deserve to know.
“Leo, I already had my happy ending. I wore the big white dress and rode off with Prince Charming. But then Charming changed his mind. That’s the part they don’t tell you. He can change his mind. Just like that.” I snap my fingers and the sound carries. He’s looking at me and his frown melts into something softer. I continue, staring into his eyes, “And after that? I’ll tell you. You’re left picking up pieces of yourself you don’t even want, because they’re pieces that only fit in a life with him. And that life suddenly doesn’t exist. But no matter how well you glue those parts together, there’s always holes, things you never get back. You don’t come out of it the same person.”
I ignore the embarrassing warmth that rises to my cheeks as I realize everything I’ve admitted. This is the first time I’ve spoken those words out loud. And I’ve always wanted to.
He brings his body to mine and lays one of his hands along the side of my neck. His other hand cups the side of my face and his thumb grazes over my lower lips.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“I’m not looking for your pity. Really, Leo. I’m just trying to explain. Some people rush to fill those holes. With other things, other people. But me? I stripped down to what I needed and only what I needed. When I learned how to do that, I found my power again. I got my life back.”
“So you don’t want anything extra.”
“I don’t want to be left with anything less.”
He cocks his head.
I take in a breath before I explain, “I don’t want to pour myself into a person and end up empty.”
His eyes ponder me for a few seconds. “I don’t want you to pour anything out. I don’t want you to part with anything.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you. I’m drowning in you, Alexis. I know I’m not supposed to, but it’s too late and I can’t stop it. I need to know that we won’t go back to being strangers after a few more ni
ghts together.”
“Leo…”
He must hear my resistance because he cuts me off. “So don’t. Alexis, don’t pour anything out, don’t part with a thing. I want you whole, just as you are, except with me.”
I wait for the panic to grip me, for the desperate urge to turn away. To run. To shield. To hide. To protect myself. Because, since Jeremy, I’ve always considered men to be feeble, to root their desires to the wind and drift along with it. Since Jeremy, I don’t put my heart in anyone’s hands because I don’t even know where I’ve left it.
He lowers his lips to mine, grazing the surface, and asks, “Are you in?”
When I met Leo, I told myself I didn’t need or want a man in my life in any other context than sex. I thought that if it made me a tramp, then so be it. I thought I’d rather be an unblemished piece of coal than a shattered prism. But the plan was flawed from the beginning. The line keeping this casual never existed; it was all an illusion. We were headed here all along. Every touch, every kiss, every orgasm, was a train driving us onto this moment.
And now Leo is holding me, his touch as disarming as ever. His face is close to mine and he’s breathing in the air I exhale, like he refuses to waste it. I’m struggling to remember why I was ever scared. I’m struggling to remember how badly the thought of being with someone used to hurt. The space in my heart that was reserved for bitterness seems to shift a fraction. I never knew it could. But there it is, slipping on its foundation and revealing something on the other side.
I kiss him like I’ve never kissed him before. Not just with my lips, but with my entire body, letting my hands move tenderly over the sides of his face and neck, tracing words there that I’m not yet ready to speak. When I pull away, I bask in the light of his blue gaze, which cuts through the darkness to reach me. I keep my arms around his neck and my body pressed close. My voice is a smooth whisper when I speak.
“I’m in.”
XXVI
Leo
Alexis spends the next two days with her sister, after an apparent reconciliation. Emily leaves for San Francisco the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
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