“Is there any reason we need to, if you’re…clean or whatever, and I’m sterile?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never…” A hesitation, a frown. “Okay, well, I don’t know to say this other than straight up. I told you I’ve only been with two people. And there wasn’t all that many, um, instances, with either of them. But in every instance, we used protection. So I don’t know if there’s a reason to use it if we don’t need to. I don’t know.”
“Is it weird that I’m kind of glad you don’t know? Because I guess if you don’t know, then it feels kind of like we’re doing something for the first time together.”
“Not weird at all.”
A silence. I take his hand, tangle our fingers together. “Wes?”
He glances at me. “Hmm?”
“You can assume.”
He lifts an eyebrow, smirking. “I can, huh?”
I nod, feeling a bizarre mix of shy and bold at once. “I want that. With you. I was thinking about that in the shower…you know, afterward. How much I want more. I’m ready for more. I’m ready for…that.” I look at him until he meets my gaze for as long as he safely can while driving. “I want to have sex with you. Make love with you. Whatever words or phrases you want to use, I want that with you, and I don’t want to wait very long. I don’t have any reservations. I don’t want to take my time. I love how I feel when I’m with you, and I want…everything.”
“I want it with you, too.”
I wait for him to qualify it, with when you’re ready or something like that. But he doesn’t.
That makes my stomach flip. He wants me. Desires me.
I feel giddy all over.
Flower in the Dawn
Westley
She spends significantly longer on the phone with her grandmother. Their conversation is deep and intensely personal, and wanders across a vast range of topics, from her feelings regarding her terminal diagnosis to her relationship with me. It doesn’t sound to me as if she spares her grandmother any details or hedges her opinions, nor does she filter herself. And while I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, it’s clear her grandmother does the same for her. It’s inspiring, and heartwarming, and makes me want to call my own grandmother—even though I certainly don’t have that kind of relationship with her.
Finally, near the end of an hour, her grandmother asks a question that leaves Jolene speechless for a long, long time.
“Yeah, I’m still here, Grandma,” she says, after a lengthy silence. “Sorry, I just…I don’t know how to answer that.” She switches the phone to her left hand and wipes a finger underneath her eyelids, brushing away tears, though her voice gives away nothing of the fact that she’s crying. “Grandma, I…I genuinely don’t know what I believe, okay? I just don’t. God is…I’m conflicted. And I honestly don’t really want to talk about it. I know you want me to have, like, some literal, legit Come-To-Jesus moment, but I’m not there. If Jesus loved me then why am I dying? Yeah, Grandma, I know—no one knows the ways of the Lord. That’s not much comfort, unfortunately. Especially now that I’ve found a man I really like. I mean, according to Dr. Miller, it won’t be long. Before the year is out, certainly. And…god, Grandma, it’s just not fucking fair. Don’t ‘language’ me, Captain America, I feel like I’m allowed to curse once in a while.” She sighs a laugh. “It’s a joke, Grandma, a reference to a movie I doubt you’ve seen.” A pause, listening. “Yes, Avengers, Age of Ultron, if you’d like to be specific. Yes, Chris Evans is very handsome—oh my god, Grandma! You can’t say stuff like that! You’re a grandmother and a Christian…well, yes, I know you’re still a woman at the end of the day, but—never mind, never mind.”
Another pause as she listens.
“Grandma, I love you more than I can say. I want you to pray for me, because I sure as heck need it. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend to believe something I don’t just to make you feel better. It would be a disservice to you, to what you believe, and to myself. The fact of the matter is that if there is a God and if that God actually loves me, he wouldn’t make me suffer my entire life—and he sure as hell wouldn’t make me suffer my entire life and then die before my twentieth birthday. That’s what I believe. But I respect what you believe and I respect you for standing firm in that, no matter what. I just don’t feel loved by God. I’m sorry, but I don’t. You say he has a purpose, and maybe that’s true, but it seems like a pretty shitty purpose, Grandma.”
A long pause, and a sigh. “Look, I love you. I miss you. When Wes and I figure out when and where we’re going to get married, I’ll call you and make arrangements for you to be here with us, because even if you don’t agree with what I’m doing or how I’m doing it, I know you love me with everything you’ve got and you’ll support me. And I need that support, Grandma. So on the matter of faith, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. But don’t stop praying. Because maybe God will listen to you in a way he doesn’t listen to me, for whatever reason. I don’t know. Pray for a miraculous healing. Because I really, really think this thing I have with Wes is amazing and magical—” her eyes cut to me, here, with a smile, “and I really, really want to have as much time as I can get to explore it with him. A lifetime would be really nice, but I’d take even a few more weeks.”
Another few minutes of back and forth, and then she ends the call, setting the phone into the console with a long, heavy sigh, rubbing her face with both hands.
“My grandmother is a lot. Talking to her is amazing, but it can be exhausting.”
I reach out and rub her arm. “I was just thinking about how I’m kind of jealous of your relationship with your grandmother. I don’t have that with mine.”
She makes a face, a complicated expression of wry amusement and sadness. “It comes from hours together in the oncology ward. My mom and dad could only spend so long with me since they had to work. Grandma retired when I was like, ten? So when I was stuck in the hospital going through endless rounds of treatment or at home recovering, it was Grandma who was with me most of the time. So yeah, it made us really close.”
“That’s honestly really special,” I say.
“I guess it is,” she says, shrugging.
“No, it definitely is. I’m not super close to anyone in my family except Dinah.” I hesitate. “I sometimes feel like I traded family for fame. Granted, growing up, things at home and with my family weren’t always all that great. I was…misunderstood.”
“You said they don’t necessarily support you, even now.”
I wince. “I may have fudged that a bit. They disagree with pretty much every decision I’ve ever made. They thought I should go to college or trade school and pursue music as a hobby. And they really hate that I’m an actor now, and not really even a musician anymore.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “My grandparents on my dad’s side both passed when I was little—they had Dad very late in life. Mom’s folks are still around, but Grandpa has pretty serious dementia, and Grandma…well…let’s just say she’s not dealing with that well. I go back East a few times a year and visit everyone, but it’s strained as hell. Grandma thinks I’m a YouTube celebrity, or something. Like, she thinks it’s all an internet hoax, or…or something. I’m not really sure what she thinks, and I don’t think she’s super clear on it herself.”
“I’m sorry you don’t have more support from your family.” She turns her gaze out the window, looking uncharacteristically morose. “I just wish I had more time.” To me, then. “Will they come to the wedding, do you think?”
I feel a flutter in my belly. Wedding. Wedding? That’s a reality. I said yes to that. But…the prospect of actually getting married? Yikes. It’s a little scary.
She’s regarding me intently. “You’re having second thoughts about that.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question.
“No, I’m not.”
She snorts. “Don’t be fake with me, Westley.”
I squeeze the steering wheel hard. “It’s not second thou
ghts. I said yes and I meant it.”
She shakes her head, pats my hand; it feels a little condescending. “That was a TikTok video, Wes. The time I’ve had with you has already been more incredible than any fantasy I could ever have conjured up for myself. You don’t have to marry me.”
I hold my answer for a moment, looking at my own emotions as analytically as I can, to be sure I’m telling her the truth.
“Jo, listen to me.” I glance at her. Hold her eyes as long as I can spare my attention from the road. “I’m not having second thoughts. Am I feeling…nervous, or…scared? Sure. I don’t know exactly what word you want to use for what I’m feeling, but I promise you it’s not oh god, I can’t do this. It’s more like…holy shit, getting actually married? Am I ready for that, like at all? I take marriage very seriously, Jo. Shit, I take relationships themselves seriously. It’s why I haven’t been willing to date or hook up with anyone, despite the easy availability afforded me by the fact that I’m somewhat famous. I don’t want to date just anyone. And I sure as hell don’t want to marry just anyone.” I pause to change lanes around a slow-moving semi. “The moment I saw you in that video, the moment I heard your voice, I knew down to the very freaking pit of my soul that we’re…god, I don’t know…connected, somehow. That I’m supposed to be with you. It was an imperative. I had to come to you. I didn’t know why, I still don’t know what it means or where it came from. I’m not sure I believed in, like, divinely appointed soul mates or whatever—I still don’t. But if they exist, divinely appointed soul mates, I mean, then you and I are that. We’re connected in a way beyond what’s normal. Deeper than what I can explain in any kind of rational way.”
She blinks hard. “You believe that?”
“I absolutely do.”
“I feel it too. For me, it was easy to blame it on the fact that I had this crush on you, as a celebrity, right? Like oh, I just like him because he’s hot and talented. I mean, shoot, every straight female on the planet probably has at least a little crush on you. So I guess I’ve been trying to blame it on that. But it’s not just that. When I met you, when you showed up at my door, I looked at you and I just…I felt something. Like you said, in my soul. The fact that you’re you, you’re the Westley Britton? That kind of…stopped being important. How can we be connected when we just met? I don’t know. But we are. And I…” she swallows hard. “I’m afraid, Wes.” This is a whisper.
“Of what?”
She hesitates. Stammers. “I…I…” A sigh. Then, in a barely audible voice, face turned away: “Of letting you get too close.”
“I won’t hurt you, Jo. I promise. I’m not gonna flake out or change my mind or panic. I’m in this for the long haul, no matter what.”
She shakes her head. Her gaze turns to her lap, to her fingers pressing into her thighs. “It’s not me I’m worried about, Wes. It’s you.”
“You can’t worry about me, Jo. It’s my choice.”
“I know. But…what happened back there, in Cheyenne? That’s just going to get worse. Harder, and harder. Good days are going to be outnumbered by bad days. And then there’ll only be bad days, and then I’ll be dead, and you’ll be alone, stuck in love with me but I’ll be dead. It’s not enough time, Wes. There’s too much and there’s not enough time. If I let you…” She swallows, huffs, tries again. “If I let you fall in love with me for real, you’re just going to end up broken. And I don’t know that I can deal with having that on my conscience.”
“You can’t stop me from falling in love with you, Jo. You can refuse to be with me. You can refuse to let yourself fall in love with me. You can push me away. You can go back home and ignore me. But you can’t control how I feel. I don’t say this to be belligerent. It’s just not your choice—it’s mine. And I choose…you.”
“Why?” She stares at me, blinking hard. “Why, Wes? Because you feel like we’re fated to be together? Because that’s not a good reason. That feels like obligation.”
“It’s not obligation, it’s attraction. And why shouldn’t I choose you? Why not? You ask why, and I ask why not?”
“Why not?” She laughs bitterly. “Because I’m going to die soon, Wes, that’s why. It’s the emotional version of a suicide mission.”
“That’s my business.”
“But why would you want to? What is it about me that makes it worth it for you?”
“Who you are. Your strength of character. Your intelligence. Your musical talent. Your physical beauty.”
She snorts. “Yeah, okay.”
I sigh, feeling frustrated. “Jolene, for real, you need to get over this misconception you have that physical beauty and attraction relies solely on the shape of your body. I am attracted to you physically. Right now, just as you are. No, you don’t have ginormous boobs and a Kardashian ass. So what? That’s not what determines beauty. That can be one aspect of physical beauty. But it’s not everything. And a person can be beautiful without that. And you are. You are beautiful. Objectively, and also subjectively to me.” I touch my fingers to her forearm, gently. “For example, I don’t think there’s anyone who could deny that someone like—let’s say…Keira Knightley. She’s beautiful. She’s successful, talented, and beautiful. But she’s not beautiful because of her curves, nor is she less beautiful for any kind of lack thereof, right? There are many, many different types of bodies in this world, Jolene. There are many, many different qualities of beauty. You’re fixating and finding your self-worth in one very narrow aspect.”
She’s quiet for a long, long time. “I just…this is hard to put into words, what I’m thinking, what I want to say.” Another silence. “I’ve often felt disconnected from my body, Wes. It’s a…a layer of self-defense, psychologically and emotionally. I’ve spent so much of my life in pain, feeling sick, and under the influence of drugs that separate me from sensation to protect me from that pain. So then, even if I’m not in pain or drugged up, it’s hard for me to feel fully in my body. Connected to my…physicality, so to speak. Because it’s just easier not to. I’m more than my body. My life, my inner life, my sense of who I am…it’s not centered in my body, it’s in my mind. I can lay in bed and be sick and sort of disconnect myself from that sensation, and live in my mind. Think about things, daydream, pretend, plan. Watch movies, listen to music. Sure that uses my physical senses, but not my body, so to speak. So I’ve never…felt…centered in my physical body.”
I have to really think hard to process what she’s saying—it’s deep, and I’m not going to give it a cursory, half-assed answer. “So suddenly experiencing physical sensations which are inherently connected to emotions…it would be pretty jarring.”
She nods. “Yeah, very. I’m suddenly forced to be fully physically present. I can’t just float along mentally. I have to be here. I have to feel things. When it’s you and me and we’re doing stuff, and I’m all caught up in it, it’s amazing. But when I start thinking? It gets a lot harder.” She finally looks at me again. “I’ve never had to worry about what I look like—it’s never mattered. My life has been about just…surviving the pain, honestly. I’m not trying to be dramatic, but that’s just the reality. But now, suddenly, I’m aware of my body, my sexuality, what I look like, how I feel about what I look like. And it’s hard, Wes. I know…I guess this is stuff most people go through much younger, much earlier, but I’ve been caught up in other stuff. So I guess I don’t think that I can easily just ‘get over it.’”
I wince. “I’m sorry, Jo. That was pretty harsh of me. I just…I wish you could see yourself the way I see you.”
“I think I’ve heard that line before,” she says, grinning.
I laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure it’s not original, but it’s true.”
She takes my hand, tangles our fingers together. “I’m trying. And when we’re…” She pauses, licks her lips, smiles. “When we’re together, when you’re kissing me and touching me and stuff, I feel beautiful. You make me feel beautiful.”
“Because you are. You really,
really are.”
“So just be a little patient with me, when I sometimes have trouble understanding that and feeling that way when we’re not caught up in the heat of the moment. It’s not an easy thing to feel. For anyone, for any woman, I think, feeling beautiful is difficult. Because there’s…there’s just so much involved in it.”
“Yeah, that’s something I’m coming to understand.”
I need to be home. I need to be somewhere private and safe with Jo. So, I drive with purpose, determined to get home as quickly as possible. Which means stopping for gas, picking up crappy drive-through junk food which upsets my stomach more often than not, and hitting the freeway again. I drink coffee like it’s all that’s keeping me alive, which to a degree feels accurate. The world narrows, as it tends to on long road trips, down to Jo, me, the road, the act of driving which becomes second nature. Conversation wanders, sometimes trails off as we listen to podcasts. She dozes a lot.
Hours pass in rotating sensations—sometimes, fifteen miles seems to take the whole day, and then suddenly we’re passing a state line that I’d thought was still a hundred miles away. Midday fades into afternoon, and then into evening. I’m not even sure where we are—I’m just blindly following the blue line on the GPS on the screen. I’m barely aware of the scenery, more focused on the road as Jolene sleeps beside me; this isn’t a doze, this time, it’s a deep sleep, mouth slack. Her head is pillowed on a sweatshirt against the window. The evening sun shines on her head, turning her hair into glowing, fiery strands of red-gold.
Like this, asleep, she seems so delicate. Porcelain.
My heart squeezes, aches with some strange, thick, hot, full-to-bursting feeling. A need to protect her. To make whatever time she has left magical.
Wish Upon A Star Page 17
