by Layla Hagen
I close my eyes and rest my head against him as the raft comes to a halt and James lifts me in his arms. He steps on the shore and then sets me down on a wooden bench, taking off my helmet and putting it on the wooden picnic table behind me, next to his helmet and two waterproof bags. I recognize one of them as mine. I hope to God the bags are really waterproof, because I am soaked. And so is James.
"Are you hurt?" he asks, sitting on one knee in front of me. I can't tell if his voice is trembling or the nauseating throbbing inside my skull makes it seem that way. I look for the others, but there's no one in sight. It's only when I look at the river, and notice the orange raft sailing away, that I realize it's just the two of us here on shore.
"Where are the others going?" I mumble.
"Carrying on with the trip. I told them to drop us off here at the base. They'll arrive later."
I look around me, wondering what exactly he calls the base, since, except for the wooden bench and table, there's nothing but pines everywhere. A pathway stretches between the trees, and I wonder if the base is at the end of it, and if there's anyone there. I can't allow myself to stay alone for too long with James.
"Serena, are you hurt?" he repeats.
"No, I don't think so." But as I say the words, a spasm runs through my right thigh and I gasp.
"Let me take a look at it."
"It's nothing, really."
"Don't be silly. Let's get you out of this wetsuit."
And though I know there's no way he and I can check my thigh without me taking off my suit, I still consider that option for a few seconds. Grudgingly, I stand up and peel the suit off me, until I'm all but naked in front of him; my cheeks feel so warm I'm pretty sure they're the same bright red as the tiny bikini I'm wearing.
"I always hated these crappy suits." He takes off his suit as well, standing before me in a pair of green shorts. I look away, my breath quickening. If I could just pretend we're sunbathing on a beach, maybe I wouldn't feel this naked. The sun most certainly burns hot enough for me to uphold the illusion.
"I'm so sorry about this," James says, eyeing my thigh as I slump back on the bench. One long scratch runs all the way to my knee.
"I'm an idiot, I should've held on tighter to the raft."
"It's my fault for pressuring you to come with us."
"I made the decision to come, James. It was my choice."
"At least you're not bleeding," he says with a shudder.
"You're afraid of blood?" I ask, biting my lip to keep from laughing.
"Not exactly afraid," he says, the corner of his mouth lifting up in half a smile. "I just don't like it much."
He trails his fingers along the scratch, my skin prickling, goose bumps forming on my thigh, and then on my entire body. James bites his lower lip.
"I guess you won't be able to wear any short skirts while searching for an apartment in New York."
"No problem. I'm not going to New York to seduce the real estate agent, but to find a decent place to live."
"Really? I was under the impression you were going to New York to run away from me."
I prepare to contradict him in the most categorical way, but then he blinks up at me with wide, expectant eyes. Saddened eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
The truth rolls out of my mouth before I can stop myself. "Because I can't stand the thought of being apart from you, knowing you're just a few miles away."
He sits himself up on the bench next to me, his eyes never leaving mine. "We don't have to be apart, Serena. I don't want us to be apart. These have been the worst weeks of my life. I can't sleep, or do any fucking thing right. I worked twenty hours a day just to exhaust myself so I won't think about you all the time." He pauses for a few seconds. "I miss you."
I catch my breath. I had almost forgotten how alike we are, he and I. Addicted to movies and exhaustion. Addicted to each other.
He cups my face in his hands, pulling me closer to him. "I don't want us to be apart, Serena. You chose that way. And the worst part is I don't completely understand why."
Of course he doesn't. And that is what will always keep us apart. All the ways in which we are not the same. He needs constant excitement and risk. I need safety and reassurance. A reassurance he can't offer me. Not now, and perhaps not ever. I am not prepared to find out.
"Talk to me Serena, please." He presses his forehead to mine, closing his eyes. I close mine too, and find unexpected comfort in the darkness.
There is no way to make this sound better, so I say it in the simplest way possible. "I want you to love me. I need to hear you say it. But I know I can't make you love me. No matter how much I want it. So I have to be as far away from you as I can."
"I need time, Serena," he whispers. "Give me a little time, that's all I ask."
Time. The invisible fabric everyone thinks is magic. They said time would make the pain of Kate's absence fade away. But it hasn't. And just like it can't erase pain, it can't make him say something he doesn't want to say either.
"I'm afraid to, James. I'm afraid time will pass and you'll leave me instead of loving me," I say, my eyes still closed.
"I would never leave you. I—"
"Would you love me if I were more like you?" I cut him off.
"What?" he pulls back, and I blink my eyes open. He's frowning.
"If I'd like stuff like skydiving, rafting." I point to the river. "You know. Danger. Or excitement, as you call it."
"Serena, I like you for not being that way. The world doesn't need one more hotheaded show-off. I don't want you to become that."
"What are you talking about? You have pushed me to do dangerous stuff since our second meeting."
I remember what he told me the first time I met him, in that bar. Not very adventurous, are you? Well, I should have been honest with him back then and said no. Maybe it wouldn't have come to all of this. I'll never be an adventuresome girl. Not a real one, anyway. I might like the thrill that jumping off a plane or diving in a free fall brings, but I will never go out and seek that kind of thrill. Because taking risks will always end up badly for me; even now, I somehow managed to injure myself. And that's what giving in to James would mean now. Taking a risk head-on. I took a leap of faith with him once, when I decided to trust him the night we went to the chocolate factory. What a reward that breathtaking, magical night was. But that all ended with me in shambles. I'm not taking chances again. Even though I know I'll never feel as alive as I feel when I am with him.
James chuckles, running his thumb over my neck. "It was the third meeting. And I didn't do that to test you, or change you. I wanted you to know who I am, and what it is like to be at my side, so you had a chance to run away before it was too late. I hoped you wouldn't run away, of course." His smile fades. "Granted, I also wanted to show you the fun side of life. My kind of fun at least. But I never wanted to you to become like me. God, don't become like me. You're perfect the way you are."
"Then why can't you love me?"
He lets go of me, his jaw tight. "This has nothing to do with how I feel about you. My inability to say… certain things… it doesn't mean I don't feel that way. I…" He takes a deep breath. “Why do these words mean so much to you, Serena? Haven't I proved how much I care about you? I cut off any contact with Natalie. I'll do anything you ask me. Tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it. Just give me time, that's all I ask."
His hands hang in the air at the sides of my hips again, like in his office. It's still there, the invisible barrier that keeps him from touching me. It's growing stronger with all the things we can't do for each other. Him, not being able to tell me those three words. Me, not being able to give him time.
"What did Natalie tell you?" he asks.
"What do you mean?"
"When you talked at that dinner?"
"She… not much."
I realize it as I say the words. She didn't actually say much. Just enough to instill doubt and fear in me. "What was there to tell?"
"I gave up saying those words a long time ago. Lara always accused me of mixing up love with control. That I used those three words as a means of control." He sighs, shaking his head. "She was right in ways I hope you'll never know. You say I like danger a bit too much. But telling you what you want to hear might be the most dangerous thing I've ever done."
He takes my hand between his, and I search his eyes, trying to understand how three words can mean something so different to each of us. Relief to me. Torment to him.
I press my other hand on his cheek. I think he knows what I'm about to say. "I'm too afraid that waiting for you to say them is even more dangerous, James."
"Don't leave for New York," he begs.
I run my fingers on his cheek. "You can make me stay," I whisper. "Three words are all it takes."
Three words and everything would feel right between us again.
But he can't bring himself to utter a single word, let alone three. I trace the outline of his lips with my thumb, every cell in my body praying for them to move, for him to say something. He's shaking. I'm shaking too. Like a leaf in the autumn breeze, like the drop of water trailing down his nose, to his lips, and then trickling on his chin, not in a straight, but twisted line, as if it's not quite sure of its course. But no matter what course it takes, the little drop will end up on the bare brown earth, where it will dry up and perish.
I'm not sure what my undoing will be either. The torture of James's hot, ragged breaths on my lips or the ice-cold silence. Both of them have the power to crush me. I wish I could have another glass box. I wouldn't collect memories in this one. I'd encase my dismantling heart in it, to keep the falling pieces from vanishing forever in the abyss of pain inside me. There will be no words from James to heal me. So I lean forward, searching for his lips.
They won't heal me either; I know that. But they will make me forget.
For now.
I open my mouth to his in a breathtaking clash. I expect him to push me away, to reject me, but he runs his tongue roughly over mine, his fingers digging in my hair. His other hand presses at the small of my back, holding me closer to him with a need as desperate as my own. The desperation births a bloom of hope in my chest. That he might need me so much, he might say the words after all. He'll tell me he loves me and then I'll never have to endure the dull lapse of life without his lips again.
Yet the hope withers away, bit by bit, as his hands slide to my hips, and his lips trail down on my neck, hungry for my skin, but silent. He's not preparing to say he loves me. He's preparing to say goodbye to me. A sob escapes my lips. He breaks off the trail of kisses and straightens up until we're eye to eye.
"You want me to stop?" His voice comes throaty and shaking, and his hands are still firm on my hips. I'm not sure he would be able to stop even if I did say yes.
But I don't want to say yes. God knows just how much I don't. I shake my head and pull back a notch, just enough to see him, all of him. His beautiful eyes and full, wet lips, the shape of his statuesque torso and his strong arms. I want every inch of him carved in my memory. I want to take him in with all my senses, now that he's still mine to kiss and touch. I start with the hollow of his neck, running my lips from there down onto his chest, my fingers drifting alongside, my nails leaving fine traces on his soft skin. His chest rumbles the lower I go. When I'm just below his navel, I stop and look up, pressing my lips to him just as my hand slides inside his boxers, caressing his erection. He groans in my mouth.
And then all our instincts break loose.
He hooks one arm around my waist, and pushes me on my back in the dirt, kissing me like never before. I don't know how, but I get rid of his shorts and then he's completely naked over me, and I'm completely naked in his arms. His tongue twists on my nipple, and his fingers torture me, first cupping my inner thigh, then circling their way up to my sex. I let out moan after moan as my body starts to pulsate and quiver, lightly in the beginning, then stronger and stronger until my whole body shakes, and I'm at the mercy of his blessed fingers.
"Please," I murmur against his lips when the emptiness inside me becomes too unbearable.
He thrusts into me and we both groan when our bodies unite in sheer abandon that doesn't bring me the relief I crave so much. Instead, it brings tears to my eyes that I hide, burying my head in his shoulder, and sobs that I try to disguise as moans. I dig my nails deeply into his back when throbs of tension start rippling through me from my most intimate spot.
"Serena," he grunts in my ear, low and raspy, kissing my neck and the lobe of my ear. And then I feel tears on my cheeks that aren't mine. I push myself into him, desperately looking for pleasure, and the cadence of our moves becomes so frantic that I think our bodies might break. But neither of us can drown the pain in pleasure anymore. So we just let it drown us, clasping our hips against each other again and again, giving into the unrelenting longing for relief. When his body goes rigid, and my own succumbs to the explosion that breaks my last defenses in a thousand pieces, I press my mouth to his and claim his bliss—the last stolen moment—the memory that will be the brightest star in my little glass box.
He falls over me, and we stay like this, entangled, his head buried in my neck. I feel his hot tears dripping on my shoulders and I don't bother hiding or stopping my own. It doesn't hurt as much as before though, and it bothers me because I don't understand why. There was a time, after Kate's death, when I thought there was only so much pain a person could feel, and that it would start fading in intensity, until one no longer felt anything. I learned the hard way it didn't work like that. But maybe now my body has finally hit rock bottom. Maybe it finally can't feel the pain anymore. I don't know how much time passes before the silence isn't punctured only by our breaths and sobs, but by guffaws of laughter resounding in the distance.
"I think the others have arrived," I say. James pushes himself up on his palms, and the moment our bodies no longer touch, whatever shield disguised my pain, breaks. Slowly, only one crease slitting it first, and then another one, until it shatters completely. It leaves me vulnerable and raw, and unable to look at the hint of a smile on his face without dying on the inside. His eyes are clear already, no trace of tears in them.
"We need to jump in the river," he says.
Of course we do. We're both smeared with dust and dirt. I get up and head past him. Once in the water, I swim around, careful not to get drawn away by the current, or too close to James. He doesn't attempt to come close to me either.
When he walks out of the water, I say, "I want to stay a little longer. You go to the others, I'll come in a few minutes."
"Hurry up, we'll barbecue," he says and my heart gives a jolt at the expectant look in his eyes. He's not giving me the easy way out. He genuinely believes I will come. But I will not do such a thing, cowardly as that might seem.
We said our goodbyes already.
He gets dressed at top speed and then walks away, but not before glancing at me and holding his hands up as if asking, "What are you waiting for?"
The second he's out of sight, fresh tears burn behind my eyelids. I blindly get out of the water, take my clothes from the waterproof bag and put them on. Among the laughter in the distance, I wipe the tears away from my eyes and cling to the one thought that won't do away with my sanity: I need to find Parker and get the hell out of here.
But finding Parker is not as easy as I'd hoped. I peek from behind a tree as everyone wanders around, still stoned on adrenaline from the rafting. It doesn't help that everyone is still in their wetsuits. I finally see Parker. I wave carefully, so the others don't spot me, gesturing him to come my way.
He raises his eyebrows as I duck behind the tree completely when he arrives, pulling him with me. "Are you hiding here?"
"No, I decided to play hide and seek," I snap.
Parker opens his mouth, then closes it right back, staring intently at my eyes. I think they give away that I've been crying.
"Do you think we can leave now?" I ask.
<
br /> "We can still stick around for a couple of hours. There is plenty of—"
"Please, Parker."
He rubs his chin, glancing sideways as the others start with the barbecue. "I tell you what, wait for me by the car. I'll be right there after I change and say goodbye to everyone. Just follow this pathway." He gestures to a trail between the trees.
I nod, grateful he didn't ask why I don't want to say goodbye to everyone, then proceed on the pathway. At the end of the pathway are the two buses—the drivers must have brought them here from the place we initially got off—and Parker's car. I lean against the passenger door, but instantly jump away, as the glass, hot from the sun, burns me.
When Parker arrives, we both slide inside the car.
"Did your driver manage to get my bag from the apartment?" I ask.
"Of course he did. Which means we've got about five hours until I need to be at the airport. I don't know about you, but I'm starving. Since we're skipping barbecue, I suggest we stop somewhere along the highway."
"Sounds good". There's a very un-Parker-ish resentment in his tone, and I'm not sure it's about the barbecue at all.
I stare at the wheel as Parker starts the car, determined not to look behind me, at the river, or the trees, or anything that might remind me of the last hours spent with James. I only relax when we get on the highway.
"So," Parker says, and I sense that I'm about to find out what the resentment really is about, "when exactly did you decide you wanted to move to New York?"
"About five minutes after I got the offer."
Parker snorts.
"If there's something you want to tell me, Parker, just say it. Don't act like you're three years old."
Silence follows. I watch him intently, but he keeps his eyes firmly on the road.
When he finally speaks, after a good while, he sounds normal again. Not friendly, but not upset either. "You do know Natalie isn't part of the company anymore, right?"
