by Lily Foster
The wind had whipped up even more by the time we returned and Anna’s hands were curled into tight, uncomfortable looking fists. I walked her to the back door, which had become our custom, and then I took her hands and rubbed them in mine. She smiled and said, “I need to go buy some gloves tomorrow,” as she pulled her hands back. “See you, Declan.”
I walked back to my place feeling hollow. She was distant and it hurt. I was desperate to be with her even though I knew what I was doing was wrong.
With Tess, it was as if she was out of sight, out of mind. This time she wouldn’t be coming back for three weeks. She had tests and papers due and I had away games on the weekends for the most part. How did that make me feel? I felt free.
I began making any excuse to see Anna. I never missed our nightly runs. I pretty much knew her schedule, so I could bump into her at least once or twice a day. I knew when she ate, where her classes were, when and where she studied in the library. I sensed she was trying to protect herself by keeping some distance between us but I knew she was losing that battle as badly as I was.
“Hey, Red, does this remind you of one day long ago?” I said as I plopped down across from her in the cafeteria with an overloaded tray of food.
She smiled at me with a warmth and tenderness that melted me to the core. “Is this where I’m supposed to say that I doubt you can put away that much food?”
“And you decide you’re starving and go get yourself something to eat? How do you sit in here just reading a book with the smell of all this,” I paused to take a long, orgasmic whiff of my fried chicken, “surrounding you, Anna?”
“I am starving now. I’ll be right back.”
I was waiting for her, happy as pig in shit, when a cloying voice broke into my thoughts. “Wow, Declan. It takes a lot to fuel this body, huh?”
Charlotte sat down facing me, her legs straddling the bench, her hand running up and down my arm from elbow to shoulder. Anna plunked her tray down across from mine a few seconds later with a loud thud. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.”
Charlotte’s gaze whipped up and she looked Anna over for a long moment before she teased, “Declan, you’re being rude. Introduce us.”
“Charlotte, this is Anna. Anna, Charlotte.” I couldn’t mask my annoyance. I was pissed by her intrusion and her cocky tone of voice.
“Anna?” she asked, eyes wide. She looked like the cat that just ate the canary. Right, I remembered, Charlotte saw the scribbles in my notebook that day. Shit. Now she’d know.
“Anna is an old friend.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth because the words were a lie. We weren’t just friends then, and simple friendship was definitely not what I felt for Anna now. I looked at Anna but she was staring down at her plate then, chewing slowly.
“So, Anna, you must know Tess then?” Charlotte asked.
“No, I don’t,” she looked up and answered evenly.
“I’m confused. How did you two meet?” Charlotte asked, picking at what she had to know was a sore subject.
Anna looked as annoyed as I felt. “Long story,” she said in an offhanded way.
“I just love long stories,” Charlotte said, baiting Anna.
Anna scooped a giant spoonful of mashed potatoes into her mouth, chewed and swallowed, deliberately taking her time. Tension growing, Anna looked right at Charlotte and said, “You may like hearing them but I don’t like telling them.”
Charlotte looked to me, acting shocked and insulted, before fixing Anna with a death glare. “She’s charming, Declan.”
“No, I’m not charming. And I’m not going to pretend I like you, ‘cause I don’t,” Anna said, shrugging her shoulders.
“What is your problem, psycho?”
“My problem? I don’t have one. I don’t get off on embarrassing other girls in public, by calling other girls sluts. That’s your problem, though, isn’t it?”
Charlotte looked as if she’d been smacked. She hadn’t seen that coming. I actually felt just the slightest bit bad for her until she cocked her head and looked at Anna as he said to me, “Tess is a class act, Declan. I don’t know why you’re slumming with…this.” As she got up to leave she said, “By the way, sweet hair, Raggedy Ann.”
“Nice,” Anna said, shaken, but putting up a tough girl act.
After she was gone I said quietly, “That was a little harsh, Anna.”
“You’re referring to her, right?”
“You were both—”
She raised her eyebrows and let out a bitter laugh as she shook her head, cutting me off, “Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think you do, Declan. Maybe I’m not so nice.” She pushed her tray towards me so that it slammed into mine. She got up and tried to pull her bag up onto her shoulder but it had caught on the edge of the bench. It lurched her backwards and she had to turn towards me again, frustrated, to unhook it. That’s when I saw the tear running down her bright red cheek.
“Anna,” I said, pleading, standing up and reaching over towards her.
“No,” she practically bit, looking away again. “Just let me go.”
I stood outside waiting at ten that night but she didn’t appear. I waited a while, even though I knew if she wasn’t there at ten on the nose, that she wouldn’t be coming. I went to her.
Fiona opened the door, eyeing me. She looked as if she couldn’t decide whether to be mad at me or not. “Is Anna here, Fiona?”
“She’s out running. I figured she was with you.”
“No. I guess she took a different route.”
Fiona took my forearm lightly. “Don’t mess with her, Declan. Don’t be selfish.”
“I’m trying, Fiona. I’m trying to stay away but I can’t.”
Fiona looked over my shoulder then and I turned to see Anna standing in the doorway. She’d heard what I’d said.
“I’ll be back later,” Fiona said as she scooped up her laptop and a few textbooks. She stopped to exchange a look with Anna before she slid past her.
“I was worried when you didn’t come.”
She peeled off her top layer, drenched with sweat. “Turn around, Declan,” she said. I heard her sneakers being kicked off and items being tossed into a pile. The vanilla scent that she always gave off was mixed with the salty tang of sweat. “Wait here if you want to talk.”
I sat on her bed as she showered, looking around at the posters, the books on her desk and the pictures. I looked for a picture of her boyfriend but only saw one of her with another girl and an older boy who looked too much like her not to be related. I thought for a second that it was Will in the picture but it was too recent a photo to be him. Then I saw another frame and knew this had to be Will. It was a boy of about seventeen, in his football uniform, smiling as if the person taking the picture had just said something really funny. When the glass caught the reflection of the light in the room, you could see the many fingerprints on the surface. It looked as if every part of his face had been touched, caressed.
The books were all ones I thought were more suited for boys than for girls: The Outsiders, Call of the Wild, Lord of the Flies. And the posters; there wasn’t a boy band in sight. She had images of the Chrysler building, the Brooklyn Bridge, and a few other structures I didn’t recognize. I smiled taking all of it in.
“That’s Dylan. I told you about him, right?”
I was looking at that picture again when she came back into the room. I turned to see her standing there, face flushed pink from the run, wet hair combed and braided over one shoulder, dressed in pajama pants and a snug t-shirt. She brushed past me to put her shower basket away and then sat on her bed. “Did I ever tell you about Dylan?” she asked, snapping me out of the daze I was in.
“He’s your cousin, right?”
“Yes. I live with his parents, Vince and Margot. That’s his girlfriend, Kasia.”
“She’s pretty.”
Anna cocked an eyebrow. “That’s like saying Swiss chocolate tastes…decent. Kasia’s drop dead gorgeous and she’s
as nice as she is beautiful.”
I put the picture down and then sat on Fiona’s bed, across from her. “Do you hate me, Anna?”
“Why would I hate you? Oh yeah, because you insinuated that I’m as mean and spiteful as that girl, Charlotte?”
“Wasn’t my intention but yeah, that.”
“She did something really crappy to Danielle.”
“I know. I was there.”
Anna looked disgusted. “And you’re friends with her?” She shook her head. “Why did you just sit there while she kept picking away at me?”
“I don’t have a good enough excuse, Anna, it’s just that I felt…guilty. Something happened a few weeks ago and I’m sure she was putting the pieces of a puzzle together. She knows.”
She slapped her palms on her comforter, frustrated. “She knows what?”
“She knows how I feel about you.”
“Enlighten me. How do you feel about me, Declan?”
“Anna,” her name was a plea.
I couldn’t take the distance anymore; the physical distance or the dance she and I were doing around each other. I moved to stand in front of her and pulled her up to her feet.
“Why should I stay away from you, Anna? After all this time I don’t want to be right next to you and not be with you.”
Her hands were on my chest, the fabric of my shirt fisted in them, her gaze fixed straight ahead in that direction. “Declan, this is no good. It hurts too much. I don’t want to think of you with her. I don’t even know her but I hate her. I don’t want to hear her name, I don’t want to know what she looks like, and I can’t…I know that you love her.”
Anna
“Do you think I want to imagine you,” he spoke as he tugged my top over my head, “kissing him?” He tossed the shirt onto the floor and then sucked in a breath as he ran his hands slowly down along the sides of my breasts, to my waist, further down to my hips. His hands pushed the fabric of my drawstring pants down until they slipped off, pooling at my feet. I was shocked by how forceful and sure he was.
There was the rational part of me, telling me I should be pushing him away right now, but oh my Lord, I gasped at the feel of his hands on me. My body was liquid heat. His eyes never left the swell of my breasts. He stood close to me, fingering the lace strap of my bra on my shoulder while the other hand grasped my hip. “Anna,” he said my name like he was worshipping me as he lowered his head and kissed me.
Well, frigid bitch no more.
With Declan’s mouth on mine I wasn’t focused on the thoughts that typically raced through my mind. My leg hooked around him and his hand slid lower to cup my bottom and squeeze as he drew me in closer. He turned and sat himself back onto the bed, with me in his lap. He kissed me like he was desperate. I could feel him and could hear him groan as he strained against me, pushing me down, against him. He was pressing against me there, making me feel so, so…good. If he would have tried right there and then, I think I would have let him. The heat and the desire in me felt something like a physical ache. He let out a frustrated breath at one point and rested his head against my chest, his breathing heavy. “Anna, I’m sorry.”
I felt a hot tear slipping down my cheek. “I’m not,” I whispered in a choked voice. I wasn’t sorry. There was a part of me that was so happy to know that that part of me was alive and well. What Jonathan had said was true.
The sadness came rushing in then; the feeling that Declan and I had our timing wrong—again. She wasn’t here but she was definitely in the room. There was someone between us. “Declan, is the timing just always going to be wrong?”
“What do you mean?” he asked absently. My braid had come loose and he was stroking my hair. With each stroke his fingers lingered along the swell of my breasts where the strands ended.
He was looking in that direction when I gently took his chin. “Hey, you seem particularly fascinated with the view down there.”
He laughed softly. “I’m comparing the view now with that sweet picture in my mind from three years ago.”
“And?”
“Oh my lassie,” he affected his best Scottish accent as he traced one finger across the top of one breast and then the other, smiling, “how you’ve grown.”
I laughed but he looked at me, serious again. “What did you mean, about timing?”
I rolled off his lap and lie back against my pillows. I liked how his eyes were still raking over me from top to bottom. “I think we met each other when we were too young. Now we meet and the timing isn’t right again.”
Declan leaned over me and placed a chaste kiss on my lips. Then he grabbed my clothes off the floor and handed them back to me. I slid the top over my head and put the pants back on too. When I was dressed he joined me on the bed, both of us on our backs, looking at the ceiling. It reminded me of lying on the dock all those years ago. “I know we were meant to meet again, Anna.” He rolled over onto his side then, looking down at me. “I don’t want to stay away. I can’t.”
I nodded and he smiled, breathing in deep. He kissed my forehead then and sat up. “We’ll figure this out, Anna.”
And that was how it started. Every day we were together at some point. He’d plop down with us girls at lunch, he’d walk me to class, or he’d text me with some stupid pretense that I could see right through. Declan would ask me for my class notes—we had no classes together. He’d ask me to tutor him in Spanish—I had only taken high school French. My personal favorite was when he’d ask me to help him operate the washing machines—I’d patently refuse. We would typically wind up in his room, talking and then making out on his bed, nothing more.
I wanted more.
There were things I’d done with Jonathan that I did…just because it was expected. It wasn’t out of desire. With Declan, though, I found myself looking at him, wondering what he would taste like. Wanting to lick every inch of his body and make him come while moaning my name.
Greedy.
I’d sit in class thinking about him and sometimes jolt myself out of a state when I realized I’d just flung my head back, eyes closed, imagining his face between my legs. Having to pass off this crazy lust as nodding off in class, the way your head jerks when you wake suddenly.
Unsatisfied lust that had settled as a kind of wretched ache in my body.
I didn’t tell him that I’d broken up with Jonathan. I was certain about my feelings for Declan. I knew I couldn’t be with Jonathan, not for one more second. But I didn’t want my newly single status to be the thing that persuaded Declan. I wanted him to feel as certain about me—committed enough to know there was no one else he could be with. So far, that wasn’t the case but maybe I wasn’t being fair. After all, I wasn’t exactly all-in with Jonathan to begin with. I hadn’t been head over heels. I’d had my doubts from the beginning. Maybe it was different for Declan.
So I didn’t talk about Jonathan but he did talk about Tess. It hurt to listen, because I knew that he cared about her. But that was part of who Declan and I were together—when one needed to talk, the other one listened.
Tess came into his life when things were dark and she’d made him happy again. I envied her that. Tess was his first. I envied her that. Tess needed him. Declan said that now she seemed to need him so much that it didn’t feel right. He felt like he couldn’t leave her because she wouldn’t take a breakup well. He worried about her.
I envied her that.
Declan
I knew if I stood back and took and objective look at what was going on, I would see how fucked up my life had become. But from close range, all I could see and all I could feel was Anna.
I was in love with her.
I faked my way through phone calls with Tess. The guilt didn’t gnaw at me like it should have. I didn’t want to stop what I was doing. I didn’t want to deprive myself of one minute with Anna.
I went to classes, studied, and practiced with more drive and energy than I ever had. I laughed with my friends, hung out with Anna at parties, at my dorm, at
hers.
I liked hanging out in Anna’s room with her and Fiona; even more so when Fiona was out. We’d listen to music, she’d tease me about my limited knowledge on the subject. I’d listen as she introduced me to a slew of bands I’d never heard of: The Kooks, Cage the Elephant, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Arcade Fire. Whatever, I liked the music and all but I’d be just as content listening to Pavarotti sing heavy metal, as long as I was lying on her bed next to her.
Brandon, Colin, Simon, Terrence…they were her friends too. Anna could hold her own sitting in my room surrounded by these obnoxious guys and they thought she was great. She was friends with Victoria and Melissa. She wouldn’t gave Paige or Charlotte the time of day, though, so she’d generally sit with her crew in the cafeteria and I’d come over to sit by her.
Around campus we weren’t public about what was happening between us but unless you were blind, you could figure out what was going on. In public I’d fight to contain myself but then, when I could, I’d pull her behind the stacks in the library or drag her into an empty classroom, unable to keep my hands and lips off hers.
Time is funny. A lot can happen in three weeks. Everything had changed between us or, I should say, things went back to the way they had been so long ago.
I literally felt like I had a bounce in my step. Every thought centered on her, the way she kissed me, sweet breath on her lips passing over mine, or the way her arms would drape around my neck, giving my hands access to the curves of her body. I was happy. One hundred percent, downright happy.
Another thing about time—it flies when you’re having fun.
In the days leading up to Tess’s next visit, I felt myself getting tense and angry. I ripped into Frank over some stupid, harmless comment he’d made about Fiona’s ample breasts and I found myself smacking the side of the ATM machine, hard and repeatedly, outside the bookstore when my card didn’t work one afternoon.
The day before she was due, I got into a fight with one of my teammates when he’d checked me hard during practice. It was my fault. My head wasn’t on straight and I’d left myself open for the hit. He didn’t even get me that hard. It was just that I was a powder keg ready to go off.
