Boys Don't Cry

by Jennifer Melzer

  Nate brushes the hair from my collar bone and lowers his lips to the skin there. He dips his head lower, kissing across the tops of my breasts while squeezing deliciously with his hand. Suckling my nipple between his teeth, he teases his tongue across the tight pebble and my insides clench with excitement, making my body buck and writhe. I moan softly and arch my back against him just as his mouth drifts lower, across my ribs, over the muscles of my stomach, just below my belly button.

  There is no coming back from this. I realize it as he thumbs open the button on my jean shorts and begins sliding them over my hips, leaning in to place tender pecks across my belly, the tops of my thighs. I’m pretty sure he knows it too, but it feels like destiny when he’s naked above me, and you can’t stop destiny.

  I feel him brush across the top of my thigh when he stretches over and reaches to tug the bedside table drawer open. The first time I touch him, it’s my fingers rolling over his length as I help him slide the condom on, and then he’s inside me, pushing slowly through me as I rise into him, gasping.

  At first it’s slow, almost tentative as he whispers, “Are you okay?” The warmth of his tongue flickers against my ear before he draws the lobe between his lips and begins kissing his way down my neck.

  Okay is an understatement. I am beyond okay right now. I don’t answer, but thrust my hips upward and hook my thigh across the back of his legs to pull him in deeper. The muscles inside me ache, clenching around him, and I turn my mouth into his, our tongues lashing feverishly, before the wet warmth of his lips drifts down my chin and I throw my head back to cry out.

  We find rhythm together easily, as if we’ve done this already a thousand times and know exactly how to please each other. I’m not thinking about how he got so good at this, or the three guys I slept with before him because right now there is nothing but the almost painful clash of our hip bones as he grinds into me.

  I know if there is a heaven, some kind of afterlife, this is what it will be like. Me in Nate’s arms, his mouth seeking mine, our breath in eager pulses as muscles tense and souls touch. He is my religion, his body my temple, and every moment of this is life-altering. For the briefest fraction of a second I know I already love him. It’s too soon for that, but my heart knows the truth, even if my mind refuses to believe it.

  From the moment I first saw him, this was what waited for me, and suddenly the connection is so strong, almost too strong. I have the rest of my life ahead of me, decades of other experiences, other perfect moments to make, maybe with Nate, maybe with someone else, but I don’t want any of them unless he is a part of them. I only want Nate, and if I can’t have him, I want this moment, just this, looping over and over until the end of time.

  Outside the rain comes down in sheets, slapping the metal roof as lightning strikes. I see his face as he draws back his head, tendrils of hair hanging around his cheeks, his eyes seeking mine, and I don’t know what I expect to find in them, but it isn’t the pain I see there. As if he can’t bear for me to see it, he presses his brow against my shoulder and turns his head into the pillow as the lightning falters. I put my arms around him, holding him close. His body’s trembling, shoulders shaking, and suddenly the rhythm is off and it’s like no matter how hard I try, I can’t find it again.

  Nate lets go, stiffening when he releases, and then his body goes slack. He falls into me like so much dead weight. While the storm rages on outside, we just lay there, me crushed beneath him, the pounding of his heart against my chest, and our breath spilling heat into the air. When he rolls over onto his back beside me to stare into the darkness, I feel strange and broken.

  Like maybe I just made the biggest, most perfect mistake of my life.

  I want to curl up in his arms, feel the slow trace of his fingertips across my back, but I’m afraid to move. Afraid to speak. So I do nothing but listen to the rain and our breath and wonder what he’ll do if I reach my hand out and try to find his.

  He sits up, turning his feet over the edge of the bed and pushing them into the floor. He doesn’t stand. He just sits there with his back to me, and for the first time since I met him I’m really scared.

  I roll over onto my side, touch the tips of my fingers to the small of his back, and he flinches like I’ve hurt him.

  “Nate?” I swallow hard, my throat tight and aching. “Are you okay?”

  I count the beats of my heart before he answers. Sixty-seven.

  “How can it feel like this between us, Tali?”

  The breeze pouring through the curtains chills me, so I edge up onto my elbow, lean forward and press my cheek into his warm back.

  “We just met and I…” Words trail into silence. He hunches forward, positioning his elbows on his thighs and dropping his head into his hands. “I shouldn’t feel the way I do about you, but every day when I wake up you’re the first thing on my mind. When I drift off to sleep you’re the last face I see.”

  I’m sitting up now, legs drawn up under my chin as I wrap my arms around them and try to hold myself together. “Is that really such a bad thing?”

  “I don’t know.” Breath escapes him, mangled with frustration he doesn’t know how to express. “It doesn’t feel bad, it feels right, but at the same time I know it shouldn’t.”

  “Why shouldn’t it? Because we just met?”

  “Because I don’t deserve to feel this way.”

  “You don’t deserve to feel… what? Happiness?”

  “No.”

  And then he gets up, pulls the door open and just leaves me in there alone for what feels like an eternity.

  EIGHTEEN

  I don’t know how long I sit here. It feels like hours, days, weeks. It’s probably been about twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, but every second is an eternity.

  The power’s still out, and the rain comes down so hard it sounds like hail pelting the windows and roof, the cars and the street below. Through his window I see the lights on in my own house, and I want to run there. It’s not home, but it’s safe. The thunder’s growing distant and lightning only occasionally flares bright enough to illuminate the room. It’s not enough light to find my jean shorts on the floor so I just keep sitting there feeling stupid.

  I’m cold. I started out sad and confused, but with each passing minute Nate leaves me alone my self-consciousness and confusion turns sour, and I start to get angry. This is nothing like what happened to me after junior prom with Aiden, but the same sense of betrayal and shame sits in my gut like a bowling ball.

  I’m afraid to move. I can’t decide if I should just get up and search blindly for my clothes then go home, or if I should wait for him to come back and tell me what the hell is going on.

  How can the most wonderful experience of my life turn to shit in the blink of an eye? What did I do wrong? Was it because I gave in too easily? Maybe I slept with him too soon and now he thinks I’m some kind of slut?

  The intensity of the fear I feel is right up there with the life-altering level of elation that was my reality when he was inside me, and I can’t make sense of how quickly I’ve shifted from one place to the other.

  Somewhere up the hall I hear the sound of a toilet flush. A faucet running, and then he opens the bathroom door and pads down the hallway just as I decide maybe I should go. I’m feeling around on the floor for my shorts when he comes into the room. He doesn’t say anything at first, but I hear him rummaging around in the drawer he pulled the condom from. A few seconds later he sparks a lighter, the flame spreading as he passes it over the wick of a candle then drops it back into the drawer.

  I see my shorts on the floor, bend down and snatch them up. I realize I’m shaking, a cross between humiliation and anger there is no outlet for, and my stomach feels like melted tar inside my body. Slipping into my panties, I slide the elastic over my thighs just as his hands curve around my hips and draw me backward into his chest. I stiffen, become an immovable object, and I know it’s childish but I’m so upset I don’t know how else to react.


  I feel betrayed.

  “Please don’t leave.” He dips his head down, burying his face in my hair and breathing deep. “I’m so sorry.”

  I want to shove him away and scream, “You should be!” But I say nothing. I don’t call him out, but I don’t accept his apology either.

  His left hand slides gently across my stomach, rising over my arm until he’s hugging me, holding me tight and close, as if he’s afraid if he lets me go he’ll never see me again. For a moment I think he just might be right. My body remains rigid, unyielding to the familiarity that has become his comfort over the last couple weeks, and it’s harder than I imagine to stand my ground.

  All those things I should have asked him about before: the infinite sadness I keep seeing in his eyes, the meaning behind Gretchen’s outburst on our first date, what his grandmother said to me earlier today…

  I want to ask them now, but I don’t know where to start, so all I say is, “I’m cold.”

  Nate loosens his arm and steps back. He walks toward the dresser, drags open the second drawer and pulls out a t-shirt. Coming around to stand in front of me, he slips the neck over my head and draws it down my shoulders before I bring my arms up and slide them through the holes. It’s big, the hem draping midway down my thighs, and it smells like everything I love about him, which at the moment sort of makes me want to tear it off and stomp on it. I’m practically swimming in it, and while it definitely takes the edge off the chill sweeping in through the open window, the cold I feel runs so much deeper than the air around me. Maybe I’m going into shock. Wouldn’t that be something?

  He must realize it too because he pulls the thin quilt off the bed and wraps it around my shoulders before steering me to the edge of the bed and sitting me down. He sits beside me, and for a while we both just watch the candle flame flicker on the table, spilling a trail of black smoke that laps at the edge of the hurricane lamp and stains the rim with soot.

  I still don’t understand how one minute I could feel like I’d reached nirvana, and the next I’m teetering on the edge of hell.

  “What happened?” I finally ask. And I don’t just mean his walking out on me and leaving me doubting everything I’ve ever felt about him. I want to know what broke him, if there’s some way I can fix it, or if I should just gather whatever’s left of the girl I was before I met him and walk away while I still have some semblance of who she was. Because seriously, this guy is turning me into someone I don’t recognize, and I’m not sure I like it very much, especially not now.

  “I don’t know.” Nate swallows, the sound hard and anxious as his shoulder comes up. “I freaked out. I’m sorry.”

  I don’t know isn’t good enough. My eyelids drop, tightening as I squeeze them and pinch my lips together, biting down hard on them from the inside.

  “You… freaked out?”

  “A little, yeah. I told you I hadn’t been with anyone in a while, that I’m not very good at this anymore. I’m sorry.”

  My dad once told me sorry is something most people don’t mean. They only say it to alleviate their own guilt, which means they’re not usually sorry. They just want you to stop being angry with them, and it’s not actually about your feelings at all.

  I wonder if Nate’s really sorry, or if he doesn’t like the way I keep looking at him.

  “Is this all happening too fast for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I know I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I can’t control the scuff of sarcastic laughter that pushes through my throat. “You just fucked me and walked out on me after telling me you don’t deserve to be happy. What am I supposed to do with that, Nate? I think it’s too late for you to not want to hurt me.”

  “No, no, no, no…” There’s panic in the hitch strangling his words. “Don’t say that.” He drops off the bed and kneels in front of me, feeling for my hands through the blanket wrapped around me. He grips them, squeezing as he looks into my eyes and begs, “Please don’t say it’s too late. I didn’t mean to…” Shaking his head, he tilts it down and the hair falls in around his face, hiding his expression from me. “I wanted you. I wanted to touch you and feel every part of you. I still do, but I don’t…”

  If those aren’t the most confusing words I’ve ever heard… I don’t even know what to do with them.

  “You want me, but you don’t?”

  “That’s not what I mean.” Frustration leaves him in a breath. He lets go of me and drags his fingers into his hair, clenching it into his fist at the crown of his head and just holding it there. “I do want you. More than you could ever know.”

  “I’m not exactly feeling that vibe right now.”

  “Do you remember what I said to you?”

  “The part about not deserving to be happy?” Because that’s the only thing that keeps playing through my head. I wanted a loop of our heaven together, and instead I get that. Lovely.

  “Before that, when we were texting that night after the movies, when I couldn’t sleep. I told you that I wasn’t really even sure I had a heart? That sometimes I don’t think I can feel it inside me, and for a long time I started to believe a part of me was dead inside?”

  “You said I made you feel like you were alive.”

  “You do.”

  “Then why is that a problem? If I make you feel good… if talking to me and being with me makes you happy, why is it making you so miserable all of the sudden?”

  “It’s not. That’s not it at all. You don’t understand.”

  “Then make me understand, Nathaniel.”

  I have never called him that unless we were joking, but something in my tone causes him to flinch a little, like the severity of his given name means more than business.

  This is no joke.

  “Look,” I start, gathering my courage and tightening it inside me like a fist. I know what I’m about to say could mean the end of this wonderful thing I’ve fallen into, but I can’t run hot and cold, not when my heart is on the line. “If all you wanted was to fuck me, you could have just said so, instead of tangling me up with all this emotional… shit. Life is too short to play games, Nate?”

  “Do you think I don’t know that?” There’s something sharp and edgy in his voice, a bitter challenge in his eyes when he lifts his head to meet my gaze. I don’t know what he knows, but I don’t say that. “Do you really think I just wanted to fuck you?” He says those last two words like they’re dirty, like what happened between us meant much more than that, and the fact that I keep saying we just fucked disturbs him.

  “No, I’m just telling you how I feel. I really like you, Nate. I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you. I liked you even more the first time you spoke to me. After that, it was like we were on some wild ride, climbing higher and higher with every moment, every breath. The last three weeks have felt like an entire lifetime for me, and maybe that’s too much. Maybe all this is happening too fast.”

  “So, what?” he asks. “You want to just… quit?”

  “No, I don’t want to just quit. I don’t quit things, Nate. I care about you. I wouldn’t have let tonight happen if I didn’t.” Disentangling my hand from the blanket, I bring it up and cup his cheek. “I care about you a lot. Probably far more than I should, but if you don’t want to be with me—”

  “Tali.” He stops me abruptly, cutting off my words and my train of thought when he brings both hands up to cradle my face between them and hold me steady so I can’t look away. “I haven’t wanted to be with anyone the way I want to be with you. Not ever.”

  “Then don’t mess with me. Don’t take me into your bed, and then turn your back on me the minute you get what you want from me. I’ve been there before, and I will never do that to myself again.”

  “That isn’t…” Lowering his head shamefully, he shakes it back and forth while breath pushes through the hair clinging to his cheeks. “I didn’t mean for it to happen that way. I was overwhelmed and
a little…” The word that follows is so quiet I barely hear it. “…scared.”

  “Scared?” I swallow. “Of me?”

  “Of this, of us. Of you. Whatever’s happening between us terrifies me.”

  I hesitate a moment, my teeth nibbling at the skin on my lower lip. “This is scary sometimes, isn’t it? The connection between us?”

  “Just a little.” A grin twitches at the corner of his mouth. “You make me feel things sometimes, Tali. Crazy things I’ve never felt before. Good, warm, beautiful things. And sometimes I honestly don’t believe I deserve to feel this way.”

  “Everyone deserves to feel loved, Nate.”

  It’s the first time that word enters the equation, and I know as I watch his eyes light up, the edges of his mouth rise, that it won’t be the last time, but maybe not for a while. The feeling needs to grow, expand, encompass us completely, and the only way that’s going to happen is if we let it.

  “Right now I want to feel like what just happened between us meant something. Like I mean something to you.”

  “You do. You mean more than just something to me,” he says. “And what happened between us tonight…” Head swaying back and forth, as if he can’t find the right words, he blinks slowly and then looks into my eyes again. “What happened tonight was the most amazing thing. You are amazing.”

  I want to tell him to prove it, to show me what I mean to him, but I don’t know how.

  For a long time we just sit there and say nothing. When I fall back into the bed with a long breath, all I can think about is going home. Hiding in my room and trying not to look out the windows to see if his lights are on, but I know that’s what I would do. It’s already too late for me.

  Nate doesn’t move for a while. He just stares at the door on the other side of the bedroom, his back rising with each breath, shoulders falling as he exhales. I want to grab him and pull him into the blanket with me. Hold him close and tell him that whatever it is, it’ll be okay.