The Truth About You & Me

by Amanda Grace

  I stood there and iced it with homemade buttercream frosting. I hadn’t known how to make it a mere six hours earlier, but I did then, thanks to Google and a few recipe sites.

  It scared me, celebrating your twenty-sixth birthday. Before then, we’d had nine years between us.

  Nine.

  But that day—in just one day—it became ten. Ten years separated us. It might as well have been a hundred, for all the fear streaking through me that afternoon as I poured and mixed and baked.

  As I turned the oven off, Mom walked in.

  Mom.

  Walked in.

  Panic clenched me like a vise grip as she click-clacked her way across the tiles, and my mind searched around, desperate for an explanation. Thank God I’d already decided not to add the decorations until I got to your house—the final touches that would spell out Happy Birthday, Bennett.

  So it didn’t say that when Mom walked in, smiling in that vaguely fake way of hers, that way that says she’s going through the actions more than feeling the emotions.

  “Hey,” she said as she rounded the corner, hanging up her purse, hardly looking at me. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” I said, rinsing out the bowl, the one that was still covered in batter.

  “Something smells good,” she said, fluffing her hair up as if to reclaim the helmet-hair look she’d left the house with. She looked tired, in that moment. Her hair reminded me of a turtle’s shell, meant to protect her, meant to put on a strong, resilient front.

  But it didn’t work and she just looked tired.

  It was weird how in that moment, as I stared, I realized that my mom’s perfection wasn’t so glossy, so shiny, so perfect. Maybe she thought she knew what she wanted, but maybe sometimes it changed.

  Maybe she didn’t have every single piece of her life figured out.

  As she smiled at me with smudged lipstick I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe we were all faking it. If maybe me, my brother, you, her—if we were all just doing our best, figuring it out as we went along.

  “Cake sounds awesome,” she finally said as she started to leave the room.

  And then I wished I’d kept that last bit of batter, made some cupcakes for my family.

  “It’s for Katie,” I said, lying. Again. As always. Somehow it had become such a norm. I lied to them, I lied to you … maybe sometimes I lied to myself.

  “Oh.” She paused, glancing back at me, her overly mascaraed eyes looking … tired. Overworked.

  “You okay?” I asked, surprising not just me, but her. She hesitated at the base of the stairs, caught off-guard that I’d asked.

  “Yeah. Tired, you know? We’re working on a deadline. But it’s good … ” Her voice trailed off and then the moment lasted longer. “You? Classes and everything are good?”

  I nodded, feeling strangely … relieved. That she’d asked. That she’d taken that one single moment. “I’m doing all right.”

  “Great. Because … I know I’m busy, really busy, but … ”

  I wanted to reply, wanted to fill in the blank … but I didn’t offer. I just stared.

  “Well, you know,” she finished, lamely.

  “Mhmmm,” I said, turning to the oven.

  “Okay, well, I’ll be down in a bit,” she said, disappearing up the stairs.

  “Yep,” I whispered to her non-existent face.

  Of course. I knew where to find her. I always did.

  Maybe someday she’d find me.

  The early days of December—as we grew closer and closer to that fateful night—were the hardest. Hardest for so many reasons. I wanted to touch you, be close to you, feel you.

  The river was too cold, so we spent a lot of time pent up in your house. That day, you were at one end of the table, grading assignments from one of your other classes. You’d insisted that you couldn’t grade anything from our 9:00 class in front of me—like somehow this would make me not your student, keep those two pieces of our lives from crashing together in a blaze of catastrophic explosion.

  I wanted to memorize the way you looked in that instant, your hair really falling into your eyes now—it had grown longer during the quarter—the afternoon light glinting the faintest bit on your five o’clock shadow, your lips curled around an eraser as you chewed on your red pencil.

  Quietly, I tapped on my phone, picking it up just enough to snap a picture of you.

  The picture that would prove to be our unraveling.

  I set my phone down and, when it thunked on the oak table, you glanced up, studying me for a second before setting your pencil down.

  “Next week,” you said.

  “Huh?” I asked. My feet were propped up on the third chair, the one between us. It was the only way we could sit without getting distracted. You’d cooked for me, some kind of chicken and rice dish that was still baking in the oven, and the smells permeated the kitchen.

  You said once you were a terrible cook, but you were being modest. I would have happily eaten dinner with you every night. I wanted to someday cook beside you, handing forks back and forth, digging for spices, maybe even going grocery shopping and dog-earing our favorite recipes from that old cookbook you had.

  “Finals will be over,” you said, intensity gleaming in your eyes as you looked at me. “Friday.”

  “Oh,” I said, my heartbeat spiking.

  Next week.

  December 13th. The day we’d finally kiss.

  The day I’d have to tell you the truth.

  Is it possible to anticipate a day with constant, overwhelming eagerness … and dread it in almost equal measure? It was like the moment at the top of a roller coaster, as your heart slams into your throat and you’re overjoyed at the idea of swooping down, yet terrified too.

  “I was thinking … ” You set your pen down, leaned back in your chair. “Some friends of mine have a cabin up by Crystal Mountain. I was hoping we could use it. Grab some food and hot cocoa or whatever, and then drive up there in the evening and stoke up the fire and stay the night.”

  My mouth went dry and a herd of excited butterflies swarmed my stomach, swooping and spinning in a way that made me both giddy and nauseous.

  A kiss.

  All I’d ever expected was a kiss.

  All those weeks, I’d been so busy thinking of that moment on High Rock when you’d promised me a kiss …

  And I hadn’t really thought through what would happen after that. I’d been too busy freaking out about telling you I was sixteen, so I hadn’t let myself dream of things beyond that day.

  That was the only time I felt like a naïve little girl around you, Bennett. That moment I realized that you wanted us to spend a night together. A whole night in a cabin alone, with no one to bother us.

  Older girls, eighteen-year-old girls, they usually had experience. They knew what they wanted, and they were comfortable with that. And even though I’d told you I hadn’t ever been in love, part of me thought that you must figure I had some experience. I didn’t know if I could tell you I had none—that I’d never even made out with a guy.

  I didn’t think you’d judge me, but I didn’t want it to change the way you looked at me. I didn’t want to give you that moment where you could step back, cock your head to the side, and really look at me, finally seeing the cracks in my façade.

  I didn’t want your mind to finally go to that place, the place that asks, how old are you … really?

  “I mean, I don’t know if your parents … ” Your voice trailed off. You didn’t want to bring them up anymore than I wanted you to, but it had to be said, because you knew I lived with them and not in the tiny dorm complex on campus.

  “They’re not my keepers,” I said, waving your concerns away as if it was that simple. “And it sounds amazing. I’d love to. On one condition,” I added.

  “What’s
that?”

  “You build me a snowman.”

  And that’s how I agreed to go up to the mountains with you, Bennett.

  If only I’d known how much we both would change by the time we came back down.

  Finals week stretched on, and on, and on. The worst part of it all was that our final took place on Wednesday, so that was the only day I saw you, and we didn’t even get to speak. I’m confident I passed the test—without your help—but the quarter wasn’t over until Friday. So for the forty-eight hours leading up to our getaway, I didn’t see you, didn’t talk to you.

  But I thought of you.

  I shopped for the perfect outfit, and I bought scented lotion, and I asked myself over and over and over what the hell I was doing. And despite the fact that I couldn’t exactly answer that question, I knew there was no way I was backing out. I had to see you again, I had to kiss you, and I had to tell you the truth.

  A simple three-step process, when I really looked at it:

  See you.

  Kiss you.

  Tell you.

  But when the evening finally arrived and I sat in your truck, my nerves a tangled mess, it was hard not to picture every horrible outcome that could happen once you knew the truth about me.

  I didn’t want you to be disgusted by me. Disappointed. I didn’t want you to be so angry you’d leave me at the cabin and just drive away.

  A thousand scenarios played in my head like a horrible blooper reel, so clear that I could see myself losing you and falling apart. As we pulled up to the cabin, my nerves multiplied and jumped in my stomach, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it—the place I’d kiss and tell, the place you’d learn the truth.

  The cabin was everything I’d imagined. Made of logs but small and unassuming, like it actually worked with the forest rather than being some fancy-shmancy resort like the ones closer to Crystal, the ones that rented for four hundred dollars a night.

  You pulled your truck up near the door, easing to a stop like you weren’t sure if your truck might slide on the snow and ice. I grinned nervously at you as you put it in park.

  December 13th. All that time counting it down, obsessing over it, and then there I was with you and nothing stood between us. The thoughts, the fears, the hope—it all swirled in my head, my stomach, my heart.

  You opened your door and, before I had time to open mine, you were there, grabbing the handle. As it swung away, it sucked everything in the cab out with it, sucked out my fears and trepidation, because there you were, standing there, staring into my eyes, ready for me—and it felt so right, I forced myself to let go of the fear and hang onto the hope.

  Even though we’d spent twelve weeks getting to know each other, somehow that night felt like it was our first night. Like we’d just met, like you were courting me in some kind of old-fashioned way. I couldn’t stop the butterflies from flooding my stomach like a swarm of locusts, but now it was in a good way, in a way that made it impossible not to smile right back at you.

  Before I could move, you leaned into the cab, like you were just going to unbuckle my seat belt. But as your body crossed mine you froze, tipping your chin toward me until our noses were inches apart, until it became impossible to breathe.

  “I’ve been waiting more than two months for this,” you said, leaning in until the distance between us was less than an inch. I closed my eyes, waiting for it, waiting for your lips to crash into mine. The clicking noise brought me back to reality as you released my seat belt and finally pulled away from me, giving me the air I needed for my screaming lungs. “But we should get inside first … ”

  My eyes flew open and a blush rose to my cheeks as I realized you’d been helping me out of the truck, not leaning in to kiss me. I nodded, almost unable to speak, and climbed down. The snow was thicker than I’d expected, and as my feet sunk into it I tripped, knocking into you. You grabbed my elbows, pulling me upright, my boot narrowly escaping being sucked right off my foot.

  “Thanks,” I said, my voice sounding breathless as I leaned into you. You had on your thick leather jacket, the one you occasionally had hanging up in the classroom, and calf-high snow boots. My own Uggs were pathetic with their traction, and I felt as if my legs would go different ways at any second.

  “I’ll grab our stuff. We need to get a fire going or we’ll freeze tonight,” you said, your voice husky. I could think of another way we’d warm up, some other way you had to have been thinking about in that very instant as you whispered against my neck. But you didn’t voice those less than gentlemanly ideas, so I saved them for the visions that were dancing through my mind.

  Visions that overwhelmed me with nerves and excitement until it was like I could barely breathe without feeling shaky.

  You held onto my elbow, keeping me from falling as you led me toward the big oak door of the little cabin, its roof so packed with snow I had no idea what color or type it might be. All around us, cedars and fir trees soared, so tall and thick I couldn’t see any other homes, or even the highway we’d driven in on. The trees must have been forty or fifty years old, so buried in snow they sagged, as if at any moment they’d release the weight holding them down and then sigh in relief.

  But above all, it was the silence I noticed. No birds calling, no rain pattering the roof, no cars driving by on Highway 410, likely because just a few miles down the road the gates were closed, the pass shut down for the winter as it was now completely impassible.

  “It’s beautiful here,” I said as I stepped up alongside you at the front door.

  “Yeah, I think so too,” you said. “I’d live here if I could. It’s so quiet … serene … I can’t imagine paradise is really some place on the beach, you know? It seems like it could be here.”

  And strangely, I had to agree. Because to me, paradise was wherever I could be with you in the way I wanted to be. And if that was a quiet cabin captured in snow, then it was paradise indeed.

  You shoved an old brass key into the lock, twisted, and then the door creaked open, revealing nothing more than a dark, shadowy interior. A few flicks of your wrist and the old fluorescent lighting flickered on, humming in a low buzz.

  The cabin wasn’t large, and it was rustic, but it was exactly what I’d pictured. An authentic but newish log-framed couch was shoved against one wall, directly across from an old TV. Beyond that, the living space became a kitchen, the carpet ending and the linoleum beginning. The kitchen was small, just right for a getaway, okay for packing sandwiches or macaroni salad or hotdogs, but too small for day-to-day living. It had a tiny island and little L-shaped cabinets on two walls, with a stove shoved in along one side.

  The ceilings were a tad low but the place was decorated exactly like it should have been, with adorable little signs for the ski-slopes—obviously not authentic to Crystal, just signs like you’d see at Applebee’s or someone’s lake cabin, made to look old with crackled paint edges or partly worn white-wash.

  The painting hanging over the couch had a girl in a gigantic ski suit, her poles sort of flung upward like she was about to crash, her vibrant, fake blond, feathered hair splayed out around her as her ear warmers somehow retained her body heat.

  Across the room, over the TV, an aerial shot of Mt. Rainier printed on a canvas—not expensive, but a nice touch—beckoned.

  “This is awesome,” I said, approaching the photo and staring at it. “I wish I was bad-ass enough to ski this. It must be intense.”

  Intense. Like the night would be, between us.

  “I know, right? My buddy has snowboarded part of it.”

  “Wow. Intense,” I said, then wanted to smack myself for repeating “intense” for a second time in a span of thirty seconds. Did you figure out, then, just how nervous I was? As I rambled about nothing at all, trying to fill the space in a desperate attempt to act casual?

  I was completely over-compensating.

  �
��Yeah. We should go skiing in a few weeks, when the slopes open. Not Mt. Rainier or anything, but Crystal. I’m okay at it. I can handle the blue runs and some of the diamond stuff, like Rex. We’d have fun.”

  My heart soared at that. The idea that we would plan things beyond that night. I’d spent so long thinking of December 13th. Nine weeks prior, at High Rock, you’d put your forehead against mine, and all you’d said was I can’t, and all I could think was but I want to. And now we were there and I knew, by the way you acted … the tension almost palpable as you unlocked doors and flicked on lights and brought our things in …

  And there you were, planning for what we’d do together after. What we’d do tomorrow, next week, this winter.

  You pictured us together. For so much longer than one night.

  You never wanted me as a fling, you wanted me as your girlfriend. As your one and only, in the same desperate way I wanted you.

  I plunked down on the edge of the couch as you started a fire, realizing in that moment just how freezing the cabin really was. I glanced around but didn’t see a thermostat.

  “It doesn’t take long to warm it up, and by then I’m sure we’ll be okay,” you said, your grin a little lopsided, like you didn’t want to be too bold, too assuming.

  There was a nervousness to you, too. Because that night wasn’t some flippant move, something you took for granted.

  You’d thought and anticipated and planned. Not in a weird way, in a romantic way. You cared about me and you wanted it to be everything I wanted it to be. Maybe when they read this, it’s going to read all wrong. Like one of those horrible To Catch a Predator specials, where a guy schemes his way to a girl. But it wasn’t that way.

  It was never that way. Not with you and me.

  “I can manage,” I said, as if I hung out in snow-clad, mountain-top cabins every day.

  By the time you were done building the fire I’d gotten out all of our snacks, spreading them out on the table like a Vegas buffet comprised of chips and dip and snack mix and carrots and crackers and a million disconnected things, but things we both loved.