by LJ Evans
In the end, I came away with the bronze. A bronze! At Worlds! Sure, it wasn’t a gold, but I was thrilled. I couldn’t contain my smile, and this time I could kiss you, and you kissed me back. Of course, that made the papers. Diver kissing coach. It was kind of laughable, but the USA Diving Committee didn’t think so. They told Coach that you wouldn’t be able to be at the poolside anymore. You didn’t care, you were already talking about next year.
Stay Stay Stay
“And I'll be loving you for quite some time
no one else is gonna love me when I get mad, mad, mad
so I think that it's best if we both stay.”
- Taylor Swift
I just heard this song the other day, and it made me remember about my senior year and college recruitment and us. We didn’t fight very often. Even if we did, it mostly ended in a wrestling match with laughter and kisses. I think it helped that we both knew, deep down, that we’d already been apart and that it was hell and that the best thing that could ever happen to us was to be together. But… there were still times. Times when loving me wasn’t easy. Times where loving you wasn’t easy, but where we both made the choice to hang in there together and just stay.
When we got back from Worlds, colleges came courting me. It felt weird to be the star like you had been. It was a heady feeling, and I could hardly believe that your ego hadn’t ever gotten bigger than it had with all these people telling you what a superstar you were. I was thrilled at the attention, but I wasn’t going anywhere. The only place I was going was wherever you went. If that meant we went back to UTK, then that was fine with me.
One day, after Texas A&M had left our house because I’d basically told them there was nothing they could offer me that would make me accept them, you got really mad at me.
“What the hell was that?” you asked with those lake colored eyes.
I shrugged.
“Why would you blow them off like that?”
“I’m just being honest. I’m not going to Texas.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why? Do you think I’m going to go that far away from you? Now? After all we’ve been through?” I yelled back.
“I’m not going to let you throw away your future because you think we can’t be apart for a few weeks at a time,” you stormed at me.
“I’ve wasted enough of my life being away from you,” I told you back.
“Cam, we have our whole lives ahead of us,” you told me and tried to pull me to you, but I pushed you away and stormed out.
It wasn’t you that came and found me in the treehouse. It was mama. I was a little surprised by that.
“You know, Camdyn, if you’re going to have a grown-up relationship, you can’t go running to a treehouse every time you have a fight,” but she sat down next to me. After a few moments, she pulled my hair back and began braiding it like she used to when I was younger and would fight her tooth and nail because I hated sitting there that long while you were already out on the street playing.
“What is it that you’re afraid of?” she asked me.
“I’m afraid that he’ll move on without me again.”
“Do you really think he ever moved on?” when I didn’t answer, she kept going, “Camdyn. He’s been waiting for you since before you were born. He’s not going anywhere without you.”
Just then you hollered up at me. I stood up and looked out of the tree house to see you with your old shoulder pads on over your t-shirt.
“Come down here and fight me fair and square,” you said. I couldn’t help but laugh.
“How is that fair?” I said referring to the pads.
“Are you kidding, I’ve felt your right hook. I figure if you’re going to hit me, I need some kind of protection.”
I looked over at mama. She was smiling too.
She stood up and rubbed my face with her hand. “You’ve always been more his than mine.”
It was the second time she’d told me that. I hugged her, and then jumped out of the tree like I used to when I was little, from the window. You picked me up and squeezed me, and I punched your padded shoulders. We were wrestling on the ground by the time mama climbed off the ladder.
“Get a room you two,” she said as she went into the house. That stopped us dead in our tracks. We looked at each other in shock, and then just busted up laughing.
In the end, you accepted that I wasn’t going anywhere without you. And I accepted that you didn’t want me to give up my chance of a college scholarship to tag after you. We talked it over and decided that you’d transfer to wherever the best offer came from. Whichever offer came in that was a place we both wanted to live and would accept your UTK credits.
I guess most parents would never have agreed to that; to have agreed to let their teenage daughter move away to college with some guy. But, you weren’t just some guy. And, everyone knew that even if they paid for two apartments, one for you and one for me, or if I lived in the dorms, and they paid for that, the place I’d really be was wherever you were. Hadn’t I grown up in your bedroom? So, they all came to accept that you and I were together. There was nothing that was going to break us apart. Nothing. At that time that’s what it seemed like.
***
You took some extension courses for the second semester. UTK was glad to let you do it because you’d been a football hero and because of your health issues. All I cared about was that you were there every day when I came home. My senior year didn’t seem so important anymore. It was just a means to an end. A means to getting us into our own place together.
In January, the college that I accepted was Virginia Tech. It wasn’t necessarily the highest ranked. But, it had made the most generous offer, and would accept most of your units and you. And, they wouldn’t make me live on campus which suited us to a tee.
Coach was devastated to be losing me. But, he liked the coaches at Virginia Tech better than the coaches at Texas A&M, so that was a plus. He felt like it was a better fit as well. He also knew that you were going with me and wouldn’t let anyone push me into things that I shouldn’t be doing.
***
The high school wouldn’t let you attend prom because you were 21 and that just seemed way too old to be going to prom. And the truth was, it was. Prom was like child’s play for you. And it suddenly seemed that way to me too. I didn’t really want to participate in it at all. So, instead we took a trip. We flew out to Virginia Tech and went apartment shopping. Just the two of us.
It felt weird to be walking through the airport, holding hands, and being able to kiss each other all we wanted without people staring at us like we were a bit odd as folks at home had been doing for the entire year.
We found this simple little one bedroom that was close enough to campus for us to walk or ride our bikes, but wasn’t overloaded with partying teenagers. If the landlord was surprised by our ages or our moving in together, he didn’t say anything. He’d probably seen just about everything in a college town. We signed the lease for a move in date of July 1st.
***
When graduation came, it seemed really anti-climactic. My family was there to cheer me on, but you were the person in the stands that I had eyes for. Wynn cried so much after that I thought she might become a rain cloud. She was going to Tennessee State in Nashville. And my one true girl friend and I just didn’t know how to say goodbye.
Two weeks later, you and I were packing up the jeep and the Camaro with our things. We’d shipped some furniture out that you’d been using at UTK, but most of our stuff was in our cars. My mama cried almost as hard as Wynn had. Even my daddy got teary eyed.
But somehow, the fact that you were going with me made it not so hard for them. And maybe because I was with you, it was easier for your mama and daddy to let you go after the struggles you’d had all year keeping everything in balance. We’d look out for each other, like we always did. At least. That’s what I thought would happen. It turns out that you were better at keeping secrets than I thought.<
br />
Treacherous
“And I’ll do anything you say
if you say it with your hands.”
- Swift & Wilson
God this song makes me think of you. Of those times in our apartment. The slow, warm nights. Your hands. My hands. Us. Together. The song is sexy and slow like it always felt like we were when we were together, hidden away in our apartment in Virginia.
It didn’t feel like we were playing house. I’m sure to people older and more experienced than us, that is what it would appear to be. You were taking summer classes to get caught up on a few things. That’s why we’d come out early. Well, and so I could start training with my new coaches.
We almost always walked together to campus with our fingers entwined, like we’d always been this way. Sometimes we’d bike together, but that didn’t seem as fun anymore because we couldn’t touch each other as easily biking. And, no matter who was done with class or practice first, we waited for the other so that we could go back to our little piece of heaven together.
I mean, it wasn’t really heaven. It was just a grungy college apartment. Clean. But old and bare bones. Neither of us were really decorators. Or as it turns out, were we very good cleaners. Or chefs. We ate a lot of pizza. And take out. And mac and cheese. You had to be as careful with carbs as you were with the sugar, so we had veggies and protein in there. But, to us, it was heaven. In many ways we lived our life in a bubble. We didn’t make friends with the neighbors. Didn’t make friends with people in classes. We had eyes only for ourselves. As if we hadn’t known each other all our lives. As if we were two strangers who had fallen in love and needed to get to know all there was to know about each other.
When I was gone, all I could think about was getting back to you. To the feel of your hands on my skin. And, if you were the one gone, you were the one racing back to me. And the first thing you did was pull me to you and kiss me like you’d been gone for months. We were making up for years of lost time. We were making up for the year we’d had to live in our separate houses even though we’d wanted to be like this. Next to each other. Skin to skin. I guess, that summer was like being on a honeymoon. I guess, we could have been a newly married couple. We might as well have been because we did everything together.
When we went grocery shopping to pick out our meager supplies knowing that we wouldn’t cook much of anything, you wouldn’t wander far away. You’d be near me, touching me, reaching past me to grab something and kissing me on the way back.
Completely disgusting stuff. I know.
Girl stuff. Romantic stuff. Stuff that I never thought I’d care about, but that you showed me that I did. That it mattered to me that you thought I was beautiful, and that my limited curves were all you needed and were lovelier than any other person you’d been with.
Sometimes, when I’d open my eyes in the morning, you’d be there staring at me with a leg over on top of mine, a hand resting on the curve of my waist. I’d say, “What?” thinking I had snot or drool or something down my face.
“You’re just so damn beautiful,” you’d tell me with a smile. With those mosaic eyes lighting up like fireworks.
And all I knew how to do was kiss you. Because, I still wasn’t very good with compliments. Even if they were from you. Even if they were words I’d wanted to hear from you since I was nine years old.
***
My poor mama. I think she must have thought I’d forgotten her because I hardly ever called or texted and completely forget an actual snail mail letter. The truth was, I had forgotten her. I had forgotten everything but you. Summer was a Hollywood movie. A romance that didn’t seem to end, and that I didn’t want to end.
When classes started in the fall, and I had more consistent dive practice, we were drawn apart a little more. And, when we were home, we both had a boat load of school work to do. We had to set ground rules, because if one of us touched the other, it was all over. There’d be no studying.
It was kind of fun though, for me, to break the rules. I’m smiling as I write this because, when had I ever been a rule follower? What made you think this would be different? You’d always get mad at me, remember? But it was in that cute way you’d come to get mad at me. Hardly ever with dark, pond colored eyes, but more an exasperated, I-know-you’re-gonna-win, kind of eyes. Eyes that knew it was gonna be fun to have me break the rules, and you try to stop me. With eyes lighting up like fireworks.
To punish me, you tried studying at the library. But I knew where to find you there too. And really, I knew exactly how to get what I wanted now. I knew exactly where to kiss you and touch you. You’d flush a million shades of red when I was really bold in the library. Who knew that Jake Carter Phillips could actually blush? And I loved the fact that I could make you do it. I loved that Seth had taught me ways of not playing fair. And… I could win a lot this way. It was intoxicating. I felt like I had a whole lot more power over you than I ever had before. Sex. Guys are putty for sex. Too bad I couldn’t have used that when I was twelve.
One day, a couple weeks into the school year, the sorority and fraternities came out of the woodworks advertising Rush Week. We were in the quad, studying together between classes, but the chaos in the quad was demanding our attention. We both gave up studying and stretched out on the lawn. I had my head on your stomach while we watched. I could feel you watching me. I always knew when you were. Hadn’t I always?
Finally, you pulled my hand up and kissed it, and then said, “I feel like an ass.”
That wasn’t what I had expected, so I rolled over to look into your eyes. “Why?”
“Because of me, you’ll miss out on all that.”
“It’s not because of you. I wouldn’t be doing that anyway.”
“But you’d be going out and partying with your teammates and chugging back beers and winning hearts.”
“You said pretty much the same thing when you went away and left me in high school and look how that ended up.”
You were silent looking at me, searching my face for any regret of which there was none.
“I don’t want any of that. Not even a little bit,” I told you meaning it with all my heart. You stared a little longer. I finally pulled your head down and whispered, “Shut up and kiss me.”
And you did long and hard before pulling back.
“I guess it’s good,” you said with a slow grin, “Because I’ve learned my lesson. I sure as hell wouldn’t be letting you ride away on the back of some damn motorcycle.”
I reached up and kissed you again before popping open the button on your jeans and then making a break for our bikes with you chasing after me. I wasn’t going to make it to biology today. I had better ways to learn about the human body.
My life with you did make me stand out a little from the rest of the dive team who were leading the normal party life style of most college students. I probably did miss out on stuff that was normal and important to developing your own sense of self. But, it was worth it every time I rolled over in bed and felt you next to me. Every time I got to curl up next to you at night and fall asleep with your arm thrown across my body in that protective way that you’d come to do without even knowing it. All of that would never, ever leave me. All of that was forever worth any loss of anything “normal” I should have been doing. I’d give anything and everything up for those minutes together. They were the most precious moments in the world. Ingrained in my memories more than any other moments in my life.
***
When we went home for Christmas, it felt like a splash of reality. Like we’d been living in that Hollywood movie for so long that we didn’t know how to react to a normal life. The only thing that had ever burst into our bubble at school had been your diabetes. You’d found a local doctor, and you were there regularly, but it was still a struggle to keep you on an even keel. Of course, the way we’d been eating hadn’t probably helped. Not that you ate MoonPies for dinner or anything, but, we weren’t exactly representing the food pyramid.
The first confusion when we got home was where were we going to stay? I mean. We’d been living together for almost six months, and it didn’t make any sense for me to go to my room and you to go to yours. But, it was also a little hard for our parents to watch us say goodnight to them and climb the stairs to your old bedroom hand in hand.
I mean. They KNEW what was going on, but to SEE it going on was a little different. Eventually, everyone adjusted. What surprised the hell out of my mama more than that was me showing up to help in the kitchen. I’d never, ever helped in the kitchen. Unless it was by her demand to unload the dishwasher or clean up the PB&J mess I’d left on the counter.
But, 6 months of mac and cheese and hamburgers had made me realize that you couldn’t sustain your levels eating like that. So, mama became our teacher. I say our teacher because you were hell bent on not being apart from me for any length of time even if it was for a good cause. Even if we’d pretty much been side by side for six months. Regardless, it never got old to me, the fact that you didn’t want to leave my side. It felt fair. Like I’d been doing that for so long, and you had a lot of catching up to do. Anyway, mama ended up teaching us both how to cook the best she could in a couple short weeks.
It was hard to be in her kitchen and not ours though. You were always wrapping your arms around me and trying to take the knife so that you could chop with me still trapped in your arms. And I’d tease you the whole time. We both knew where we would have ended up if we weren’t in mama’s kitchen. Probably on the floor, but all mama had to do was glare at you and you’d at least slow down.
But, she couldn’t stay mad at you because you were still smooth as a milkshake when it came to women. You’d say something nice, and she’d glow, and we’d be back to throwing vegetables at each other.
Before we left to go back to school, mama pulled me aside. She looked into my eyes and said, “How is everything, Camdyn?”
