While they talked her words triggered memories inside me again. I used to think I was a burden to Ben, especially when I had my own health issues. I had the accident where I broke my teeth not long after the first time we made out, and I looked, felt, and acted like hell for a few weeks after. Still, he had stuck by me as well, much to my sometime disbelief. He had given me hope amid all that was going wrong. I wanted to tell them the story, to explain how I identified with Kelli, but I held back. Ben wasn’t the one I was with now, and I didn’t know how to quite describe that part of the comparison. I didn’t know what to think of it exactly myself, except that life was kind of ironic and circular. It seemed to me that in my relationship with Ryan, I could be like Ben was to me. He needed me to stick by him now, and I felt protective of him.
Chapter 24
Millaways
It was the tiniest of houses, and the one where I wanted to live more than anything at this moment. Ryan came to visit me on campus during the weekend, and we were facing each other on our stomachs lying in the grass across from my dorm. The old oaks and aspen leaves rustled above us in Encanto Park, shading us from an intermittent sun. Under them we found twigs, blades of grass, and leaves we painstakingly engineered against each other as we held our breath to keep from knocking it down. I could see his eyeball just out of focus from the last blade of grass I was working on for the roof. It tracked my fingers intently.
“I think it’s done,” I whispered, drawing my hand slowly and cautiously away from our creation. “What’s it called?”
“Millaways,” he said, also carefully lifting up on one arm to admire it from that perspective. I inched back and sat up. “Where’s Millaways?”
“It’s in a tall forest. On an island, with a path we have to cut back every year to the beach. A million miles away from here.”
“With twinkle lights to illuminate the path at night, and music floating in and out of its walls,” I added.
“Full of good food and wine and handmade furniture,” he said.
“With a king-size bed and white, puffy coverlets that make you feel like you are sleeping on clouds. And a tin roof that keeps you safe but lets you hear the rain and wind at night.”
We grinned at each other.
“Those clouds are building again.” Ryan looked up at the sky. It had rained the past two afternoons since Ben left. I hadn’t told Ryan about his visit yet, but I told myself I would today. “Let’s get out of here.”
“The bus to Nob Hill will be outside campus in ten minutes,” I suggested.
“Let’s do it.”
On the bus the streets passed by us in a blur. I told Ryan that Ben came to see me on Thursday afternoon when he thought I was at the dentist.
“I know,” he said.
His answer surprised me. “But you didn’t say anything.”
“I was hoping you’d tell me on your own.” His voice was soft.
I looked into his eyes and saw the way he had looked when we talked about Millaways. “What do you want to know?”
“Who is he to you now?”
“Muh.” I drew in a quick breath of air, blinking at his honest directness. “An old friend,” I said, but I knew it was more complicated than that to explain. I swallowed and pictured us laying blades of grass so purposefully on top of each other less than half an hour ago. “Who told you?”
“It’s not important.” He took my hand. “Doesn’t it seem odd to you that he went out of his way to come by here?” His eyes were large, hazel magnets. The sensitive expression on his face was that tempestuous mixture of brooding earnestness I loved. “I mean, why would he go to all that trouble unless you mean more to him than you’re saying?”
But what else could I say? Yes, Ben was odd. No, I didn’t understand his actions all the time. “He likes to travel. He’d never been through New Mexico before. I was a good excuse to pass through.” I explained his conference and what I said sounded plausible, even to me.
“Do you really believe that?” he asked persistently. His hand was still, but I almost heard his heart pounding as I felt his uncertainty.
“He gave me no other reason. He said he wanted to check on me. He felt responsible for me at one time. That is probably all it was.” I sighed. “I don’t know what else to say.”
“Do you still have feelings for him?”
I bit my lip. “Yes…I don’t want to lie to you. We had an intense relationship for a short time, like you and Christie, but it’s over now.”
His brows knitted together. His thumb passed over my own. “Did you tell him about me?”
Oh, Ryan. Always asking the hard questions. ““No, but I told him he shouldn’t have come and that he shouldn’t write anymore. I hurt his feelings. I didn’t mean to. It just came out like that.” I glanced out the bus window at a few passing faces and bodies, oblivious to the girl above them who took in the preoccupied expression, the coral shade of lipstick, and the recycled department store bag that she saw on the street below her. I really had meant to tell Ben about Ryan.
He took a breath that looked like relief. “I don’t know much about what happened to you with him last year. I don’t know if I want to.” The bus stopped. We got out and started walking. The break gave me time to consider a reply.
“What happened to any of us during that time?” We took a route down Central Avenue toward the University of New Mexico. “You and Christie fell in love, Kelli got MS, and Nic’s parents started to break up. I used to imagine nothing was happening here, nothing I didn’t know already. It seemed so predictable. But I’ve realized whatever happened to me wasn’t that exceptional in comparison to the truth of what went on with others I really care about, too. And that life wasn’t predictable or easy for anyone.”
Ryan stopped midstep, and I backtracked a step or two to look at him. I waited. His bottom lip twitched before he spoke next. He was so serious. “Kara, I’m so glad you came back. I used to worry you wouldn’t. And I’ve been afraid…afraid we’d never be together, like this, again.”
I walked over to him and took his hand. Something we hadn’t brought up had been hanging over us like the darkening clouds above, ready to burst. “And what about Mexico? What about being together like that?” What happened with Christie had left us both feeling weird afterward, and Ben’s visit hadn’t helped. But now alone together, in the open air again, away from school and trying to talk about our deepest feelings like we were, I felt desire for him stir within me.
His Adam’s apple dipped and rose in his throat, and he licked his lips. It seemed hard for him to say what was coming. “Kara, you may think I’m sick wanting to be with you, to be completely together again so soon after Christie—I mean, maybe it’s callous to feel this way—but I can’t help it. It’s one of the few things that keeps me going.”
I leaned into him and kissed his lips while a shot of cool air passed over us and brought us even closer together. With him I found warmth. His lips were wide and soft and burning with something I was sure he intuitively understood about me.
My stomach growled. We’d missed lunch.
“Let’s duck into Nunzio’s and get a few slices of pizza,” he said.
The air was full of its before-rain scent. Opening the pizza-place door brought a contrasting smell of warm, yeasty wood fire. The placed was packed, and the din of all the people around seemed to yank us out of the bubble we had been in before. I was anxious to get back outside.
“We can take it with us,” he suggested, and we ordered a small pizza to go.
A slice of Tuscan mushroom and sausage in each of our hands and the box in his other, we walked down the now vacant sidewalk, chewing quickly with one eye up to the sky. Thunderheads were rolling over us, and I didn’t know where we could go. “Let’s turn here,” Ryan said, and we went down a side street of older buildings with doorway over
hangs.
A massive drop of water fell on my cheek, and I turned to show Ryan just as he rubbed one off his forehead. A thunderclap sounded behind us and we scurried to the nearest doorway, which was in an old industrial building that looked like it had been turned into apartments. The rain started beating down over our heads in pellets. I slid the last of the slice between my lips.
“Geez, it’s like the sky just exploded,” I said. The rain increased in volume, and we huddled into the doorway. A slight archway made a screen from the splashes of water bouncing off the sidewalk, and Ryan set the pizza box on top of a shelf of mailboxes on one wall and leaned into the perpendicular side of the structure. “Come here,” he said, and brought his arms around me.
I watched the rain for a minute, my cheek on his shoulder. It came down in sheets, and the spray from the sidewalk turned into mist all around us. It became hard to see a couple of feet ahead. In our corner, the feel of his body next to mine emanated warmth. I undid the buttons of his winter coat, the same one he was wearing the night of Spring Fling, and zipped down my leather jacket to feel his chest through the thinner fabric of his shirt against my own. It wasn’t enough. The ends of his coat came around my back again, blocking out the weather and making a private space, and this time I did not hesitate. I unzipped his pants too and touched him, leading him to unfasten my restraints and touch me.
“Ryan!” I gasped into the steamy mist, shuddering around him. His lips were near my ear, and his animalistic groan against it sent gooseflesh down my limbs. We were back.
Chapter 25
Plans
“That picture’s total cheese balls. I don’t know why you like it so much,” I said, staring at the girl with the toothy grin looking behind her shoulder with a half-seductive, half-innocent glint in her eye. I felt strange waking up to that face in front of us.
“Because it’s so you,” Ryan said and nuzzled my forehead, wrapping his free arm around my shoulder to meet the one that was underneath me. An eight-and-a-half-by-eleven senior portrait of me sat on the shelf above his desk and across from his bed. I should have given him a less conspicuous size, but my mom did the ordering and my only other choice to gift was a wallet size, which he had asked for too.
“Gah!” I winced. “It’s a well-worn pose, wrapped in a cliché, inside a…construct, but perhaps there’s a key. To set her free.”
Ryan laughed. He knew the quote I was parodying from history this year. “What does she want to be free from?” he whispered playfully in my ear, tightening his arms around me.
“Mmm.” I chuckled. “Not you.” I smiled back up at him, running my hand up his chest. “But maybe the construct.” I kissed his shoulder, inhaling a scent that was uniquely him that was all over this bed, all over me. Sleeping over at his house almost felt like we were independent adults if I didn’t know his parents were so nearby. “Ryan, you’re going to graduate in less than a month. What are you gonna do with your life?” I mimicked the question I’d heard the other day from both my aunt and big sister upon their receipt of a formal graduation announcement.
“Knock, knock. Are you two up yet? Do you want breakfast?”
I caught my breath and twitched against him, unnerved by the sound of her voice. “Oh, my gosh.” My parents would never allow two unmarried people to sleep together in their house, and I worried his mom’s casual attitude about the arrangement was somehow disingenuous.
Ryan ran his hand through his hair and squeezed his eyes shut. He called back to her, “Not now, Mom; we’ll get it later,” He looked over at me. “Sorry. She means well.”
I bit my lip. I really didn’t know how to take Ryan’s mom. She was nice to me yesterday when I got here, but too nice. She never mentioned Christie, although I knew they must have known each other. It had been more than a month since all that happened, but time was passing quickly. Since Ryan and I had made out in the rain, the days seemed to blur together. The rest of the world around me, friends and school seemed to fall away in the path of this whirlwind oneness we shared. It wasn’t exactly like his and Christie’s relationship, although we were both obsessed with each other. We still tried not to advertise it. All the physical intimacy was left for our own heads until we were alone. But we weren’t exactly alone now. “Did Christie ever stay over? Here? With you? And your parents?” I had to ask.
“No.” He rose up on his pillows, and I moved to face him sideways. “I stayed at Christie’s though; her parents were away some weekends.” His lashes fluttered, blocking my direct gaze. “Kara, it’s just that we’re going to get cited or thrown out of school if we keep doing it outside or they catch me in your dorm room.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know this is strange for you, but my parents read in some magazine it was better to know where your kids were, than have them sneak around. So, I thought we could try staying here, at least once.”
“I guess we’ve tried everywhere else,” I said, tongue in cheek. I could see he was at a loss over the situation. No one likes the reality of being so dependent on their parents when they want to be more adult themselves. That’s where we were in life. “But I kinda like the element of almost being caught.” I smiled slyly at him.
“I’ve noticed. You like playing with fire. Being an exhibitionist. Taking risks.”
“And you don’t?” I couldn’t tell by his tone whether he thought this was good or bad. I drew closer to him, teasing his lips with a soft kiss. “You smell like you’ve been having fun.”
His smile parted his lips, which captured my own. “I brought you to my parents’ house, didn’t I? That’s a risk.” His eyes widened as if to spook me. “Maybe my mom will ask you what your plans are, too,” he teased. “She asks me all the time now.”
“Does she?” I stretched my back and rolled my neck. Ryan and I hadn’t been talking much about what was happening to us after high school. I had perfunctorily sent in only a few applications to places in mostly neighboring states to appease my own parents, but I wasn’t excited about any of them. After realizing I missed the deadlines to the more prestigious schools I’d considered, they seemed like second choices, and the forthcoming decision was not too much of a real choice at all. What sucked even more was that my college applications were different from Ryan’s selections, which was a burgeoning problem. The decision of what to do after high school was becoming a daily reminder of my own faults and missed opportunities. The only difference between them was their names and locations. “What do you tell her?”
“Well, she knows I’ve been accepted to UNM and Iowa State. I’m still waiting to hear from UCSD.”
I nodded my head, looking around for where I’d put my clothes last night, and reached over to grab my panties hanging on the corner of the footboard. “Yeah? That’s great.” I brought them underneath the covers to slip them on and caught sight of my bra slung over the back of his chair.
“Kara, don’t.” Ryan put his hand on my arm before I rolled out of bed to retrieve it.
“Don’t what?” I turned away from him to get out of bed. “I’m just getting dressed. You can keep talking.”
I got up, walking toward the chair, and felt his fingers slide down my back. “This conversation’s upsetting you.” The lace of the bra was underneath my fingertips, but I was caught for a minute looking into my picture again. She was annoying to look at, like everything was perfect and she wasn’t worrying about anything—what was going to happen to her life in a month, when she would see Ryan again once school was over—and where she would end up next.
“No,” I said. “I just…” My voice dropped off as I felt Ryan come to stand behind me, his hand on my shoulder. “…wish there was a Millaways.”
His arm came around my chest. “I know. I wish it, too.” He pulled me toward him. “I don’t know what to do. And I don’t want to be any place without you. That’s what I tell her.”
I closed my eyes, leaning
into him. I hadn’t expected him to say that. But that was my Ryan, willing to do anything, go anywhere for me.
“Ryan, the thing is, I don’t have a plan.”
“It’s okay,” he said, and we stood in silence for a moment. I felt his heartbeat behind me, and I relaxed and let the bra drop again. “We’ll think of something together,” he said, running his hand down my stomach, over the outside of one thigh. He kissed my neck. “Later,” he whispered into my ear.
***
“You’d like to travel?” My mother’s voice over the phone sounded incredulous at the idea.
“And work for a year. Get my head together.” I was testing out an idea Ryan and I had come up with yesterday about how we might stay together after high school. I’d ask my parents if they would pay for one month’s rent, just one to get me started, and I’d find a job. He would take some classes at UNM and find work, too. We’d save up and go somewhere, anywhere, for a while. Mexico was cheap, and it had been fun. Maybe we could even find Millaways.
“But you’ve been traveling. You just got back from Australia a few months ago.”
“It’s not so much the traveling. I just want to take a break. I want to be independent. Really explore what I want in life. I don’t think I know.”
“You can do that in school. Explore different areas of interest with a bachelor’s degree. People get that from college.”
“Just a break.”
“No, Kara. You’ll have the summer before school starts for that. You can rest up then.”
“But Ryan—”
“This can’t be about a boy, Kara.” I knew my parents had always liked Ryan, but they had become a little wary of him since I told them the story about Christie, and I didn’t even tell them the half of it. I didn’t tell, for example, that he had bought her a ring with the promise of marriage. “He’s a nice young man, but you’ll fall in love many times in your life.” She knew about Ben, too.
Luz, Rebound Page 16
