Chapter XXII
XXII
James
We spend that night at Lucy’s because there’s no avoiding it anymore: Tomorrow is our last full day together, and she needs to pack. Her flight leaves at nine the following morning.
We both move like slugs, kissing and crying a little as we take down her posters. Eventually, we get two suitcases loaded up for Europe, and the rest goes into a few unwieldy boxes that we’ll lug to Rebecca’s apartment for storage.
But before we go, Lucy wheels her mom’s massive makeup case into the center of the room. I notice a little label that reads “Property of Eva Torres” as Lucy opens up the lid, showing me its contents for the first time.
I watch her put on a full face of makeup. It’s hypnotic. She talks me through each step, and I ask a lot of dumb questions, which Lucy patiently answers as she does something called contouring and mixes lipstick shades together.
Once she finishes her own face, she asks if she can do mine, and we sit cross-legged on the floor as she gives me what she calls “the effortlessly hot actor”—the sort of minimal look her mom would do for male celebrities at photoshoots.
When she finishes, she holds up a hand mirror for me, and I kiss her. “We’re so hot,” I say.
I’m not sure I’ve ever heard her laugh so hard.
After that, she gets out a portfolio of her mom’s work. There are glossy ads, magazine covers, black-and-white shots from newspapers, and a slew of Polaroids taken by Eva herself. Lucy leans into me as I study each one, asking when and where they were taken.
Lucy
After we drop my boxes at Rebecca’s—and I give her three extremely long, extremely tight hugs—James and I take the subway back to my place.
We sit in a mostly empty train car in the middle of the afternoon, our hands intertwined, our shoulders pressed together, both overly aware that the only thing left on the agenda is saying goodbye.
My heart is in my throat, and it has been all day. I’m genuinely excited to start this new chapter, to go have this adventure. But that doesn’t help me handle the grief that’s pressing into my body from every angle.
“I don’t want to say goodbye,” I whisper into James’s shoulder, and he leans his head onto mine.
“I don’t either.” I feel his lips on my scalp, and I hurry to wipe away a tear. I really don’t want to spend the rest of this day crying.
“Does it change anything?” he asks. “The fact that we’re in love?”
“How so?”
“Well,” he says, his voice a bit dreamy and far off, “we’ve never talked about the possibility of long distance.”
I feel my chest tighten. “We’ve never even talked labels,” I say, trying to lighten the mood with a joke.
I feel him grin. “I’m pretty sure once you say ‘I love you,’ the label is implied.”
“Presumptuous,” I tease, and he nudges my shoulder playfully.
We sit quietly for a moment. “I don’t want to put any pressure on you. I’ve done long distance before, and it didn’t work.”
“Sure,” I say, not knowing how else to respond. “And aren’t you planning to call Miriam in a few days?” I ask, not in an accusatory way, simply matter of fact. That’s the only way I know how to approach this conversation.
“I’ll be sobbing into a bowl of ice cream and watching Hello, Dolly!
on repeat in a few days,” he replies. I chuckle and press more firmly into him.
“Lucy, I’m not getting back together with Miriam.
Breaking up with her was painful, but trying to let go of you has been fucking torture.
” I squeeze my eyes shut to keep the tears from falling.
“I want more than a relationship that’s just not hard.
I want to really feel something. The way I feel with you. ”
There’s a hint of nerves in his voice. “What if I came to see you in a few months?” he asks.
I’ve thought about this. But. “That’s a really expensive ticket, and a very long flight,” I say quietly. “And I couldn’t ask you to put your life on hold for—”
“No, I know. That’s not what I’m asking.” He looks for the right words. “I don’t want either of us to be naive about this. I know you’re going to New York when you come back. I know the life I want isn’t the life you want.”
A sad smile comes to my lips. “But it’s not as bad as I thought it’d be.”
He chuckles. “Agreed.” Then he runs his fingers over mine. “I’m just saying, even if this doesn’t make sense long term . . . I’d be willing to get on an extremely long flight for you.”
I take a moment to wipe my cheeks. I try to memorize the feel of his fingertips on my skin. The shape of his blue-gray eyes. “I think we shouldn’t make any decisions right now.”
He’s quiet, and I can sense the hurt there, but I try to stay strong.
“I’m not saying no. But I’m scared to hold on to this longer than we should. I’m scared we’d just be prolonging the hurt.”
He furrows his brow, then the corner of his mouth lifts. “You mean the way we have since the night we met?”
I grin. “Exactly.”
James
We sit in silence for a few minutes, and I find myself growing frustrated. The quiet feels like wasted time, and we have so little left together.
But then I remember her mom’s advice about traveling.
About the trap of trying to make every experience an unforgettable one.
My mind wanders back to our first electric night together.
We could never have planned magic like that.
But the ordinary moments we’ve shared since—folding laundry, window shopping for restaurant stemware, watching musicals, cooking in my overheated kitchen—I’ll hold on to those just as tightly.
I kiss Lucy’s temple. “Do you remember what you said, the night we met, about dating in your twenties?”
Lucy raises her brows. “That it’s a waste? That we’re too young and unsettled in our lives for love.”
“You still think that?”
She thinks for a moment, then smirks. “I mean, kind of.” We both laugh, then she grips my fingers tighter. “But I’m glad you didn’t let me walk away.”
Lucy
As soon as we’re back in my room, James starts carefully unbuttoning my top and running his fingers over my shoulders and chest. He never meets my eye, keeping his gaze fixed on my skin, as if he’s trying to memorize every curve, every crevice.
He slides off my pants and moves down my body with them, kissing my hips, my thighs, my calves.
Then he stands and takes off my bra. He takes his time enveloping each of my nipples in his mouth as I run my hands through his hair.
There are too many sensations, and I don’t know how to keep track of them all. How to take them all with me.
He walks me backward until I feel my back press against the cold wall. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my underwear and pulls them down, lowering onto his knees.
Then he presses his lips to my pubic bone, and my body begins to vibrate in anticipation. He lifts one of my legs onto his shoulder, and I close my eyes, pressing one hand into his free shoulder and my other into the wall behind me.
But he’s still. When I look down, I see that his eyes are fixed between my thighs, hungrily taking in the sight of me. He lifts his eyes to mine. “You’re beautiful.”
Only then does he press his mouth to me, and I go completely weak in the knees. But James and the wall hold me up as I tremble through each fresh pulse of pleasure.
“I want to do this together,” I say, and he carries me to the bed.
I lie there in my sex haze as he tugs off his T-shirt with one hand and unbuttons his jeans with the other.
Then he’s pressing his weight onto me, a condom in place.
I kiss him, and the faint taste of me is on his tongue. It makes me even hungrier for him.
I climb on top of him and guide the full length of him inside of me, the slightest bit of pain hitting me at the deepest point. I let out a little gasp and a quick laugh. “You OK?” James asks.
“It’s a good pain,” I whisper, and then I turn my brain off completely.
I curl my hips forward and back, pressing him into my G-spot and then releasing, again and again.
I watch him smile at me with greedy eyes.
I lean forward, and he licks my nipples with a firm, hot tongue as he takes control of the rhythm, still underneath me.
Our lips lock, and he sits, bringing me upright with him.
I wrap my legs around his back and pull my lips away to lean backward.
We press into each other, our eyes dancing between each other’s faces and our pulsing, connected bodies.
Breathing heavily, he licks his thumb and brings it to my clit, and I’m done for. I cry out. I moan. I probably disturb all my neighbors. But I don’t care. I want to lose myself in this moment with James, to hold on to it for as long as I can.