Chapter 12 Sloan
Sloan
Then - Seattle
Years can go by in the blink of an eye.
A boy can see you through scratched-up glass and change the trajectory of your whole life.
You can spend so many nights wrapped up in each other, and you can miss out on things you thought were important to you but seem entirely insignificant because they aren’t him.
If you’re lucky, you might get to watch him turn into a man: planes of his face drawing harsher lines and stubble spreading slowly across his jaw, darkening angles that only seem soft to you.
Hands widening with the stretching topography of new veins, his shoulders and chest even more so, more than enough to hold you just right.
You change, too.
Your cheekbones lift, your body moves through more than one phase and it goes back again, your hair grows, but you get to grow into yourself, too.
It’s all still there—the general rot of my brain and maybe who I am underneath it all.
When I started college I told my therapist if I went down to the cadaver lab for study, they’d be horrified at what they found if they peeled back my skin.
But I think if you stripped me back now, maybe you’d see some of that.
The inherent badness of Sloan Joseph and all the worries and all the wonders about conversations of years past and whether she really did embarrass herself that one night or if she’s done something awful she can’t remember.
Maybe you’d see the dig I didn’t go on that one summer and some habits I formed that I shouldn’t have.
I think though, mostly, you’d see Tia. Talon. Jay.
Nights hand in hand, screaming their names under bright arena lights, and the feeling of my shoes against the sticky floors of their house at endless parties afterwards.
Dinners and away games and trips and jumping from rooftops into pools and all sorts of things you’d be horrified your parents found out you did in college.
You’d see Bohdan, sharp grey eyes that blink in time with the beat of my heart, and instead of ribs, I think you’d find his hands, suspended there in me, holding everything important in place.
You wouldn’t see the different types of failed therapy and medications that made me sick and lose all sense of who I was. You wouldn’t see my parents, a supportive omnipresence who just can’t understand why their daughter is so sensitive.
But Bohdan does and he always has, and when my life changed and crashed into his, this beautiful gift came along too: I got to watch him achieve his dreams, and even though it meant he had to move across the country, he’s always there to pick me up at the airport.
He leans against a pillar in the arrivals lounge, head resting against the cement, damp hair spilling around his ears from a post-practice shower, a faint shadow of stubble inching along his jaw, and I light up from the inside out as the too-serious lines of his face split into a grin when he spots me at the top of the escalator.
People stop and stare, a few children point at him—he did score his first hat trick this week—but he only has eyes for me.
I feel my ribs—his fingers—strum against my heart. The chords they pluck and what they say. Hi, I missed you. I hate being apart like this.
His lips say it, too, writing symphonies with mine when he kisses me in front of the crowded airport.
He’s quiet in the car, the way he usually is—leaned back in the driver’s seat, one hand loose on the wheel, thumb tapping against the leather, and the other, stretched out against the back of my headrest, tugging on loose strands of my hair, tucking them behind my ear, thumb tracing the curve before it sends shivers down my spine.
Dropping my head back, I watch him drive, silhouetted against the backdrop of trees—evergreen and firs, some shedding their leaves, the colours faded by their time spent under the last of the fall sun.
The sun dips, and it might signal the end of the day, but to me, it signals the start. One whole week of Thanksgiving break, and even though we’re well into our second calendar year of long distance, it’s the first time I get to stay here for more than a long weekend during the semester.
The idea of us both being Canadian was somehow a funny joke for our friends, but it worked out when this week became something just for us.
“I brought you a present,” I say, sitting up to rifle through my backpack.
“It’s not you?” The corner of his mouth slants up.
“No. It’s a housewarming gift.” Pulling the cardboard box out of my backpack, I hold it up, triumphant.
His eyes cut to me, and he presses a thumb to his lips. “Candy Land?”
Frowning, I glance back at the board game, still encased in plastic, the jarring, bright colours juxtaposed against the muted landscape of Seattle surrounding us. “The Gumdrop King was very persuasive. It was the only thing they had at the gift shop.”
“They sell Candy Land at airport gift shops?” He cracks a real grin, amused, before his eyes are back on the road.
“It was this or a singing fish mounted to a Michigan license plate. Did you really want that in your new home?”
“Our new home,” he corrects, firmly and quietly.
I roll my eyes, tossing the game back down beside my bag. “Your new home.”
“Ours,” he repeats.
It’s a constant tug-of-war between us. He’s here in Seattle because it’s where he was drafted, and he bought us this apartment, meant to be our new home, but maybe not, because I can’t guarantee I’ll get into UW for grad school, and entirely not because I haven’t paid a single cent for it.
I didn’t bother applying back home after he was drafted.
UW makes the most sense because it’s where he is, but WSU makes the most sense because of the research streams I want to study: psychological and medical anthropology.
It was a bit more of a reach to try and align my research interests with someone at UW.
That’s not to say they don’t or won’t fit, and it’s not as good of a choice—it just doesn’t fit as well as WSU would.
But WSU is in Pullman.
Bohdan isn’t in Pullman.
And I don’t think anything will ever fit the way Bohdan does.
It’s hard to explain to someone who didn’t fall stupidly in love when they were stupidly young how it changes you, on a cellular level, I think.
We’re both restricted in these funny ways.
He’s in Seattle because he has to be, and I’m at the mercy of the admissions committees at graduate schools with anthropology programs that have concentrations in anything remotely related to health, and maybe those missed opportunities live inside me—but it doesn’t feel limiting.
The whole thing really feels like the possibility of a beautiful life with someone I love who loves me in a way I think people go their whole lives without being loved.
I step into this new home he bought, and it’s not restricting or limiting, it’s wonderful and lovely.
But it feels a bit wrong, to claim it as mine.
“Do you like it?” he asks, almost hesitant, while I run my fingers along the floor-to-ceiling windows, really just a mirror to the Sound, sparkling in the distance.
I glance back over my shoulder. “It doesn’t matter if I like it. It’s yours.”
“That’s not how this works.” Bohdan shakes his head, a hand tracking through his still-damp hair when he crosses the empty apartment towards me. “It’s ours.”
“How about this? It’s yours, but you’ve given me free reign on artistic privileges until I start making money and can contribute to the financial security of the household?”
“Too late. I already hung the only piece of art I’ll ever give a shit about on the fridge.” He points a thumb over his shoulder. I peer past him, and I see it there on the fridge—that old, worn Polaroid of an eighteen-year-old me.
I try to smile, but my heart stumbles against my rib cage, where it’s caught by Bohdan's hands. I blink away tears, but one slips out anyway. “Why do you still have that?”
“Forget my date of birth. Told you before, my life started that night.” He looks at me, impassive and stoic and serious as always.
“Well.” I roll my shoulders back to rest against the window. My voice gets quiet. “It can be your house for now, then. Until I move next year. Almost ours, if you will.”
“I will.” He nods, eyes going dark when he angles his head, looking down at me. One palm presses against the glass, right beside my head, the other finds my waist, and the heat of him radiates through the cotton of my T-shirt. “I missed you.”
I give him a small smile, bringing a hand to his chest. “Are you sure? Not too busy scoring goals to miss me? You should have seen everyone watching the game at FieldHouse. People go nuts when you score. Bohdan Novotnak, the pride and joy of MSU.”
“Yeah?” He gives me a wry look, drumming his fingers at my waist. “They were for you. Did you tell everyone you were my girlfriend?”
“Really?” I ask with a tiny roll of my eyes. “Your first professional hat trick was all for me?”
Bohdan grins, tipping his head down so his mouth rests against mine. “Most things I do are for you, Sloan.” He lingers there, lips moving slowly, tongue brushing against the seam of my mouth, searching for permission.
He kisses me, thoroughly, unhurried—we’ve got a whole week, after all, where we could stay here, pressed up against this window.
My hands scramble across his back. They tangle in his hair, pulling on the wayward waves, and I’m arching into his chest and starting to move against his leg when he slides it in between mine.
His teeth catch my bottom lip with a tug, his words a rough groan. “You didn’t answer me. Did you tell everyone you were my girlfriend?”
“People know I’m your girlfriend, trust me. I get stopped on campus and asked for your autograph at least once a month.” My nails dig into his shoulders with a tiny intake of breath when his mouth moves across my jaw and down the side of my neck.
I feel him smile, teeth scraping my skin before his tongue brushes away the slight hurt. “You could sign for me, if you wanted. I’ll teach you to forge my signature.”
“I can’t imagine your agent would approve of that.” I bite down on my lip when his teeth find my earlobe.
“No different than me signing it, really.” He breathes against my ear, fingers bruising my waist, and his other hand finally comes off the window to tip my chin up. He looks down at me, grey eyes impossibly dark and his already full lips swollen from mine. “Pretty sure you’re what I’m made of.”
Another tiny inhale because I think my heart might stop. Not in a bad way. In the best way really.
I swallow, blinking up at him. “That’s quite the line.”
“Yeah. I guess it is.” He presses his thumb to my chin. “Got it from Talon. Says it has a pretty high success rate.”
“As much as I hate for Talon Valdez to be right about anything . . .”
A grin splits across his face. He leans down, hands gripping the backs of my legs, and he hoists me up.
He finishes the tour of the apartment like that: me in his arms, legs wrapped around his waist, one of his strong hands pressed against my back.
He shows me our bedroom—it’s just a mattress in the middle of the floor, he still technically lives with the team captain, and he will until I move—but it might be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
A mattress with crisp navy sheets and a haphazardly pulled-up duvet.
It’s where he lays me down.
It’s where he undresses me with a sort of kind, gentle precision that could only ever belong to him.
It’s where he makes my body react and makes me feel things that I’ve never felt before and I don’t think I ever will again.
It’s where we sit, wrapped up in sheets and eating Chinese takeout from containers.
It’s where we play Candy Land all night.
It’s where we say I love you long after the sun sets, casting shadows through all those giant windows, and even though it’s not even close to the first time we’ve said the only three words that really matter, it feels a bit like it is.
When looking back, I’d say it’s also where we start the rest of our lives.