18. Everett
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Everett
THEN
It’s crowded and stuffy inside the large mansion sitting atop a hillside, overlooking glinting lights and distant fireworks popping off at random. People wearing pressed suits and sparkly dresses standing around a room cased in marble flooring and a chandelier that probably costs more than my car reminds me that I’m far from the place I now call home. The dress shirt my parents forced me into, along with the tie strangling my neck, is causing the night to become weary and tiresome.
The occasional smile from those passing by, an acknowledging tilt of their head or a “How are you, Everett?” is adding to the lingering fatigue. As are the sporadic formal introductions letting me know who they are and their connection to my dad. I’ve been at it for almost two hours, and I feel stiflingly overwhelmed. Like I’m suffocating. And the only person I want to spend tonight with is five hundred miles away.
“Everett!” I hear my name just as I reach the main foyer. I turn to see my dad calling for my attention with a proud and determined smile, a man in a lopsided plastic party hat and a grin matching my dad’s at his side. “Meet Francis. He heads the facilities department over at ARCO.”
I politely nod and shake Francis’s hand. “I hear you’ll be at UC Davis next year,” he says, giving my shoulder a stern pat. “Your dad is really proud of you.”
“Yes, sir,” I answer. “Got my admission letter last week. I’m very excited.” It feels rehearsed, almost monotone and fake, yet I’ve said it enough times tonight that I’m not sure how much of it’s true, even as it’s spoken from my own mouth.
“Good. You should come by the arena next week. Hang out for a game. We can get you some courtside seats.”
“Everett is actually heading home in a few days with Alice, but he’ll be back next month. We got a tour scheduled at UC Davis, and he promised he’ll catch a game while he’s here.”
I glimpse at the large clock displayed over the mantle and see it’s almost midnight. New Year’s. We’re interrupted just then when a wait staff walks by with a tray full of champagne flutes filled with gold bubbly.
“I guess we’re gathering in the main room?” Francis states, grabbing a glass.
My dad reaches for two and hands me one. “Since it’s a special occasion.”
I give a low chuckle and watch them walk away. Instead of following their lead, I sneak off to an empty room where I can get a moment to myself. A moment to think without all the noise and attention. Without the buzzing in my head, like a low whirring noise, that doesn’t seem to go away. But even with the spirited chitter chatter stifled behind a closed door, my body feels on edge. And that feeling, the one where I feel like my feet are never fully grounded and I’m ready to jump into action, magnifies.
The room I’m in looks like an office. There’s a large wooden desk at the far wall and opposite to it is a floor-to-ceiling bookcase filled to the brim with leather-bound books. I reach into my pocket and dial Teeny’s number.
“Hello?” I hear her voice on the second ring.
“I was hoping you’d answer.”
She laughs. “I’ve been waiting by the phone.”
I set my glass down on a small side table situated next to a leather couch before I plop onto the cushy seat. “I finally snuck away,” I tell her. “I’m hoping the ball drop will keep my parents from looking for me.”
“Well, I got my Martinelli’s in a mug and the party hats my mom got us.”
“Your parents aren’t out tonight?”
“Nope,” she answers. “New Year’s is strictly a family event. Plus we’re going to my grandparents’ house early in the morning.”
“How early?”
“Seven-ish?”
I grimace. “Is this a usual thing?”
“For us? Yeah. New Year’s is a big thing for my grandparents. We go to their house, pay our respects, eat a lot of food.”
“Huh,” I respond. “Well, I’ll be sleeping in until noon. Or later, depending on how smashed my parents get.”
“Lucky.”
“I miss you,” I finally say after I feel like I’ve been holding it in for so long.
“I miss you, too,” she responds, her voice hushed. “When does your flight get in?”
“Around eleven.”
“In the morning?”
“Yeah.”
She breathes a sigh of relief. “I thought you were going to miss my show.”
“I’ll cross oceans to be there.”
“Actually you’ll cross a few deserts and Fresno,” she says in that teasingly sarcastic tone I love so much. “And Bakersfield, I believe.”
“Since when did you become a geography whiz?”
“Since I paid attention in fourth grade.”
The noise outside feels distant now. As if this room isn’t simply a room in this large mansion I feel completely out of place in, but as if it’s a sanctuary. Something Teeny created through a phone line despite the distance between us. My feet don’t bounce anymore on the fancy rug underneath me. They’re grounded, sitting in place as if something’s telling me it’s okay to stay rooted right now. While I’m on the phone with Teeny, in this hideaway that’s secluded me away from the noise, it’s okay that I be who I am when I’m with Teeny. I wish I could know if she feels the same way. I wish I could know if her heart is beating calmly. If it’s steady and measured because she’s talking to me, if I have the same effect on her as she does on me. And suddenly, I can’t wait to get back to her.
“Oh, ten seconds,” she says excitedly.
We both start counting down.
“Nine, eight, seven, six…”
I miss you.
“Five, four.”
I can’t remember what my life was like before you.
“Three.”
I’m falling for you.
“Two.”
I don’t know what I would do without you.
“One.”
I love you.
* * *
As predicted, I woke up past noon on New Year’s Day. After spending the rest of the party on the phone with Teeny, I drove my parents home in their inebriated state. “Home” feels a bit generous. With the thirteen-foot-tall ceilings and formal dining room, it feels like a museum rather than a place I’m supposed to call home. Even my room, mostly empty with all of my belongings back at Del Mar Heights, feels cold and vacant.
I trudge out of bed and down the winding staircase to the large kitchen with an industrial-sized refrigerator to find a note on the island.
Went out to brunch with Mom. Call my cell if you need anything. -DAD
Without the pressure to wake up and be presentable, I reach into the fridge for a bottle of orange juice, drinking it straight from the spout. I slump onto the sectional couch in the TV room where we have a projector set up in place of a TV. It takes some troubleshooting before I learn all the bells and whistles, and I finally figure out how to play a DVD. I consider calling Teeny but then remember her plans with her family.
So, I’m left alone in this house that will always feel new to me, like a tumbleweed rolling through a lush forest. After about two hours of mindless TV watching, I mosey back to my room, feeling a little restless. I’m about to call Teeny, hoping she’s finally back home, when I hear the front door open.
“I can’t believe you, Eddie!” I hear my mom hiss at my dad followed by the door closing and my dad’s urgent steps at my mom’s heels.
“Alice, I told you. Nothing’s going on.”
“You are so full of shit. I saw how she was looking at you last night,” my mom openly argues. “And today at the club. What the hell was that?”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
Something, probably a cabinet door, slams shut with a bang. “ I’m being ridiculous? Are you kidding me? You didn’t see the way she kept touching you and laughing at your jokes like you’re her own personal comic. Do you know how inappropriate that looks? You’re married, Eddie. And so is she.”
“Well, maybe it’s nice to get a little attention every now and then.”
“Oh, you want attention? That’s the problem?”
“Alice, keep it down. Everett is going to hear you.”
I’ve been sitting at the top of the stairs, my knees drawn up to my chest with my back against the wall, reverting back to when I was a kid, and this was how I coped with my parents’ arguing. Sitting offside, trying to blend into the wall like a spider in its web while getting a front-row seat to their marital problems.
“Well, maybe he needs to hear how his dad is a cheat?—”
“Alice.” My dad’s tone turns dark and threatening. “Stop.”
“You can’t keep shutting me down every time I bring it up! You can’t treat it like it wasn’t a big deal!”
The high-pitched blast feels like an explosion. Glass shatters, skittering across the hard floor.
And the room falls silent.
It’s like a snowstorm. When it snows, it’s silent. It isn’t like rain where the fat drops of water hitting the ground sound menacing or even deafening, especially during long bouts of thunder and lightning. It’s quiet even though you expect noise.
“I’m done.” I hear my mom’s shaky voice. “I’m leaving. You can stay here in his big house all on your own and do whatever the hell you want, Eddie. I’m done.”
“Alice, I’m sorry.”
“No. Just stay away from me.”
“Fine! Leave!” my dad responds with a gruff growl. “Go back to that house that’s burning a hole into our lives!”
“You think it’s burning a hole in our lives?”
“I told you to sell it,” my dad continues. “I told you to get rid of it and stay here.”
“I’ve been here for almost twenty years doing whatever you wanted. Following you around like some goddamn Stepford wife. I wanted to go back home, Eddie. I wanted to see my parents before they died, but I couldn’t because we always had to do what you wanted. You couldn’t give me that.”
“Then do what you want, Alice. Go back to your home.”
The silence rings inside the house again, and it isn’t just snow this time. It’s a blizzard. My parents’ angry words flurry around me like a howling wind.
So many times, I saw the end coming. The fight that became their breaking point. I always think it’s going to be the last one, but then they work through it. They talk it out. But in those moments when I think it’s over, I have this wave of relief wash over me. Like getting off a really scary rollercoaster. While on it, I feel the high of the ride. Christmas mornings, family vacations, movie nights watching Homeward Bound or Casper . But in between those moments, the adrenaline feels too much. The fighting, the yelling, the name calling. Those drops and loops are unbearable. Then I get back on. Because my parents work through it, and the thrill of the ride starts to become appealing. I forget about all the scary parts.
The rest of our visit is filled with tense, frigid silence. I see it in the way my parents brisk past each other with a cold shoulder and how I instinctively tiptoe around the house. I spend the rest of the night in my room, picking up dirty clothes and the loose CDs scattered about in silence. The drive to the airport the next morning is just as quiet. My dad drives us, much to my surprise. He doesn’t say anything, and when we pull to the curb, he doesn’t get out of the car. He pops open the trunk from his seat and watches me lug the heavy luggage out before driving off.
My mom doesn’t react. She doesn’t huff out in anger. She doesn’t cry. Instead, she reaches for her suitcase and turns toward the airport.
When we get back home, my body moves about like it’s on autopilot. I watch my mom sit at the kitchen table, looking over a stack of mail with a blank look on her face. It seems both of our bodies have grown numb from the shock of how the new year is already starting to play out.
It starts to become almost unbearable, and I feel like I need to leave. I know I have some time before Teeny’s show, and I should at least call her to let her know I’ve made it home, but I don’t. Instead, I grab my keys and drive. I drive along the breezy coast, feeling like my feet need to keep moving. If I stay settled for too long, it’ll all catch up to me. The inevitable uprooting, the constant impermanence of my life. Anything can change in a heartbeat.
I finally stop when I pull into a parking lot on the beachfront. The one Teeny and I came to with the lifeguard tower, not realizing where the impromptu getaway would lead us. I sink into the sand, focusing on the soothing coolness, on the hazy sky painted a mural of oranges and purples and blues.
I thought when we moved to San Diego, this feeling would be more fleeting. That maybe it was more isolated to my life up north. But you can’t run from your problems. They’ll just follow you. And what if after all this, I end up back to my old life. Under the appeal of a new school, I forgot that I wouldn’t be here forever. I forgot that I’d have to say goodbye to the place that finally felt like home. I’d leave for college, and I’d miss the beach and my grandparents’ home.
And Teeny. What would I do without her? How am I supposed to go off to college for four years without her? And when I graduate, what of us then? I have no idea how to plan for a future when everything feels so unsure.
I see a couple sitting at the edge of the lifeguard tower, much like Teeny and I did. One is wearing a red lifeguard uniform while the other, a girl, dangles her feet with a large beach towel wrapped around her shoulders. They laugh at something, toss some chip crumbs at a lone seagull, and my heart twists thinking about how much I miss Teeny.
I start counting down the minutes until I see her. Until I’ll be able to hold her and kiss her. It won’t be long?—
Shit! Teeny’s show!
I dig into my pockets for my phone only to realize I’d left it at home. I rush to my car, shoving the key into the ignition to see the dash light up with the time. Four o’clock. Fuck! I was supposed to be at the gallery at two. I rush down streets, risking those yellow lights while hoping I don’t get pulled over.
When I finally pull into the parking lot of the small gallery, I spot Teeny’s dad’s car in the parking lot and exhale a sigh of relief. She’s still here. It takes a few moments, a few deep breaths before I collect myself enough to walk in without looking like a ball of anxiety. I spot Teeny right away, talking to some people, her parents standing offside sipping on some bottled water. She looks engaged in whatever conversation she’s having with a polite smile. As soon as she sees me, her smile drops.
I make it to her and wait. Wait for her to acknowledge me, to talk to me. To, hopefully, forgive me.
“Everett,” she says coolly as she finishes her conversation.
“Teeny,” I urge. “I’m so sorry. I lost track?—”
“We’ll talk later,” she says in that same distant tone I don’t like. “I have to…mingle.” She says that last word with a smirk and a hint of annoyance, even throwing a small eye roll in my direction. She doesn’t seem like she’s as mad as I thought she’d be. More like…disappointed. And it almost feels worse.
“But I’m sorry,” I say, ducking my head so only she can hear.
“I know.”
I don’t push. Instead, I stay. Somewhere she can see me, call me if she needs to, but with enough space to let her know that I’m giving her what she asked for. I see her talking to her parents, another older couple who I don’t know but seem important to her based on the way they fawn over her and gush in hushed tones. It isn’t long until the crowd dwindles down and the gallery seems to be emptying that Teeny gives me her full attention.
“My parents drove me,” she says, after she’s said her goodbyes to them. “Do you think I could get a ride home with you?”
“Sure.”
I lead her outside to my car, and she keeps a noticeable amount of distance between us. I help her in, round the hood to get into the driver’s seat, and we sit in silence. The drone of cars passing by and others walking to their cars stay on the outside while we sit in this disconcerting silence.
“Teeny—”
“You said you’d be here.”
“I know.”
“This was really important to me.”
“I know.” She turns, facing the front of the car, avoiding my eyes. “I really am sorry.”
She doesn’t answer me but silently nods. “How was your trip?”
I spare her the gritty details. “It was fine.”
“And your dad? How’s he doing?”
“Uh, yeah. He’s good.”
She finally looks at me and smiles. “I’m not mad at you.” I smile weakly, and she laughs. “Okay, maybe a little. But you could’ve called if you were going to be late.”
“I know. I left my phone at home. And I didn’t realize what time it was.”
“You weren’t at home?”
I shake my head. “I went for a drive.” I morosely tell her my vague explanation of my whereabouts, and something twinges in my chest. It tugs and coils, and I want to tell her about it. How when I feel this ache inside me, I don’t know how to put it into words. But if I could, it would be for her. I only ever want to be able to explain it to her. How I’m constantly drifting and floating when all I want to do is sit and be calm.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I tell her. I reach for her hand, placing a soft kiss into her palm. “You want to just go home?”
“Yes and no,” she tells me, a shy smile teasing her lips. “Can we maybe go to your house? Is your mom home?”
“Yeah, but it’s okay.”
“Okay.”
I start the car and drive in silence. Teeny plays with my radio, keeping the volume at a low hum, and I hold her hand in mine. I steal glances in her direction, finding no resentment or anger, but my girlfriend. The same girlfriend I love and who would stand by me, never dismissing me out of spite.
I pull into my driveway to see all the lights are off. Next door, Teeny’s driveway sits empty.
“My parents drove my grandparents back home,” she tells me.
“Is that who that was? At your show?”
She nods. “My grandma grew up in Korea. She loved to draw and paint, but it was a struggle for her. Especially after the war. She couldn’t afford oil paints or anything fancy, so she’d use twigs she’d find outside. She would burn the tips and use the charcoal ends to draw.” She pauses, smiling fondly. “So, she’s always been really supportive of my artwork. When I was five, she was the one who convinced my mom to send me to art school after she let me play with a bunch of her watercolors. Said I had a natural talent for it.
“I was so excited for you to meet her today. When you didn’t show up, I told her that you were still up in Sacramento with your dad. That he needed you and you couldn’t make it. And she said, ‘Good boy. He put family first.’ So, I didn’t want to introduce you when you showed up late. I didn’t want to tell her that you just…didn’t show up on time.”
We’ve been sitting in my car, the engine turned off and the radio all the way down, and my heart sinks to my stomach when Teeny tells me this. This was so much more than just me being late for her show. She expected me to be there.
“I really am sorry, Teen.”
“I know.” She cups my jaw, and her soft eyes make the guilt in my gut brew to a thickness that’s hard to digest. “And I’m not telling you this to make you feel bad. I just want you to know how important this was to me.”
“I knew. I promise I knew. I was just dealing with…some things.”
“I know, Everett. I know you think I don’t notice, but I do. And whatever you’re dealing with, I wish you’d tell me.”
“I’m trying. I’m figuring out how to put it into words so you’d understand.”
She pats my thigh, gesturing for me to make room, and I pull the lever to the seat, making a loud cranking noise as it moves all the way back. She climbs onto my lap and grips my face in her hands. “Try.”
I exhale a deep breath as my palms rest on the outside of her thighs. I feel her eyes searching mine while my fingers trail nervous circles over the skirt of her dress inching dangerously higher as she situates herself on top of me. “I guess…I feel like I don’t know what’s going to happen. With this house, my parents. Even with college. Like, I know I’ll be back up north in the fall, but you know…what about us? And all of this makes me feel like I have to be on my toes. Like I need to be prepared, and I don’t even know for what.”
She stays silent, and my hand moves to her lower back, pressing her closer to me as I try to figure out my words.
“And sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m inside my body. It’s like I’m hovering over it and watching everything happen, and my body’s frozen in time, and I can’t do anything. I watch my parents fight, and I just sit there, not doing a single thing. I feel like such a coward when that happens. I know I should do something, but I can’t.”
My body starts to shake, and my skin feels like it’s crawling with a thousand tiny bugs under the surface. She takes my hand, wrapping it around her wrist where I feel her pulse. It’s steady, unlike mine. I match my breathing to the easy moving thumps, and my body sags in her arms.
“You don’t need to worry about us,” she tells me, the softness in her voice making her words ring so true, I can’t even try to argue it. “I’m going to miss you, but we’ll figure it out.”
A calmness washes over me, and it feels like a placid lake. The small ripples that disrupt the surface don’t feel chaotic as they pop and plunk inside me. Instead, they magnify how all the scary things in my life aren’t actually scary at all. As long as I have Teeny by my side. We really are going to figure it out. And, at the end of it all, we’re going to be just fine.
“Yeah,” I respond. “I know.” After a long pause, one that makes me feel like it’s there to let us absorb this understanding between us, I whisper, “You.”
“Me?”
“You ground me.”
Her lips press into a soft line, and her eyes round, waiting for me to explain.
“When I feel like I’m hovering and I’m frozen, you bring me back to earth. And sometimes, just the sound of your voice makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
She smiles, and it glitters. Like a thousand diamonds glinting in the sunlight, making everything luminous. It’s the only way to describe her smile. The way her eyes warm and twinkle, or how I can see every emotion through the small wrinkles that bridge her nose and the corners of her eyes. She’s so beautiful, and a dull throb starts to pulse in my chest. It looms over me like a dark cloud before I push it away, focusing on how her chest rises and falls with the soft sighs that filter through her pretty lips.
“I love you. And I know we’re, like, super young, and people are going to say we’re just kids and shit, but I really do. I’ve literally never felt this way about anyone?—”
“I love you too,” she interrupts me. “And who cares about what people say.”
That twinge behind the barricade of my ribcage fades into bursts of fireworks. They go off in my chest, and I feel like I’m going to grow rocket thrusters on my heels and shoot up into the sky. I love her. With my entire heart, I love this girl. And she loves me.
“You love me?”
“Yes.”
“You love me?” I ask again. My brows bounce in a menacing manner, and it shifts everything around us. This is us, in our purest form. Our hearts have been stripped bare for each other, and it doesn’t feel scary or unsure. It feels right.
She shoves a hand into my chest with an adorable chuckle, playing into my taunt. “You’re so silly,” she teases, and I see a redness creep up her neck even in the dark.
I laugh too, leaning forward to kiss her. “But you do.”
“I do what?” she asks, her voice breathy and soft as our kiss deepens.
“You love me.”
She nods into my lips. “I do.”
She starts rocking, back and forth, creating this ache inside me I’ve been trying to douse with the urge to never push her. My fingers find the bottom hem of her dress, finding that it’d ridden so far up her thigh, I’ve officially reached underwear territory. My thumb strokes her soft skin, matching the rhythm of her shifting on my lap. Back and forth, back and forth.
“Teeny, I think we should stop,” I tell her with a strain in my voice that makes me sound wounded and anguished.
But she doesn’t show any signs of stopping. In fact, she starts to move more frantically. Tugging the hair at my scalp, letting her teeth scrape against my lower lip, moaning a hopeless and urgent sigh into my mouth.
“Can we go inside?” she asks, her chest heaving against mine.
“Inside my house?”
She gives a small, indifferent shrug. “I was thinking your room.”
“Really?”
She nods. “Please?”
“Yeah,” I whisper. “Let’s go.”
We attempt to calmly collect ourselves and get out of the car, moving quietly, like we might get caught, though we aren’t doing anything necessarily suspicious. When I open the door to the house, it’s eerily quiet. The only sounds are coming from the small den with the glowing lights reflecting off the TV.
“Everett! Is that you?”
“Yeah, Mom.”
“I left some pizza in the kitchen if you want some.”
“Okay. I’m just going to head up to my room. I’m kind of tired.”
“All right.”
Teeny grins at me, following my quiet steps up the stairs to my room. Once inside, I lock the door. “You think she’ll be mad if she knows I’m here?”
“Nah, don’t worry about it,” I tell her, though I’d probably get a small lecture on bringing Teeny over this late and how her parents would react if they assumed my mom allowed it.
She looks over my room, catching a small box that was once neatly wrapped in paper meant specifically for a birthday with the colorful balloons and party hats printed on it. The torn paper now sits messily on my desk, and she peers into the box, poking her finger inside the nest of tissue paper with inquisitive eyes. “Was there…a special occasion?”
I walk over to her, picking up the box and taking out the iPod still wrapped in its packaging and plastic film. “My dad gave it to me while I was visiting,” I explain to her. “Early birthday gift.”
Her eyes round, and a smile cuts across her face. “It’s your birthday?”
“Not for a few months. In March,” I tell her shyly. “My dad…I think he just feels guilty about this year. Us being down here and all of that shit. Probably why he got me the new car.”
She nods. “Well, happy early birthday.”
“Thank you,” I answer with a smirk.
We stand there, our bodies tentative and shy, very much unlike how we were just minutes ago in my car. Until she makes the first move. She reaches for my hand and leads me to my bed, guiding me as if this isn’t my room. We lay down, side by side, and she kisses me. With the way she touches me without a beat of hesitation, it feels like she’s moving in a single sweeping fluid motion. No pauses. No moments that make me wonder if she feels the same flicker of nerves crawling under my skin. All I feel is how deep her love runs, and I can’t ever imagine a time when I’ll question how much she loves me. Or how much I love her. All of this…it feels like a sure thing.
Teeny pulls away, her breathing desperate and loud. “Do you have…”
“What?”
“Um…you know,” she continues, her chest pressing against me. “Protection?”
“Oh.” I huff a nervous laugh. “Um, yeah. Actually, I do.”
Her timid laugh matches mine. “Yeah?”
I nod. “My mom…she got me some.”
“What?”
“That’s totally weird, isn’t it?”
“A little,” she responds through a laugh.
I tuck my chin toward my chest so that my forehead leans against the crook in her neck, snuffing my embarrassed chuckle. “I swear, I didn’t ask for them or anything like that.”
“So, she just…gave them to you?”
“She’s noticed you and I have been hanging out,” I tell her. “And she didn’t like, hand them to me with a long speech on safe sex practices. They were just on my bed when I came home one day.”
“Hmm,” she responds, her body relaxing against my comforter. “Nothing like having your mom be your wingman. Definitely doesn’t scream ‘mama’s boy.’”
A light pinch to her side and she squeals, quickly stifling it with a hand to her mouth. I lean down and run my nose along her cheek. “Is this a diversion technique?”
“What do you mean?”
“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, Teeny. If you’re not ready?—”
“No,” she interrupts. “No, I am. I just want to make sure we’re prepared.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” She tilts her head up and kisses me, angling her head to the side while running her hand up the center of my back. Everything starts to move in a blur, but I’m here. I’m in my room with Teeny. In her arms, like she’s anchoring me to earth. In a place where I belong.
Quiet whispers of “Are you sure?” and “I want to,” and “You’re amazing,” float into the air. It hangs and hovers, creating a bubble of hope and confidence that we can survive anything. I could take off to college for four years, be hundreds of miles apart, and we would somehow still survive it all. I would eventually find my way back to her. My place is with her, no matter what.
We pull back the covers of my sheets and slide under a cocoon, burrowing farther into the place where I finally feel at home. We undress, taking our time, learning each other’s bodies while knowing this won’t be the last time. We’ll have more moments like this…forever.
We both know this is fundamentally physical, whatever teenage hormones running rampant in our blood, but it feels so far from it. It’s charged with some cloyingly visceral thing that I can’t quite place. Because I’ve never felt this. I’ve never felt this close to another living soul in my entire life.
When we’re done, Teeny lays against me, her bare body flush against mine. Her hair sprawled across my pillow where I know I’ll be able to smell her when I go to sleep tonight.
“I’m so in love with you, Christine.”
She giggles into my chest. “So formal.”
“I am,” I tell her, smiling into her hair.
“I know,” she responds. “I love you, too, Everett.”