Chapter 32
THEN: Freshman Year, October
Paloma
Things return to normal and neither of us brings up my desperate confession.
We continue exchanging slips of paper like normal. He sends famed sonnets, ballads, villanelles, odes. I respond with free verse and lyrical poems, sometimes song lyrics with strict instructions to treat as a poem first, then listen.
I spend more time searching for the perfect ones to send than I do on my actual schoolwork.
Halloween falls on a school night, which means most parties are postponed to the weekend. I invited Bennett with a heavy advance, making sure he was comfortable with hanging out at my apartment for the evening.
“Just us?” he asked, biting his lip and hovering in front of the door to our study room.
“Just us.”
“Does this count as another date?”
I laughed and nodded. To me, every minute I spend with him is a date.
And at 6 p.m. on the dot, there’s a knock at my door. My roommate left earlier in the day with no information on when she’d be back, but I’m glad for it. I don’t want to share Bennett with anyone. I want him to be only mine, at least for now. Even if it’s only in my head.
“Hey, Paloma.”
“Hey, Bennett.”
Gorgeous as usual; I specifically instructed him to dress in comfort clothes, and he clearly obliged.
A soft black long sleeve with Waterfell Hockey across the chest in bright blue is tight against his broad shoulders, and his legs are encased in long gray sweatpants that make my mouth water a little.
He looks warmer and cozier than I’ve seen him before.
I want to make a pillow fort around him and cuddle by a fireplace.
Bennett’s bright blue eyes scan over me slowly, taking in my oversized H is for Halloween T-shirt and soft black leggings.
Opening the door to my room feels terrifying.
This place is my sanctuary, my one fully safe space: the blue walls covered with a floral tapestry, the glowing stars on the ceiling.
A wooden skim board with multicolored hibiscus florals printed across it hangs precariously on one wall above my desk.
I got flowers from the florist in Waterfell when they were going bad, hung them upside down to dry, and now they’re part of my wall décor.
Prints of every size and color and style hang alongside them, some taken from restaurants or coffee shops as free giveaways, some thrifted along with everything else in my room, all carefully styled.
I’d gone a little overboard with decorating, but it was the first thing that was ever completely mine.
Growing up, I went trick-or-treating around the trailer park with the other kids.
I’d worn the same costume until the princess sleeves were so high and tight on my arms they left marks.
My mother never decorated for the holidays, though I asked often enough.
But she often didn’t know what day it was.
“I bought a Halloween candle,” I stutter out. “A-and the ghost pillow. I wanted to find a blanket, but . . .”
I trail off, rolling my eyes at myself because what in the hell can I say? But I couldn’t afford it because the other decorations already went over my spending budget for the month?
I know that Bennett is much wealthier than I am. Granted, I might not know by how much, but he doesn’t need to budget the way that I do.
“Anyway, it’s . . . yeah.” I shrug, spinning in a tight circle to face him where he’s still lingering near the door. “This is my room.”
Bennett examines every item as he steps forward into the space. It feels like he’s seeing into a piece of my soul, closer than I let anyone else.
“I like it.” He smiles.
“Yeah?”
“It’s just like you,” he says softly, affectionately. “We should come here more often.”
“We can study here,” I say, a little too animatedly. “If you’d like.”
I grab for the stuffed animal sitting on my bed, considering tossing it under or into my closet, but as usual, Bennett’s eyes are already on me.
“It’s, um . . .”
I try to think of a more palatable way of saying what the stuffed bunny means to me.
That it was something I found in my old room.
That I thought maybe it was a gift left by my dad when he knew he wouldn’t be there with me, for me to have a piece of him.
It was more likely that my mother had found it or accidentally stolen it from some kid thinking it was mine.
But it was hard to let go of the fantasy.
And it’s just as hard to stuff this meaningful thing in a hiding spot. It’s too similar to how I’d managed to keep it all these years.
“The velveteen rabbit,” Bennett finishes my statement, nodding. As if me hugging this stuffed rabbit so tightly in my arms, like he might take it from me, is highly normal.
“Oh—yeah, it is. At least, I think so? I got it a long time ago.”
“It’s special to you.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I watch as he steps closer to me and reaches for it, nodding silently. He takes the bunny from my hand before propping it next to the ghost pillow I bought. Then he reaches for me.
Heart squeezing and eyes burning, I take his hand.
“We can sit on my bed together, if that’s not uncomfortable.”
“That’s fine.”
He follows me, sitting only after I have, eyes on me while I turn on my laptop to a stream of Halloween movies—nothing scary. The overhead lights are off, leaving only the soft glow of my lamp and the stars on the ceiling.
“I’d like to hold you,” Bennett says, and our cheeks bear matching red stains almost immediately. “If that’s okay.”
I nod.
No one’s ever asked if they could touch me. They just . . . did.
There’s a wide grin across his lips, but his hands are shaking as he wraps one around my shoulder before pulling me back to lay against him fully. It’s the most physical contact we’ve had in a while, my back flush to his warm, soft chest. It reminds me of the hotel room.
We settle into my bed, my blue blanket tucked around us both as I use his biceps like a pillow. Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic play back-to-back: “Two of my favorites,” I quietly tell him.
By the middle of the second movie, I can’t take much more. I pull on his arm a little, curling farther into him. His lips have pressed into my hair a few times, even daring to touch the skin of my forehead. But I’m borderline desperate for something more now.
I feel like a wriggling fish on a line.
“Bennett?”
“Yeah?”
I swallow a hard gulp and turn my face to stare up at him, neck supported by his large biceps. He pushes himself up a little to look fully into my eyes.
“Can you kiss me?” My fingers dance over my lips absentmindedly. “Here?”
A heavy sigh falls from his mouth, his breath minty and cool.
“It’s all I think about, P, ever since the pool.”
A sigh of relief barely leaves my throat before his lips are pressed to mine, almost too hard, but so perfect. I kiss him back quickly, hands gripping the bedsheets so that I don’t grab for his hair.
My breath is almost too loud against Stevie Nicks singing “Crystal” off my laptop speakers.
His body is beside me, but with his lips on mine, he’s half covering me. I want to ask him to press his weight over me, to let me feel completely sheltered and swallowed by him. Like I could hide in his arms and absorb the calm warmth of him forever.
It’s safe here. I never want to leave.
His lips are deliberate, careful. With a slowness I’ll never master, he raises his hand and tucks it behind my head, lifting my neck toward him. He’s holding me entirely in his hands, his other reaching around to press against the center of my back, pulling me closer.
When we break for air, his mouth settles against the skin of my neck, his hands flexing against me. Now it’s his breath that’s loud, gruff in a way that makes my toes curl before he finally pulls back, kissing my cheek on his way.
“Was that good?”
I bite my lip and nod profusely. He smiles, sated and pleased—with himself or me, I’m unsure. Nor do I care.
When I try to settle back into our position from before, he moves me to lay across his front entirely, head resting on his chest, one leg settled over his thighs. His hand brushes through my hair, massaging the base of my scalp every few minutes, then trailing down my back.
I’m asleep far sooner than I mean to be.
The slight, quiet closing of the door wakes me hours later.
Next to me, there’s a piece of notebook paper; on it, a poem: “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond” by E. E. Cummings, one of my favorites. I know Bennett knows that. I know he picked the poem with the same gentle intentionality that he does everything.
Not to mention, it’s handwritten from memory and annotated.
At the bottom, the last stanza is fully underlined with the word “You” written in his perfect script.
And beneath the entire thing is a simple note:
Words don’t come easily for me but
I care very deeply for you.
-Bennett
Part of me wants to tuck it into the soft worn shoebox where I’ve kept every poem and note he’s gifted me. But I can’t bear not to see it, so I lay it on my bedside table, putting my new candle atop it to straighten the folded edges.
I drift back to sleep just looking at it.