70 Rhys
70
Rhys
I didn’t want to fuck it up. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving behind a bitter memory when this was our last night together, but I still had that same feeling I’d had in my chest for days now. Crushing. Asphyxiating. I took a deep breath. We’d gone to a Mexican restaurant near the apartment, five minutes away at a slow walk. We had fajitas and nachos for dinner before the time came to blow out the candles stuck in a ball of chocolate ice cream while Ginger sang “Happy Birthday,” making me laugh. I had turned twenty-nine by her side. Like a crazy person, she kept shouting, “Make a wish! Make a wish!” And I realized the one thing I wanted was impossible. An exit off the road of my life, which was full of potholes.
We were on our second Coco Loco and our third shot of tequila. Ginger was wearing a white dress that made her tan stand out. She’d struggled to achieve it, and she liked showing it off. Her hair was loose, her eyes were shining, her hands were stretched out on the table over mine, and she was tracing circles with her thumb. I was bewitched, watching her skin stroke my own, sometimes grazing the edge of the quarter moon that she, too, had tattooed on her wrist.
“Rhys, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Why?” I looked up.
“You seem absent. More than normal, I mean,” she joked, but then she turned serious, her brow furrowed. “What we’ve been through together this summer…”
“We don’t have to talk about it.”
“I just want you to know I’ve had the best time of my life. I wouldn’t change anything. Not a single day. Every hour has been perfect. With you. Here. And you were right when you said a few weeks ago that neither of us should ever forget it. I just was scared. I thought it would hurt too much.”
I took a deep breath. Uncomfortable. Angry. Sick. “So it doesn’t hurt?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know, you just seem…” I shook my head. “Forget about it.”
I got up. We had already paid, so all I had to do before leaving was finish the last sip of my drink. Ginger followed me down the street. I wanted to disappear. I could feel the darkness infiltrating those parts of me I didn’t like and that I didn’t want her to see. Selfishness. Insecurity. Fear.
“Rhys! Where are you going?” she asked, agitated, trying not to be left behind. She ran past me and came around in front of me. Her small hands against my chest. Her eyes full of reproach. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I don’t know…” I rubbed my face.
“Okay. It’s okay. We’ve been drinking.”
“Goddammit. I knew you’d make everything complicated.”
“How can you say that to me?” she asked in a thin voice.
I wanted to let out all the things that were making my throat close up, but I couldn’t. Instead, I felt it closing tighter and tighter…
Ginger was standing in the middle of the street, eyes welling with tears, lower lip trembling, arms crossed, as if protecting herself from me. I hated it. Seeing her this way. The guilt. Feeling I always ended up hurting the people I loved most, the way I was doing with her. I sucked in a breath.
“I don’t want you to go.”
“Rhys…” She stepped toward me.
“Goddammit, Ginger. It didn’t have to be like this.”
“How else could it have been?”
We looked at each other in the darkness of the summer night. We were just a few inches apart. And I could make those inches disappear if I wanted to.
“Easy. Simple. Just fun and nothing else.”
“Fuck you, Rhys!” she hissed.
I grabbed her wrist before she could turn around. “Wait. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t want…”
“You said it. Imbecile.”
“I know, okay? But this is killing me, just watching the time run down, not knowing when we’ll see each other again, you acting as if you don’t even care.”
“I can’t believe this.”
I let her go. Anxious. Nervous. Angry.
“I was trying not to ruin our last few weeks together! What did you want me to do? You didn’t exactly seem moved when we were talking that day in the tub. Do what you want ! That’s what you told me! So I decided I’d just be like you, follow your philosophy, and try to think in the present, just enjoy myself, and leave it at that.”
“Well, congratulations. You did it,” I grunted.
“Yeah. And I’m almost happy about it, seeing that all you wanted out of this was another hookup, the kind you forget before it’s even over. I know you, Rhys. I know what you’re like.”
“If that’s what you think, then you don’t know me at all.”
I stared daggers at her. She was sobbing.
“You’re right.” She wiped away her tears. “But I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to because I can’t stand you being so blind. You always seem so far away, impossible to even reach…”
“Do I seem that way now?”
“No.” She stepped toward me.
I felt a knot growing. In my stomach. In my throat. My heart was pounding so hard, I brought a hand to my chest to try and still it. I looked at her. So brave. So whole. So different from me. I was getting smaller and smaller, more and more cowardly…
“You still don’t understand, do you?” she whispered.
She hugged me. I felt her hot breath on my neck and her voice surrounding me, entering every hollow in my body, filling the void.
“I’m in love with you, Rhys. I have been for a long time. I think it started that night when I met you in Paris.”
I trembled, holding her tighter against me.
“There are days when I almost hate you, because you shine so bright I can’t see you, and you make it impossible to even look at any other guy…”
I kissed her hard, trapped her against the wall, groaned against her mouth, and she gripped my T-shirt before sliding her hands beneath it. I should have told her then. I should have grabbed the back of her neck so she couldn’t avoid my stare and told her I was in love with her too. But I didn’t. Again. I didn’t kiss her in the airport in Paris before she left. I didn’t dare take the next step in London. And here, tonight, I wasn’t up to her level, I couldn’t squeeze the words out.
I was confused. Stagnant. In a daze.
So lost in my own feelings that I couldn’t tell what was her and what was me. I don’t even remember exactly how we got home. Just that we stopped at every street to kiss. At every crosswalk, at every stoplight. I was anxious. Impatient. Unable to let her go. I didn’t when I opened the door. I didn’t when I took off her clothes in the hall, leaving a trail of clothing behind us.
We fell into bed. Her legs wrapped around my hips, I held her hands over her head, and I stared into her eyes. She was so beautiful. Her body locked beneath mine, skin to skin.
“But you said…”
“Rhys, just do it,” she moaned.
“That thing about making it impossible to…”
“Please,” she whispered.
“I want you to be happy and not just make me happy. But I’m fucking selfish, and I like thinking I’m special to you, even if, when I look in the mirror, I don’t understand why you think I am.” I split her legs wider with my knee and sank into her. “I feel you, Ginger. Too much. I feel you all over.”
As if she were my roots.
And for the first time in my life, I realized I wasn’t just fucking someone; I was making love to her. With her. With Ginger. I was…loving her with my hands, with my skin, with my eyes, clouded by desire, with our bodies united, rocking.
I understood so much now.
And I remembered her words. The ones I read one day months before that made me slam my laptop shut in a rage.
What is it to be in love?
It’s feeling a tingle in your stomach when you see them. Not being able to stop looking at them. Missing them even though they’re right there. Wanting to touch them at all hours, talking about any- and everything, feeling like you lose all sense of time when you’re together. Noticing the details. Wanting to know everything about them, even the stupid stuff. You know what, Rhys? I think it’s actually like being on the moon permanently. With a smile on your face. Without fear.