Chapter 4 #2
“I loved the movie,” he said as he led her out of the café. “Just a bad memory with the song, that’s all.” It wasn’t really bad, exactly. Complicated was probably more accurate. Too complicated to tell Nora about, at least on the first date.
She squeezed his hand. “Embarrassing bad, or painful bad?” she asked, but there was no teasing in her voice, or her eyes.
“More like I never figured out what to think about it.”
She nodded, and gave him the softest, sweetest smile. “I understand.” She probably would, too. “If you ever do want to talk about it, I’m here. Or not. No pressure, I promise.”
Maybe if there was a third or fourth date. Maybe after they—if they ever—maybe then. Then it wouldn’t be weird or awkward. And maybe if that did happen, it wouldn’t be a complicated memory anymore, anyway.
Nora
Nora had a decent idea about Daniel’s bad memory.
Top Gun came out in 1986, in the summer if she remembered right.
He was a year ahead of her, so it would have been the summer before his senior year of high school.
So, a summer romance, probably his first. He’d mentioned he’d gone to an all-boys high school, so when else would he have been able to meet girls but during the summer?
First love, first breakup, first broken heart.
Maybe not just first, but also only ? He’d already told her he didn’t date anybody his freshman year here at Albion, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that there wasn’t anyone his senior year at an all-boys school, either.
Of course he wouldn’t want to talk about something like that on a first date.
“Thanks,” he said. “That—it means a lot to me that you—I don’t even know how to say it. That you want to listen.”
With every word, he was proving that what he’d said yesterday was true, and that what she thought—hoped—about him was true, too. “I want to know you. You deserve to be known. Because you’re pretty great.”
He didn’t have any words, but a moment later his arm was around her, pulling her close, and that was a better answer than anything he might have said.
They walked in silence, with him glancing over at her every so often, with an expression she could only describe as blissful.
And then, right in the middle of the main quad, he stopped.
“Look up, over a little to the left.” He pointed. “That’s Andromeda.” Now he took her hand, held it up. “There, see that smudge there, that’s the galaxy of Andromeda, but the constellation is there. See the star just to the left, and then go up, you see?”
He was full of surprises. He hadn’t said anything about being a stargazer. “How do you know that?”
“Our neighbor had a telescope, a really nice one, up on his roof. He’d let me look in it sometimes.
I don’t remember all that much, but I do know some of the constellations.
That’s Cassiopeia, above Andromeda, and then Perseus to the left of that.
” He laughed. “Perseus and Andromeda go together. I mean, they were together. He—he saved her, they were going to sacrifice her, let some huge sea monster eat her, but he saved her, and then he killed the Gorgon, and then they flew off together.”
That all sounded vaguely familiar to Nora. “That’s from a movie, isn’t it?”
“ Clash of the Titans . I loved that movie when it came out. I think I might be misremembering some of the details—I was, like, eleven or twelve when I saw it—but I know they ended up together. So it’s romantic.
Like tonight.” He looked away when he said that, as if he thought she wouldn’t see him blushing.
She pulled herself closer to him, started walking again. “I agree. Tonight is pretty romantic. But if it’s all the same to you, maybe we can skip the sea monsters.”
“I think we’re safe from them. We’re, what, a couple of hundred miles from the coast? But I’d fight one for you, if they made it here.”
He probably would, too. But that wasn’t the most important thing he’d said. It was that last word.
Here.
Because right now, here was right outside West Hall. His dorm. And she’d been the one to lead him here; it was her feet they’d both been following.
“How—this is my dorm. How’d we get here?”
She took both his hands in hers. “I guess I didn’t want our night to end just yet. And it’s starting to get a little chilly out.”
She could stand the cold, if he wanted to sit on a bench out here and talk for another hour. Or three or four. She could see the indecision—and maybe fear?—in his eyes as he thought her words over. Then he blinked, and the indecision was replaced with clarity.
“I don’t want it to end, either. I—I’m having a great time.”
“I’m glad. I am, too.” She felt her own moment of indecision, but it was gone as quickly as it came. “So are you going to invite me up to your room?”
Daniel
He’d fumbled with the key to the front door of the dorm, nearly tripped on the first step of the staircase, and it took him three tries to unlock his room. Daniel appreciated that Nora had very pointedly not noticed any of that.
He pushed open the door, and ushered her into his room.
The first time he’d ever had a girl in his room, here or ever.
There was no point hoping she wouldn’t know that, his nerves made it obvious.
But maybe it didn’t matter. She’d said it herself—she said yes tonight because he wasn’t like the jerks who had a different girl in their room every other night. Because he was different.
So what was there to be afraid of?
Nothing, but that’s why they called them “irrational fears.”
Whatever showed on his face, she didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy looking around his room, running a hand along his bookshelf, picking up the occasional book to look more closely at it.
“You keep things pretty tidy, don’t you? I bet it’s always like this. You didn’t clean up just in case we came back here tonight.”
He felt himself going beet red. “I—I didn’t think, I didn’t expect…”
She put down his copy of The Hobbit and put a hand on his arm. “You didn’t? Really?”
He hadn’t. Until he’d heard that song back at the café, he hadn’t thought about anything more than dinner and talking.
And even then, he didn’t picture anything more happening—if it did at all—tonight.
“Honestly, no. All I wanted was to not mess up tonight. And—and it’s been amazing. I don’t want to mess it up now.”
She sat on his bed, patted the space next to her.
This was so far beyond anything he could have hoped—or even imagined.
It took him a minute to get up the courage to sit down with her.
“You didn’t mess up. And you’re not going to now.
” She grabbed his shoulders, turned him to face her.
She was only a couple of inches away from him.
“I’m here because I want to be, because I want to be with you.
Because you’re the amazing one. And I’m not going anywhere. ”
She leaned in, and the inches became millimeters, and then he bridged that last tiny distance, his lips on hers, her arms around him, his hands cupping her face.
After a moment, she pulled away, but her arms were still around him, holding him close. He could almost feel her heart beating. He wondered if she could feel his, feel how it was racing. “I—I know what you said. I don’t want you to go. I just…I don’t want…if we—if this…I want it to be…”
Words failed him, but she understood all the same. She caressed his cheek, then leaned in and kissed him again, deeper this time, and he responded. He wasn’t sure how long it was before they both took a breath.
“Can I ask you something?” He nodded; he still didn’t have any words. “Is this your first time?”
He probably should have had some reaction, he didn’t even know what it ought to be. All he did was nod again.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” He surprised himself that he could even manage that word.
“Better than okay. It’s a lot better. It’s a gift that you told me. And that you’re trusting me with tonight.” They kissed a third time, and now, finally, he found his voice.
“I do trust you, Nora. There’s nowhere I’d rather be than here with you.” And this time, he was the one who kissed her, and pulled her close, and didn’t let go.
Nora , just after midnight
It had been halting and awkward. But that didn’t matter. What mattered to Nora was the way he didn’t look away from her the whole time. And what she saw in his eyes, the way he trusted her, and, more, the way he was present , in the moment with her, as nervous as she knew he was.
And he still was present, an hour later. He held her close, as they lay together under the blankets. She’d never been cared for like this afterward, and she told him that.
“Really? Why… I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t—what’s wrong with your old boyfriends?”
They mostly weren’t boyfriends, for one thing, but that was something she could tell him another time. “I think it’s more what’s right with you.”
He didn’t respond for a little while. “I—I like this. This is—who wouldn’t want to be with you, after… well, after?” Then he fell silent again, and there was a faraway look in his eyes.
“Hey, Daniel? Where’d you go?”
He blinked, and focused on her again, but he took his time answering, and she knew he was trying to think of the right way to say whatever was in his mind. “It’s what I was thinking about back at the café, when Take My Breath Away came on the jukebox.”
“She was your high school girlfriend?”
He nodded. “Peggy. We dated for, like, eight months or so. She was a senior at St. Barnabas, it was our sister school. When we needed girls for a play, or when we had a dance, that’s where they came from.
” She’d wondered how that worked when he’d told her about his all-boys school.
“Anyway, she was always at my bus stop in the morning and we got off the bus in the afternoon, and I guess she was flirting with me for a while and I didn’t realize.
Bee said that’s what she was doing, then the day she got her class ring, she was so excited, she showed it to me on the bus, and we just walked together when we got off.
We ended up at her house, and she invited me in, and her parents weren’t there. ”
“And you had your first kiss.” Nora could picture exactly how it had gone.
“They say you’re not supposed to talk about old relationships on a date.”
“They say a lot of things, whoever they are.” She kissed him, slow and long, and when they broke apart, she caressed his cheek and said, “But I really want to hear it, if you want to tell me.”
“I guess you really do.” He wasn’t quite blushing.
“Okay. You’re right, she kissed me, and we—we ended up making out until right before her parents came home.
And I guess after that—we never really said anything, either one of us, we just started spending more time together.
It was probably two months before she called me her boyfriend in front of anybody. ”
“I wouldn’t have waited that long. I would’ve wanted everyone to know you were mine.” She surprised herself as much as him with that.
“I think I’d like being yours,” he answered, and she thought she heard a hint of teasing there.
That was almost better than his words, that he felt comfortable enough to joke around with her.
“But let me—let me finish, I really want you to know. We dated, and it was—it was nice. She was nice. She asked me to her prom, and then she graduated, and it was, I guess the middle of June. We went to see Top Gun , she drove—I had my license but Dad didn’t want me driving at night, so we were in her dad’s car, and when the movie was over, we went back out to the parking lot. ”
Now she knew exactly what the bad memory was, but she let him tell it.
“We got in the car, and she locked it, but she didn’t put the key in the ignition. She—we were making out, and then she—she touched me, she… anyway, she wanted to—right there in the car.”
Nora knew precisely how and where he’d been touched.
This might as well have been one of her own memories, except from the reverse perspective.
The girl she didn’t want to be anymore would have been touching Daniel like that.
The girl she hoped she was stayed quiet and still, because she knew he needed her to hear him.
So she just stared into his pretty— so pretty —eyes, and listened.
“I mean, we were way far away in the corner of the lot, and pretty far from the streetlights, it was like she knew, like she planned exactly where to park.”
“But you—you weren’t ready?” She wished she’d been brave enough or strong enough to say she wasn’t ready, in a parking lot the summer after freshman year of high school.
“I felt like—it just wasn’t right. I liked her, but I didn’t—this will sound ridiculous, but it’s true.
I didn’t really know her. I know you better after a few hours, I mean who you really are, better than I knew her after eight months.
It just—I didn’t want to do it just to check off a box, or just because I was too horny.
And for sure I didn’t want to do it in the backseat of a 1974 Buick Skylark. ”
She couldn’t help laughing, and at the same time feeling a sympathetic twinge of pain. “Believe me, you did her a favor. There’s nothing sexy about a seatbelt buckle grinding into your back.”
“Swear to God, I thought of that—it looked like it would be really uncomfortable for her. And probably me, too.” He went silent again, then pulled her up against him.
“But why I wanted to tell you is, I’m really glad I didn’t that night.
I’m glad I waited. I’m glad it happened with someone as amazing as you.
” He was holding her eyes as he said it, not blinking, not moving a muscle, just telling the absolute truth.
For once, she couldn’t think of anything to say or do. She just let him hold her, and replayed his words over and over, really believing them, and how amazing was that?