Chapter 29 #2
I reached out to brush his hair off his forehead. “Can we do the rest? With you involved this time?”
He chuckled. “I think I was pretty involved there.”
“I mean with your other body parts.”
He rolled off the bed, shucking his clothes.
I watched him, seeing all of him for the first time.
He was lean, but not skinny. And while he wasn’t tricked out like the male models who did TikTok dances or the ones who starred in movies, his muscles were wiry and strong. His arms were defined, his chest wide and tight.
I hadn’t watched porn even though I knew it existed, so when the rest of him came out, I sat up. “So that’s it!”
He laughed again. “That’s it.”
“But it’s so long.”
“You said something similar last time.”
“Is that going to hurt?”
“It might a little.”
“Okay. I had my turn. Let’s do this.”
But even though I said those things, he didn’t rush me. His touch skimmed over my body, revisiting the highlights from earlier.
It wasn’t as intense this time, but it calmed and relaxed me. The feeling was sweet, like smelling flowers. Or the last strokes when you brush your hair, and it’s smooth and easy.
He rolled over me, bracing on his elbows. “You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
He shifted my legs and pressed down.
This going into me was nothing like what happened before. My body resisted, and I took a deep breath to relax.
And he was right. There was a pinch, and the feeling of something filling me in a way I had never known.
But then he moved inside me, and the pleasure was like touching something silky, like a satin pillowcase gliding through your fingertips.
As he moved, I felt connected to him, as though everything that had come before had led to this.
Emotions sprinkled over me like a fresh rain.
I held onto his neck, tangling my fingers in his hair.
His eyes were closed with concentration, and his muscles shifted as he moved over me.
I felt on the verge of tears again, like when I heard the song. There would be more of this, so much more of it. The days ahead laid out like a path of flowers. Time with Tucker. Laughing. Cooking. Talking. And doing more of this.
As he said my name, everything in his body tightening, I knew exactly what he was feeling.
His eyes squeezed shut and I knew, even with my lost memory, that he looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen him be before.
I let out a small sob, so relieved that we had gotten here. He had been right all along. I was just too scared to listen. Too broken by what had happened before.
His eyes opened, and the wonder with which he looked at me made my whole body tingle, so much like the time that the sparkles fell from the sky that I washed over with pure joy.
“You were right,” I managed to get out. “You were absolutely right.”
He rolled beside me and drew me against him. “We made it, Ava.”
I buried my face in his neck.
I had come home.
Tucker and I saw each other often after that. I made Big Harry stop threatening to kick him out. Gram would sometimes come to the diner, too, and she and Tucker liked to eat there when the crowd was light.
He turned nineteen, then I did. We had parties, real ones, for actual birthdays, not fake ones making me think I wasn’t my actual age.
I had a family again.
But it was Big Harry who said I should go to college. We sat behind his bar during a slow day, rolling silverware.
“You’re young, Ava. Go to school. Learn some things.”
I placed a knife, fork, and spoon in a red napkin. “Right. Just so I can have a seizure and erase my expensive education.”
“And I could die of a heart attack in five minutes. Still have to roll this silverware.”
I aimed a knife at his bushy beard like I might stab him for saying it. He was officially my favorite person, next to Tucker. And Gram.
“What could I do?” I spread out another napkin.
“I dunno. Be a nurse. A teacher.”
“Right. Because both of those are a great fit if I forget everything.”
“You said your hands remember things your head forgets, right?”
“Yeah. I learned that the first time I cut an onion.” The knife had moved almost on its own.
“Those were some sweet slices.”
“All right, so what does that get me? Car repair?”
“You could play a musical instrument.”
I had never thought to do that. We didn’t have any at Mother’s house out in Wimberley, so I assumed I’d never had lessons.
“What about painting? Can you draw?” Big Harry slid another bin of clean silverware between us. The job never ended.
“No. I tried that. I like taking pictures with my phone, though.” I pulled it out of my pocket to show him shots of downtown, the bar, and the lights over Second Street.
“Those are good. So why not do photography?”
“Tuition? I’m barely getting by already.”
“I tell you what. You sign up at Austin Community College, and I’ll pay for the first semester.”
Huh. I didn’t expect that. “So you’re not as poor as you let on.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
Harry didn’t have a wife. No family. He lived in a trailer behind the building. Even so, he shouldn’t spend his money on me.
“I see those gears turning, Li’l Ava,” he said. “I mean it. Sign up. I’ll pay.”
“You know I’ll have to work fewer hours. You’ll need another part-time server.”
“Missy asked for more hours. She’ll take them.”
I dropped another silverware roll on the stack. “You’ve got it all figured out.”
“Yup.”
I told Tucker about Harry’s offer that night.
He said I should go for it. He was having a hard time that evening, so we stayed over at his gram’s.
He couldn’t look at screens or really have much light at all, so we lay on his bed in the dark, listening to quiet music while I worked out the details in my mind.
It took some effort to enroll. I had no education paperwork to show I’d ever been to school or learned anything.
A friendly lady at ACC combed through everything she could access and said it appeared I stopped attending school in seventh grade, and that my mother stopped filing homeschool exemptions a few years later.
So, I’d have to take some classes in math and English first, then pass the GED. She was able to sign me up for a non-credit photography class, though.
Life sped up. I went to classes and earned my GED. Big Harry paid for two semesters, but then I got a student loan to keep going.
I continued to work at the diner and saw Tucker on his good days. My mother didn’t find me again, and I felt content. Nobody had a perfect life, but this one was about as good as I could expect.