I loosen up and move my hands up to his chest, taking the opportunity to feel the lines of his lean muscles. His fingers graze the bottom of my panties, and for a second the weight of him falls against me. I arch my body into his, knowing that our friendship that once existed is no more, but I don’t care. I want this—want him.
Our slow kiss starts to heat up as his tongue explores the inside of my mouth, and then I gasp for air as he slowly slips a finger inside me.
“I should stop, right?” he pants, pulling back for a minute to look me in the eyes.
I blink through the amazing feelings developing inside my body, trying to focus on his beautiful face and the intensity in his eyes, but I’m losing touch with reality. “No…,” I manage to get out as my neck curves and my head tips back.
He listens to me, touching me more and making me feel things I only ever imagined. He kisses me all the way through it until my body can no longer take it and he has to stop, otherwise I’d pass out from lack of oxygen. His eyes are glossy as he encircles his arm around my waist, and he pulls me with him as he rolls onto his back. I rest my head on his chest, my eyes wide at the implausibility of what just happened.
I drape my arm over his stomach as he plays with my hair. “So am I still stuck in your head?” I say and then roll my eyes at myself.
His fingers stop combing through my hair and he sketches a line down to my cheek to my jawline, where he hooks a finger underneath my chin and tips my chin up so I meet his eyes. “Yes. In fact, I think it’s worse.” He says it like he’s disappointed, almost as if he was hoping that I wouldn’t be, and it makes me sad. I’m about to ask why he looks so upset, but then he dips his mouth to mine and starts kissing me again, and just like that I forget about everything.
Chapter 5
Nova
June 5, Day 17 of Summer Break
The feisty tune of “Last Resort” by Papa Roach plays in the background, but I have it turned down low so it won’t drown out my words. The blinds are shut, blocking out the morning sunlight, and my hair hangs to my shoulders, still damp from the shower I just took. The computer has been recording for about five minutes, but I haven’t said a word. I’ve gotten up a few times and paced my floor, trying to get the thoughts in my head to connect and form coherent sentences. I wonder if that’s what Landon did before he made his video… I wonder if he planned it out.
Finally, I decide there shouldn’t be any preplanning, and plop down in the chair. I’m a little restless as I slant the screen and then tuck my leg under my butt to boost myself up, and then let the first sentence that pops into my head barrel out of my mouth, despite my initial instinct to censor. “Okay, so it’s been a little over two weeks since I got home from college and the dreams and memories of…” I attempt, but then trail off, knowing I’m going to have to say his name, even if I don’t want to. It’s strange, though, talking about him, while looking at myself on the screen of the computer. I can see how just the thought of uttering his name aloud makes my eyes go wide and my pupils shrink, like I’ve suddenly been possessed by a distant memory. I take a deep breath, then another, running my fingers through my hair, and sweeping it out of my face. “Landon…” My eyes enlarge. What will people think if they ever watch this? What will they wonder about me and how I saw myself? “The dreams about him are more intense than they’ve ever been,” I say. “Part of me wants to find a way to shut them off, but part of me wants to hold on to them—hold on to him… forever.”
I cross my arms on the desk, lean closer to the screen, and examine my eyes, noting the vastness in my pupils, circled by a slender blue ring. “When I look at myself, everything inside me pretty much screams to stop thinking about him and to turn off the memories… and I try to count through them… like it’s that simple… but it’s not.” I blow out a breath, gathering my hair behind my head. “I just wish I could figure out a way to know what he was thinking… somehow track things back to why he gave up so easily… why he left me… why I couldn’t see where he was headed.” I bite at my fingernail. “Or maybe I could and I was just in denial… Was that the kind of person that I was? One who denies what’s in front of her?” My voice drops off at the end as the blunt honesty escapes my mouth. I don’t want to hear it or think about it anymore, so I shut the computer down, no longer wanting to look at myself.
* * *
Later that day, Delilah and I are hanging out in my room. The blinds are open and the sunlight flows inside, making the air stifling, even though I have a fan on full blast. I’m sifting through some of my video clips, trying to figure out what the hell the purpose is, besides watching me babble about pointless nonsense that doesn’t really make sense. Am I trying to understand myself? Who I am? Or am I trying to understand Landon? Life? Death? What he was thinking in his final moments, and why did he decide to sit down and record it?
Why do I always have so many fucking questions in my head?
“We should go to that concert down in Fairfield at the end of July. Wouldn’t that be fun? To feed your music addiction,” Delilah says as she sifts through a stack of CDs on my shelf and pulls a few out. She’s wearing a short red dress that matches her red-stained lips and is only a couple of shades darker than her hair. “And why do you have these still? No one listens to CDs anymore.”
I take them from her hand and set them down on my computer desk in an orderly, alphabetized stack: Blink-182 to Taking Back Sunday. “Landon gave them to me,” I say and then keep talking to avoid going down that road with her. I close one of my video files down and try to ignore the file marked “Landon’s” as I open another video clip of mine. “And what concert? I don’t remember hearing about one.”