Ugly Love

“Rachel,” I say, grinning at the embarrassed look on her face.

She looks me in the eyes.

She wants to take a shower with me. She’s just too shy to ask.

“Get in,” I say.

My voice is hoarse, like I’ve been screaming.

My voice was fine five seconds ago.

I close the shower curtain to hide what she’s doing to me but

also to give her privacy while she undresses. I haven’t seen her

without her clothes on. I’ve felt what’s underneath them.

I’m suddenly nervous.

She turns the light off.

“Is that fine?” she asks timidly. I say it is, but I wish she were

more confident. I need to make her more confident.

She opens the shower curtain, and I see one of her legs make

its way in first. I swallow when the rest of her body follows.

Luckily, there’s just enough light from the night-light to cast a

faint glow over her.

I can see her enough.

I can see her perfectly.

Her eyes lock with mine again. She steps closer to me. I

wonder if she’s ever shared a shower with anyone before, but

I don’t ask her. I take a step toward her this time, because she

seems scared. I don’t want her to be scared.

I’m scared.

I touch her shoulders and guide her so that she’s standing

under the water. I don’t press myself against her, even though I

need to. I keep distance between us.

I have to.

The only things that connect are our mouths. I kiss her softly,

barely touching her lips, but it hurts so bad. It hurts worse than

any other kiss we’ve shared. Kisses where our mouths collide.

Our teeth collide. Frantic kisses that are so rushed they’re

sloppy. Kisses that end with me biting her lip or her biting

mine.

None of those kisses hurt like this one does, and I can’t tell

why this one is hurting so much.

I have to pull back. I tell her to give me a minute, and she nods,

then rests her cheek against my chest. I lean back against the

wall and pull her with me while I keep my eyes closed tightly.

The words are once again attempting to break the barrier

I’ve built up around them. Every time I’m with her, they want

to come out, but I work and work to cement the wall that

surrounds them. She doesn’t need to hear them.

I don’t need to say them.

But they’re pounding on the walls. They always pound so hard

until all our kisses end up like this. Me needing a minute and

her giving me one. They need out now worse than ever before.

They need air. They’re demanding to be heard.

There’s only so much pounding I can take before the walls

collapse.

There are only so many times my lips can touch hers without

the words spilling over the walls, breaking through the cracks,

traveling up my chest until I’m holding her face, looking into

her eyes, allowing them to tear down all the barriers that stand

between us and the inevitable heartbreak.

The words come anyway.

“I can’t see anything,” I tell her.

I know she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t want

to elaborate, but the words come anyway. They’ve taken over.

“When you move to Michigan and I stay in San Fran? I don’t

see anything after that. I used to see whatever future I wanted,

but now I don’t see anything.”

I kiss the tear that’s running down her cheek.

“I can’t do this,” I tell her. “The only thing I want to see is

you, and if I can’t have that … nothing else is even worth it.

You make it better, Rachel. Everything.” I kiss her hard on the

mouth, and it doesn’t hurt at all this time, now that the words

are free. “I love you,” I tell her, freeing myself completely.

I kiss her again, not even giving her the chance to respond.

I don’t need to hear her say the words to me until she’s ready,

and I don’t want to hear her tell me that the way I feel is

wrong.

Her hands are on my back, tugging, pulling me closer. Her legs

are wrapping around mine like she’s trying to embed herself

inside me.

She already has.

It’s frantic again. Teeth-crashing, lip-biting, hurried, rushed,

panting, touching.

She’s moaning, and I can feel her trying to pull from my

mouth, but my hand is wrapped in her hair, and I’m covering

her mouth desperately, hoping she’ll never break for breath.

She makes me release her.

I drop my forehead to hers, gasping in an effort to keep my

emotions from spilling over the edge.

“Miles,” she says breathlessly. “Miles, I love you. I’m so scared.

I don’t want us to end.”

You love me, Rachel.

I pull back and look her in the eyes.

She’s crying.

I don’t want her to be scared. I tell her it’ll be okay. I tell her

we’ll wait until we graduate, then we’ll tell them. I tell her

they’ll have to be okay with it. Once we’re out of the house,

everything will be different. Everything will be good. They’ll

have to understand.

I tell her we’ve got this.

She nods feverishly.

“We’ve got this,” she responds back, agreeing with me.

I press my forehead to hers. “We’ve got this, Rachel,” I tell her.

“I can’t quit you now. No way.”

She takes my face between her palms, and she kisses me.

You fell in love with me, Rachel.

Her kiss removes a weight from my chest that is so heavy I feel

like I’m floating. I feel like she’s floating with me.

I turn her until her back is against the wall.

I bring her arms above her head and link my fingers through

hers, pressing her hands into the tile wall behind her.

We look into each other’s eyes … and we completely shatter

rule number two.

Chapter thirteen

TATE

“Thanks for making me go,” Miles says to Corbin. “Aside from another hand injury and finding out you thought I was gay, I had a good time.”

Corbin laughs and turns to unlock our door. “It’s not exactly my fault I assumed you were gay. You never talk about girls, and you’ve apparently left sex off your schedule for six years straight.”

Corbin gets the door open and walks inside, toward his bedroom. I stand in the doorway, facing Miles.

He’s looking straight at me. Invading me. “It’s on the agenda now,” he says with a smile.

I’m an agenda now. I don’t want to be an agenda. I want to be a plan. A map. I want to be on a map to his future.

But that breaks rule number two.

Miles backs into his apartment after opening his door, and he nods his head in the direction of his bedroom.

“After he goes to sleep?” he whispers.

Fine, Miles. You can stop begging. I’ll be your agenda.

I nod before closing the door.

I shower and shave and brush my teeth and sing and put on just enough makeup to make it look like I didn’t put on any makeup at all. And fix my hair to make it look like I didn’t fix my hair at all. And put back on the same clothes I had on earlier so it doesn’t look like I changed clothes at all. But really, I changed my bra and my underwear, because they didn’t match before but now they do. And then I freak the hell out because Miles will see my bra and underwear tonight.

And possibly touch them.

If it’s part of his agenda, he might even be the one to remove them.

My phone receives a text, and the sound startles me, because a text isn’t on the agenda at eleven o’clock at night. The text is from an unrecognized number. All it says is:

Is he in his room yet?

Me: How do you have my number?

Miles: I stole it from Corbin’s phone while we were driving.

There’s a weird voice in my head, singing, “Na-na-na-na boo-boo. He stole my number.”

I’m such a child.

Me: No, he’s watching TV.

Miles: Good. I have to run an errand. I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Leaving the apartment unlocked in case he goes to bed before then.

Who runs errands at eleven o’clock at night?

Me: See ya.

I stare at my last text to him and cringe. It sounds way too casual. I’m giving him the impression that I do this all the time. He probably thinks all my days go something like this:

Random guy: Tate, you want to have sex?

Me: Sure. Let me finish up with these two guys, and I’ll be right over. By the way, I don’t have any rules, so anything goes.

Random guy: Awesome.

Fifteen minutes pass, and the television finally switches off. As soon as the door to Corbin’s bedroom closes, mine opens. I’m across the living room and slipping out the front door and then bumping into Miles, who is standing in the hallway.

“Good timing,” he says.

He’s holding a bag. He moves it to his other hand so it’s not as visible to me.

“After you, Tate,” he says, pushing open his door.

No, Miles. I follow. That’s how it is with us. You’re solid, I’m liquid. You part the waters, I’m your wake.

“You thirsty?” He walks toward his kitchen, but I’m not sure if I can follow him this time. I don’t know how to do this, and I’m scared he’ll notice that I’ve never had a rule number one or two before. If the past and the future are off limits, that only leaves the present, and I have no idea what to do in the present.

I walk to the kitchen in the present. “What do you have?” I ask him.

The bag is on the counter now, and he sees me eyeing it, so he pushes it aside, out of my view.

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll see if I have it,” he says.

“Orange juice.”

He grins, then reaches toward the bag. He pulls out a container of orange juice, and the simple fact that he even thought about it is testament to his generosity. It’s also testament that it doesn’t take much to make me melt. I should tell him my one rule has just become Stop doing things that make me want to break your rules.

I take the orange juice from him with a smile. “What else is in the bag?”

He shrugs. “Stuff.”

He watches me open the juice. He watches me take a drink of the juice. He watches me put the lid back on the juice. He watches me set the juice on his kitchen counter, but he doesn’t watch me closely enough to notice how fast I can lunge for the bag.

I grab it right before his arms wrap around my waist.

He’s laughing. “Put it back, Tate.”

I open it and look inside.

Condoms.

I laugh and toss it back onto the counter. When I turn around, his arms don’t leave me. “I really want to say something inappropriate or embarrassing, but I can’t think of anything. Just pretend I did and laugh anyway.”

He doesn’t laugh, but his arms are still around me. “You’re so weird,” he says.

“I don’t care.”

He smiles. “This whole thing is weird.”

He’s telling me how weird this is, but it feels pretty damn good to me. I’m not sure if weird feels good or bad to him. “Is weird good or bad?”

“Both,” he says. “Neither.”

“You’re weird,” I tell him.

He grins. “I don’t care.”

He moves his hands up my back, to my shoulders, and slowly down my arms until his hands are touching mine.

That reminds me.

I pull his hand between us. “How’s your hand?”

“Fine,” he says.

“I should probably check it out tomorrow,” I say.

“I won’t be here tomorrow. I leave in a few hours.”

Two thoughts cross my mind. One, I’m very disappointed he’s leaving tonight. Two, Why am I here if he’s leaving tonight?

“Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

He shakes his head. “I can’t sleep now.”

“You didn’t even try,” I say. “You can’t fly a plane on no sleep, Miles.”

“The first flight is short. Besides, I’m copilot. I’ll sleep on the plane.”

Sleep isn’t on his agenda. Tate is.

Tate overrules sleep on his agenda.

I wonder what else Tate overrules?

“So,” I whisper as I drop his hand. I pause, because I don’t have anything to follow the So. Nothing. Not even a la-ti-do.

It’s quiet.

It’s getting awkward.

“So,” he says. His fingers move through mine and spread them apart. My fingers like his fingers.