Zach drove to Becca’s apartment on a slate-gray November Saturday night. The sky was low and overcast, reflecting the lights of the town back on themselves, making the world seem very small and very still.
Zach had not seen Becca since their dinner date on Tuesday night, before the Thanksgiving break; and his whole being was desperate to be in her presence again. While this longing had physical manifestations—increased heart rate, heightened alertness and sensitivity to the world around him—it was not a physical longing. Rather, it was a near-overwhelming emotional need to reveal—to express to her in ways she’d understand—his love for her. After six weeks of casual acquaintance and six weeks of dating (which had included no more than a couple of chaste kisses, hands held on walks together), Zach could no longer suppress what he’d felt since the first moment he’d seen her—that she was the place where the road of his life must stop and stay. He knew—some detached part of his consciousness knew—that this impulse was a reckless leap of faith—in her and in the one who put her in his path. But he never considered any other option, not once. In his heart, there were no other options.
Becca opened the door before he knocked. Without a word, she stood on her tiptoes and kissed his lips then hugged him as tight as she could, her face pressed into his chest. They stayed like that, in the doorway, for a long time. Someone walking past would’ve seen the silhouette of one person in the doorway, and that silhouette unmoving. But no one walked by; the campus was deserted for Break. Zach and Becca had the world, or at least this part of it, to themselves.
Becca finally leaned back far enough to look up at Zach, her arms still wrapped around his waist, her hands firmly linked behind him. “I can’t believe how much I’ve missed you,” she said, then pressed her face against his chest again and squeezed him even tighter than before.
Zach could only laugh, a laugh of pure joy and fulfillment.
From that moment, the rest of their evening unfolded in an alternate universe, a world where all that mattered, all that existed, was the space between their two bodies, where everything that lay beyond their eyes and lips and hands was a prop, a two-dimensional stage set of inconsequence. Each one’s sight was locked on the other all night long. Even when their physical gaze had to leave the other—when Becca slid across the truck seat, when Zach drove to the restaurant—they still were gazing at the other in their hearts. And when they were free to look each into the other’s eyes, their locked stare filled the space between them with the almost tangible essence of their feeling. Weeks later a mutual friend remarked to them that she’d seen them that night at the restaurant, and had called twice to catch their attention, each time to no avail. “You two were out of it,” she said. “The look you shared was scary.”
They went to Milt’s for dinner. It was one of their favorite haunts, but this night it was different. When they walked in, everybody looked up but they didn’t look back. Several people nodded a greeting in their direction, but they didn’t nod back. They sat at a table against the wall, second from the corner. They ordered a pizza and a pitcher of beer. They sipped the beer, nibbled on the pizza, talked of Thanksgiving Day observations and exploits (Becca had spent the holiday with her family in Greensboro, Zach with friends in town seated on their back deck on the 80-degree afternoon). But in truth neither really tasted the beer or the pizza, or heard the words of the other, however intently they seemed to be listening. The sum total of their experience that night was transmitted through the eyes, eyes that saw the other’s and beyond into this huge black void that was not the least bit frightening despite its blackness, a void that was in fact imbued with every promise and hope each had, not only for the other but also—for that moment at least, which was all they knew—for their whole lives.
They stayed at the restaurant a long time that for them passed like no time at all. Because of the holiday weekend, the restaurant was not as busy as usual; and no one was waiting for their table. So the young waitress left them alone; it was clear they had everything they needed. A little before closing time, she slipped the check between them.
Zach drove them to his apartment through a light drizzle. He held Becca’s hand as they walked from the parking lot to the building then up the stairs and along the breezeway to his door. He opened the door and they stepped into his living room without turning on the light.
They’d not once kissed or embraced since leaving Becca’s doorway. Yet what they’d exchanged in those hours that weren’t hours at all but just one instant and all instants was far beyond physical touch, was far more rare and perilous than the most passionate embrace, the most unbridled lust.
So neither was nervous or awkward as they walked into Zach’s bedroom, as each undressed the other in the streetlight’s dim glow that snuck around and pushed through the curtains pulled across the room’s small window, as they lay down on Zach’s crude bed comprised of two sleeping bags spread out on the carpeted floor and covered with sheets and two wool blankets, as they labored to express the love that had already been fully realized through their eyes in the language of joined flesh.