I pace back and forth. The world is spinning. My mind is screaming with all the words I want to say but they’re trapped in my throat. YOU’RE PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL AND ADDICTIVE AND AMAZING AND I CAN’T TURN THIS OFF. I CAN’T ESCAPE YOU. I CAN’T GET OVER YOU. I’M STILL IN LOVE WITH YOU. But I can’t say this out loud so I shout the frustrated abridged version instead.
“You’re insane!”
Dylan watches me. Her face is calm and there’s a trace of a smile on her lips. “I love you too, Gray,” she says.
My heart reacts to her words by jabbing against my ribs. “That’s not what I said.”
“Are you sure?” she asks. “Isn’t that what you want to say, and you can’t? Isn’t that what you’re always fighting when we’re together?”
“We’ve been apart for more than a year, and now you’re suddenly back in my life for one weekend. You can’t say you love me,” I argue.
She studies my face carefully. “I know you better than anyone. I can tell by the way your lips are tightening up and your eyes are narrowing that you know I’m right and it’s pissing you off.”
The firelight is doing strange things with her face. Especially her eyes. I can’t read what she’s thinking. I look at her and suddenly I believe in something. I feel like I’m looking at Fate and Timing and Luck all moving into one tangible space.
I head towards her and get down on my knees in front of her. Everything feels like slow motion. Even my heartbeat is pausing for breath. Movement has new meaning, every touch has complexity. Nothing is easy and it’s too easy.
I push her down on the ground and lie over her. My face is inches from hers. I can feel her chest rising against mine. I can smell her smoky hair and skin.
“This is when you should stop me,” I warn her.
She answers me by leaning forward and pulling my neck down closer. My lips crash into hers and my body follows and then my heart. I pin her body to the ground and my mouth makes up for a lack of words. It spills out all the truth.
I lean away and take a deep, shaky breath and go back for more. Our tongues collide and I want to pull away but I can’t. Her mouth is a high and it’s getting me off.
She pulls her hands around my neck and my hand moves across her chest and down to her waist. Her hands move inside my shirt and slowly work their way down and play at the waistband of my shorts.
She’s sucking on my bottom lip and I run my tongue over her top lip as if we’ve been starving for each other. My fingers slowly trace along her jaw and up to her cheek and back down again to her chin. I’ve been waiting so long just to touch her face.
I’m breathing harder and I run my hand over her chest and push my way under her t-shirt but I can’t get enough of her skin so I start to lift it over her chest. I move my arm around her back to unfasten her bra and she reaches her hand all the way down my shorts, under my boxers, and I gasp.
We suddenly hear gravel crunching in the distance. Dylan tugs her shirt down and I glance up to see a couple walking by our campsite. A flashlight beam is guiding their way.
I dip my head down to Dylan’s neck and press my lips into her skin.
“So much for your lousy avoidance plans,” Dylan says, her breaths deep. She always reads my mind. She bites on the bottom of my ear and it makes me groan with frustration.
“I don’t know why I bother,” I say, my voice gruff, my heart slamming against my ribs. It doesn’t matter. Hands can still go places that eyes can’t. I press my mouth against hers and her teeth lightly graze my tongue and I’m lost in her crazy world full of twisting paths. It’s my favorite journey.
***
It’s hours later and I’m still awake, looking up at a ceiling of stars. Dylan is wearing my hooded sweatshirt and she’s curled up in a ball next to me. Her head is on my chest and my arm is around her shoulder. The air is cold; it carries faint traces of fall. A whisper of sunlight edges into the sky. I can almost feel the earth spinning on its axis, always looking for the sun, attracted by her golden light. I close my eyes.
Tonight it was all so simple. The dark is like fuel for desire, always pushing you one step further, encouraging you to take chances while no one is watching. But the light is a harsh judge of night’s impulsive decisions. Now everything is complicated. And worse, possibly all a mistake.
My eyes are heavy and dry and they burn from two nights of no sleep. I feel her now, like a ticking clock next to me, reminding me to savor each second, as if my relationship with her is always set on a timer about to go off.
Dylan
Gray slides inside a booth and I scoot in next to him and finally it feels natural between us. My knee pushes against his and I can feel the edge of his sandal press against mine under the table and our arms touch on top of the table. I don’t notice the diner or the people, I’m still remembering how last night his hair smelled like smoke from the campfire, how his lips were warm and soft, how salty his skin tasted. I appreciated the camping idea but the only scenery I want to enjoy right now is his naked body. It was so unnerving to be able to feel everything last night and not be able to see anything. I’m a sex-with-the-lights-on kind of girl. Tonight we are getting a hotel room.
A waiter sets down a coffee next to Gray and lemonade in front of me. He slides a plate with a cinnamon roll in between us. I haven’t even looked at the menu—I’m not hungry. Love is a powerful appetite suppressant.
I look at Gray’s eyes and notice the purple shadows under his lower lids. It strangely brings out their blue color. He changed into a black t-shirt at the campground after he took a shower. It’s worn-in and soft and ripping along the hem. He’s wearing olive green shorts that hang low on his hips, and flip flops with a Nike swoosh across the top.
“You didn’t sleep last night,” I say. I touch his cheekbone and graze my fingers over his lips before I pull away.
He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “And these diner coffees are a tease. It’s like drinking strong water.” He dumps a spoonful of sugar in the mug and a creamer. He looks at me. “My brain turns on at night,” he says. “I think it’s nocturnal.”
I nod. “And a sleeping bag spread over rocky gravel is a harder mattress than you’re used to.” He stirs his coffee.
“I’d do it over again a million times, Dylan,” is all he says. His lazy eyes settle on mine. I realize he isn’t complaining about last night.
“Does anything help?” I ask.
“I slept really well the summer I met you,” he tells me.
I think about our daily hiking trips. “All the exercise?” I figure.
“If by exercise you mean sex, then yes, it was all the exercise.”
I nod at the memory. I think we set some world records that summer.
“If scientists could somehow capture the hormones released right after sex, and bottle it as a drug, they would make billions of dollars,” Gray tells me. “That is the calmest feeling in the world.”
I think about this. “You mean like a liquid gel orgasm capsule?” I ask. I’m trying to picture it. It would definitely have to be a red pill. Candy coated. Cinnamon flavored.
Gray shakes his head. “No, it can’t be as potent as an actual orgasm. People would never sleep. They’d be kicking and screaming themselves hoarse.”
I nod. “That would definitely be a side effect,” I agree. “But a great calorie burner.”
“I mean the feeling you get about ten seconds after sex, that floating, perfect, sated feeling.”
“Ah-em,” Gray and I look up when someone clears their throat and the waiter is standing at the edge of the table, staring at us. He’s young and his face is either red from a sunburn or a deep blush. “You ready to order?” he mumbles.
“I think we’re good, thanks,” Gray tells him. The waiter looks at Gray and nods and scurries away like a mouse diving for the nearest hole in the wall.
Gray wraps his fingers around mine. He looks at my lemonade.
“How can you drink that in the morning?” he as
ks me. “It doesn’t have any caffeine.”
I shrug. “It’s the happiest beverage.” I point at his coffee mug. “Why are so many beverages brown?” I wonder. “Coffee, most sodas, beer, apple cider? It’s kind of depressing if you think about it, all the brown things we drink.”
He takes a sip of his coffee and stares at me, expressionless.
“Why are you like you?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” I stir the ice around my cup with a straw.
“Did something happen to you? Seriously, where do you get all your optimism from?”
I peel off a layer of the cinnamon roll. “I overcame a traumatic obstacle in my past that turned me into a compassionate, self- actualized person,” I state. I stick the cinnamon bread in my mouth and Gray is frowning with disbelief. I take a sip of lemonade.
“Nothing happened to me,” I say. “Sorry to be anticlimactic. Does some catastrophic event need to happen in our lives in order for us to appreciate anything?”
“Usually,” he nods.
“Well, I want to be optimistic, because I can be. Complaining is such a waste of time. Instead of focusing on what goes wrong, focus on what’s going right. It’s that simple.”
He shrugs. “Good point,” he says.
“My mom used to host a women’s support club at our house every week.”
“That sounds awful,” he says.
I smile. “It was,” I admit. “But it didn’t have to be. It was supposed to an uplifting support group. But it was a two hour window of whining and complaining. They called themselves the Good News Club and it was all bad news. My sister and I would sit in the stairwell and listen and I always thought, that’s what I don’t want. That is the way I never want to live. We voluntarily make choices every day. We choose what we do. We choose who we’re with. But people act like it’s some kind of a trap. It never made sense to me.”
“Then how do you block out all the negative thoughts?” Gray asks me.
“I guess I’ve mastered the art of daydreaming,” I say.
He takes a bite of the cinnamon roll and he licks sugar off his fingers.
“How do you escape?” I ask him.
“I can’t,” he says. “I don’t have your amazing talent for lack of attention,” he says and follows up with one of his slow smiles.
“You can do better than that,” I tell him.
“When I’m bored, I think of conspiracy theories,” he says.
I take a long sip of lemonade. “What is it with you and aliens all of a sudden?”
“It’s not just aliens,” he says. “It’s government conspiracies. It’s unexplained phenomenons. A kid on my baseball team in high school was obsessed with conspiracies. It’s all he talked about. You have a lot of time to kill in the dugout, especially when you only pitch every third game,” he points out.
“For example?” I ask.
He points out the window. “For example did you know the government can control the weather?”
I look out at the blue sky. “What? Is that true?”
“It’s a theory. That’s one thing that explains climate change. The government can make clouds.”
He points out white, narrow streaks of clouds stretched behind jets.
“What do you think those streaks are?”
“They’re called contrails,” I say. “It’s short for condensation trails.”
“Wow,” Gray says, impressed. “It’s incredibly hot that you know that.”
I shrug. “My dad told me. I was always convinced they were ice highways in the sky, perfect for sledding. He had to ruin my fantasy.”
“What if they’re not contrails? What if that’s just what the government wants you to think? Maybe it’s soap,” he says.
“Soap?” I look up at the white clouds impossibly high and try to imagine flecks of soap inside of them.
“Supposedly, jets fly around spraying soap all over the sky,” he says.
“Why? To wash the sky? What, does it clean up the acid rain?”
He smiles. “That’s a good theory,” he says. “The soap helps absorb some of the sun’s rays and it keeps the earth cooler.”
I look back at him, fascinated.
Gray laughs. “I’m not saying I believe any of it,” he says. “It’s just my distraction.”
“Wow. You’ve opened me up to a whole new world of thought.”
Gray rolls his eyes. “Great.”
Dylan
Gray hands me his car keys after I take a solemn oath that I will never again offer someone a ride without his authorized and signed approval. I unlock the front door and he walks around to the passenger side.
“What if it’s a woman in labor?” I ask across the car from him.
“Definitely no,” he says. “I don’t want afterbirth all over my backseat.”
“What if someone’s been shot and they’re rapidly losing blood and need to get to a hospital?”
“Same rule applies,” he says. I frown at him for his lack of sympathy. “That’s what an ambulance is for,” he argues.
We both slide into the front seat and shut the doors. I turn on the engine.
“What if it’s an abandoned child under the age of five?” I ask.
He shakes his head and I only have one more question.
“Do animals count?” I ask.
Instead of answering me, he shuts me up by leaning over and kissing me. All my thoughts evaporate at the touch of his lips. It starts off slow and soft, but then his lips press harder against mine and his mouth opens up and our breaths combine. His hand squeezes my thigh, and I wrap my hand around the back of his neck because I need him to come closer, but the console divides us. I murmur the words “hotel room” against his mouth because I’m not thinking anymore, just feeling, and Gray leans away. I lean after him, my lips craving more.
“Later,” he says. His determined eyes back up the promise. I reluctantly nod. I know we need to get on the road.
Gray tugs a sweatshirt on and lifts the hood around his face. By the time we hit the highway ramp, he’s already nodding off to sleep.
***
Flagstaff, Arizona. I see a sign off the highway that we’re entering the city limits. The road continues to climb up the mountain to the town hovering over 7,000 feet in the sky. Scrubby bushes and golden desert hills disappear and give way to thick pine trees and lush green forest. It’s as if nature is performing a dress up runway show, trying on different fabrics and styles, and we’re the audience.
When we exit into Flagstaff, Gray is awake, looking for directions to the comedy club. He directs me through campus and downtown. The old buildings have a dilapidated charm.
We slow down across from a small theater on the main street of town, squeezed between college bars and restaurants. An old marquee over the theater entrance advertises the comedy show starting tonight at 8:00. I look at the clock on the dashboard. It’s almost 7:30.
Gray opens the door for me and we walk inside a dim lobby with red velvet walls. A box office desk is in the back corner, surrounded by glass like an old fashioned movie cinema. We stand in line behind a few people, all college-age kids in shorts and sandals and t-shirts, tan from enjoying the last warm summer days.
“Just out of curiosity,” Gray asks, “when’s the last time you saw Serena?” It takes me a few seconds to remember.
“Easter,” I say.
“When’s the last time you spoke to her?”
“A couple of months ago,” I say. “I tried calling her this summer but she never called me back.” Gray looks a little unsettled at this news.
When we’re next in line I lean close to the glass partition. “We’re here to talk to Mike Stone,” I say. “He’s performing tonight.”
“Really?” the guy selling tickets looks back at me like I think he’s stupid. “Thanks for letting me know that, I never would have figured it out.”
Haha. Sarcasm at a comedy club. So fitting.
“Sorry. Listen, I’ve traveled ov
er 2,000 miles for this moment. I’ve endured natural disasters, detours, even being detained by police officers. I need to see him right now. My future depends on it.” I close my mouth and realize I sound like a long distance groupie, the crazy stalker kind that carries ropes and knives, and this worker appears to register the same thing, since he leans back away from the glass.
“You can’t talk to the comedians before the show,” he tells me.
I open my mouth to argue and he cuts me off.
“Sorry,” he says. “The same rule applies to crazy stalkers.”
Gray interrupts us and asks to buy two tickets. He slaps down two twenty dollar bills and we get red ticket stubs in return. Gray pulls me away from the partition before security comes after us.
I follow him down the hallway toward the theater.
“I can’t believe you actually paid to see the vile Impregnator,” I tell him.
“At least it got us inside,” Gray says. “I don’t think your tactic was working any better.”
“I was just being honest,” I say.
He grins at me over his shoulder. “I think gauche is the word you’re looking for.”
“Show off,” I say.
He grabs my hand and pulls back a black curtain. We walk into a small, dark theater with a black stage framed with more black curtains. It smells dank and musty. There isn’t a single window in the room. Black floor tiles shine under our feet. Even the tables and chairs are black. I feel like I’m standing in the waiting room of death.
“This is a comedy show, right?” I ask, looking around.
There’s a bar at the back of the theater, lit up around the sides with ribbons of fluorescent lights. Gray walks up to the bartender who’s dressed in a black shirt and slacks. He sets cash down on the counter.
“Where’s the green room?” Gray asks the bartender.
He looks at the cash and back at Gray. “Why do you want to know?”