Dylan tosses the remote on the floor and she climbs onto my lap. Her legs straddle my waist. She lifts her shirt over her head and she isn’t wearing anything underneath. Her freckled skin glows in the golden light.
I inhale a sharp breath. I look over her body, something I couldn’t do last night in the dark. I take my time, drinking in every soft feature. I wrap my hands around her hips and pull her close. She rests her arms on my shoulders and her fingertips feel like tiny bites on my skin.
The only sound in the room is the shower still dripping beads of water onto the linoleum. I can almost hear the steam rolling as I move my hands higher up her waist and all these emotions flood through my head and into my heart and then explode through my veins. Even my eyes hurt, everything hurts because I am holding the only thing I want. I press my lips against hers before I say something stupid, like ask her to marry me, or do something stupid, like cry. My hands are shaking and that’s the scary thing about love. It makes you shake.
I decide to stop thinking and let my mind drown in this fucking fragile, volatile thing that is happening between us.
All the blood in my body rushes to one place with so much force it makes me shudder. I push her down on the bed and climb on top of her. I kick off my shorts and shoes without letting go of her lips. I come up for air only to peel off my t-shirt. I reach down to the floor next to the bed and grab the condoms out of my bag.
I rip the wrapper open with my teeth and kiss her while I unwrap it and put it on with one, easy glide. I feel like I’m laying claim over Dylan. Every time I move inside of her I want to say mine. You’re mine. I’m staking something that has always been mine, that should always be mine. I’m immortal and high and tightening and pulling apart all at the same time. I put my hand between her legs, a trick I learned the first summer we met, and pretty soon her legs are shaking along with mine and her breathing turns into a shudder. I sink into her and hold on.
She pants for air and traces her fingers around my temples and through my hair and I’m pulled apart. I’m done and we’re both breathing hard, but I don’t pull out. I press all my weight into her and breathe.
“Are you okay?” she asks. I feel her throat move under my mouth.
Yes. No. Perfect. Awful. Fuck me. No pun intended.
I nod and blink against her skin as tears gather in the corner of my eyes and I’m crying. I’m fucking crying. I turn my face into the pillow and squeeze my eyes hard and blink away the tears. I’m afraid to move, afraid I’ll fall apart and Dylan doesn’t say anything. Her fingers just swirl and move and play. I roll off of her and she rests her head on my chest and after a few minutes she falls asleep on top of me with her arm draped over my shoulder. I stare up at the ceiling and feel like I’m in the middle of nowhere and the center of everything.
Maybe we’re just two fucked up souls, lost, only complete when we’re together. Maybe that’s what love is all about. Being humble enough to admit you can’t make it on your own. You need a person in order to call a place home. You need love to save you from yourself. You need to love another person so you give a little something every day.
“Dylan, what are you doing to me?” I mumble to the ceiling.
Dylan
After a three-hour morning sex marathon, we emerge from the hotel room, slow and stiff as if we just ran a triathlon. I have sex hair. Not bed hair—sex hair. It is much more violently rumpled than bed hair. I leave the windows in our room open so it can air out. It smells like latex and sweat inside. I carry out the garbage with me because I’m a little embarrassed there are six used condoms inside. I throw the garbage in a trash can next to a bench outside our hotel door.
Gray opens his trunk and tosses a baseball cap at me. I catch it and examine the black fabric.
“You might want to put it on,” he says. “You look like you’ve been electrocuted.” He points to my head.
I smile and tug the cap over my wild hair. He grabs my hand and we walk to the lobby to check out. My legs ache and my thighs hurt and my steps are wobbly.
“Ow,” I say. Gray looks over at me. “My crotch is so sore,” I moan loudly, just as we realize there’s a family walking behind us. We turn and the mother shoots me a slut stare and pushes her two younger boys towards their car.
“Classy,” Gray says.
“Sorry, but it’s true. Does your penis ever get sore?” I wonder.
“Never,” he says without hesitating. “That’s like asking somebody if they get sore from an amazing massage. No, they just feel absolutely amazing.”
He opens the door for me and we walk inside the lobby. The small room is warm and stuffy. I sit by the window and examine a pile of books stacked on the ledge while Gray checks out. The books are ragged, with torn covers faded from the sun. I pick one up and look at the cover, featuring a picture of the Eiffel Tower. I read words underneath the iron statue. Je t’aime.
I stare at the phrase, how simple the words look in another language, how elegant like it’s the name of a painting, or a movie, or a song. They’re not intimidating. They roll off your tongue. They’re something to be celebrated, lyrics to write, poems to recite.
I follow Gray outside and as we cross the parking lot to his car, I start to panic. I was so busy enjoying the beginning of everything, I never prepared for the end. I refuse to accept that this is it. I refuse to say my least favorite word of all time: goodbye.
I open up a complimentary state map of Arizona I took from the lobby counter and stare at the interconnecting jumble of lines and highways.
We haven’t discussed our next move. We haven’t had the “us” talk yet. How have we missed this pivotal conversation? Last night, leaving Flagstaff, there was only one clear thought in my head, and that was Gray. The roads were twisting around us while we drove and I couldn’t see beyond each turn. I didn’t know where we were going, and I didn’t care because I was with the only person I wanted. I look over at Gray as he walks across the parking lot. How do you make a person your final destination?
I stare down at the map of Arizona, desperate to lengthen the moment. We can’t separate like this. The end of our road trip was always a vague time, a far away date.
A green space hovers over my finger on the map.
The Grand Canyon. We’re practically there. The base of the south rim nearly touches our highway exit.
“Can we go?” I ask Gray.
“You’ve never been to the Grand Canyon?” he asks and I shake my head. “You’re really capable of picking a destination?” he asks, his eyes on mine. I know there’s more to his question. The Grand Canyon feels like the perfect place to spill my mind. It might actually be large enough to hold all of my thoughts.
“It would be the perfect ending point to our itinerary,” I say.
He smiles. “I can almost hear your camera shaking in your backpack,” he says.
***
I’m not prepared for this much beauty. It’s like seeing spiritual transcendence fall to the earth and lay down at your feet. Your only instinct is worship it, and be humbled in its presence. Even though the canyon is in front of me, right under my feet, I still think I’m imagining it. There is the past, mixed with the present and suddenly you can see time, the way it gathers in waves of dust and dirt and rock.
I stare out at the sea of rock walls beneath us. Sounds don’t have to compete out here, they each get their own solo. A bird crows in the sky, followed by a breeze blowing through the trees. A tourist shouts.
“Can we hike to bottom?” I ask Gray as we sit down at the edge of a trail to take in the view. I wonder if there is a bottom. I would rather imagine it goes on forever, like space, the further you go the more it expands.
“You need to buy a permit to do the hike,” Gray says. “They sell out almost a year in advance.”
“She’s a popular place,” I say.
He nods. I want to promise him we’ll come back here together. Someday we’ll do this hike and we’ll sleep 5,000 feet under sea level. I wo
nder how cold it is, or if the stars look any different. I wonder if you can hear the stomach of the earth rumbling. All I know is I want to experience it with Gray. I don’t want this to be our last day together.
We both kick off our shoes and sit at the rim’s edge. I take a picture of our naked feet, dangling over the mouth of rocks and set my camera aside. It might be my favorite picture yet. I press my knee against his and let my head rock onto his shoulder.
“You’re a lot like this,” he says.
“A big empty hole?” I ask. “Thanks.”
“Something you can never really understand,” he says. “The longer you stare at it, the more complex it gets. The more it just keeps going on and on forever.”
“So, it’s better just to admire it from a distance?” I figure. Gray smiles.
“Sometimes.”
“It must drive you nuts.” I wrap my arms around my knees and look down at the chasm. I swallow down a bubble of sadness forming in my throat. I know what he’s trying to say. “So you’re giving up on me?” I ask. “For good?”
“I’m just accepting it, Dylan. It’s who you are.”
I nod slowly. “So, I’m the Grand Canyon, to you? Is this your metaphorical way of saying we can never be together? Because no one can ever live in the Grand Canyon. It’s a National Park,” I point out in case he doesn’t know, as if he didn’t just pay a twenty-dollar entrance fee to use the parking lot. Gray looks over at me and our eyes lock. His eyes completely match the blue sky around us.
“Am I off limits to you?” I ask.
“You make yourself off limits to people. You push people away, just like I do. You run away before you ever have to feel tied down. You make it impossible for people to get too close to you. The only difference is, you do it by accident. I do it by choice.”
I look out at the canyon. She seems so old and wise. I wish she could tell me what to do in this moment. What to say. Every word suddenly feels paramount.
“That’s why Serena’s mad at you,” Gray says.
I lift my shoulders. “I went after her. I tried.”
“Dylan, has it ever occurred to you, maybe your sister is just like you?” Gray asks. “Maybe you’re not the only free spirit in the family?”
I look at Gray and his eyes are still on me. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“You have to keep trying,” he says. “You have to go after her. You don’t give up on your family.”
I look away and feel the back of my eyes sting. I know he’s right. But a tiny, selfish voice inside of me wants Gray to tell me to give up, to run away with him. To stay with him. It would be easier. It would be an excuse. But Gray knows I need to spread myself out in order to be happy. Gray is the only person who has ever loved me enough to understand. I feel a pang in my chest, something like rejection. He’s letting me slip through his fingers again. And this time I didn’t want him to let go. But our roads always seem to split into opposite directions
I take a long, concentrated breath. Beginnings are so easy. You are fresh, new, fully charged. It’s the closing that is always impossible. We stumble and trip because we are suddenly tied to our actions and they become chain reactions. The last step you take, the last word you say, the final note to a song, the ending to a story. That is when the pressure hits.
“I don’t know where she’s going now,” I say. “Flagstaff was the last show Mike posted on his website.”
“You’ll figure it out,” he says. “You have to.”
“Why?” I ask and look at him.
“Because you have a sister,” he says. He points behind us. “Mine died in a hospital, in Flagstaff, four years ago and I can never get her back. I know this all seems devastating and tragic to you right now, and I’m not saying what happened with Serena isn’t a big deal, but I’m jealous of you. Because this is just a fight. You can fix this. You can still have her in your life. That is a privilege. Don’t lose that.”
I feel tears in my eyes, finally spilling out and it’s a relief to let them go. Tears stream down my face and I’m starting to see things clearly, even through my blurry vision.
“I didn’t realize how much I loved Amanda, how much I needed her, until she was gone. Don’t make that mistake,” Gray says.
“I love you so much,” I tell him. I wipe my fingers over my wet cheeks to try and dry them off. “I’ll always love you. You believe that, right?”
He nods slowly.
“Then what about you?” I ask. “What about us?”
He looks at me. “Was there ever really an us?” he asks. “Or just a me, and a you, and these random moments when our lives accidently collide? Maybe that’s it for us.”
I look out at the canyon and suck in a deep breath. I can’t accept this theory. I don’t believe in accidents.
“I wasn’t just upset about Serena last night,” I say. “It was something she said. She told me I drew this out between you and me, for three years, because I was only thinking of myself.”
He leans back on his hands. “Don’t compare yourself to Serena,” he says. “Her situation is completely different. If I knocked you up in Phoenix the summer we met, everything would have changed. You might have even accepted my proposal,” he says.
“I think about that sometimes.” I look over at Gray. “Was that real? I mean, what would have happened if I had said yes?”
He runs his hand over his hair. “I don’t know. I think I would have seriously married you,” he says. “I was so crazy about you. You became my entire world that summer.”
“I don’t think I would have regretted it, like I said I would. Maybe I should have said yes.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Gray says.
I exhale with relief. At least he’s forgiven me.
“Really?” I ask.
“I don’t want to be married in college,” he tells me. “And when you left it forced me to stand on my own feet. It took a while, but I finally managed. I think if you had stayed with me, I would have always depended on you, like a crutch. I think that would have pressured you after a while.”
“I’ve been thinking about love,” I say. “You know how you always say I throw the word around too easily?”
“Yes. You do,” he says.
“Well, I realized something over the past year. You can love anyone. It’s not that hard. I love Nick. I love my friends and my family. I love bacon,” I say and Gray smiles. “But it’s different to be in love. I’ve only ever been in love with you.”
Gray doesn’t respond. He just looks out at the silent canyon.
I stand up slowly, my body stiff, and take pictures of the canyon walls. I ask Gray to take my picture with the canyon in the background. I hold out my hands to show it off, like it’s a new car.
Gray drops the camera and studies me.
“You know why I love you?” he asks and walks up closer to me. “You’re this,” he says and jostles the camera in his hands. “To me.”
“I’m a camera?” I say and he nods. He aims the camera out at the canyon and starts to take pictures.
“Why do you love your camera, Dylan?” he asks.
I sit down and think about it. I could list a million reasons. Gray sits next me. “It helps me to see,” I say. “I appreciate so much more when I have it. It widens my perspective; it makes me want to soak up every detail. It never misses a thing, it never blinks. The whole world is crisper and brighter and clearer. It sees beauty without judging it. It makes me want to take every temporary moment and make it permanent.”
I stop rambling and look over at Gray. He’s smiling. “Exactly,” he says.
“I’m your camera,” I say, stunned. It’s the greatest compliment he could ever give me.
Gray
Dylan’s cell phone suddenly rings and she takes it out of her pocket and checks the caller I.D. on the screen. She gasps.
“It’s Serena,” she says and nerves shoot through my stomach as she accepts the call.
“Hello?” Dyla
n asks and her eyes instantly widen. I can faintly hear screams coming through the speaker. “Okay, okay, just try to stay calm. Where are you?”
I stare at Dylan and her eyes are absorbed as she listens.
“How much time is there between your contractions?” She nods. “About twenty minutes? And they’re light? Okay, you’ll be fine. You have plenty of time. You’re only an hour from the hospital. Early labor can last all day,” Dylan tells her. She rolls her eyes. “No, I haven’t had a baby out of wedlock, I just did some research to try and help you.”
Dylan’s face breaks into a beaming smile.
“You want me there? In Los Angles?” she says. She looks at me and I nod.
“We’re on our way.” Dylan turns off her phone. “She wants me there!” she shouts.
We both jump to our feet and Dylan turns to the Grand Canyon. “There’s going to be a baby!” she screams out. Her voice echoes against the rocks.
Tourists around us clap and offer their congratulations. I grab Dylan’s hand and pull her down the trail.
“Sorry,” Dylan says. “But you should always shout good news.”
We turn and race down the trail for the parking lot and dive into my car. I have the car running before Dylan even shuts her door. My hands are shaking as I shift into reverse. Why am I nervous?
“You ready?” I ask.
Dylan nods and her eyes are focused out the window with determination. She sticks her arm out the open window and slaps the side of my car like it’s a horse. “It’s game time,” she says.
We wind through the park roads and the twenty miles per hour speed limit makes it feel like a slow crawl.
Her cell phone rings again and she looks down at the screen.
“Serena?” I ask and she smiles and shakes her head.