Love and Other Words

  “I get that.” He stood, walking over to the futon and sitting down next to me. “I told you already, Mace. I want to be your boyfriend.”

  Reaching out, he coaxed me to him, until I was leaning against him, and finally laying my head in his lap. He picked his book back up, and I had mine, and I listened to the even rhythm of his breathing.

  “You know,” I said, staring up at the ceiling, while he had one hand slowly dragging again and again through my hair, “these books were sort of the perfect gift.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Number forty-seven on Mom’s list is to tell me not to have sex until I can talk about sex.”

  Beneath me, Elliot went very still. “Yeah?”

  “I just think that’s good advice, I guess. Like, if you can’t talk about it, you shouldn’t be doing it.”

  A tiny, nervous laugh burst out of him. “Do you want to talk about sex today?”

  Giggling, I gently punched him in the thigh, and he feigned pain.

  I wanted him to be my boyfriend, too. But I knew even then that I needed baby steps. I wanted the slow transition. I didn’t want to lose a single precious bit of him.

  now

  wednesday, november 8

  S

  ean is on the couch waiting for me when I come home after midnight. Other than my hike with Elliot, I had a crap day. Knowing what I had to do but avoiding it anyway, I went into work around three in the afternoon – a terrible decision. I ended up delivering two terminal prognoses and halting chemo on a third because the little girl couldn’t tolerate another dose (even though her cancer could). I’m in a mental place where I know I’m doing Good but it just doesn’t feel like it, and seeing Sean on the couch intensifies the self-flagellation.

  “Hey, babe.” He pats the cushion next to where he sits.

  I shuffle over, falling down beside him. Not really onto him, or in any sort of snuggly position. For one, I’m in scrubs and want to shower. And two, it just feels weird to lean into him. There’s this invisible force field there, repelling me.

  As if reading my mind, Sean says, “We probably need to talk.”

  “Yeah, probably do.”

  He takes my left hand in both of his, massaging my palm with his thumbs. The touch is distracting because it’s wonderful and reminds me of all the other wonderfully distracting things Sean can do with the rest of his body.

  “I’m pretty sure you’re not happy,” he says.

  I turn and look at him. It takes a few seconds for his face to come into focus because he’s so close, and I’m so tired, but when it does I can see how much this is actually wearing on him. Just because he didn’t talk about it didn’t mean he wasn’t thinking about it.

  Sean and I are exactly alike.

  “Are you?” I ask.

  Shrugging with one shoulder, he admits, “Not really.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  His smile is genuine. “Of course, babe.”

  His answer won’t change how I feel, but I have to know. “Do you love me?”

  The smile straightens, and he searches my expression for a few breaths. “What?”

  “Do you love me?” I ask again. “Seriously.”

  I can tell he is taking it seriously. And I can tell that he’s not so much surprised that I asked as he is surprised at his own instinctive answer.

  “It’s okay,” I say quietly. “Just answer.”

  “I think I need the word between like and love, which means…”

  “‘I hold her in great esteem,’” I say with a smile.

  Never, in the history of time, has a breakup been so gentle. There’s barely a ripple in the water. So maybe we were barely together enough to even break.

  “Do you love me?” he asks, brows pulled together.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Which means no,” he says, smiling.

  “I love you… as a friend,” I say. “I love Phoebs. I love how easy this is, and how little it requires of me right now.”

  He’s nodding. He gets it.

  “But trying to imagine this” – I gesture between us – “for the rest of my life?” I say, kissing his forehead. “It’s sort of depressing. It feels like we’re both headed down the path of least resistance.”

  “Mace?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Isn’t the path of least resistance for you the one with Elliot?” he asks.

  I go still, thinking of the best answer here. In some ways, yeah, of course, falling into Elliot’s bed would be the easiest route, and Sean knows it. There’s no reason not to be honest there.

  But there’s a part of me that believes Elliot and I were always only meant to be best friends. I was so scared of taking that next step with him when we were teens, and as soon as we did, it fell apart.

  “We have history,” I say carefully. “Not bad history, for the most part. But he fucked up. And I fucked up. And we haven’t really discussed that.”

  “Why not?”

  God. The most simple, obvious question.

  “Because…” I start. “Because, I don’t know… that time in my life was really hard, and I made some bad decisions that I don’t really know how to explain. Apparently I’m also mostly dead inside and not really great with expressing the emotions.”

  He sits up, looking at me earnestly. “You know what? If Ashley came home, and was totally clean, and said that to me – ‘Sean, I made some bad decisions. I don’t know how to explain them’ – I think that would be enough.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  He nods. “I miss her.”

  I wrap my arms around him, holding him against my chest. I don’t think Sean has ever cried about Ashley leaving, or about the very real possibility that she’ll never come back. Or the even more horrible likelihood that the doorbell will ring someday and it will be her asking for money.

  Or, even worse, that there will be a policeman there, telling Sean that she’s gone for good.

  “Stay my friend?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he whispers, pressing his face into my neck. “Yeah, I need that, too.”

  I move out a few days later. It really just entails me packing up the two suitcases I brought here a few months ago and moving about six blocks away. For less than seven hundred a month, I’m renting the spare bedroom at Nancy Eaton’s place – she’s a physician on the unit, and her daughter just left for college back east. It’s a temporary situation; not because Nancy hasn’t offered the room indefinitely, but because it feels that way. I own a house in Berkeley and could easily sell it and buy a place in the city, but even the thought feels like a betrayal. I could rent out the house and afford to rent my own place in the city, but that would require me going through all of my parents’ things, and I’m not ready for that, either.

  “You’re a mess,” Elliot says on the other end of the line, after I’ve skimmed through the details of what to do with the Berkeley house.

  He has no idea: I haven’t even told him I ended things with Sean. If Elliot knew that Sean and I broke up, he would come to the city immediately and stare me down until I relented, stretching to kiss him. Sean is the only barrier. He’s the buffer, giving me time to think. I don’t want Elliot to swoon me into falling in love with him again, or to press me to make a decision. I need time.

  I hear something crash in the background and he mumbles a frustrated “Shit.”

  “What was that?” I ask.

  “I just knocked over a pot in the sink. I should do dishes.”

  “You should.”

  “How’s Sean?” he asks.

  The subject change is so abrupt, it catches me off guard. “Good,” I say, adding without thought, “I think.”

  I feel the way Elliot goes still on the other end. “You think?”

  “Yeah,” I deflect. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Are you being evasive with me?”

  “No,” I say, wincing as I search for the best half-truth. I look around my new bedroom, like th
e right answer will materialize on the wall somewhere. “I just haven’t seen him much the past few days.”

  “What are you guys doing for Thanksgiving?” he asks. “This will be your first one together, right?”

  Fuck.

  “I think I work.”

  “You think?” he asks again, and it sounds like he’s eating. “Aren’t residents’ schedules mapped out years in advance?”

  “Yeah,” I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. I hate lying to him. “I was going to trade so I didn’t have to work Christmas, but I haven’t gotten organized about it. I’ll probably be off.”

  Elliot pauses – probably because he knows I’m lying and he’s trying to figure out why. “Okay, so, you have plans or not?”

  “Sean and Phoebe are going to his parents’ place.” I hesitate, holding my breath. “I’m not.”

  I expect him to poke at this, to make some sort of What does that mean? investigation, but he doesn’t.

  He just clears his throat, and says, “Okay, so you’re coming here. I’d better do these dishes before then.”

  then

  wednesday, july 12

  eleven years ago

  T

  he Healdsburg summer had turned from the warm humid hum of bees, berries, and sunshine to the brittle creaking of drying up creeks and unremitting heat. As we passed through the days, it seemed like we started to move more slowly, too. Nowhere was cool enough, except for the river or the closet. But even our blue, starred sanctuary had started to feel claustrophobic. Elliot was so tall; he seemed to take up the entire length of it. And at nearly eighteen, he was vibrating with sexual intensity – I felt entirely too full of nervous energy trying not to touch him. We would spend the mornings roaming the woods near the houses, and the afternoons walking down the road or biking into town for ice cream… but we always ended up back in the closet anyway, lying on the floor, staring up at the painted stars.

  “School’s starting soon,” I said, glancing over at him. “You excited?”

  Elliot shrugged. “Sure.”

  “You like your classes at Santa Rosa?”

  He looked up at me, brows furrowed. “Why are you asking about this now?”

  I’d just been thinking about it. About school starting in the fall, and getting closer to finishing high school. About what he and I would do when we were done, and if we’d end up living closer to each other.

  Living with each other.

  “Just thinking about it, that’s all,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m excited to be that much closer to finishing,” he said. “And the classes at SRJC are fine. I wish I’d decided to come down to Cal for a few days a week instead.”

  “You had that option?” I asked, shocked.

  He shrugged. An obvious yes.

  “Are you going to your fall formal with Emma?” I asked, returning to doodling in my notebook.

  “Macy. What?” He looked bewildered and then laughed sharply. “No.”

  “Good.”

  “Do you want to go with me?” he asked.

  “You want me to go to a school dance with you?”

  “No? Yes? After all our talk of the right way to blend our weekend lives with our weekday lives, I’m not sure what the right answer is,” he said, wincing. “But if you don’t go with me, I probably won’t go.”

  “Really?” I asked, heart pounding. “Because I don’t want to go and get the death glare from all the skanks who love you, but I don’t want you to go and get ogled without me to glare at them, either.”

  He shook his head, laughing. “It’s not like that.”

  “So Emma doesn’t email you all the time anymore?”

  “Not really.”

  “Lies.”

  “She doesn’t.” He held my gaze, steadily. “I’m not into her, she figured it out.”

  I gave him a coy flutter of my lashes. “It’s not that I’m jealous.”

  “Of course not.”

  Just then his phone buzzed and he looked at it, read a text, and then shoved it back in his pocket. He looked very guilty.

  “That was from Emma,” I guessed.

  “Yes.” He picked at nonexistent lint on his pants. “It’s like the universe wants me to look like a liar right now.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing interesting.” He laughed at my skeptical expression. “I swear she never texts me.”

  “If it’s not interesting, why won’t you tell me?”

  He eyed me. “She just asked to hang out.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, then hand me your phone. I’ll tell her you’re busy.”

  He smirked. “Will you include the part where you’re acting insanely jealous?”

  I rolled onto my back and closed my eyes. “Whatever.”

  “Or we could take some pictures of your boobs and ‘accidentally’ text them to her.”

  “Jesus Christ. Give me the phone.”

  I reached for it but his long monkey arm kept it easily away from me and I ended up falling on top of him instead, my boobs completely in his face. He made a muffled happy sound and laughed out a string of unintelligible words, totally pushing his face into my chest.

  I screamed, scrambling back and pushing at his chest to get away. “Pervert!”

  Elliot grabbed my waist and flipped me over as he sat up, pulling me backward into his lap and tickling me with his crazy long fingers, digging into my ribs.

  I gasped and cackled, squirmed as he tickled, and laughed and held his arm around my waist until he rolled over onto me.

  He pinned me gently; his hips fit perfectly between my legs.

  We both froze, out of breath, staring at each other.

  I was seventeen, but I’d never felt something like this before. He was hard, pressing right up against me.

  The mood was suddenly completely different from the wrestle-ticklefest of one minute before.

  Elliot glanced down at my mouth, and then back up to my face. I wanted to say something, to joke about the wood in his pants, anything. But my throat felt tight, my face burning.

  With one elbow propped by my head, he whispered a quiet “Sorry” and began to climb off me.

  I trapped him with my leg around his thigh, and his eyes flew back to mine.

  “Stay,” I whispered.

  I think.

  It might have been my subconscious saying it, because I really didn’t want him to get up. I was obsessed with what was under those buttons on his jeans, and more than that, I wanted to know if… well, I wanted to know what could happen.

  He swallowed audibly. “Okay.”

  I rolled my hips up, watching as his mouth fell open and his eyes fell closed.

  Elliot shifted forward and back, pressing the solid length of himself against me, and did it again. And again. His breath was harder, puffing my hair off my neck, and then his hand gripped my leg and he held his breath and we started grinding in earnest… together. My body was all instinct, chasing something familiar, just in the distance.

  Oh, my God, what were we doing?

  I ran my hands down his back. If I overthought it, I would ruin it.

  This was Elliot.

  This was my Elliot.

  I made fists around his T-shirt, thought about the weirdest things like how his weight felt over me, and that I wanted to kiss him but didn’t want to turn my attention away even a little from the feeling building inside me… and then I spun into a strange loop of wondering whether I was imagining this.

  We were having sex with our clothes on.

  He was so quiet, although I guess I was quiet, too, because I was listening so intently for any clue as to what he was thinking.

  I needed more. I needed him. I’d never felt that sort of weighted heat before, not even when I was thinking about him by myself. It was a rush all over my skin and that heavy need low in my belly. The warmth of his mouth landing on my neck pulled a tiny, helpless sound from me. He
wasn’t sucking or licking, just pressing his mouth there, putting his breath that much closer to my ear so I could hear his reaction in every sharp exhale.

  He let out a low growling sound, and I pressed up into him, grinding, so close. I heard the sound I made – heard the tight plea for faster come tearing out of me.