And I’m sure he didn’t mean what he said when he called me a Steve Jobs cultist who worships inferior technology because I’m too much of a bubblehead high on apps to know the difference.
On second thought, no. I like the truce we have going on today. The letters can wait.
I walk over and sit down on his bed, bringing up my legs to sit cross-legged. He kicks off his shoes and lies down sideways on the bed, supporting his head on his hand.
I take the sandwich and peel off the top crust while he pops a grape in his mouth.
I stare down at the food. I’m hungry, but I’m also tired and suddenly feel like I don’t give a shit. One of us has to start talking.
He wants something true? Something he doesn’t know?
“I didn’t have many friends in grade school,” I tell him, still keeping my eyes down. “I had one. Delilah.”
He’s quiet, and I know he’s staring at me.
“She had this shaggy blonde hair that kind of looked like a mullet, and she wore these frumpy corduroy skirts,” I went on. “They looked thirty years old. She wasn’t cool and she didn’t dress right. She was alone a lot like me, so we played together at recess, but…”
I narrow my eyes, trying to harden them as the image of her comes to the forefront in my mind.
“But I got tired of not hanging out with the popular kids,” I admit. “I’d see them hanging on each other, laughing and surrounded by everyone, and I felt…envious. Left out of something better. I felt like I was being laughed at.” I lick my dry lips, still avoiding his eyes. “Like I could feel their eyes crawling over my skin. Were they disgusted by me? Why didn’t they like me? I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t have thought that kids who shunned me would be worth it, but I did.”
I finally raise my eyes and find his green ones watching me, unblinking.
“And in my head,” I continue, “Delilah was holding me back. I needed better friends. So one day I ran off. When recess time came, I hid around a corner so she wouldn’t find me, and I watched her. Waiting for her to go off and play with someone else so I could do the same and she wouldn’t look for me.
I swallow, my throat stretching painfully.
“But she didn’t,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes. “She just stood against a wall, alone and looking awkward and uncomfortable. Waiting for me.” My body shakes, and I start to cry. “That was the day I became this. When I started to believe that a hundred people’s fickle adoration was worth more than one person’s love. And for a while it felt kind of good.” Tears stream down my face. “I was lost in the novelty of it. Being mean, slipping in a quick insult, making a joke of others and of my teachers…I felt respected. Adored. My new skin suited me.”
And then more images creep in, still so vivid after all this time.
“But months later, when I’d see Delilah playing alone, being laughed at, not having anywhere to belong…I started to hate that skin I was so comfortable in. The skin of a fake and shallow coward.”
I wipe the tears, trying to take in a deep breath. He’s looking at me, but the heat of shame covers my face, and I’m worried. What does he think of me?
“And when I started writing you a year later,” I go on, “I needed you so much by that point. I needed someone I could be the person I wanted to be with. I could go back. I could be the girl who was Delilah’s friend again. The girl who stood up to the mean kids and didn’t need a spirit animal, because she was her own.”
I close my eyes, just wanting to hide. I feel the bed shift under me and then his hands cupping my face.
I shake my head, inching away. “Don’t. I’m awful.”
“You were in fourth grade,” he says, trying to soothe me. “Kids are mean, and at that age, everyone wants to belong. You think you’re the only one who feels like shit? Who’s made mistakes?” He nudges my face, making me open my eyes and look into his. “We’re all ugly, Ryen. The only difference is, some hide it and some wear it.”
I slide the food out of the way and crawl into his lap, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his neck, hugging him close. He gently falls back onto the bed, lying down and taking me with him.
Why didn’t we do this ages ago? Why was I so scared to meet him and change things? We’ve been there for each other during his grandmother’s funeral, lengthy summer camps with hardly any communication to each other, and even a couple of girlfriends of his who I never told him I was really jealous of.
Why did I think that all the words and letters and the friendship would fade so easily?
His arms hold me tight as I lay my head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat and the light tapping of rain against the window. This is new for me. I’ve been comfortable in places, but I think this is the first time I’ve been anywhere I never want to leave. My eyelids fall closed, sleep pulling at me.
“I have a question,” he speaks up, causing me to stir.
“Hmm?”
“When you write on the walls at school, you sign the messages as Punk. Why?”
I keep my eyes closed, but I breathe out a weak, little laugh. “Do you remember the letter you wrote about your first tattoo and your dad saying you looked like a punk?”
“Yeah?”
“So it was a tribute to you,” I tell him. “A shout out to the ruffians and rule breakers.”
“But why not use your own name?”
I pinch my eyebrows together. “Because I don’t want to get caught.” Duh.
“Okay…” he says. “So what you do is hide in the dark to share words anonymously, because you want to be heard but not mocked. Is that it?”
I open my eyes, thinking. Is that what I do?
“You want to be loved without risking consequence, so you reach out to get the attention you need while enjoying the luxury of taking no responsibility for those words.”
I start to shrink into myself. I don’t like what he’s saying or the fact that he’s saying it, but I can’t deny that he’s right.
I don’t want to hear feedback, because if they knew it was me, their reactions would be different. But it’s not exactly fair to throw things in their faces and hide under their noses, either.
“Alone, Empty, Fraud, Shame, Fear,” he murmurs, holding me tighter. “Don’t you get it yet? You don’t have to be afraid or embarrassed. No one does you better than you. You can’t be replaced. Not everyone will see that, but only you need to.”
He kisses my hair, and I wrap my arm around his torso. No one does me better than me.
I close my eyes again, hearing what he’s saying. I changed, because I didn’t think what I brought to the table was worthy enough. I let them make me believe that, but who made them authorities? I may no longer be adored, but I might not be so miserable, either.
And I may eat alone, but that’s not such terrible company, is it?
I feel him move under me, and then a blanket covers my legs and body, locking our warmth in under the covers. I slowly drift off to sleep to the sounds of the rain and his heartbeat.
A velvety tickle glides across my skin, and I strain to lift my lids. The room is darker, the sun having set, but the soft glow of the lamp on the bedside table illuminates the bed, and I glance over at the window, seeing that it’s now dark outside. The rain pounds hard, echoing through the roof, and thunder rolls outside.
Misha is bare-chested and propped up on his side next to me, his head down by my ass.
Which is bare, because he’s pulled up my shirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh, don’t move,” he orders, moving a pen over my skin. “You’re the closest thing I have to write on.”
I snicker, closing my eyes again. He’d better not be using a Sharpie. That’ll take days to get off.
The peaceful noise of the rain outside lulls me back into relaxation, and I fold my arms under my head, feeling the felt tip move quickly over my skin, stopping every so often to dot an “I” or poke a period.
“I wish we could stay here forever,” I muse.
“Oh, you’re not moving anytime soon. Your ass is too nice to look at.”
I cross my legs at the ankles, teasing, “Is that all a Thunder Bay boy can do with a girl’s ass?”
A light slap hits my right cheek, and I laugh.
But then, after a pause, he stops writing. “Have you ever…” he asks, drifting off.
It takes me a moment to connect the dots, but then I realize what he’s asking.
“Anal?” I clarify. “Well, considering I’ve only had sex once before you, I’m sure you know the answer to that.”
I certainly wouldn’t have done that the first time, no matter how naïve I was. And since Misha and I haven’t done that, then of course, the answer is no.
“So we’re virgins then,” he says, his tone making it sound like he’s kind of enjoying that idea.
“Yeah, virgins,” I grumble. “And I plan on dying one, because there’s no way you’re sticking that in there.”
He snorts, breaking into a laugh.
Capping the pen, he moves up and over me, lifting my shirt over my head. I arch my neck back, meeting his mouth and kissing him. His teeth nibbling my skin sends an electric shock down my belly and straight between my thighs.
I guess the nap helped. He slides his hand under my chest, cupping my breast and I’m already turned on.
“Is this okay?” he asks.
I stare at his lips, dipping in for more. Hell, yes.
I groan, my eyes damn near rolling into the back of my head as his mouth trails down my neck, devouring me in hot, demanding kisses. He grinds his hips into me, and I feel the hardening bulge between his legs.
“Talk to me,” he whispers. “I need your words.”
Talk? Now?
His hand glides down my bare back, brushing my hair and making it tickle my skin. He takes my ass, kneads it, and without thinking, I bend my knee to the side, opening myself for him.
“Before I met you,” I say against his lips. “I fantasized about you.”
“But you didn’t know what I looked like.”
“I knew you were Misha,” I reply. “That was enough.”
He groans, nibbling my ear and dipping his hand between my legs, his fingers sliding inside of me.
I close my eyes, the pleasure of him filling me making me wetter.
“One night it was storming, like tonight,” I tell him, “the lights went out, and for the whole evening, it was dark and quiet.”
His fingers come out, swirling around my clit, and I shudder. My breath is shallow, and I’m unable to stop my hips from trying to rub into the bed and his fingers.
“I reread all of your letters that night,” I pant. “I love the ones about when you got your first car and how you and your friends got arrested for the kegger out on some farm. You sounded so bad, so much fun.” I lean back, longing for his mouth again. “But the letter I love more than all the rest is when you told me about your ex-girlfriend after you’d broken up. I was so mad at first. You had a girlfriend, and you hadn’t told me, but…I think that’s when I first realized…”
“What?” he breathes out.
“That I wanted you. You were mine.”
“I was,” he assures. “It didn’t take me long to realize that I couldn’t talk to anyone like I talk to you.”
And I feel the same way. I always did. I couldn’t go out with anyone without comparing them to Misha. He had every right to date, and I’m sure whoever she was—or they were, because there were probably more—they weren’t bad people, but I still felt territorial. I knew him first. No one was going to know him better than me. I know I had no right to feel those things, which is why I never told him. Until now.
“I started fantasizing about you that rainy night. It was the first time I ever daydreamed about you.”
“What did you do?” He pushed his two fingers in deep, rubbing my spot and grinding himself on me. “Did you want to be her?”
I shook my head. “I wanted you to see me. I wanted you to see me and want me so much. Not just my letters, but my body, too.”
“What’d you do?” he whispers in my ear.
I moan, feeling a wave of pleasure fill my thighs and pussy, and I back up into him, wanting to be filled. “I laid in bed,” I say, “and I couldn’t stop thinking about you. It was so dark, and the AC wasn’t running. The more I thought about it, the hotter I got…until…”