Oh, It Is Love

A true story. To find out what happened next, you'll have to wait for the whole book.

 

I’m dialing nervously. He doesn’t know how much nerve it takes to talk to him over the phone. Text messages? Yes. I have much more courage if I don’t have to hear his voice. In person? In person I become possessed; this taller, more beautiful, more eloquent, articulate version of myself. Being around him makes me a better person. But the phone? No, the phone is just his voice and the silence.

            It’s loud wherever he is. “Hello?”

            “Hey, it’s me. Do you have a bar for the night?” I ask. I’m pacing already. Down into the living room, towards the piano.

            “What?”

            “Have you gone out to a bar yet?” Back up into the dining room, turn around.

            “I’m at this Club Red place you told me to go to!” he shouts. My stomach rises into my throat. That simultaneous full-of-helium-and-lead feeling I hate and love so much.

            “Oh,” is all I can get out.

            “Yeah, I’ve been here for about an hour. This sound check is taking forever,” he says. He sounds like he may have had a few drinks already.

            “Oh, okay. Um, go find the big bald guy with tattoos,” I say.

            “What?” I can’t tell if he didn’t hear me.

            “Big guy with tattoos. Bald. With a tall girl with long dark hair and tattoos, too.” I just said tattoos, too. This is why I hate the phone.

            “No!” he laughs. I realize the ridiculousness of it. Kyle and Nikki would scare any passer by.

            “I’ll be there in like, fifteen minutes, okay?” I ask. Now my stomach has up and left me completely.

            “Okay,” he says.

            There’s silence. “Okay, bye.” I wait until he’s said goodbye before I hang up. My hands are already shaking, as I run back to the bathroom. I’m not dressed. I’m not cute. I’m not brushed. Oh god, my hair. He hasn’t seen my hair cut. Oh my god, I cut off all of my hair and he’s going to kill me.

            My mother pokes her head into the bathroom. I try not to poke my eye out with the liner. “What’s up?” She knows. She always knows.

            “He’s been waiting for me for an hour,” I manage to get out. I’m making mascara face. I hate mascara face.

            “Oh my….” Is all she says. Like a sage, or Dumbledore. My mother – Dumbledore.

            “Yeah!” I say, as if I’m trying to insult myself. I can’t believe I almost didn’t go. If Nikki hadn’t called… if he had sat there all night….

            “Well, hurry. But try not to poke your eye out.” How does she do that? How does she always say exactly what I’m thinking?

            Hair? Yes. Eyes? Yes. The book I promised to let him borrow? Yes. Shoes? No. Shoes and car keys. Oh god, I’m borrowing my grandmother’s car for the weekend. It smells like old women and old dogs. Oh god, I forgot perfume. Oh, god.

            Hands are shaking, it’s 10:19. Has it really been more than twenty minutes? Two miles away from my house. 10:24. F*****g red lights. Five miles away from my house, almost there. Almost. I’m speeding. I’m speeding in my grandmother’s dog-car. 10:29. Two songs on the radio; ten minutes.

            I pull around and park in the back. I always park in the back. I grab the book and walk as quickly as I can to the bar. Around the one place, around some other, the tattoo parlor, I’m almost there.

            Then I see him; head down, walking quickly to his car. His hair is tied up and under a red cap. His shoulders are slumped forward. He hasn’t seen me yet, I’m faster. The world slows down again, my hands stop trembling. He’s here. He’s really here, and I can see him, so it’s all okay.

            “Hey,” I say. It doesn’t startle him. He looks up, and I can’t tell if it’s relief or that quiet terror behind his eyes whenever he looks at me. My father calls it the ‘kid looking into a toy store’ look, but I don’t see it. I see the longing. I see the hurt. He’s torn. That’s why I can’t just walk away. That’s why I can’t give up just yet. I know he feels it, too. He has to. This is more than friendship, right? It has to be.

            I give him the book, but I’m not even aware that we’re talking, but we have been. And smiling. I always smile so much more when I’m around him. He puts the book in his car and we start back towards the bar. No, I start back towards the bar. He’s following me. I’m apologizing.

            “You haven’t said anything,” I say, grabbing the ends of my now shoulder length hair. I look over my shoulder and accidentally catch his eye. He was looking at my face. He’s got that look again. [i]That [/i]one.

            “I was getting there,” he says.

            “There’s not enough left to pull,” I tease.

            “Oh, there’s plenty to pull,” he teases back. It’s what we do. We can’t have each other, so we use our words like foreplay.

            I see Nikki up ahead. She’s talking with two people, but she’s been paying attention to us. She did see him inside, I knew it. I knew it on the phone with her. Damn it. Her eyes are following us as we approach, and her mouth twists into a smirk when I introduce him. She tries to make it look like she’s just blowing out her cigarette smoke, but I know better. I know that twinkle in her eyes. I can practically hear her cackle.

            We make our way inside, and I get carded twice. This haircut makes me look sixteen again. Awesome. The neon orange bracelet is around my wrist. He’s gone on ahead of me and is watching the band. I look at him. I sneak in a good look whenever I can, mostly because I don’t want him to catch me. He’s so beautiful and he doesn’t even know it. He’s got green eyes.

            “I’m coordinated,” he says, using his wristband-hand to point to his orange Chuck Taylor’s.

            “Awesome,” I say. Smiling. Damn it. I make my way straight to the bar, and he joins me, brushing up just slightly; his chest against my shoulder, his hips just a little too close to mine. He leans closer to me, and my breath catches. I don’t even remember what he says, but it starts another anglophile-themed conversation. His new British car, the tweed jackets he’s bought, the peacoat he found at a garage sale.

            “All you need now is a good pipe,” I say.

            “And the blue jumpsuit and the white helmet, and I’ll be Michael Caine,” he says.

            “That’s good, Michael Caine is a hottie.” I smile.

            He sighs, “Yeah, yeah he is.” I laugh.

            “Do you have a little bit of a man-crush?” He laughs.

            “Oh no, it’s pure idolatry… not that if I saw him naked I’d look away immediately….” I laugh. He always makes me laugh. I always make him laugh. “But really, who doesn’t want to be Michael Caine?”

            “Oh I know, especially after Alfie? Come on,” I say.

            “Alfie.” He nods.

            It stops when the bar tender finally gets to me. I get my drink, but they ignore him. We stand in silence for a moment. I’m sipping and I can see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye. I dance just a little; back and forth, not too noticeable. I turn and catch him smiling at me. I smile back.

            By the time they give him his drink, I’m getting my second. We make our way back to the table with Kyle and Nikki and the two people that were outside with her. I set down my purse on the table next to Nikki’s and he sits down on a stool. I lean over to Nikki, talking into her ear.

            “Watch this, it’ll be fun,” I say.

            “Watch what?”

            “Watch the way we act together. You’ve never seen it,” I say. He’s looking nervous again as I sit down. His shoulders are slumped, but he’s watching me carefully from underneath the bill of his cap.

            We talk about the band. We talk about our mutual loathing of U2, and more particularly, Bono. His sister’s new apartment, how we both need new tattoos. Eventually more drinks are gone. He just sends me to the bar. I get better service and stronger drinks. It’s my breasts. Breasts are magical. And mine are great, if I’m allowed to say so.

            More liquor. Everything’s funnier, and I’m starting to feel the music. Actually feel it, inside my chest; the bass is starting to take over for my heart. Our knees keep bumping as we talk, our heads together, twisting around to put mouth to ear in the noisy, red lit room. I’ll rest my hand on his knee or his shoulder as he talks to me. The intimacy of the small gesture makes me calmer. I can relax if I can touch him. He puts his hand on mine when I say something to him, and I flutter. I actually take a small little breath. I say something else, and I can see his eyes going down my shirt. It’s only the third time I’ve ever caught him looking. He’s a master of stealth.

            He strokes his thumb on my knee.

            What was it Nikki said about the lead singer of the band? A man that can’t belong to you is not allowed to do things like that.

            Yes, this is the man. This is the man I want most and can’t have. Because I was an idiot, and became friends with his girlfriend. I didn’t mean to, believe me. Things would be so much easier if I could just hate her. So I just have to keep making it embarrassingly, painfully, obvious that I’ll wait for him.

            He gets another text message from his sister, and it breaks our little knee-touching moment. He sends his reply and stuffs the phone back into his pocket, and leans back over.

            “I don’t know what to do,” he says, his voice suddenly very grave. It stands out among the music, the alcohol, the dancing. The room is alive, vibrating and pulsating and I feel more alive just sitting there with him.

            “About what?” I ask. His sister wants him to go to the party next door at her new apartment. Is he trying to make me ask him not to go? I might. I might just have the nerve to tell him not to leave me right now.

            He leans back towards my ear, and I slip my hand over his knee again. His pants are ripped; it’s skin on skin. There’s so much buzz around me. My lips are numb from too many Captain and Cokes. He rests his face against mine, our cheeks pressed together. I can actually feel his lips brush my ear.

            “I think I’m in love with you.”

 

 

 

            Everything stops.

 

            Everything.

 

            I don’t remember breathing or blinking. I can’t remember what I said next. I just remember him pulling his face away from mine, and looking down. I grab his shoulder, as if trying to stop him from leaving, though he’s made no motion to go. And I lean in and say something in reply. I wish I remembered.

            “All I think about is you,” he confesses. “I can’t stop thinking about you. All I ever do is think about you.”

            It takes an eternity for me to move away from his mouth, for his head to turn back to the front, for me to turn mine to the side to reach his ear. I lick my lips, trying to think of the best way to say it, but I can’t. “I’m so glad this isn’t one-sided, because I’ve felt this way for a long time.”

            “I mean it. And I can’t talk to anybody. I can’t tell anybody how I feel,” he says. He looks so fragile, so delicate. I want to hold him.

            “I thought I was thinking about you far too much, more than you ever thought about me,” I say.

            His eyes look pained, his voice is the same. “No….”

            Nikki taps me on the arm, I look over his shoulder and put up a finger while he says something. I don’t remember what now, I just remember the tone of his voice; the desperate, frightened tone, as if he’s confessed something far worse than love. I slip my arm around his shoulders now, and rest my forehead against the side of his while he talks into my ear. He squeezes my knee, like he’s making sure I’m still there. Nikki taps me again, and holds up a flyer. I look up at her in surprise, and put up another finger, asking for just one more second. Doesn’t she know this is the most important moment of my life? Two and half years, now. Two and a half years I’ve wanted him; I’ve felt this pull from the core of me.

            “But then I saw the note you left in that book for me, and I – I just couldn’t let it go on any longer. Something had to be said.”

            Thank you, Ayn Rand. Thank you, thank you, thank you. She would suddenly feel a violent longing for him, but it wasn’t pain, it was impatience.

            There’s more talk, more touch. We’re leaning on each other, but decide to take a break and go to the bathroom. We’re drunk. God, I told him three months ago he was the one that got away. I thought I was making an a*s of myself, but I was really setting this moment in motion. I was making tonight possible.

            I get back to the table and he’s already there, holding his small drink with both hands. I grab mine from the table, and ignoring the straw, swallow the rest of it as quickly as I can. That look – his look – is interrupted with a smirk and a raise of one eyebrow.

            “Liquid courage, right?” I say, setting down the plastic. He smiles and nods, and finishes his. I hand my purse to Nikki, and tell her what he’s just said. Her eyes are wide.

            “We’re going outside to talk where we can hear each other,” I say. I’ll find out tomorrow that Kyle almost followed us out, ready to beat down the boy with the ripped pants and the long hair as I lead him outside.

            “No, Kyle, we like him. He’s okay.” Nikki will tell me later.

            We go back around the corner. Around the tattoo parlor and that one place, and that other place. There’s a stair case leading to some other other place, and so we sit at the bottom. We talk about us, we talk about his girlfriend, we talk about how he’s wanted to end it with her for a while.

            “That night, that night we got back together, I decided to go with the more aggressive one. I thought maybe I could forget about you if I did, but it didn’t work.” I remember that night. She announced it so happily – and I can’t blame her. I know what it feels like now to love him, and have him choose me. But he just looked up at me. He was sitting on a couch and I was standing, too close. He looked up at me like a child that’s just done something very, very wrong. Like a child that knows exactly what rule he broke and exactly what his ensuing punishment will be. That was a year ago.

            “She’s a nice girl, and I feel really bad, but… she’s not the kind of girl I could spend the rest of my life with. But you-” He stops before he says too much, but I know his eyes too well.

            I find myself staring up at the stars while we’re talking, and whenever I look back at him, I see him looking at me like I was just looking at the heavens. I have to remind myself to breathe. Instead I confess things to him I’ve never told anyone else. How I used to cut myself, starve myself. “You’re beautiful. I’m serious, you don’t have to change anything, you’re beautiful.”

            “I don’t want to change for anyone else, I’m just trying to be happy with me. I want to like me.” I can’t believe I’m saying these things to him. “I can’t believe I’m saying these things to you.” He just smiles. One of his real ones; one of the relaxed ones that catches him off guard and he quickly hides.

            Two hours pass. Nikki’s calling my name, and the band is done, and I have to close out my tab. I’m a little more sober now. Sober enough to drive, and we go to Denny’s to finish sobering up. I drive. I’m not hungry. My stomach is sitting somewhere in my living room, where it left me while I was on the phone with him. It’s probably by the piano. But I order tomato slices and coffee. He gets tea and French toast.

            We try to find a game plan. We stick with sports analogies. The ball’s in his court, there not much I can do. There’s not going to be a good time to do this to her. She’s a nice girl. But they’re nothing alike. He’s told her that. “She’s just so happy,” he says, “and I’m not.” He keeps giving me that look of his. The one that sums up two and half years of longing, and denial, and tension, and friendship, and understanding. The look that if anyone else saw, they would see nothing behind it. But I see it. And I feel it, too.

            After an hour and a half we realize we could be there all night if we don’t leave while we have the chance. Back into Grandma’s dog-car. I pull up into the parking lot behind him and put the car in park. I won’t kill the engine for another twenty minutes.

            “I don’t want to leave yet,” he says.

            “I don’t want you to,” I say.

            We sit there, sometimes talking, sometimes not. We end up with our shoulders turned towards each other, our knees together.

            “I’m sure someone, somewhere, has been in this situation. But I haven’t. It’s so new to me. I’ve never cheated on a girlfriend before. I’ve never even thought about it. I don’t know what to do.” We go back to the sports analogies, before going quiet again. I love the moments where we say nothing just as much as the moments when we do speak. I tell him so.

            “You’re such a catch,” I say. He has a far off look, almost sad, like he’s about to lose me. “And the best part is, you don’t even know it.”

            He’s quiet for a moment, but he breaks into a shy smile, “Well, I’m caught. You’ve caught me.” He puts his hand on my knee, and I put my pinky finger over his. It’s the gesture he needs. He grabs my hand and holds it with both of his, his fingers interlacing with mine like he doesn’t realize how terrified I am of him. Of what I feel.

            After an hour, he says, “I’m trying to figure out if we should kiss.”

            I look up and catch his eyes. They’re pleading… god, how many times have I written this? This isn’t real, this isn’t me; this is something someone’s written down somewhere.

            “I… hold hands with my friends… platonically… at… scary movies,” I manage to reason. I want it so bad. I’ve been thinking about it since the summer before last, when I thought he would finally be mine. When he kissed me the first time, before he ran away from me. Why am I trying so hard to fight it?

            “But what about the shoulders? The leaning?” he asks.

            “It’s a pretty fine line,” I say, and catch his eyes again. He doesn’t look away. I’ve run out of excuses. “Your hat’s in the way.” I push it up off him and he sighs. He looks so relieved in the second before my mouth finds his. It’s been over a year since I’ve pressed my lips against his, but it doesn’t feel like any time has passed. It feels right.

            He puts his hand on my face to cradle it; his thumb on my cheek, his fingertips in my hair. It’s so perfect. I finally pull away, the guilt crawling up inside me. Not mine, but the guilt I know he will feel later, when he sees her next.

            He rests his head on my shoulder, and I put my free hand on the back of his neck. “I’m dizzy,” he says quietly. I can’t help but smile. He made me dizzy that first kiss, months ago. The sun was coming up through the window. An orange summer sunrise, not a grey one like this one will be.

            Another half hour of kissing, inside the car. He’s still holding my hand. He even does that movie-chin-lift, where he bends his forefinger and uses it to tilt my chin up so that he can kiss me. He kisses my forehead, my cheek, my neck; whatever bit of me he can easily reach in the quiet time. It’s not like the summer before, when we were just trying to get closer. Like the harder we kissed each other, the closer we would get. This is calm. This is how I want to spend every night.

            We decide to get out of the car. Standing next to his car is one step closer to him going. “I don’t know when we can be alone together again,” he says.

            “I know,” I answer, and hug him. I hold him for a moment, my arms behind him and my hands resting on his shoulders. I’m pressing my face into his neck, and his arms are wrapped so tightly around my waist that his hands are on my stomach.

            “You’re such a good hugger!” he mumbles into my neck. “You’re so tall!” It sounds like he’s smiling. I smile and kiss the soft part of his neck behind his ear. He pulls back so that he can kiss me properly. So much for leaving.

            I never understood that moment in movies. When the couple finally kisses, and then they pull away, but like a magnet, they’re drawn back together for more. I get it now.

            When he puts his hands on me I don’t feel self-conscious. I should, but I don’t. He slips his fingers into the belt loops on the front of my jeans and pulls me closer. I want to have ten thousand of his shaggy haired babies. Now we kiss hard; bodies pressed together, my arms around his neck, his waist; his arms around my waist, his hand sliding down my back, farther and farther.

            He keeps mumbling things like, “I’m so happy,” and “This is exhilarating,” and “This is so incredible.” This boy has the most extensive vocabulary of anyone I know, and I’ve reduced him to this. I’d gloat, but I’ve lost all powers of speech. The car door is open, that’s one step closer. More kissing, more holding. Now he’s in the car, he looks up at me, his eyes big and sincere.

            “Call me as soon as you get home, all right?” he asks. I won’t deny him anything he asks of me.

            “I will,” I promise. I want to kiss him one more time, just bend over and kiss him, a quick peck goodbye, but he’s turned the engine. I stand up and get back to the Grandma car. The clock says 5:24.

Reviews

[M J Moore]

Where were you? I want to know!

This s**t (almost, exactly) happened to me about two weeks ago. Almost word for word. Change some things, minor things, and this happened to ME!!! LOL.

Great write, Jesse. I put this on my reading list, but something just compelled me to open it, and I'm so wonderfully glad that I did. I'm sitting here, all teary-eyed because this is so good and real.

Wonderful. And I'm SO!!! happy for you!!!

[Melinda Andrews]

Oh, my god. This is the best thing you've ever written, and that is saying a lot. Technically it is excellant....as the previous reviewer said, great point of view throughout - excellent characterization, pacing and writing style.

Emotionally......wow. I am rendered speechless...not something that happens to me often and not good when one is trying to write a review. Many people operate under the mistaken idea that autobiographies/memoirs are somehow easier to write because they really happened and you don't have to create a plot or characters. Ah, what fools these mortals be. Only a true writer can take a real incident and turn it into literature.

This was so delightfully written, the characters are so real, so fully fleshed out in so few words. We KNOW them. "He just smiles. One of his real ones; one of the relaxed ones that catches him off guard and he quickly hides." More importantly we care about them. The writing itself is so professional...I alternated between laughter, romantic smiles, gut-twisting "ohs" and tears.

I disagree with the previous writer, we don't need anymore specific info...age doesn't matter..that's something we can figure out for ourselves and exposition would spoil the pacing. It is better to have the story of this 7 1/2 hours of her life with the back story coming out in ther form of her feelings and short bursts of memories triggered by the current events.

I think the reviewer also got a little confused about the time frame involved, but I think the story makes it clear that she and he had the beginnings of a relationship before he started going out with his current girlfriend " �That night, that night we got back together, I decided to go with the more aggressive one. I thought maybe I could forget about you if I did, but it didn�t work.� I remember that night. She announced it so happily � and I can�t blame her. I know what it feels like now to love him, and have him choose me. But he just looked up at me. He was sitting on a couch and I was standing, too close. He looked up at me like a child that�s just done something very, very wrong. Like a child that knows exactly what rule he broke and exactly what his ensuing punishment will be. That was a year ago. " Obviously they have had something almost going for 2 1/2 years, but he ran away from it and got involved with some else a year ago.

Besides the amazing glimpses into the souls of the two main characters there is also delicious humor.... "He keeps mumbling things like, �I�m so happy,� and �This is exhilarating,� and �This is so incredible.� This boy has the most extensive vocabulary of anyone I know, and I�ve reduced him to this. I�d gloat, but I�ve lost all powers of speech." and "Sober enough to drive, and we go to Denny�s to finish sobering up. I drive. I�m not hungry. My stomach is sitting somewhere in my living room, where it left me while I was on the phone with him. It�s probably by the piano." Those yummy little one-liners that bring the laugh out loud release in the midst of the painful longing and sexual tension. Speaking of which, kudos for one of the sexiest scenes I've ever read...and it could be totally G rated.

This is the type of intensity and economy you need in all your writing...No wasted words...make every one count! Pull us in quickly and keep us there until the end...don't give us a chance to catch our breaths and leave us wanting more.

I hope the girl and boy have a future together.....I hope he finds the courage to be happy, I hope she finds the strength to keep being vulnerable. But whatever happens or doesn't happen in the future she will have that one, miraculous night. And now, so will we. Thank you.

[Brad Windhauser]

Great point of view throughout. Lot of great lines, such as "but I�m not even aware that we�re talking, but we have been" that show how she is feeling. Would like to hear more. Why does she feel no guilt over the girlfriend with whom she "made friends"? Since they kissed months before, did she not feel the least bit guilty then? Why this guy? What makes them click so? How old are they? The new haircut makes her look 16, but is she really 22 or 32? Seems strange that the guy would be so blase about ending a 2 and a half year relationship. If he was indeed not really into it (her), why stay in it? What did he think those two had together? I do like that you did not have them scurry off to a hotel for a quickie. Seems more honest that way.

[Dillon Monroe]

This is a wonderful story. Bravo! You've touched on a very emotional area in literature and yes there could have been some improvement but those are just small things an editor can point out. You've done this story very well and I as the reader felt like I was there in the car when they had the first kiss they shared. I knew it was coming when they went to Denny's and when it finally happened, you captured the scene as if you were a director and this was a movie. I could see the look on his face and the final relief from both of them when it happened. You left me wanting more and I'm anxious to find out if they stay together or if they don't but maybe you should leave that up to our imaginations. You decide on that but this story is great. Good job.

[Peter]

This is a very well written, engaging story. Your characters each have a strong voice, are believable and draw one's empathy. The story flows smoothly, keeping the reader hooked from beginning to end. Dialogue is tight and moves the plot along. Being sort of the old fashion romantic, I think what I like best is how you create a heart pounding, intimate scene toward the end without the use of gratuitous sex and language, which, to me always cheapens the moment. You successfully capture the essence of love and romance as it was told in simpler, less graphic times. Outstanding job!