Another Day (19 page)

The drive to Uncle Artie’s cabin is about two hours, so I have plenty of time to think. I have the spare key in my pocket, as well as the bag I packed for my weekend at Rebecca’s. Or my weekend at my grandmother’s, depending on who you ask.

I’m excited to have time alone with A. I know it will only last until midnight—I hope that A will be able to come back tomorrow as well, but I know it’s not a sure thing. It’s funny to me that in all the time I’ve dated Justin, it never occurred to me to take him here. Maybe because we had his house. Or maybe because it never felt like we needed this kind of getaway.

Getaway. With enough time to think, I know that what I’m doing is technically cheating. I guess I knew that all along, but this is the first time I actually use that word in my head. It doesn’t seem right to explain what I’m doing, but it doesn’t seem entirely wrong, either. I feel I am in a messy middle ground of trying to figure it out. I know what Justin would say about that, and how he would see it. I am sure that I am doing to him something he has never done to me.

I am also mad at him for not noticing. Which is, I realize, completely unfair.

I could text him when I got there. I could break up with him that way. But he deserves more than that. And, more, he deserves an explanation. Only, there’s no way to explain this.

I’m falling for someone I met when he was in your body for a day.

I’ve made sure to get there a little early to straighten the place up. I love Uncle Artie, but there’s a reason his girlfriends always leave him. The cabin’s basically one room with lots of stuff piled into it—including a lot of “trophies” from his hunts. The couple of times I came here with my parents when I was a little kid, it freaked me out to have glass-eyed animal heads staring at me from the walls. And it still freaks me out—but I’ve learned not to really see them anymore. There are one or two that are starting to get a little ragged, and I throw some sheets over those. The rest look on.

The problem with being early is it means there’s a time when the groceries I’ve brought are put away, the floor’s been swept, and I have nothing to do. I’ve brought
First Day on Earth
with me, but I’m too distracted to really pay attention, which doesn’t seem fair to the book. I light a few candles so the air will smell more like vanilla and less like Uncle Artie. But the scent also starts to give everything a dreaminess. Or maybe I’m just tired.

I wake up when I hear a car outside. I come alive when I hear the car door open. Nobody else knows about this place, so it has to be A. I peek out the window and see this beautiful guy. My age. Him.

I open the door, wait and watch. Beautiful skin. Beautiful hair. Like the universe somehow knew what this day was for.

“You’re really cute today,” I say as he closes the door and comes closer. I expect him to have a bag, but of course he doesn’t have a bag. He’s only here for today.

“French Canadian dad, Creole mom,” he explains. “But I don’t speak a word of French.”

“Your mom isn’t going to show up this time, is she?” I joke.

He smiles. “Nope.”

“Good,” I say, getting closer. “Then I can do this without being killed.”

I put everything into the kiss. All of the waiting, all of the desire. All of the today we have and the tomorrows we might not. I kiss him to tell him I’m here. I kiss him to tell him he’s here. I kiss him to connect us, to meld us, to propel us. And he kisses me back with all of these things, and something else I can’t identify. His arms around me, my arms around him, and both of us pulling, both of us pressing. His hands feeling me all over, giving me shape. No space between us. No space. Then I pull back a little to take off his coat, kick off my shoes. He kicks his off, too, and I lead him back, my mouth barely leaving his. I push him onto the bed. I’m pinning him down, we’re meeting in the middle—still fully clothed but not feeling clothed at all. I kiss his neck, his ear. He moves his hands up my sides, kisses my lips again. There is not a single part of me that doesn’t want this. I feel like I’ve been holding back my entire life, and now I’m letting go. Feeling under his shirt, following the trail to his chest. Keeping my hand there, feeling how hot the skin is. He is moaning and doesn’t even realize it. I don’t know his name and I don’t need to know his name because he is A, he is A, he is A, and he is with me now. We are sharing this. Finger across my breast, finger along my back. Kissing lightly, kissing deeply. Shirts off, skin on skin. The only sense I have left is feel. Lips on shoulder. Hand under the back of his waistband. Arm on arm. Leg against leg. Fast then slow. Fast. Then slow.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I say back.

I lie on my back and he hovers over me. Finger along the side of my face. Side of his hand along my collarbone. I respond, tracing his shoulders, reaching down the valley of his back. I kiss his neck again. His ear. The space behind his ear.

There is nothing like this. In all the world, there is nothing like this.

“Where are we?” he asks.

“It’s a hunting cabin my uncle uses,” I explain. Even when I gave him directions, I didn’t tell him where he was going. “He’s in California now, so I figured it was safe to break in.”

He looks around. “You broke in?”

“Well, with the spare key.”

He lies back. I feel the center of his chest. The exact center. Then I move my hand to the right, heartbeat territory.

“That was quite a welcome,” he says, his own hands unable to leave my body.

“It’s not over yet,” I assure him, turning his way as he immediately turns mine.

Closeness. That’s what this is. Sex should have closeness.

Now there is closeness. Not just of our bodies. Of our beings. A is careful, but I am not careful. I don’t want anything between us. So I take off his clothes, and I take off my own. I want all of him, and I want him to have all of me. I want our eyes open. I want this to be what it’s supposed to be.

Naked and kissing. Naked and needing. Naked and here. Moving in the inevitable direction. Sometimes moving quickly, but then slowing down and taking our time. Enjoying it.

It is dangerous, because I will do anything. But I will only do anything because I know it’s not dangerous.

“Do you want to?” I whisper.

I feel him against me. The heat, the breath. I feel the momentum. I feel how right this is.

“No,” he says. “Not yet. Not now.”

Suddenly I feel the colder air around me. Suddenly I feel the world around me. I feel all the parts of it that aren’t us.

I tell myself he’s being considerate. I look at him and say, “Are you sure? I want to. If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I want to. I…prepared.”

But he’s pulling back, too, now. One hand still holds my side, but the other settles in the small space between us. “I don’t think we should,” he says.

I say, “Okay,” even though it’s not, because I don’t understand.

“It’s not you,” he tells me. “And it’s not that I don’t want to.”

Exit dream, enter nightmare. “So what is it?” I ask.

“It feels wrong.”

He says it’s not me, but who else could it be? I’ve pushed it too far. He must think less of me.

“Let me worry about Justin,” I say. “This is you and me. It’s different.”

“But it’s not just you and me. It’s also Xavier.”

“Xavier?”

He points to his own body. “Xavier.”

“Oh.”

“He’s never done it before. And it just feels wrong…for him to do it for the first time, and not know it. I feel like I’m taking something from him if I do that. It doesn’t seem right.”

This seems more in line with the way the universe has treated me all my life. Send the perfect guy in the perfect body. But then make him a virgin whose first time I’ll be taking away without him knowing it. There’s no vocabulary in my head for dealing with this.

Closeness. I got so caught up in sex that I forgot what I was really after, what I really wanted. Even if we’re not going to have sex, I don’t have to give up on everything else.

That’s what I wind up telling myself.

After a spell of being only in my mind, I return back to my body and press it closer to his. Turning so we’re knees against knees, arms around backs, face to face.

“Do you think he would mind this?” I ask.

His body answers for him. I can feel the tension fall away. I can feel my welcome.

“I set an alarm,” I say. “So we can sleep.”

I roll over, and he presses his chest against my back, echoes his legs behind my legs. Gathering into a pocket of time, and refusing to leave it. Together, our bodies cool. Together, our breathing slows. Together, we feel unalone.

Our bodies can fit in so many different ways.

The current of sleep carries us at different wavelengths. Sometimes I wake and he’s asleep. Sometimes he must be the woken one. And other times, our wakefulness coincides, and we have brief conversations as we remain holding on.

“Are you he or she?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replies.

“I know we don’t talk about it,” he says, many minutes, maybe hours, later. “But why are you with him?”

“I don’t know,” I tell him. “I used to think I did. But I don’t know anymore.”

“Is this love?” I ask. But he’s asleep.

He mumbles something. It sounds like, “Is your uncle Artie tall?”

When we are both more awake, but still without any desire to move from the bed, I face him and ask, “Who was your favorite?”

He puts his hand on mine. “My favorite?”

“Your favorite body. Your favorite life.”

“I was once in the body of a blind girl. When I was eleven. Maybe twelve. I don’t know if she was my favorite, but I learned more from being her for a day than I’d learn from most people over a year. It showed me how arbitrary and individual it is, the way we experience the world. Not just that the other senses were sharper. But that we find ways to navigate the world as it is presented to us. For me, it was this huge challenge. But for her, it was just life.”

“Close your eyes,” I whisper.

I trust that he does. We feel each other’s bodies as if we’re in the dark.

Hours later, or maybe it’s minutes, the alarm goes off.

The day is passing, and we let it. The light is fading, and we say nothing as it goes. This is all we want. Two bodies in a bed. Closeness.

“I know you have to leave,” I say. My eyes are closed. I feel him nod.

“Midnight,” he tells me. “I have to be back by midnight.”

“But why? Why midnight?”

Now I feel him shake his head. “I can’t be sure. But it’s up to the body, and the body just knows.”

“I’m going to stay here,” I tell him.

“I’m going to come back tomorrow,” he promises.

More time. More time together.

“I would end it,” he says. “I would end all the changing if I could. Just to stay here with you.”

“But you can’t end it. I know that.”

I don’t sound mad or disappointed. I’m not mad or disappointed.

It is what it is.

We start to look at the clock. Knowing. It’s time.

“I’ll wait for you,” I tell him as he gets dressed, as he gets ready to go.

“We’ll both be waiting,” he says. “To get back to this.”

I have no idea what I am doing, and I am okay with that.

He kisses me goodbye. Like he is heading off to school. Or work. Like this is the future. Like we are used to this.

I don’t know what to do after he’s gone. There’s no computer up here for email, no phone reception.

I pick up
First Day on Earth.
These are not his words, but they are words he’s guided me to. For now, that’s enough.

I have spent too much of the day sleeping. I read for a little while, and then spend the rest of the night dreaming.

I wake up really cold, then start the furnace and suffer as it gets way too hot. I guess these are my options.

I know A won’t be back right away, but I also know that even if he wakes up five hours away, he’ll find a way to be here. I just have to keep myself occupied until then.

I finish reading
First Day on Earth
and wish I’d brought a longer book, or even my homework. Artie doesn’t have any books around that I can find. Only back issues of magazines like
Field & Stream.

There’s an old newspaper where the crossword hasn’t been done. I try that, but I’m not very good at it. I play some games on my phone, and even walk around outside for a little in the hope of getting reception.

I am bored. So bored. And, even worse, I can hear Justin laughing at me, telling me, “What did you think would happen?”

“He’s coming,” I say.

“Yeah, right.”

No. I cannot be having this conversation in my head. I look at the clock. It’s after one. He should be here by now.

He’s not coming.

But he promised.

I feel stupider and stupider as the day goes on. I’m wandering around in a T-shirt and boxers, it’s so hot.

Finally, I hear a car coming. Driving up. Stopping.

All of the doubts I’ve been denying now turn themselves into relief.

I run for the door and throw it open. I’m about to jump into A’s arms—when I realize the guy in front of me is very old and has a dead deer across his shoulders.

I scream.

He also screams, stumbling back.

I scream again and retreat into the cabin.

“Who the hell are you?” the man yells.

I want to slam the door, but I can’t. He’s still yelling.

“You’re trespassing! Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack. Are you alone?”

He’s looking at me now. Seeing a girl. Seeing my legs.

“I’m Artie’s niece,” I say. “Artie’s my uncle. This is his cabin. I’m not trespassing.”

He looks skeptical, and I really wish he’d put the deer down. It’s making me nauseous.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the man says. “If you even
are
Artie’s niece.”

“One second,” I say. I scramble for my wallet, find my license. When I come back, he’s put the deer back in his truck, thank God.

“You see,” I say, holding out the license. “We have the same name.”

“Fine. Doesn’t mean you’re supposed to be here.”

“You can call him,” I challenge, knowing there’s no way, and hoping Artie will cover for me if there is. “He must’ve mixed things up.”

“Well, you’re about to get a whole lot more company. We’ve been hunting all morning, and Artie told us we could clean the skins here and do our business.”

The vegetarian in me is horrified. But I’m stuck.

“One second,” I tell the man again. I close the door and change into as many pieces of clothing as I can. I pack up all my things.

But I can’t leave, because what if A comes? I am so mad at him for abandoning me but I can’t risk abandoning him.

So I stay. As more men arrive. As they look at me funny. As they stare at me. They bring in more kills, and set up an area outside to skin the animals. I reread the only book I have. I go out to the car. I try to avoid everyone, but eventually I have to use the toilet, and there’s no room to move.

I hold out for another two hours. Then I give up.

It’s too late. A can’t be coming. I need to get home.

The whole ride back, I seethe.

I check my phone as soon as I get reception. I expect an email. I expect some explanation.

Nothing. A’s told me nothing.

He could have woken up paralyzed. He might be somewhere without a computer. He might not have a car.

I grasp for excuses. But I feel desperate doing it.

The worse answer is that A got what he wanted, and now it’s over. Just like every other guy. And I am just like every other girl who’s been stupid enough to think her guy would be different.

A isn’t a guy,
I remind myself.

But really, it doesn’t matter.

I still feel stood up.

I still feel alone.