In truth, it was in North Carolina. But I access Justin and find that, yes, for him it would’ve been Minnesota. So I nod.
“You want to know another day like this one?” Rhiannon asks, curling closer.
I adjust my arm, make us both comfortable. “Sure.”
“It was our second date.”
But this is only our first, I think. Ridiculously.
“Really?” I ask.
“Remember?”
I check to see if Justin remembers their second date. He doesn’t.
“Dack’s party?” she prompts.
Still nothing.
“Yeah . . .” I hedge.
“I don’t know – maybe it doesn’t count as a date. But it was the second time we hooked up. And, I don’t know, you were just so . . . sweet about it. Don’t get mad, all right?”
I wonder where this is going.
“I promise, nothing could make me mad right now,” I tell her. I even cross my heart to prove it.
She smiles. “Okay. Well, lately – it’s like you’re always in a rush. Like, we have sex, but we’re not really . . . intimate. And I don’t mind. I mean, it’s fun. But every now and then, it’s good to have it be like this. And at Dack’s party – it was like this. Like you had all the time in the world, and you wanted us to have it together. I loved that. It was back when you were really looking at me. It was like – well, it was like you’d climbed up that tree and found me there at the top. And we had that together. Even though we were in someone’s back yard. At one point – do you remember? – you made me move over a little so I’d be in the moonlight. ‘It makes your skin glow,’ you said. And I felt like that. Glowing. Because you were watching me, along with the moon.”
Does she realize that right now she’s lit by the warm orange spreading from the horizon, as not-quite-day becomes not-quite-night? I lean over and become that shadow. I kiss her once, then we drift into each other, close our eyes, drift into sleep. And as we drift into sleep, I feel something I’ve never felt before. A closeness that isn’t merely physical. A connection that defies the fact that we’ve only just met. A sensation that can only come from the most euphoric of feelings: belonging.
What is it about the moment you fall in love? How can such a small measure of time contain such enormity? I suddenly realize why people believe in déjà vu, why people believe they’ve lived past lives, because there is no way the years I’ve spent on this earth could possibly encapsulate what I’m feeling. The moment you fall in love feels like it has centuries behind it, generations – all of them rearranging themselves so that this precise, remarkable intersection could happen. In your heart, in your bones, no matter how silly you know it is, you feel that everything has been leading to this, all the secret arrows were pointing here, the universe and time itself have crafted this long ago, and you are just now realizing it, you are just now arriving at the place you were always meant to be.
We wake an hour later to the sound of her phone.
I keep my eyes closed. Hear her groan. Hear her tell her mother she’ll be home soon.
The water has gone deep black and the sky has gone ink blue. The chill in the air presses harder against us as we pick up the blanket, provide a new set of footprints.
She navigates, I drive. She talks, I listen. We sing some more. Then she leans into my shoulder and I let her stay there and sleep for a little longer, dream for a little longer.
I am trying not to think of what will happen next.
I am trying not to think of endings.
I never get to see people while they’re asleep. Not like this. She is the opposite of when I first met her. Her vulnerability is open, but she’s safe within it. I watch the rise and fall of her, the stir and rest of her. I only wake her when I need her to tell me where to go.
The last ten minutes, she talks about what we’re going to do tomorrow. I find it hard to respond.
“Even if we can’t do this, I’ll see you at lunch?” she asks.
I nod.
“And maybe we can do something after school?”
“I think so. I mean, I’m not sure what else is going on. My mind isn’t really there right now.”
This makes sense to her. “Fair enough. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Let’s end today on a nice note.”
Once we get to town, I can access the directions to her house without having to ask her. But I want to get lost, anyway. To prolong this. To escape this.
“Here we are,” Rhiannon says as we approach her driveway.
I pull the car over. I unlock the doors.
She leans over and kisses me. My senses are alive with the taste of her, the smell of her, the feel of her, the sound of her breathing, the sight of her as she pulls her body away from mine.
“That’s the nice note,” she says. And before I can say anything else, she’s out the door and gone.
I don’t get a chance to say goodbye.
I guess, correctly, that Justin’s parents are used to him being out of touch and missing dinner. They try to yell at him, but you can tell that everyone’s going through the motions, and when Justin storms off to his room, it’s just the latest rerun of an old show.
I should be doing Justin’s homework – I’m always pretty conscientious about that kind of thing, if I’m able to do it – but my mind keeps drifting to Rhiannon. Imagining her at home. Imagining her floating from the grace of the day. Imagining her believing that things are different, that Justin has somehow changed.
I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have done it. Even if it felt like the universe was telling me to do it.
I agonize over it for hours. I can’t take it back. I can’t make it go away.
I fell in love once, or at least until today I thought I had. His name was Brennan, and it felt so real, even if it was mostly words. Intense, heartfelt words. I stupidly let myself think of a possible future with him. But there was no future. I tried to navigate it, but I couldn’t.
That was easy compared to this. It’s one thing to fall in love. It’s another to feel someone else falling in love with you, and to feel a responsibility toward that love.
There is no way for me to stay in this body. If I don’t go to sleep, the shift will happen anyway. I used to think that if I stayed up all night, I’d get to remain where I was. But instead I was ripped from the body I was in. And the ripping felt exactly what you would imagine being ripped from a body would feel like, with every single nerve experiencing the pain of the break, and then the pain of being fused into someone new. From then on, I went to sleep every night. There was no use fighting it.
I realize I have to call her. Her number’s right there in his phone. I can’t let her think tomorrow is going to be like today.
“Hey!” she answers.
“Hey,” I say.
“Thank you again for today.”
“Yeah.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to ruin it. But I have to, don’t I?
I continue, “But about today?”
“Yeah? Are you going to tell me that we can’t cut class every day? That’s not like you.”
Not like me.
“Yeah,” I say, “but, you know, I don’t want you to think every day is going to be like today. Because they’re not going to be, all