Page 47 of The Trouble with Wanting

“You have nothing to worry about—that’s what I’m trying to get at,” she finally says. “Boyd is into you. If you’re one of those girls who struggles with exes or jealousy, don’t waste your chips on Corinne.”

I nod, feeling thankful that Bellamy is so forthcoming. It’s helped soothe some of my irritation toward Corinne from last night, as well as a little bit of residual nerves that maybe something really is going on between her and Boyd.

Now, I feel like I can be fully excited about spending time with him at the bonfire tonight. Maybe he’ll open up a bit and I can get a better understanding of what makes him tick.

I’m realizing with belated certainty just how much I want to know all the little pieces that make Boyd the man he is.

Hopefully, under the moonlit sky and next to the undulating flames of a fire, I’ll be able to gather the courage to invite him over tonight.

I would be lying to myself if I didn’t acknowledge the way he makes me feel, like I’m a bonfire in my own right, my fires stoked and fueled and steadily building, like just the right moment with Boyd might set everything ablaze.

I have to be careful, though, because even the headiest of bonfires have a tipping point where things can go one of two ways.

There’s a moment when there’s a risk of the fire burning too hot or being extinguished completely.

chapter eleven

Boyd

It was the seniors a few years before me who began the tradition of Sunday-night bonfires at Forks during the summer. I don’t know exactly what it was that drove that specific custom, why Sunday evenings and why never during the school year.

All I knew as a sophomore in high school was that going out to have a few drinks at one of the campgrounds with my new girlfriend sounded like the best time I could ever imagine.

Corinne and I had been dating for a few months during that first summer when Peter Gillis and his buddies started rounding up all the cool kids, inviting us to the most epic party we could imagine.

I lost my virginity to Corinne in the back of her dad’s truck at one of those bonfires. It was clumsy and awkward and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t very good at anything I was doing. Eventually it got better, but all throughout our time dating, we liked to drive out to Forks together and recreate that night, both of us pretending it was our first time so we could get a do-over.

It took me a long time to understand why we used to do that, why we couldn’t seem to move on from that first sexual experience. It finally occurred to me when I was in my twenties that we kept trying to make it better because we wanted so desperately for something between us to make sense.

We didn’t like the same things. We hardly ever had conversations about anything that mattered. We pretty much dated because she liked me and I thought she was pretty and that should have been enough at sixteen years old.

So we kept going back to the thing that should have made us feel inextricably connected to each other—being each other’s firsts—and trying to recreate some sort of spark or connection that just never seemed to pop up between us.

Then when it was time for me to leave for college, I broke up with her. All I could picture was her being jealous of other girls, us arguing on the phone, coming home for the summer and being back in that same relationship again. The idea of doing long-distance with Corinne created visions of an endless cycle of all the horrible things to come, and I didn’t have it in me to even try.

It’s one of the reasons I’ve never really tried to have another relationship, instead choosing to enjoy the casual sex that’s so common as a college student, as a new professional, and then as a bachelor.

It didn’t ever occur to me that things didn’t work in that relationship because things weren’t right between me and Corinne. I just assumed it meant relationships weren’t for me, thought it would be the same with any woman, so why bother? Why not just enjoy the one part that was almost always great?

Sex.

I preferred the somewhat transparent component to casual sex. Meeting women on hookup apps and in bars meant they were usually interested in the same thing I was: a good time. There weren’t hidden emotions or secret feelings or any sort of chance that either of us could be in it for anything other than getting off and having a little fun while we did it.

Sure, there were a few women in there who were interesting enough to hold my attention for a bit longer than one night, but those fizzled out fairly quickly once the word more came into play.

Now, in my late twenties, my mindset is starting to shift away from that place it’s been locked up in for so long. It’s like a layer of grime and filth that was caked on something beautiful for a long time has finally been wiped away, revealing something completely different than what I thought it would be.

And that beautiful thing is Ruby.

Ruby Rae Roberts and her ridiculous laugh and silly ramblings and smile that makes me unable to do anything but smile back.

She’s something else, and watching her walk toward me across the campground, the red and orange flames lighting up one side of her face, I know without a shadow of a doubt that the last thing I want with her is casual.

Is a single day too soon to realize something like that?

Maybe.

Maybe I’ll fuck this all up by allowing my emotions to grow roots too quickly.

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