Page 17 of Just Try, Again and Again

My brain is scrambling, trying to process what he’s saying and the orgasm that just exploded in my body. I hear him unbuckling his belt and opening a condom wrapper, the sound accompanied by the air conditioning in the room. Bryce parts my legs before lifting them up with his hands and putting them over his shoulders. He thrusts himself slowly and I feel every single inch entering me. A small wave of energy courses through my body as he begins to move.

“You’re more than that and you know it.”

“How much do I mean to you?” His voice is husky as he pumps in and out of me, his thickness filling me up inside while his piercing puts pressure on my womb.

“Even if…even if I tried, I don’t think I can erase…any detail from our time together…from my memory.” And it’s the truth. Bryce Randall Simmons, the troubled guy crying in the middle of the night. Bryce Randall Simmons, the school athlete who invited me to his school’s bonfire. Bryce Randall Simmons, the person who trusts me with his secrets and I entrust with mine. I can never forget the three of them, even if I wanted to, so I’m not going to delude myself.

I meet his thrusts when I feel a familiar heat radiating from my lower body. Bryce seems to realize this and picks up his pace.“And what are you going to do about that?” he asks, his breath heavy.

My unsure eyes meet his. I can’t read the expression on his face right now.What does he want from me?Before I can answer, his body stiffens and I feel him pulsating inside me. Bryce silences my voice with his mouth when my own orgasm leaves my body.

“Let’s just get married, Haruki,” Bryce says casually as he takes off the condom. The moment I register what he’s saying, he’s already walking butt-naked to the trash can inside the bathroom.

What the hell?

14

Bryce - 18 years old

Icome back to the bedroom and Haruki is staring at me with her mouth hanging open like I should be committed for a psych evaluation. Hell, maybe I should. Either that, or love just makes you do crazy things.

“Want to order room service?” I ask.

My hand is already reaching for the menu sitting on the coffee table next to the sofa when Haruki starts speaking. “Are you going to pretend like you didn’t just propose to me?” I feel a smile forming on my face.Propose.

“Here,” I say, tossing the menu on the bed so she can pick her dinner. Haruki looks at me irritated before her eyes scour the main courses listed. “Technically, I just said let’s get married. It wasn’t a proposal.”

“Okay, I’m confused.”

“Long-distance relationships are predestined to fail. Plus, I’m not very good with texting. You won’t even make it out of America yet when you realize that I don’t check my phone that often. You know how it goes…we’ll promise to keep in touch andtalk every day, and then you’ll slowly hate me for missing your calls. Before you know it, there will be distance between us, and we’ll be broken up without saying the words. This way, at least we’ll be buried with paperwork before we exit each other’s lives. Plus, it’s a good way to make use of your American passport other than to skip lines at the airport.”I’m fucking insane.

“So, you’re not a murderer. Just the garden variety lunatic, I take it?”

Just tell her how you feel, you dumbass.I walk over and sit on the edge of the bed. Haruki is looking at me with her eyebrows scrunched up. I take her hand in mine and rub my thumb across her knuckles. “Haruki, I have never felt like this before. Call me a lunatic all you want, I don’t care, but nobody knows me like you do. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you feel the same. Everything is so easy with us, and I’m not ready for this to end just yet.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to get married, Bryce. I’m not ready for that.”

I let out a small smile. When I was thinking about this last night, I had a feeling she would say that. “I’m not ready for that, either, and I’m not asking you to marry me in a traditional sense.”Okay, no going back now. She’s literally looking at me like I’m insane.“Just hear me out first, okay? After what you told me about what you did back in Osaka, do you really want to go back there?”

Haruki silently shakes her head. This is not an easy topic for her, but I need to get my point across. “And yet you don’t want to let go of your Japanese nationality, am I understanding this correctly? Because you feel connected to your culture and it would feel like the ultimate betrayal?”

“Bryce…”

“Haruki, if we get married, you can have the best of both worlds. Keep your Japanese passport, but stay here with me.Travel for a year and then figure out what you want to do with your life. You deserve to make a plan for yourself at your own pace—here, in Japan, anywhere else, whatever. Maybe with time, you can track down your mother’s family, as well. But I want to be your lifeline here. It’ll make you have more options.”

“What’s in it foryou?” she asks. “It sounds like you’d be doing me a favor.”

“What’s in it for me is that I’d be tethered to you,” I answer honestly. “I don’t have a lot of people in my life that I can count on. I have a dad, but we don’t spend enough time with each other to be able to call ourselves a family. My friends don’t know me at all. But you, you feel like both.”I just want to be connected to you through something. I’m always an afterthought. I know this is crazy, but I just don’t want you to forget about me.

Haruki doesn’t answer me. Instead, she puts on her dress that’s on the floor, her hands reach for her tote bag, and she starts walking to the hallway where our shoes are. I’m about to stop her, but words finally come out of her mouth. “I need to go for a walk. Alone. Let me digest this, okay? This is all too much.”

I’m staringat the digital version of the wedding invitation my father emailed me when I hear someone open the front door of the bungalow. I let out a breath of relief. Haruki walks in with a takeout bag. She walks toward the bed and hands one Styrofoam box over to me.

We both eat our fish tacos in silence. I am starting to regret bringing up my stupid idea when Haruki wipes her mouth with one of the tissues from the brown paper bag. “If we actually do it,” she says carefully, “what would that even mean for us?”

I try to curb my enthusiasm. My heart is doing cartwheels inside my chest. “It doesn’t have to mean anything you don’t want it to mean. Everything is new between us; I’m not asking you to take a vow and be mine until the day I fucking die. But this makes it easier for us to try and for you to figure your shit out in the meantime. We can just continue seeing where our relationship would go naturally.”

“So, like a green card marriage?”

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