Page 65 of Colt
We sit down in the grass, and I set the basket out. I brought a small blanket, not for us to sit on, but to put the Tupperware on, because the idea of putting it straight on the grass just feels a little bit too close to nature for me.
Ants can stay well away from my picnic.
I’m happier to focus on that than I am on my current emotional state. I wait for conversation to strike up easily between us. It doesn’t. That’s unusual. I can’t tell if it’s me or if it’s him. “You didn’t even have trouble sitting down,” I point out. Mainly because I’m desperate to get something going, but I’m not sure that was the right thing to say.
He looks at his crutches. “No. I didn’t. Sometimes I don’t even think that much about it anymore.”
“Because whatever happens, you’re just going to keep… Being you. Figuring it out.”
“I guess that’s life. Isn’t it? I mean, you’ve been through some stuff, but you just keep on doing it.”
“Yeah,” I say.
I have a feeling that he’s going to go on the list of things I’ve been through. I don’t think that drawing a boundary around this and forgetting it happened is going to be easy. Hell, I’m tempted to say that it will even be possible. But I can’t think that way. We jumped into this, and we need to be able to get back out of it. For the sake of our family. For our sake.
I’ve heard the term forest bathing before, but never thought much about it. As I sit there beneath the pine trees, the sun pouring down on me, I feel like I understand it. Like there’s something healing out here. A baptism among the firs, and he’s with me for it. With me in it.
Then, he reaches across the distance and touches my face. I recognize that look on his face. Intense, longing.
“This is literally a public space.”
“There’s no one here,” he says.
I’ve never been as attracted to anyone as I am to this man. I’ve never wanted somebody so badly that I was willing to take a risk like this. He makes me want to do it.
He makes me want to forget everything, drop all my rules, drop all my worries, and embrace him.
And why not? If he’s going to be a hard learned lesson, if I’m already sleeping with my stepbrother, then I might as well take this risk. It might as well be him and me, here under the sky, with the trees as witnesses, and all that healing sun. It might as well be as dirty and brilliant and risky as all that.
Because maybe healing has to hurt.
God knows his is.
Maybe the kind I need to do is going to hurt too. I never really thought about it. About all the ways that I’ve been protectingmyself. I thought that I had processed my mom’s death. As well as you can, anyway.
It’s not like I would’ve chosen it, but I feel a certain sort of peace.
But… Do I? Or do I just hold parts of myself back so that I’m never really hurt. Do I keep from challenging those tender places? Those parts of me that are vulnerable and raw.
He doesn’t wait for me to say yes. He kisses me. There’s a desperation to it. A deep sort of longing. As if he senses the magnitude of the moment too. Maybe he’s thinking about the end, just like I am. Or maybe he’s just thinking about this and us and the whole sky bearing witness.
I can’t say.
I’m not sure that it matters. We are experiencing this intensity together, and I find there’s something beautiful in that. Hell, it’s been beautiful the whole time. That we both want this. Beyond reason, madness and anything else. I give myself over to the kiss. Open my mouth wide so he can take it deep. His hands move over my body, effortlessly removing my dress. I strip his shirt away, push him onto his back. I want him. I need him.
We’re always responsible. We always use condoms.
But I’m on the pill, and I feel a risky edge to this that I want to explore. Like I want to stop shielding myself, and feel everything. I want him inside me with nothing between us. I have never wanted that before. In fact, I would say that I wanted the condom. I wanted a barrier between myself and the man that I was having sex with, and if that doesn’t say something about those relationships, nothing else can.
But suddenly, I need him. I crave him. Want to be filled with him.
Is that twisted? Maybe.
I’m there. Twisted, undone. For him.
Only for him. I want to give him everything. I want to lay it all down. I want to be more vulnerable. Is that even possible? Like we only have this very limited amount of time, and I need to experience the full extent of all the feelings that can exist between us. I have to.
I’m not gentle when I tear at his belt, his jeans, until he’s free.
