Page 80 of The Stars in the Sky
Loophole
THE WAVES CRASHED on the beach and withdrew as I dug my feet into the sand. The summer sun pounded on me. I felt like the water and the sun would wash away my emotions: this agonizing need to get away from him. To escape. To get out of there. I needed time to think.
I started walking up the beach, thoughts zooming in my head, buzzing around, and not letting me rest.
Or maybe I needed to stop thinking.
Could I imagine life without Will?
No.
Turning to the waves and watching the splash of the water, I realized that answer came immediately. Even though I’d just been compelled to leave him, the thought of leaving him for real horrified me. So was that what love was?
And then I thought about him.
Not just the overwhelming physical attraction I felt to his beauty and his masculine power. But the way he’d shown me his true nature through what he’d done all summer.
He brought me vegan Republican candy.
He stuck up for Truc.
He apologized immediately when he was an unsupportive dick to me at the disastrous campfire where the fire wouldn't light, and he never did it again.
He made a hippie black and blue tie-dye with James when he didn't want to.
He wore that tie-dye the whole day in Santa Barbara, in public, in front of my ex-boyfriend, when he didn't want to.
I turned and walked the other way down the beach, looking for shells, lost in my thoughts.
He stood out under the stars with me and lay under them spooning with my friends in the back of his truck.
He was the most generous lover I had ever been with. He went down on me first, expecting nothing in return. And the most jaw-dropping, with his dark eyes, tanned skin, and cut body.
He loved his double-amputee mom who’d inspired the program I worked for.
Reaching down, I picked up a sand dollar, small and perfect, fingering it.
He gave me the key to his ridiculously huge truck.
He bought me vegan Pea Soup Andersen soup. And sweet and salty local, responsible ice cream.
He quit chewing tobacco, immediately.
He donated his property to helping kids like Charles and Janiqua. He cared. He wanted to make the world better too. He didn't want development around him. He grew organic produce. He raised his animals humanely. He ran a legacy family business with grit and pride.
Then I thought about the way he looked at me when I called him my boyfriend. The way he looked at me always.
He was incredible.
I threw the sand dollar into the surf, watching it splash.
Fuck, I was in love with him and I didn't even know it. I couldn't admit it to myself because I had tried all summer to keep a distance, to not analyze, to not let myself fall for him. But it had happened anyway.
And I had been in love with him for a very long time.
It didn't just happen right now. It happened a while ago.
But I just realized it now.
