Page 74 of The Crush
“That’s it,” I encourage her as she matches my rhythm. As she reaches back to wrap her arms around my neck, as her breathing hitches. “Good girl, Isabel.”
Right before she breaks, I tilt her head back, her mouth already seeking mine, and I’m still more than happy to swallow her moans when they don’t need to be hidden. To let her take me with her.
“I thought you wanted me in our bed,” she teases while I’m still trying to catch my breath afterward, still inside her as I press my mouth to the nape of her neck, and think about how I want hereverywhere.
“Next round, bonita,” I swear to her softly. “Next round.”
Fifty-Eight
Isabel
Tuesday, November 1, 1994
We do eventually make it to the bed. We do eventually slow down.
Switching to savoring the minutes we have alone together versus racing through them, drifting in and out of sleep, not sure who reaches for whom first. The last time I wake in the night, I know for sure it’s me. My hand searching for him and his warmth, but only finding cold sheets.
I sit up to see that the time is just past midnight. Halloween officially over. Día de Muertos officially begun.
I hope they really are on their way. All the ones that belong to me and the ones that belong to him, too. At least, that thought makes me feel less alone as I go in search of my own lost soul.
Fifty-Nine
Daniel
There are orange petals crushed into the rocks, my flashlight catching on the bright color amongst the gray as they try to guide me back to the front door in the same way they’re supposed to guide the dead. But instead, I’m still chasing ghosts.
I know I should be asleep. At the very least, I know I should be in the house, not out here.
I know that. Iknow, but—
I’dheardsomething. Swore I saw something, too. The certainty too much to keep me in bed with Isabel where I belong, because what if itissomething?
There’s a break in the stillness. A sound out here that’s not supposed to be, and it’s so familiar. That spike of awareness, that adrenaline, that acute sense of no longer being alone in the dark.
Go. Go. Go.
Shadows on the shed. Something moving in the dark, and I’m moving now, too, settling into a crouch as I duck behind another outbuilding. This. I know this.
Wait. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wait.
There it is again. Not only one but two. I can see them now, and for the first time in a long time, I feel…I feel like I know what I’m supposed to do next.
They move again and so do I, slipping along the side of the building and around the corner. I’m listening for the sound of their voices, of their footsteps as they walk closer. A bit more and I’ll be able to see them.
The one in the lead walks under one of the motion-activated lights above the barn, sudden panic on their faces as they freeze.
Christ, they’re kids, I think, freezing, too. Still in their costumes, and I’m certain I saw Isabel handing candy out to them only a few hours ago. A warm smile on her face as they shouted, “Trick-or-treat!”
They must have decided on both.
Something hits the ground before they run, shouting and screaming as they tear off toward the road. A retreat before I even have an opportunity to advance, but I still find myself falling back, leaning into the warm wooden wall at my back as I break into a cold sweat.
Go now.
It takes me so long this time, so long to remember that I’m home. So long to remember that I came back at all.
Sixty
