Page 22 of One Little Change
“Smile all the time,” Lydia responded, sharing her own list of things she never wanted to do. “Dress an animal in people clothes, eat fried twinkies, like what the fuck Luke, why does he think those are a good idea?”
Speaking of him. “Have disgusting couple nicknames,” I said. That was a Ryan and Luke thing. “Let my hair be its natural color.” That was a me thing. “Vote Republican.” That was just a general thing, like, that everyone should follow.
“Smile some of the time, wear pink, learn people’s names, eat at a buffet—” Lydia sounded like she was just getting started while we were nearing the end of my list. “Discuss the weather,” she continued. “Talk to people about their vacations, use or associate with anyone who uses a selfie stick, talk to people about anything, go camping—"
“Your list might be longer than mine,” I pointed out. I could put doing another production of Grease on there twice. That musicalwas on the tame, acceptable side of high school theater productions and Spring Awakening was on the other end. Wasn’t there something in the middle we could explore instead of doing Grease another freaking time?
“The list of things I don’t want to do goes on and on,” Lydia said. “It’s really not a hardship to add one thing to it for you.”
For me. As in not what she wanted but something she thought she had to do. For my sake. That was worse than Grease.
“Those are all kinda small things,” I tried to reply lightly. If we were going to have sex though, wasn’t I the one doing what she wanted for her sake and not mine? I wasn’t sure. I did get something out of it. Maybe not the thing I wanted, but what people wanted and needed weren’t always the same, right? Or was that a gross sentiment in a sexual context? Dammit.
“You’re the biggest thing in my world,” Lydia told me with surety. That was sweet.
“You too,” I replied. She was sweet but sometimes it felt like she wasn’t just the biggest thing in my world, she was the world. The whole damn thing, all of it was her.
We sat in silence for a moment. Silence between us. The birds chirped, there was the muted clamor of people getting stuff ready for dinner in the dining hall, and the occasional distant sound of a car passing by. I looked at Lydia while she looked out at the water. Lydia is the most gorgeous, the most self-assured, the most amazing and it’s like somehow she likes me too. And she’s mine.
There’s just this one little thing. And if I can tweak it, it feels like I’ll be able to keep her.
“This is really in the maybe column?” she asked after a moment.
“Definite maybe,” I replied evenly. I could always sound even. Acting.
“Oh,” Lydia said. “Watch that movie.” Another thing on her list of things she never wanted to do. Watch Definitely Maybe.
I fought a smile. This was an old argument and she was so wrong. “I swear it’s good and Ryan Reynolds—”
“Yeah, I’ll take your word for it that he’s hot, but I don’t see it myself.” That had to be a lie. Just because she wasn’t attracted to men didn’t mean she couldn’t look at Ryan Reynolds and see his perfection because it’s not like I—
It’s not like I was attracted to men either. Or women. He had a nice face, that’s all.
Maybe I had some doubts about this whole thing. It was just…
Lydia did what she wanted and no one could stop her. I loved that about her, but it also made things a little scary. It felt like nothing could stop us while what she wanted was me. But what if that changed? She couldn’t just swear off sex for me like it was no big deal. If she never stopped to think about it, just tried to put it out of her mind, there would be nothing I could do the day she finally did start wondering about that kind of intimacy.
I like myself. I don’t want to be different. Except sometimes when Lydia is around. And then I think maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Giving up something, some part of myself. A specific part of myself. As long as I got to keep her.
That was the bad way to put it.
I liked thinking of it the other way. Where I loved her so much, felt for her so strongly, that I don’t know. Maybe, I thought sometimes. Maybe, I hoped sometimes. Maybe all the stuff I thought I knew about myself, the way I felt about sex and attraction in general, maybe it didn’t apply to Lydia. Because that was who she was. She didn’t follow any rules. She did what she wanted. She made me want to be like that too.
