“Is there any reason we need to, if you’re…clean or whatever, and I’m sterile?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never…” A hesitation, a frown. “Okay, well, I don’t know to say this other than straight up. I told you I’ve only been with two people. And there wasn’t all that many, um, instances, with either of them. But in every instance, we used protection. So I don’t know if there’s a reason to use it if we don’t need to. I don’t know.”
“Is it weird that I’m kind of glad you don’t know? Because I guess if you don’t know, then it feels kind of like we’re doing something for the first time together.”
“Not weird at all.”
A silence. I take his hand, tangle our fingers together. “Wes?”
He glances at me. “Hmm?”
“You can assume.”
He lifts an eyebrow, smirking. “I can, huh?”
I nod, feeling a bizarre mix of shy and bold at once. “I want that. With you. I was thinking about that in the shower…you know, afterward. How much I want more. I’m ready for more. I’m ready for…that.” I look at him until he meets my gaze for as long as he safely can while driving. “I want to have sex with you. Make love with you. Whatever words or phrases you want to use, I want that with you, and I don’t want to wait very long. I don’t have any reservations. I don’t want to take my time. I love how I feel when I’m with you, and I want…everything.”
“I want it with you, too.”
I wait for him to qualify it, with when you’re ready or something like that. But he doesn’t.
That makes my stomach flip. He wants me. Desires me.
I feel giddy all over.
Flower in the Dawn
Westley
She spends significantly longer on the phone with her grandmother. Their conversation is deep and intensely personal, and wanders across a vast range of topics, from her feelings regarding her terminal diagnosis to her relationship with me. It doesn’t sound to me as if she spares her grandmother any details or hedges her opinions, nor does she filter herself. And while I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, it’s clear her grandmother does the same for her. It’s inspiring, and heartwarming, and makes me want to call my own grandmother—even though I certainly don’t have that kind of relationship with her.
Finally, near the end of an hour, her grandmother asks a question that leaves Jolene speechless for a long, long time.
“Yeah, I’m still here, Grandma,” she says, after a lengthy silence. “Sorry, I just…I don’t know how to answer that.” She switches the phone to her left hand and wipes a finger underneath her eyelids, brushing away tears, though her voice gives away nothing of the fact that she’s crying. “Grandma, I…I genuinely don’t know what I believe, okay? I just don’t. God is…I’m conflicted. And I honestly don’t really want to talk about it. I know you want me to have, like, some literal, legit Come-To-Jesus moment, but I’m not there. If Jesus loved me then why am I dying? Yeah, Grandma, I know—no one knows the ways of the Lord. That’s not much comfort, unfortunately. Especially now that I’ve found a man I really like. I mean, according to Dr. Miller, it won’t be long. Before the year is out, certainly. And…god, Grandma, it’s just not fucking fair. Don’t ‘language’ me, Captain America, I feel like I’m allowed to curse once in a while.” She sighs a laugh. “It’s a joke, Grandma, a reference to a movie I doubt you’ve seen.” A pause, listening. “Yes, Avengers, Age of Ultron, if you’d like to be specific. Yes, Chris Evans is very handsome—oh my god, Grandma! You can’t say stuff like that! You’re a grandmother and a Christian…well, yes, I know you’re still a woman at the end of the day, but—never mind, never mind.”
Another pause as she listens.
“Grandma, I love you more than I can say. I want you to pray for me, because I sure as heck need it. But I’m not going to sit here and pretend to believe something I don’t just to make you feel better. It would be a disservice to you, to what you believe, and to myself. The fact of the matter is that if there is a God and if that God actually loves me, he wouldn’t make me suffer my entire life—and he sure as hell wouldn’t make me suffer my entire life and then die before my twentieth birthday. That’s what I believe. But I respect what you believe and I respect you for standing firm in that, no matter what. I just don’t feel loved by God. I’m sorry, but I don’t. You say he has a purpose, and maybe that’s true, but it seems like a pretty shitty purpose, Grandma.”
A long pause, and a sigh. “Look, I love you. I miss you. When Wes and I figure out when and where we’re going to get married, I’ll call you and make arrangements for you to be here with us, because even if you don’t agree with what I’m doing or how I’m doing it, I know you love me with everything you’ve got and you’ll support me. And I need that support, Grandma. So on the matter of faith, we’re going to have to agree to disagree. But don’t stop praying. Because maybe God will listen to you in a way he doesn’t listen to me, for whatever reason. I don’t know. Pray for a miraculous healing. Because I really, really think this thing I have with Wes is amazing and magical—” her eyes cut to me, here, with a smile, “and I really, really want to have as much time as I can get to explore it with him. A lifetime would be really nice, but I’d take even a few more weeks.”
Another few minutes of back and forth, and then she ends the call, setting the phone into the console with a long, heavy sigh, rubbing her face with both hands.
“My grandmother is a lot. Talking to her is amazing, but it can be exhausting.”
I reach out and rub her arm. “I was just thinking about how I’m kind of jealous of your relationship with your grandmother. I don’t have that with mine.”
She makes a face, a complicated expression of wry amusement and sadness. “It comes from hours together in the oncology ward. My mom and dad could only spend so long with me since they had to work. Grandma retired when I was like, ten? So when I was stuck in the hospital going through endless rounds of treatment or at home recovering, it was Grandma who was with me most of the time. So yeah, it made us really close.”
“That’s honestly really special,” I say.
“I guess it is,” she says, shrugging.
“No, it definitely is. I’m not super close to anyone in my family except Dinah.” I hesitate. “I sometimes feel like I traded family for fame. Granted, growing up, things at home and with my family weren’t always all that great. I was…misunderstood.”
“You said they don’t necessarily support you, even now.”
I wince. “I may have fudged that a bit. They disagree with pretty much every decision I’ve ever made. They thought I should go to college or trade school and pursue music as a hobby. And they really hate that I’m an actor now, and not really even a musician anymore.” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “My grandparents on my dad’s side both passed when I was little—they had Dad very late in life. Mom’s folks are still around, but Grandpa has pretty serious dementia, and Grandma…well…let’s just say she’s not dealing with that well. I go back East a few times a year and visit everyone, but it’s strained as hell. Grandma thinks I’m a YouTube celebrity, or something. Like, she thinks it’s all an internet hoax, or…or something. I’m not really sure what she thinks, and I don’t think she’s super clear on it herself.”