Because I had my answer. The one I had been dodging for months.
When our lips touched, I realized the effort had been worth it. The pain. I had taken off my raincoat. I had accepted fear. I had felt. Feeling. Feeling. I saw before my eyes the way emotions achieve a balance through highs and lows, because if sorrow didn’t exist, no one would have bothered to invent the word happiness. And that’s what kissing him had been. A spark of happiness, the kind that lights up and explodes like a castle of fireworks. There had been a tickle in my stomach. The taste of that explosive night on his lips. The scent of the sea absorbed in his skin. His fingers rough on my cheeks. His eyes stripping me naked. Him. Him again. Always him.
Giving that up…was impossible.
50
_________
Axel
I got up in a rotten mood, still mad at myself, at her, and at whatever was in front of me. I downed my coffee in one sip, grabbed my board, and took the trail to the beach.
The water was colder at that time of the year, but I was almost grateful for it. I concentrated on the waves, on dominating my own body as I rode them, on the sun rising slowly past the line of the horizon, on the sound of the waves…
And when I was exhausted in the water, arms resting over my board, the thoughts I had tried to bury came rushing back.
Her. And those lips that tasted like lime.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
What the fuck had happened to me?
I got out of the water even angrier and went home. I left my board on the porch and saw Leah up and about, pouring herself a coffee in the kitchen behind the bar. I swallowed, tense. She looked at me from the corner of her eye.
“Why didn’t you get me up?”
“We were up late last night.”
Leah pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Yeah, but you always get me up.”
“Not today. Any coffee left?”
“A little, I think.”
“Good.”
I served myself my second cup of the day and opened the fridge to find something to munch on. As I’d feared, I heard her voice behind me. And that tone…that tone told me she wasn’t just going to let it go. I hadn’t wanted to hear that tone.
“Axel, last night…”
“Last night was a fucking mistake.” I exhaled the breath I had been holding and leaned against one of the cabinets. I looked into her eyes. I was firm. Hard. As I had to be.
“Leah, you asked me for that, for me to give you a kiss. I did it, even if now I know I shouldn’t have. I guess I ought to have known you would get confused, and I don’t blame you. You’re having a hard time. And you…you…”
She stepped forward. “I what?”
“You’re a girl, Leah.”
“You know that hurts me.”
“With time, you’ll realize the hurt sometimes cures other things.”
And she needed to cure herself of me, of whatever it was she had in her head. I wasn’t really sure what she was feeling, and just as on that day years ago when I saw the heart in her day planner, I didn’t want to know. There are things it’s best to just ignore and let disappear. Avoid. Look away from.
It was easier like that. Much easier…
I grabbed a carton of orange juice.
“I don’t believe you, Axel. I felt it. I felt you.”
She stepped toward me. And every step made my stomach turn. I saw her as the girl she used to be, the one who jumped without thinking, who didn’t know the word consequences. The passionate girl. Intense. The one who let her feelings well over because they didn’t scare her. The one who might do anything. Who painted with her eyes closed and let her feelings carry her away, without analyzing every line, without knowing she was creating magic.
“I know I asked you for it. But it was real. That kiss.”
“Leah, don’t make things complicated,” I grumbled.
“Fine, but admit it. And I’ll stop.”
“I’m not going to lie to you to make you happy.”
I put away the OJ and slammed the door to the fridge as I thought about what a fucking mess I’d made over something so silly. I left her there and went outside.
When the fuck did I decide it was a good idea to get drunk with her? When did I give in and let my impulses carry me away? When…did it come to this? I didn’t understand what was happening. How this girl, the one I’d known forever, had watched grow up, could be here asking me to admit that kiss had been real.
If Oliver found out, he’d kill me.
And what would Douglas Jones think of this shit?
When I felt the force of that question, I scowled. It was the first time I’d thought of him that way, as if he were still somehow here. I rubbed my face. I had never understood people who, when something good happened to them, acted like it was some kind of gift or disposition from their deceased loved ones or, when the opposite occurred, reprimanded themselves, imagining they had disappointed them. It was an illusion. Holding on to the hope of survival.
The half-empty glass told me that, if the situation of the first months had been hard, with her shut away and not talking, the one starting now was going to be far worse. The half-empty glass shouted to me that in some twisted way, Leah was feeling. Yes, she was feeling what she shouldn’t, but that was better than the alternative: the void.
But not even that thought calmed me down when, a while later, she walked out onto the porch and looked at me like I was a fucking knight in shining armor.
I realized I had to do something drastic. Something that would cut this off at the roots.
51
_________
Leah
At the beginning of the day, I felt a knot in my stomach.
I didn’t care what Axel said. I had felt it. In his look. On his lips. It had been real, very real. And I had been dreaming of a kiss from him for so long… So many nights in bed, looking at the ceiling in my room and asking myself what it would be like…
I held my breath when he came out onto the porch without looking at me. I suppressed my desire to say something, because I was starting to taste the disappointment, and I didn’t expect anything more from him. I understood the situation––but still, I was surprised he was such a coward. He had always seemed so solid, so open, so brutally honest, even if that turned out to be the wrong thing.
Later on, when I grabbed a little fruit, I noticed Axel wasn’t going to have lunch at the normal hour. I spent the rest of the day in my room with my headphones on listening to “Let It Be” with my eyes closed while I remembered how we had danced on the porch, how delicately he had let his hands slip down to my hips and waist, relaxed, looking at me under the stars…
And then his lips––demanding. The hoarse moan that entered my mouth. His hot breath. The butterflies in my stomach. The soft feel of his tongue. That moment. Ours alone.
I turned over in bed and fell asleep.
When I woke up, night was falling.
Axel was in the living room, sitting at his desk looking over his work even though it was Saturday. He was dressed. Since he always went around in a bathing suit or track pants with a plain cotton T-shirt, I was surprised to find him in jeans and a printed button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.