After a lazy morning full of tangled thoughts, Leah returned, and when she climbed the stairs of the porch with a smile on her lips, I felt that everything clicked again. The doubts and mistakes disappeared with the first kiss, and I was just there, in the present, with her.
When night fell, after dinner, I lay in the hammock and she got in beside me, curling up against my body while we swung back and forth. We were nothing but the music coming softly from the living room, glimmering stars, and the scent of the sea borne on the breeze.
“You know we need to talk, right?”
“We don’t have to,” I said.
“I want to know what it is that most worries you.” She looked at me, reached up, and smoothed the space between my eyebrows. “See? I don’t like that. You being so tense.”
I pushed a hand inside her dress and squeezed the right side of her ass before kissing her. “I know a way to get rid of the tension.”
“Axel, please. No jokes right now.”
Her face turned sad and I wanted to die. Because I never thought I could get that hooked on another person that fast. Because I wasn’t used to feeling that or to silly gestures melting my heart. Because I thought I didn’t go for romantic bullshit, but just then, I could have written a love song about her. The last girl in the world I thought I’d lose my head over. The one I’d known my whole life. The one who had always been there, invisible before my very eyes.
I rubbed my chin and sighed. “Fine, let’s talk.”
“What are we going to do?”
“No fucking idea.”
“You…you must have thought of something.”
“Wait. I need a cigarette.”
I went to the kitchen to grab the packet. When I returned, Leah was sitting on the hammock, swinging shyly and watching me. I lit a cigarette and took a long drag before finding the right words, if they even existed.
“I think we should take some time. You know, to see how everything works. And then, I don’t know, I don’t have a plan; it’s not like I saw this coming. I’m just making it up as I go along and trying not to think too much.”
“Fine. We won’t think about it.” She said this with a furrowed forehead.
“Come on, don’t make that face.” I put out my cigarette and walked over to her. I stood between her legs and drew a heart on her face with my fingers before tugging at her cheeks. It worked; she laughed.
“Leah, you know how fucked up this is for me, right? It makes me feel guilty. Bad. It’s not a normal situation. It’s tough.”
“Sorry,” she whispered and rested her head on my chest.
We stayed like that for a while, kissing slowly. I don’t know how I had never noticed before how magical a kiss could be. How intimate. Something so little, so lovely. With her all I wanted to do was close my eyes and feel every touch and every breath.
82
_________
Leah
Before then, i thought love was like a match that catches fire and then trembles as it burns. But no. Love is that soft series of sparks before the fireworks go off. It was his cheek against my chin when I woke, when the sun still hadn’t come up. It was that feeling I got in my stomach when I touched him. It was his slow movements when we made love and his deep voice whispering my name. It was the taste of the sea on his skin. It was my desire to freeze every moment we spent together. It was his intense, mirthful look.
Love was feeling everything in a single kiss.
83
_________
Leah
Blair cracked up when i told her the latest news. We were lying on her bed in her room looking at the fluorescent stars on the ceiling that glowed in the dark.
I nudged her. “What are you laughing about?”
“I don’t know. You. the situation.”
“Very funny.” I turned around, grabbed a stuffed bear, and cuddled with it. “I’m scared, Blair.”
“Don’t be. You should be enjoying this moment. It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? And now you’ve got it. The boy forever out of reach, the one you always said would never notice you.”
“I thought he never would.”
“Life is unpredictable like that.”
“Right. But…” I slipped a lock of hair behind my ear and thought about what I wanted to say. My nerves were killing me. “It’s too good to be true. And too complicated too. No one knows, just you. I don’t like that, having to hide it, but I understand…I understand it could be a problem. I can’t even imagine how my brother would react if he found out.”
“You’re grown up, Leah.”
“I guess.”
“So fuck it. Maybe he’s right to wait and see how everything goes before getting your families involved. Don’t overthink it; you’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
The doorbell rang and Blair got up to answer. She reappeared in her room with Kevin a few minutes later. I smiled and said hi to him.
“Is it girls’ night? Am I missing any good gossip?” He sat at the chair by her desk.
“If we told you, we’d have to kill you.” Blair kissed him before sitting next to me cross-legged on the bed.
I laughed, pleased to see them so happy together. And because it seemed like just another afternoon in the old days.
I said goodbye to them after a bit and walked home. I stopped at the Nguyens’ café and greeted Justin from the door. He was surprised to see me.
“Well, look who’s here.”
“I was just passing by.”
“Who is it?” Georgia emerged from the kitchen and smiled when she saw me. She wiped her hands, which were coated with flour, on her apron and gave me a hug so tight she squeezed the air out of me. “You look so pretty, dear.”
“You want anything?” Justin asked.
“Not for here, but I was thinking of taking a piece of cheesecake home with me.”
“Sure. I’ll pack it up for you to go.”
She ran her fingers through my hair and rubbed my cheek as if I had a spot on it.
“Something wrong?” I asked, worried.
“No, just a scratch.”
I hugged her again, without warning, catching her off guard. Her and me. It was an impulse. I don’t know if it was because of the way she had always worried over me, over all of us. Even if she was sometimes wrong to do so, I liked that warmth and familiarity. When I let her go, I saw she had tears in her eyes and was trying to wipe them away.
“Sorry, I just…I don’t know…”
“Don’t say you’re sorry, dear. You know? I really needed a hug. Especially one from you, sweet as you always are. Come on, give me another cuddle.”
And she let me hug her again and closed her eyes, content. We pulled apart when a customer came in.
“Here, come with me to the kitchen.”
I stayed there awhile with Axel’s mother, just keeping her company, though we didn’t talk much. It made me remember the afternoons I used to spend with her and my mother in the kitchen at home, sitting on a stool while they cooked and I listened to them talk about their things, their day-to-day lives, the silly stuff their husbands did sometimes, and their plans for the weekend. I loved how they let me listen to their grown-up conversations, because it was like opening a window to a world different from the one Blair and I shared at school.