There was a knock on the door, but I wasn’t expecting anyone. Before I could think, Carlie was up and unbolting the door.
‘Who is it, Carlie?’ I jumped up, going for the bat. ‘Don’t just open the door –’
‘It’s a girl,’ she said, rolling her big, dark eyes.
A girl? What girl? Carlie pulled the door open. ‘Jacqueline?’ I said needlessly, because of course it was Jacqueline, showing up after I’d told her goodbye. ‘What are you doing here?’
She turned to tear down the stairs and without thinking I reached out and seized her arm. Her momentum swung her right into the air. I grabbed her with both hands and pulled her to my chest, my heart stopping, restarting, revving up, and then slamming like a train engine. When she wriggled like she wanted loose, I realized that a pretty girl had answered my door.
‘She’s Carlie Heller,’ I murmured, leaning to her ear. ‘Her brother Caleb is inside, too. We’re playing video games.’
She swayed into me, professing unnecessary apologies into my chest.
The last thing I could feel, holding her in my arms, was sorry. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t have come without telling me, but I can’t be sorry to see you.’
I confused her. That was obvious enough. I supplied some implausible excuse about trying to protect her with this separation, and my brain scoffed – liar – while she told me that didn’t make sense.
‘Unless … you don’t want to,’ she said.
Unless I don’t want to? My whole body was prepared to mutiny if I allowed her to leave here thinking I didn’t want her. I shoved both hands into my hair.
‘Brrr! Are y’all coming in, or what?’ Carlie said behind me. ‘’Cause I’m closing this door.’
Jacqueline was shivering, and I was standing barefoot on the landing outside in the middle of December. I captured her hand in mine and brought her inside, refusing to consider Carlie’s hundred-watt smile. She went back to her corner of the sofa, where Francis allowed himself to be hoisted and repositioned in a way that would’ve got anyone else on the planet a hiss and scratch.
Caleb, objecting to the disruption because he’d been kicking Carlie’s ass and mine, made some surly comment and got an elbow from his sister while I placed Jacqueline in my corner of the sofa. After making introductions, I sat on the floor in front of her and wondered what the hell to do now. Unchartered territory – that’s what this was. I’d given her every reason to let go, and she wasn’t doing it.
Minutes later, Carlie, determined that everything go according to her romantic whims, winked at me and hustled her brother across the yard, whether he wanted to go or not. I bolted the door behind them and turned to lean against it.
‘So. I thought we said we were taking a break?’ I said.
‘You said we were taking a break.’ She was still irritated.
I reminded her that she had to leave by Tuesday morning – the break was university decreed, after all – and she conceded.
I stared at the floor, knowing damned well what I was to her. I had to tell her. I had to put it all out there, because she had everything so wrong. I’d shielded myself too well. So well that she couldn’t see the truth.
‘It’s not that I don’t want you. I lied, earlier, when I said I was protecting you.’ My eyes rose to hers as she sat, silent, still curled into the corner of my sofa. So impossible, so beautiful. ‘I’m protecting myself.’ My palms braced against the door, and I forced out the thing I feared, and the desire that had bided its time, waiting to crush me. ‘I don’t want to be your rebound, Jacqueline.’
Her thoughts were readable, even from this distance. She wasn’t sure how I knew, but she saw that I did. I waited for her to try to explain that she cared about me – because I knew she did. I waited for her to argue that she just wasn’t ready now, to claim that she was giving me what she could, to ask why I couldn’t be satisfied with that.
‘Then why are you assuming that role?’ she said instead, rising and crossing the carpet, her eyes on mine, unwavering. ‘It’s not what I want, either.’
I accepted her body, pushing into my space like she’d pushed into my heart. She’d chipped away at the wall between us until it collapsed and turned to dust at my feet.
‘What am I gonna do with you?’ I asked, palms cupping her face, and she said she could think of a couple of things. Unwilling to wait to find out what those things were, I picked her up and carried her to my bed.
I loved her silly, furry-cuffed boots. Off they went.
I loved her blousy knitted top, pink and white swirls, like a watercolour sunset my mother had painted on Grandpa’s beach when I was very small. Off it went, too.
I loved her snug, curve-hugging jeans that wouldn’t simply slide down her hips – they had to be tugged while she wiggled. I tugged. She wiggled. Off they went as well.
Her bra and panties were silky-smooth and matched the creamy tone of her skin. Front clasp. Bra off. The last thin scrap of fabric covered the part of her I wanted to taste, soon. Panties, gone.
She lay in the centre of my bed, naked, and I was fully clothed, but barefoot. I stood, staring down at her, prolonging the moment. She squirmed, her chest rising and falling, her hands kneading the comforter beneath her.
I reached to pull my long-sleeved T-shirt off, unhurried. The squirming increased as I slid the sleeves down my arms, flexing them. I combed my hair back from my face and took a measured breath, like a light tap on the brake. Slow. Slower. My jeans were threadbare – I didn’t wear these out, because they always seemed to threaten spontaneous disintegration. Ripped in three or four places, frayed around the hems, the seams, and the waistband, which hung at my hipbones. One button, undone. Two.