Lennon carves wide, arching circles into the bowl, whipping up and down the curve like he’s swinging from an invisible string. He rides the steep drop as though it’s easy. As though it’s fun. As though he doesn’t know what fear is.
He pumps hard, compressing his legs as he roars down the wall and extending quickly to power himself into the air. There’s a pause, a little lull when his skateboard leaves the earth, and then he’s airborne.
Every time it happens, time stops. My heart skips a beat and then beats three times in quick succession to make up for it.
He’s told me many times that for him, that second is limitless. Endless. He says it’s what freedom feels like to him.
I’ll never get tired of watching him skate. Never, because for him, feeling free didn’t come easily. Being happy didn’t either. He had to work really hard to get here, but he did it.
He does it.
He works at it every day because he took his promise to me seriously. He shows up for himself. He faces hard things in himself and in his past. Sometimes he buckles. Sometimes he cries. But he always, always gets up the next day and tries again.
It’s not easy to put into words what that means to me. I guess I could say it means everything because it does. It’s more thanthat, though, because when he shows up for himself, he’s not only doing it for himself. He’s doing it for me too. I know that when he fights for himself, what he’s really doing is fighting for us. He does it because, like me, he believes we’re inextricably linked. If he isn’t happy, neither am I. His soul and mine are gauzy garments cut from the same cloth a long time ago.
I lose sight of him at the bottom of the bowl and crane my neck to find him. The park is deserted. There’s no one else here. It’s quiet, almost eerie.
He should be popping up any second.
One second turns to two.
Two turns to ten.
A low sense of unease roils in my gut. My concern grows and my focus homes in on the last place I saw him. I consider forgoing my hiding spot to check that he’s okay.
Crack!
Something snaps behind me.
Close to me.
Too close for comfort. Close enough to make every muscle in my body tense. I jump. The breath I was holding rushes out of me and I levitate briefly, emitting a loud, undignified squawk that carries across the park.
I spin around, and Lennon’s face spins into view inches from mine. My vision blurs as he attacks, planting a confusion of kisses all over my face before I have time to recover.
“Jesus Christ!” I exclaim, heart thumping erratically. “Every time, Lennon? Every single goddamn time? How do you do it? I was watching you the whole time. I literally didn’t take my eyes off you.”
He picks a leaf out of my hair, incisors and canines glinting, and takes my face in both hands.
“Aw, never mind, Con, you’re good at lots of things, baby. So many things…” He leans in and brushes his lips against mine. “Stalking just isn’t one of them.”
“D’you think we should get a bigger bench for up here?” It’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. I go back and forth on the matter. On the one hand, I like the old bench because I found it on the side of the road, and you really can’t get a better deal than that, but on the other hand, when I found it, I used to come up to the roof on my own every day.
“Nah,” Lennon says. “I like this one.”
“Are you sure? We’re so squished.”
He smiles lasciviously and cocks a brow at me. “Why d’you think I like it?”
I chuckle and roll my eyes, leaning in a little closer so I can rest my temple against his. His body is warm against mine. Solid, comforting, and familiar. I close my eyes briefly and breathe in the sweet scent of home.
Before us, the sky comes to life in an even, unhurried way. The soft, smoky night gradually burns away.
Since meeting Lennon, I’ve started to think that watching the sunrise is a little like falling in love. It happens slowly, and then all at once. The golden orb of light I wait for each morning isn’t there, isn’t there, isn’t there…and then it’s blinding.
I didn’t realize it, but that’s what my life was like before I met Lennon. I thought I was living, but really, what I was doingwas waiting. Waiting for him to come scowling into my life and change it forever. Waiting for him to find me.
Before him, I had a heart, but notheart. I had an organ that beat in my chest, an organ that kept me alive. Now I have one that beats for something bigger than me.
