“You okay?” When he doesn’t answer right away, I take his chin and angle his face so he’s looking at me. “You can say whatever you want, Jess. Anything. I won’t say anything bad about her.”
His shoulders sag more, and he drops his head down to rest on my shoulder. “This is what she does. She doesn’t want me when she has me, but whenever I get on my feet, it’s like she has this sense…Fuck. I feel crazy for saying this, I mean obviously no-one actually has some fucked up sixth sense that lets them know when their kid’s doing well, but I feel like she has this way of knowing when I’m doing well, when I’m okay without her…and she can’t stand it.”
I run my fingers through his hair. “It’s not crazy if you feel it.”
“The stupidest thing of all is that Ihatewhen she ignores me. It makes me feel like shit. Like I’m invisible. Like I don’t exist. So I should prefer it when she gets like this, right? But I don’t because I know when she’s like this she’s not okay. I know it’s fucked up, but I just don’t know how to be okay when she’s not okay.”
I want to shake him and yell that she’s horrible and manipulative and she knows exactly what she’s doing. I want to tell him that she’s co-dependent and he shouldn’t have to be the parent in the relationship. I don’t though, because I said I wouldn’t say anything bad about her and I meant it. It hurts him when people do that, and I will never be a person who hurts him.
Instead, I wrap my arms around him so tight he makes a soft sound when he exhales.
“I see you, Jess,” I whisper. “You’re so big and so beautiful it’s hard for me to see anything but you. You fill my whole field of vision, and I don’t mind at all. Before you got here I felt like I was floating. Like bits and pieces of me were just wafting around.” I turn his face towards mine and press my lips against his, then I look into blue-green turbulence. “When I see you, or hear you, or when we touch, I feel like all the pieces of me click together.”
He drops his gaze and a big, mischievous grin spreads across his face. “So, what was it like before, when you were floating around all over the place?”
“It wasn’t too bad, ‘cause it was all I knew. This is better though. Feeling like this. Feeling like I know who and where all the pieces of me are, because I know who and where you are.”
22
Jessie
Ifeelalittlehollow when I say good-bye to my family. I hate seeing them standing on the sidewalk, their figures growing smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror. The further they get, the more hollow I feel.
“It won’t happen again,” says Luke.
“What won’t happen again?”
“A pandemic like that. It was a once in a lifetime shit show. This is a normal good-bye, you’re not going to get stuck on the other side of the world for years again any time soon.”
I grunt and mean to shake my head at how seriously he takes things, but instead my lips turn up into a grateful smile.
We’re only a couple of hours out of Portland and Luke is stoically working his way through the snacks my gran packed. He’s already had the fruit, nuts, and all the cookies except for the oatmeal ones she sent for my dad. When he isn’t snacking, he’s singing along to the playlist I made. To his credit, he hasn’t complained about my taste in music once. He hardly knows any of the lyrics, but that doesn’t stop him.
“It doesn’t make a difference if we’renaked or not…” he sings at the top of his lungs.
“Uh, yeah, I don’t think that’s quite how Bon Jovi put it, Luke.”
“I was just going to say it sounded weird,” he laughs, “‘cause with us it makes ahugedifference if we’re naked or not.” He’s quiet for approximately thirty seconds, then he taps me on the thigh and gives me a devilish look. “I’m picturing you naked right now.”
“Stop it.”
“I am. Look.” I glance down to see the clear outline of his boner through his shorts. He takes it in his hand and squeezes it hard. It sends a hot rush of blood to my groin.
“You better watch yourself, Luke,” I warn, “or you’ll get more than you bargained for.”
He expels a soft, sad groan that sounds exactly the way he sounds when I edge him, but he moves his hand from my leg and goes in search of another snack. He finds a container of yogurt and slowly starts peeling the foil wrapper back. When he’s worked it free, he lifts it to his mouth, tilting his head and running his tongue across it slowly. I look even though I’m trying really fucking hard to keep my eyes on the road.
He sees me and does it again. Worse this time.
Shit
“Now look, Luke,” I try to reason, “if you start assaulting that yogurt lid, I’m going to crash the car.” He smiles sweetly and licks the yogurt lid even more seductively. “Do you want me to stop this car, Pookie? Cause watch me, I’ll do it.”
“Yeah, baby,” he drawls. “Stop the car. Stop it and fuck me on the hood while the engine runs.”
“Jesus!” I swerve the vehicle slightly. “What the hell happened to you? How are you the guy who was an innocent virgin boy less than two months ago?”
He looks at me with the sweetest, filthiestI’m babyeyes yet. “I’m still innocent.”
