“Since when is having manners considered a waste of time?” I ask.
“It’s just different,” she huffs. “You just don’t know what city men are like.”
“I don’t understand you, Ava,” I say with exasperation. “What’s wrong with country men? Are we really that bad?”
“I never said that country guys werebad, it’s just that city guys are, well, they just do things differently and the way that people do things in the city is just better for me,” she says.
“Why?”
Ava fumbles over an answer, but none of her words were really forming a coherent thought. I can see that she is really just fighting against what she wants, and I don’t understand why she is so reluctant to let herself have it. I don’t understand why she feels like letting herself have feelings for her hometown, or forme, is a sign of weakness or defeat. I just can’t let her keep going with this. I can’t stand here and watch her make excuses for my benefit and hers, when I know it’s a bunch of bullshit.
“Stop it, Ava,” I say as I stand in front of her and look her in the eyes. “Stop lying to yourself. Stop trying to prove something, when you don’t have anything to prove.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says. “You just don’t understand, Trevor. You think you know me, but just because we dated for a few months back in high school, doesn’t mean you know me. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Really?” I ask as I take a step closer to her so that our bodies are almost touching. “Then how do I know that you’re feeling uneasy right now. How do I know that even if you tell me to leave, you don’t really want me to?”
“That’s not true,” Ava says. I can see her chest start to heave as her breathing intensifies. “Idowant you to leave.”
No she doesn’t.
I reach my hand up to sweep a strand of hair away from her face, and I can hear her breath catch in her throat.
“Tell me again,” I say. “Tell me that you want me to leave now and I will.”
Ava opens her mouth, but no words come out. I can’t stop myself from wanting her, and I won’t let her push me away. I lean forward and put my mouth on hers, and as I slide my tongue in between her parted lips, I wrap my arms around her waist. As soon as I feel Ava kiss me back, I lift her up and carry her toward the bedroom. I have never lost thought of her over the years, and if it had been up to me, this is what should have always happened.
9
Ava
As Trevor lays me down on the bed, I feel everything in my world tilt onto its side. Our clothes are both off and tossed to the side of the room before I can even think about what is happening. All I can do; all that Iwantto do isfeel. When he pushes his swollen, throbbing cock into me, everything I thought I knew is thrown into question. I’ve had my share of sex and boyfriends in the city, but none of it has ever felt like this. When Trevor makes love to me, my whole body responds to him as if it had just been waiting this entire time to be with him. Our hands and arms were an entangled reaching and grasping mass of limbs, and our tongues entwined around each other as if we were one continuation of each other.
After we make love, I lay in his arms and wonder what my life might be like if I had stayed here in Fairport, and if Trevor and I had stayed together. Suddenly I start to wonder if maybe he is right. Maybe I’ve been running toward a life in the city and away from here for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I was running away from the fear of never finding what I wanted here, and maybe it’s been here all along and I was in too much of a hurry to get away to ever notice it. Trevor kisses me on the top of my head softly and tightens his arms around me.
“Why did we go our separate ways, Ava?” he asks. “I mean, I know you wanted to leave Fairport, but do you think we would have stayed together if you hadn’t moved to the city?”
I honestly don’t know how to answer that question. I might have given him a different answer before, but now I just don’t know. I feel like the spark of feelings I had for Trevor years ago may not have ever truly died out. Instead of answering him, I tilt my face up to kiss him.
“Will you stay the night?” I ask.
“Do you want me to?” he says.
“Yes.”
* * *
That night, I dream about Trevor and me, when we were back to being a couple in high school. It’s almost like I am reliving some of the days that we spent together, but in my dream, I notice things that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s like I am watching us from the outside instead of being so close to it that I can’t see things clearly. I can see the way Trevor looks at me with a sort of admiration that is almost reverence. I see how happy and genuine my smile looks, even on the days that I thought I had remembered being miserable. When I wake up and find myself in Trevor’s arms with his body curled around me, I start to think that maybe the way I remember things isn’t exactly how they actually happened, and that maybe I need to give all of this another shot.
Trevor kisses me as we stand and wait for the coffee to brew. Today I’m going to work on the house together with him and we can talk about things more as we work alongside each other. I’m starting to think that I might not even mind that the repairs are going to take a long time.
10
Trevor
Things are going so great now that I can’t stop smiling. I catch myself smiling at Ava randomly throughout the morning as we work on things at the house, and I can tell that we are both much more focused on talking and intermittently touching each other than we are on getting the projects accomplished. We were making up for lost time and she didn’t seem to be focused quite so much on getting the house sold quickly.
Last night was the most amazing night of my life, and I know that I want many,manymore of those nights with Ava. Maybe I am a fool to think that there’s a possibility for us to have a second chance at romance together, but I don’t care if I am. I want to go for it anyway.
