Trent Reedy - Divided We Fall

“Jo?” I called. Someone reached around from behind and grabbed me. I spun out of the grip and pulled my fist back, ready for a fight.

She stood there, smiling and wearing my cowboy hat.

“Whoa! Sorry. Bad idea,” she said.

I breathed deeply to still my pounding heart. I had been ready to crush whoever was behind me. “Don’t scare me like that,” I said quietly. I never would have been like this before everything had fallen apart. JoBell slid her hands up under my T-shirt and pressed them to my bare chest. My breath seized up. “Whoa, ice-cold,” I said.

She cupped her hands over her mouth and blew to warm them with her breath. Then she rubbed her palms together before placing them on me again. “Better?”

I kissed her and tried to put my arms around her, but she slipped away. “I’m hungry.”

“So am I.” I grinned.

She giggled and headed for the kitchen. “I’m hungry for food . Show me what frozen delights you have for us tonight.”

She put on a playlist of our favorite songs, and I showed her my master chef skills in cooking the perfect fish sticks and fries. Before we sat down to eat, I found a couple candles from the junk drawer, lit them, and put them on the table.

“Poor man’s romantic feast.” I pulled out JoBell’s chair for her.

She bowed. “Thank you, sir,” she said in a rich-sounding accent before sitting down.

I sat down across from her, and we clinked our wine glasses filled with grape pop together. Then we settled in to eating. The food may have been cheap and crappy, but I couldn’t remember a better meal.

“I was feeling pretty miserable today.” I dipped my last fish stick in the little dish of ketchup between us, holding it up afterward. “But being with you makes everything so much better.”

“I’m glad I can help.” She grinned. “You’re going to be okay, Danny. You’re strong enough to handle all this. That’s what I’ve always loved most about you. It wasn’t your looks—”

“Hey!”

“— or your choice in music. But I’ve always loved how brave you are. Pulling off that fake punt in football. The bull riding. Even your courage to enlist and go through basic training with all those mean drill sergeants. You’re strong… and brave.” She pushed her empty plate away and looked at me. In her eyes I saw her other hunger. “And yeah, it actually was your looks too.”

She rounded the table and sat on my lap, straddling me, taking my head in her hands. Her tongue explored my mouth.

“I think,” she gasped after a bit, “that we should go upstairs.”

“To my bedroom?” Had I been in a condition to think straight, I might have said something smarter.

She got up and slipped her sweatshirt off so that she stood there in a little T-shirt and jeans. She held out her hand. “Come on, babe.”

As soon as we entered my room we were on each other. She backed me up to the bed and then pushed me down onto my back before climbing on top of me to kiss me more. All my concerns from earlier in the day, all the problems in the whole world, melted away. The universe was only JoBell and me. And it felt so good.

Hours later, with the blankets pulled up over us, we lay there in the dark, so close that we breathed each other’s breath. I’d never felt so… with someone, so much a part of someone else. When we’d been together before, it had always been hot and steamy, but that night it felt warmer, safer, than anything I’d ever felt before. I wanted to stay there forever.

“Danny,” she whispered after a long time. “Danny, please don’t go. Please don’t leave me. Forget everything I said earlier today. Forget politics and laws and duty. Just stay. For me.”

I squeezed her. Of all the arguments that everybody had made this afternoon on the bridge, what JoBell had said right now made the most sense. What was the point of being in an army that was almost ready to fight itself? What was life without JoBell? I didn’t want this closeness to end.

After a long time, I began to fade into sleep. She slipped out from under my arm and moved toward the edge of the bed. I caught hold of her hand. “Where you going?”

“Home.” She smiled.

“No,” I whispered, stretching my arms around her waist to pull her back. “You are home. Stay here.”

“I can’t,” she said. “My dad would kill us both. You know that.”

I did know that, and I let her get up. I also knew that I loved her, and the feeling was so intense that it ached in my chest. I knew then what I had to do.

“Hold on,” I said when she had her shoes on. My heart beat heavy in my chest as I pulled on my jeans and went to the drawer in my nightstand. I swear my hands were shaking so much when I approached her that I thought I’d drop the black box hidden behind my back.

“What are you doing?” JoBell said. “I have to get going.”

Was this the right time? Was I being stupid? I ran through all the arguments in my head again. Was proposing to JoBell any crazier than everything that was happening in America lately? No. This was right. That much I knew. I switched on the bedside light and went down on one knee, opening the box to show her the ring. I hoped the lamplight sparkled right on the diamond.

JoBell gasped.

“JoBell Marie Linder, I love you,” I said. “I love you more than I could ever love anything or anyone. Will you marry me?”

She froze with her mouth dropped open. Then she pressed her hand to her chest and took a step back, bumping our rodeo picture off the shelf. She made a clumsy grab to catch it, but missed, and it clattered to the floor. “Oh, Danny.” Tears welled in her eyes.

I smiled. She was so happy, she was crying.

“Oh, Danny,” she said. She pressed her fist to her mouth, biting one knuckle.

My knee was getting a little sore, kneeling like this on the hardwood floor. “I want us to be together forever.”

“So do I.” She nodded as a tear ran down her cheek.

I stood up and moved toward her. “Then you’ll—”

“Not now, Danny.”

I felt almost like someone had punched the wind right out of my gut. “What?”

“I want to be with you forever too, Danny, but we can’t be engaged in high school . Even if our parents would let us, we’re still too young. There’s college coming. I’m going to the University of Washington in Seattle and I want you to come with me, but you’ll probably…” She paused.

I snapped the ring box closed.

JoBell went on. “But even if you come to U-Dub too, who’s to say we’ll be the same people there as we are now? Who’s to say we won’t change?”

I squeezed the box to keep myself under control. “This…” I stopped and swallowed back the stinging feeling in my throat. “My love for you won’t ever change.”

She ran to me and kissed me full on the lips. She put her hands around the box and pressed it between our bodies, over our hearts. “Keep this,” she said. “For when the time is really right.”

“How will I know—”

She pressed her finger to my lips. “You’ll know, Danny.” She kissed me again, and then hurried from the room.

I followed her downstairs to the kitchen, where she went to the back door. She stopped there for a moment and looked back at me. Then she slipped outside and the door slammed shut behind her.

I stood in the kitchen for a long time watching that closed door. Then I made myself a drink of lemonade from water and a powdered mix along with some ancient vodka that Mom had forgotten at the back of the cupboard, going over everything that had just happened. JoBell said she loved me, said she always would, and that she wanted us to be together. If that was true, then what did she mean with all that stuff about going to college and changing into different people? Did she think we’d meet people at college that we liked more than each other? Did she think she’d take some classes and learn that she didn’t love me anymore? No way. I took a sip of my vodka lemonade and shook my head as I went into the dark, lonely living room. I’d mixed my drink way too strong.