Lauren Blakely - The Thrill of It

When Will was born – alive, red, screaming at the top of his lungs – everyone erupted into cheers. But soon after he was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect and given only a few days to live.

The doctors told my mom, “At least we know now why you keep losing the babies.”

As if that gave her solace.

We brought Will home to give him “comfort care.” We were hidden away in the apartment, on some sort of death watch. The clock was ticking, and we were simply unwinding the minutes until he died.

I was the one holding him.

I didn’t let go for the longest time.

Then, my mom cleaned out the baby’s room, threw away the crib, ripped off the teddy bear border from the wall, and turned it into a cold, sleek, modern office, with two desks where my parents buried themselves in medical journals each night.

The expansion plans had failed, and so it was time to move on.

Dust off your hands. Don’t look back. Don’t even breathe a word.

I planted the trees myself. In Abingdon Square Park alone, late one night, the moon and the city my only company. The only one who wanted to remember.

And if they were going to numb themselves, I figured I could too. When I turned sixteen, I started visiting Mrs. Fitzpatrick, ostensibly for her home-baked cookies and for her keen interest in talking about feelings and all the things my parents would never discuss. Like that card with the saying about the stars in the sky. She looked at it with me. She talked about it with me. She said she believed too. Then, we stopped talking about feelings because I was done with them. I wanted to feel other things. I wanted to feel her. I wanted to numb myself in pleasure, in women, in sex. I wanted nothing but euphoria, but never-fucking-ending ecstasy. I wanted the opposite to take the pain away. She taught me everything I knew, and sent me off on the merry path of curves, and breasts, and sixty ways to make a woman scream your name at the top of her lungs. I worked my way through the building and the beauties and the cougars and I made them feel all the highs that only losing yourself in sex could ever bring.

Her cheeks are stained with tears. Her lower lip is quivering. She’s swiping at her cheeks, trying to wipe the evidence of her sadness away. But it’s futile.

She blinks several times, swallows, and says in a broken, choppy voice, “I am so sorry.”

But her words don’t stick. They bounce off me, like I’m made of rubber. It’s not her though. It’s me. To tell that story I had to disengage. Disconnect. That’s the only way I could get it out without choking on a river of tears. I barely feel rooted to the steps right now. It’s as if my vision went blurry, and I’m seeing fuzzy, silver streaks before my eyes. I’m a ghost, floating above, watching this scene transpire from another plane of reality, from one where I can’t be hurt.

She brings her hand to her chest, and her shoulders are shaking. The tears fall like a fucking rainstorm now, unleashed, and it’s so strange to watch someone else’s reaction. I’ve been living my own reaction for years, inside of me and locked up in my head, and now this story that’s only been told in hieroglyphics on my body is someone else’s to own, to process, to feel . It’s as if I’ve given her a piece of my heart, and said there, do with it what you will. I’m frozen in time, waiting, to see if she’ll kick my heart away.

“I can’t believe you kept that all inside, Trey,” she says in between sobs. “I can’t believe that’s your history, and your family, and you never said a word.”

I shrug. Or the me I’m watching shrugs. He’s not sure what happens next. “I got used to not talking about it. It’s like this black hole in life.”

She grasps my hand, slides her fingers through mine. “You. Are. Brave.”

I scoff, then sneer for good measure. “How does that make me brave?”

She grips harder. “You are brave to tell me. You are brave to let me in. You are brave and crazy and you are stupid to think you can handle that all yourself,” she says, laying a gentle hand on my cheek, her smooth skin on my rough stubbled jaw.

“So I’m stupid. Like that’s news.”

“You are stupid brave. And stupid courageous. And stupid amazing. And I won’t let you go through any more of this alone,” she says fiercely, eyes blazing with an intensity I’ve never seen before. She grabs the neck of my shirt, pulls hard on it, tugs me closer. “I’m sorry about your brothers. And I’m sorry your parents never talked about it. And I’m sorry you had to carry all that around by yourself. But I want to know whatever you want to tell me, Trey. I want you to show me all your tattoos and tell me what they mean. I want to see the tree you planted for them,” she says and she twists harder on my shirt. “I want you to know they’re not ever going to be forgotten because I will remember them for you.”

In an instant, I’m back on earth. I’m no longer floating, removed. I’m here, next to her, and my chest is cracked open, and I’ve given her my bleeding, beating heart, and she’s holding it in her hands, and she’s not crushing it, she’s not destroying it. She’s doing the opposite. She’s getting me. She’s understanding, she’s burrowing her way so far under my skin, into my head, and around my heart that I am dangerously close to joining her in the tears department. I’m still a guy; I don’t know that I can go there in front of her. But I don’t have to because I’m going someplace else it turns out. She ropes her arms around my neck, and I bury my face in her hair, and I don’t ever want to let go of her. She clings to me, tugs and pulls and brings me closer, like she doesn’t ever want to let go either. And I don’t know how we’re here, how we’re back on a stoop in New York, and we always seem to wind up on a stoop in New York, but more than that, we always seem to wind up in each other’s arms. We are magnets and I can’t resist the pull.

There is no distance between us and I don’t want any more distance. I want closeness, I want connection, I want it with her. Then she loosens her grip. Not by much, but enough to bring her sweet lips to my ear. She grazes me with a whisper, her voice soft. “I want you to take off your shirt and I want you to tell me everything. I want to see your new ink. I want to understand you.”

I am an electrical line, buzzing. “Do you want to come to my place?”

“Yes.”

Trey

The subway takes too long. But if I were in a cab with her, I’d probably jump her, and whatever is going to happen between us tonight needs to happen behind closed doors. I want to be alone with her. I want to have her to myself. I don’t want anyone around, anyone to walk in, anyone to find us. I want to hole up with her and kiss and touch her all night long, until morning comes and our lips are red and raw, and we still can’t get enough of each other.

But the practical matter of transportation downtown comes first.

“I have big news,” she tells me as the train rattles underground.

“Yeah?”

I trace the vein on her forearm, from the heel of her hand to her elbow. Goosebumps rise on her skin, and she shivers. I will never grow tired of the way she responds to me.

“You make it hard to focus,” she chides. “And I want to tell you something. I finished. I’m done with Miranda!”

“Shit! Are you serious?”

She nods several times. “One hundred percent. Sent it off tonight.”

“That’s amazing. I’m seriously proud of you. Which I know sounds like a weird thing to say, but I am.”

She pats her back, pretends to look over her shoulder to see what’s there. “See that? Oh wait. You can’t. Because the monkey’s off my back.”