If I Stay (22 page)

I hugged him tightly, and everything was almost perfect when Sacha popped up, tousling my hair and punching Brandon on the shoulder.

“Brandon's really crying?” he laughed.

“I'm not crying, Dallas Green. There's a dust dilemma in here that needs to be solved
pronto
.”

The three of us looked up at the drawings, and I could tell the moment that Sacha saw himself up there on the wall that he was visibly moved. His throat shifted slightly, his breath softer. I touched his shoulder, and he smiled, and we all just kind of basked in that little moment that I'd keep with me always. Looking up at those drawings, each of them special and unique in their
own ways.

I'd drawn Brandon sitting in the natural sunlight, strumming his guitar and looking straight at me. A small, playful grin curled at the corner of his mouth. I'd drawn Sacha leaning over a bridge, which I'd captured on photo during the camping trip where Brandon had thrown the spider-web-covered branch at me. He was leaning over the wooden structure, his camera cradled in his arms, trying to snap a photograph of Brandon (unsuccessfully) attempting to set up a tent. We slept outside that night, covered in the canopy of tree-tops.

“Toby, too?” Sacha asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, I think he belongs up there for one reason or another.”

Which I felt was true, and all things said, necessary. I portrayed Toby in the way that I wanted to remember him, even if the end wasn't so good. He was smiling, and sitting on the edge of this brick wall he'd sworn up and down he could clamber to the top of. The look on his face, when he'd succeeded, had been priceless. It was one of our few good days. And I thought that of everything I could have made, something from the good days was probably best.

When Ben showed up, I was surprised to see who'd he had brought along with him. She was petite, nearly my height, with button-brown eyes that looked so much like Ben's and a crop of golden hair that was cut off right below her chin. Her smile was sweet, and she had braces. Ben held his arm around her, his smile stretched and beaming.

“You must be Amelia,” I said, and we hugged. It was nice to hug someone about my size, and she seemed equally as happy to finally meet me.

“You must be the reason that my brother is finally furnishing that stupidly giant house,” she smirked. “By the way, thank you. I was getting tired of sitting on the floor all the time.”

“Oh. No problem,” I smiled, now all the more nervous. Amelia looked up at my work, seemingly just as surprised as Caleb had been.

But nothing compared to the look on Ben's face when he saw what I'd made for him. It was not just the largest canvas, either, but I'd centered it right in the middle. His eyes softened, and I knew he was just a bit choked up. I also knew, that if we weren't entirely in public, that I would have gotten more than the great big and still very gentle hug he gave me.

“You are something else, Gemma Davies. You truly are.”

“I know,” I told him. “Believe you me. I really do.”

We laughed and laughed. Brandon went off with Caleb, and Sacha went off to guard his exhibit, and the three of us walked around and looked at everything that I'd already seen in one form or another. Amelia and I chatted about Ben's book, and she talked about how excited she was that it was going to be turned into a movie, and in the end we both agreed that it might be fun for us to hang out while Ben was away in Los Angeles.

“I think it's kind of funny,” she said when it was just the two of us. “You and my brother, with him being your professor and all. He tried to hide it, but he kind of sucked. I knew right when we were walking in here, and he saw you, that it was
love
with a capital L.”

When we finally stopped at Sacha's work, my breath was practically sucked straight from the airways. My heart stopped, if only for a quick moment. And the tears, they fell quietly and few.

“They're all of you,” Ben said quietly. I was worried, at first, that he might react badly. Jealously. But he didn't. “These are incredible.”

Sacha had managed to capture me throughout the four years that I'd known him. All in a series of caught-off-guard photographs, all with smiles and angles that he knew I'd appreciate, none of them unflattering or embarrassing. Pictures of me walking with my hands at my sides, smiling all crinkly-nosed, like a delighted little kid. There was one of me laughing, one of me dancing, and
one of me looking rather somber. All of the shading, the lighting, the editing was perfect. The shadows perfectly blended so that the images weren't too dark or too bright.

But it was center photograph that was my favorite. The same that brought those tears to my eyes.

It was the very first photo he'd taken of me, that afternoon in Philosophy class. The very first time we met.

Ben took Sacha aside, and for a few minutes it was just Amelia and I. Standing together and looking up at the photographs with the same shared expression of awe.

“It never gets easier, does it?” she asked. “These matters of saying goodbye.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly. “You're definitely right about that.”

And she was. During graduation, watching all of my friends pass through that invisible threshold as they collected their diplomas, I sobbed buckets. I wasn't afraid, exactly. Not afraid, or sad, or really any emotion that I think could be accurately described. It just a kind of knowing, an understanding beyond understanding. It was one of those times, as we took more pictures in our caps and gowns, and our parents wiped away their own tears, that you know you'll never really ever experience again.

So we held onto it like crazy, running off into the night in our caps and gowns and heading out for one final hurrah.

It was weird being back at the bar where I'd met Ben and knowing that he wasn't there. It felt nostalgic, and I found myself constantly glancing over at the table where we'd sat, and the rest was history. Sacha and Brandon ordered three shots of Tequila, and I stomached the shot only after they swore that it was all they'd ask me to drink, and for the rest of the night I sipped on Shirley Temples while the boys downed beers and talked and poked fun at each other.

“So guess what?”

Sacha looked at me, and I set my drink down. He seemed serious.

“What?” I asked, tapping my fingers against the glass. Brandon already had a buzz on, and was standing on the stage singing to Aha's
Take On Me
to karaoke while the crowd laughed and cheered. Sacha moved a little closer, looking anxious and excited.

“Ben bought all of those photographs,” he said. “Like, for a lot of money.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “He told me to use it on something I really wanted to do. I'm so taken aback that I don't know whether or not I want to pass out or puke.”

I downed the rest of my drink until it was straight water and ice, taking another deep breath.

“I think maybe I'll travel,” he said. “You know, just for the summer. Get out of here and explore the world and take my photographs.”

Brandon jumped down from the stage, the crowd yelling for him to sing again, and he bowed and ran back over to us as if he'd never actually left.

“You look all pensive, Hiccup.” Brandon plunked down on his seat, panting a little. “I demand to know why.”

I laughed.

“Sacha's talking about traveling the world with Ben's gift money.”

“Taking over the world?”

“No, you stupid idiot.” Sacha pressed, sealing it off with a grin and a swig of ale. “
Traveling
. And it wasn't gift money. He bought those photographs, after all...but yeah. I'm thinking about it.”

Brandon's eyes lit up like a million fireworks.

“Dude, you should totally come stay with me in Seattle while you think about it. I don't want to be lonely.”

“When would you have to leave?” he asked. Brandon flipped open his phone, and I watched the two of them from my spot, feeling just slightly ill and way too nostalgic. But really, honestly, I felt excited them. For myself. For all of us, really.

“Well, if you want to throw some shit into a suitcase and say goodbye to your mom and Travis, we'd need to leave now,” Brandon said. “That way we can get to the airport super early and screw around until the flight leaves.”

“What about my ticket?” he asked.

“Do you have enough money for a one-way to Seattle last minute?”

Sacha looked at me, and I looked at him, and Brandon yanked out his phone and zipped over to some airline website.

“What do you think, Gems?” he asked. “Do you think I should go?”

There was no disregarding what Sacha had waiting for him at the place he called home. His mother's drinking, and his constant worrying over Travis. I knew, even if he left, that he'd still worry about Travis. But was it right for him to live so chained down by anxiety? Was it right for him to stick around just so that he could worry? I didn't have a solution for the admitted problems that existed in that small space that Sacha had resided him all those years that we'd known each other.

But there was one thing I did know.

“If you don't leave now, Sacha, you'll never go.”

We hugged each other for what felt like an eternity outside of the bar, and Brandon revved the engine, yelling for Sacha to hurry up – and adding, quickly, that he'd miss me to infinity and beyond.

“I love you so much, Sacha.” I told him, wiping away tears. Everything, everything, everything was happening so quickly. “Be careful out there, okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “Where are you going now? Home?”

I smiled.

“Yeah, sometime like that.”

Watching them both disappear into the night and winding roads was probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. Over and over again I had to force myself not to jump into my car and follow them both and beg them not to leave.

The truth is though, we all leave at some point. All you can really do is count on the future.

Wiping my runny nose, I made my way solo into the car, started it up, and drove. I drove blaring the all the music that Brandon loved, while thinking about all the things that made Sacha light up with such excitement. I drove, thinking about the bar, and thinking back to that moment when I first saw Ben.

I had no idea what my future would look like then. I had no idea, of all things, that I'd be parked outside of the storybook mansion that belonged to such an incredible, remarkable man.

As I stormed through the gates and up the front door, I gathered every ounce courage that I could muster, and rang the doorbell: one, two, three times.

When he answered, standing in the doorway wearing
the
shirt. His hair a mess, his face all smiles as he took me into his arms and held me against him, his cologne soft and yet still so overpowering. I pulled him down and kissed him harder that I'd kissed him on the night we'd first met, my arms wrapped around his neck like I was holding on for dear life. When we finally broke apart, I saw it: that devious flicker in his eyes that for far too long had teased and taken me.

“Now,” I said, kissing him again. As our lips were still melded together, he uttered, muffled:

“Now?”

I nodded, grazing my fingertips through his hair before letting him release me. With every bit of courage, I took a deep breath and started walking up the staircase that led to his bedroom, feeling his playful gaze as it burned into me.

Leaping up the steps, he scooped me up into his arms like there was nothing more that he wanted other than us. Together. In every humanly way possible.

“I've wanted this so badly,” I whispered, and he silenced me with a finger to my lips.

TWENTY-ONE

There's always that moment. Right before you're about to do something big, when your mind starts racing a mile a minute and your heart speeds up so fast that you aren't certain whether it's going to just stop mid-beat and give out. When all of the air is suddenly swept out of your lungs. The rush of blood to your head that hits you like a tidal wave, totally encompassing, and you're sent spiraling a fit of anxious intoxication.

I was never so silent with anticipation as I had been in that moment that Ben carefully sprawled me out on his bed. Thinking, quiet and quick:
this is it. This is really happening
.

He gazed down at me softly, taking his time as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt. Each second, each passing tick of the clock that rested on his nightstand was painful. He didn't say a word, his lips simply fallen in a look of shared desire and wonder all the pretty things that come along with falling head first into love and lust and everything in-between.

I savored it all, my breath catching as his shirt fell to the floor and he was left standing on display for my eyes only. He was just as perfect, just as beautifully long-limbed and defined as I could still remember from the night at
L'Hotel D'Amour
. His hair was the same rich chocolate, his skin still shades darker than mine even in its fairness. And his eyes, always his eyes, they were that lovely and forever-dark shade of yearning, that subtle flicker of the deadly demon that slept inside of him. Just a flicker, though. He would never hurt me. It was just another one of the enduring things that so easily took my breath away.

“I'm afraid of hurting you,” he whispered, taking my hand and dusting feather-soft kisses over my fingers and knuckles. He looked so conflicted. “Are you still in pain?”

He knelt down by the foot of the bed, removing my shoes one by one. Then my socks. Then, slowly, he unbuttoned my jeans and dragged them down my legs, his smile small and feverish – I could hear it all in his breath. Quick, quick, quick. His face still searched for the answer that I couldn't even give. I was utterly and irrevocably speechless.

Finally, I simply shook my head.

“No,” I said. “I swear. Everything is perfect.”

Ben traced a long, lingering kiss on my ankle. He slipped out of his pants, then his boxers, shaking himself out of the legs all nervously and a just tad clumsily. I laughed a little, he laughed a little. And with a soft, shared glance, he slid into bed and pulled me up gently, carefully watching my expression for any hint of pain. When he saw that I was fine, a small look of relief flooded over him, and he kissed me tenderly, following that kiss with something deeper, his tongue moving softly against mine. Never too much, never too little.

I lifted my arms up playfully, and it with a small chuckle he lifted the shirt above my head, gently tugging it off and tossing it aside. I'm not sure where it fell, and quite frankly, I didn't care. All I was focused on was the look that Ben was gazing at me me. Looming and loving, his eyes skimming over the outline of my thin and lightly bruised frame. I didn't worry about the scar on my forehead, or the way I was shaking, just barely, in small trembles. I just wanted him. Every piece, every small surrender and secret and broken fragment that had dropped him inevitably at my feet. That had placed him where he was, with his skin on mine, and our mouths savoring each other feverishly. Right down the deepest depths of his flawed innocence, his carnal sweetness, his very core. I wrapped myself up in the way it felt as he brushed my hair to the side with his fingers, the honey-red waves falling over my shoulder. His breath was hot, caressing my neck as he kissed that spot just behind my ear and sent me into another fit of trembles. I could practically see the coy grin.

“Are you alright?” he asked gently. I nodded wordlessly, and he stilled only briefly before nipping down harder, running his lips over the slope of my neck and pressing soft kisses on my shoulder-blade. On the spot where I only wished I could grow wings and fly to some place where I could live and rerun this moment forever.

I'd wish it in the future, at least. Even with the many happy memories made. Nothing was quite like that night.

He didn't miss a single scratch, or scar, or any mark that had left me scathed from the accident. He kissed every one of them, running the tip of his tongue up the curve of my spine. I gasped, shallow and heavy and never having felt something like that before.

I turned to him, and he looked at me while his hand instinctively fished around his nightstand for a condom. For a split-second, as the sound of ripping foil tore through my senses along with that familiar smell – sweat, latex, and the overpowering scent of Ben's cologne – my breath hitched and I slid quickly out of my panties. My chest was heaving, every single nerve set fire. And as he kissed me, I pushed him back and pinned him to the bed, straddling him as he stared up at me with the purest look of shock and seething excitement. I pinned his wrists above his head, and he gave way without pressure. Completely submitting.

“The last thing I want...” I breathed, leaning in as he caught my bottom lip, kissing me deeply. “Is for you to get away this time around.”

I kissed him again, kissing him everywhere: his neck, his throat, biting down on the spots I sensed would make him writhe and moan. There were so many things I would go on to learn, and yet I found myself still wanting to give him everything. I didn't care how many love-marks I left temporarily imprinted in spots that clothing couldn't hide, and I don't think he was too consumed with the concern of bruising. Releasing him, his hands were all over me. Skimming up the length of my back and clutching my hair, pulling me against him as my hips moved against his.

When I finally let him enter, a gasp escaped his lips in the softest of sounds. He closed his eyes, and I let him have exactly what he wanted.

“Gemma,” he moaned, his hands gripping my waist. He kept saying my name, softer and softer until the word finally faded and all that was left was the exclamation of unadulterated pleasure.

We moved together in fluid form, the pleasure heightening as I fell against his chest and he pulled himself up, wrapping his arms and legs around me as our lips met and all of my surroundings seemed to shift and blur. He didn't push me back, but rather placed me down on the soft sheets with a careful touch. I was already missing him, already craving him as he steadied himself above me, his breathing frantic, our eyes so close that all I could see were two dark pools that wanted nothing but the body that was beneath him. Me, me, only me. I would never tire of how good that made me feel.

“I love you,” he whispered, reaching down to touch my face. Burying himself into my neck, he slid into me as I fell into him, and every hidden thing that I'd kept so dearly close was slowly opening. Every spot of skin that had never been touched before was touched, and every inhibition that I'd once harbored in my admittedly lukewarm past was set fire and burned, burned, burned to the ground. My hands had never clutched the sheets so hard, and I could barely moan as I felt Ben's body tense and one of his hands cradled mine. Like something folding open; like a flower blooming, the pleasure snapped and spread through my body like a droplet of paint in a water-glass. It was one of those moments where I finally understood why movies might bother with the theatrics of all. Because all it takes is that one person to finally make you understand that passion and lovemaking can be beautiful, romantic, liberating. Not with candles, or rose petals...but connection and surrender.

Afterward, he carried me into the bathroom and set me down in the french-style bath, toying with the knobs until the water ran at a blissfully perfect temperature. He bathed me gently, washing my hair with tender hands and humming softly as he ran warm water from a basin through the strands and down my back. Everything, the oils and salts, felt familiar and comforting. Even in their floral and foreign fragrances, they were completely of him.

When we were finally in bed, the lights off and wrapped up in each other beneath the sheets and layers, I told Ben about Sacha having left on his grand, mysterious adventure using the portrait money he'd newly been gifted. Ben immediately jumped beneath the covers, and I hushed him with a kiss.

“I can stay, Gemma,” he said. And even in the dark I could feel his worried gaze on mine. “I've been thinking on it. It's just...it's going to be hard for me to leave you here alone. I don't like thinking about it. I can still stay with you.”

“No,” I told him. “You aren't giving up this incredible opportunity. You've worked too hard.”

It was hard to continue, not even so much because of emotion but sheer sleepiness. My eyes were heavy from the sex and the warm bath and the feeling of Ben's arms as they pulled me closer against him. That was one of the brighter parts of our ever-laughable height-difference: he was able to hold me so perfectly. We fit each other like puzzle pieces, in the most fantastically cliché way possible. And I'd never slept more soundly.

The next morning, before the sun had risen, Ben and I went by foot over to the apartment so that we could pack up the last of my things. I'd taken care of most of it, boxing items up here and there as the move-out date closed in.

It was hard to look at the space that was once so full of character now so empty. I imagined Brandon still lying on the couch, channel-surfing or playing video games with a box of pizza sitting on the coffee table. I pictured him laughing, poking fun at me, dancing with his cardboard cutouts of Nic Cage or yelling at his computer screen whenever the internet went down. My heart was heavy, the sighs coming and going as we taped up the last of the boxes and I tried to picture it all just one more time.

“I'll arrange for movers to bring whatever you'd like to leave behind to my storage unit for safe-keeping,” Ben said, gently stroking my hair. “How are you holding up?”

I glanced around, taking one last walk through the empty rooms. Brandon's bedroom, which was now entirely barren save for a few empty Coke cans and pair of slightly bent-up sunglasses. I knelt down and put the glasses on, wondering whether or not I'd toss them.

“It's just one of those times where you kind of feel like you're really saying goodbye to something big,” I said quietly. “Like the chapter's really ending.”

He knelt down beside me, running a few fingers through my hair and smiling at crooked shades resting barely on the tip of my nose.

“Are you scared?”

I took a deep breath, blowing the air out slowly. Through the windows, there was sunlight. It streamed through the blinds in a way that mimicked, in some way, a cage of sorts. If Brandon were still here, he'd complain that the room was much too bright, and I'd tell him to stop complaining, and he'd tell me (politely) to please shut up. And that he loved me, too. Times infinity.

“I'm not scared,” I told him. “I just need to know that all of the things I love and people I care about will somehow still be around. I mean, how have you dealt with it? How have you dealt with saying goodbye?”

“Permission to use an aphorism?” Ben asked. I nodded, removing the sunglasses and hanging them on my shirt-collar.

“It's not goodbye,” he said. “It's more of an
I'll see you around
. The people who matter, the people who are meant to stay, they'll always be near. Even if they're not exactly within reach.”

“But do you really know that?”

He nodded, his smile soft and eyes slightly narrowed.

“I do. I do know that. And to answer your question, I wrote a book about it. That's how I dealt with saying goodbye,” he answered mildly. “Perhaps there's something to consider in that.”

“It's just hard to think about what I could possibly do with my drawings, you know? I mean, I love it. I'll never
stop
. But I'd like to do something more than just make pictures.”

I smiled breezily at him, loving how casual he looked in his jeans and sneakers and the old, tattered concert T-shirt belonging to a band I'd never heard of.

Stretching my legs, I stood and tried my best to not feel so anxiously in-between as I traced my fingers over the walls where posters once hung, the tack-marks still punctured through the paint. He'd taken the mattress, and the spot where it had been placed down left an imprint on the rug which only contrasted the fact that Brandon never actually cleaned his floors. It made me chuckle, and I thought of checking the bathroom to see if there were any last-minute messes to pick up or toiletries to collect and toss out.

Stepping through the door, I noted immediately that there was no mess left. Just another empty room in a nearly empty apartment. I stood with my arms crossed, skimming over the cracked-tiles and counter and sink, until my eyes finally lifted to the bathroom mirror. A photograph had been taped to the surface, and was so high up that I needed to stand on my toes to pull it off.

It was an old photo, one of the first that had been taken of the three of us: Me, Brandon, Sacha. We were standing around campus, dressed up in our winter things, all grinning like idiots at something that I couldn't remember anymore. But it must have been funny.

And when I saw it, the message he'd scrawled out in – of all things – my lipstick, all I could do was smile.

I LOVE YOU. TIMES INFINITY.

PS:
Stay happy
.