I went to go visit Zak in Denver. This was mid-February. I had already met Eli, yet it was one week before the night I was in her room. It was a birthday gift, this little trip. Zak had offered to host me for three days on his college campus, and my mother bought the plane ticket.
~~~~
I hadn’t seen Zak since Christmas break, a break that consisted of hurried reunions with friends I loved. I didn’t spend as much time with him as he had liked.
During this break, Zak’s parents were out of town for one night. He insisted that I should come over. He had invited some of his high school friends over to drink. Around eleven, I showed up, the lone female. I had smoked on the way over, so I was comfortable listening to the collective slurred speech of half a dozen eighteen-year-old college freshmen.
Another boy I had dated for less than three weeks two years prior, my first boyfriend, was there. I tried to act too cool to see him. I didn’t acknowledge his presence, nor did I ever make eye contact. I was still bitter at how we broke up.
They had the same name, spelled differently. Zach was tall, with short fine blonde hair. He was quiet and calm and smart. We had attended the same middle and junior high schools. I wanted him to like me. We had talked on AIM for years prior to our courtship. We had so many things in common that we assumed that we would have made a perfect coupling. We learned quickly that we could only talk through the small confines of an LED screen. This relationship ended with me feeling used, resentful.
We were always better off as friends.
I drank a bit that night, a drink mixed with rum and coke. I left to smoke with Mark, arguably my favorite of Zak’s friends. I told him of Montana and the people I had met and that I had got arrested. I told him to keep it a secret.
When everyone had left, I followed Zak up the stairs to his parent’s bedroom. The master bedroom had large windows that looked out onto the surrounding woods. There was a storm that night, with loud thunder and bright lightning. I remember how the rain sounded, softly and quietly hitting the skylight of the master bathroom.
As Zak and I were undressing, I shivered from the cold. I wanted to be under blankets, warm and safe. By this point, the alcohol and marijuana were now mixing in my blood stream at a steady pace. I was feeling awake, alive.
I saw a picture of his mom and dad on the dresser. I pushed the frame down, paranoid that there pictorial eyes were staring at us, judging us. I knew that his parents were fighting almost daily, that his dad had retreated to sleeping in the guest bedroom every night. Both doctors, they were too busy to fall back in love. Their children were the only reason they were still together.
I saw Zak out of the corner of my eye, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me do this. Shunning his parents from our lovemaking. “Good idea” he said and patted the space next to him. At this point, we were both naked. I put my hands on his shoulders and kissed his forehead. I bent my knees and looked into his eyes. I moved the curly brown hair out of his eyes and smiled. I kissed him on the lips and told him to lie down.
During, while I was on my back, my mind was racing. I couldn’t focus on what I was doing. I was making wild connections about my Montana life, my home life, and my love life. I was thinking about girls and how badly I wanted to be with one.
With that realization, I closed my eyes and climaxed for the first time, at that exact moment a lightning bolt lit the insides my shut eyelids.
Zak was smug with himself, smilingly wildly. While I felt like I had peed the bed. It didn’t feel any different.
He wanted to do it again, to flex this particular muscle. Wanted to prove that he could still satisfy me.
So I went to Denver.
~~~
When I landed, I was exhausted. I had been up since 5am. I took a cab from Roskie to the Bozeman Airport, where I had waited for an hour at one of the five terminals. I was stuck in a middle seat. I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t showered.
I called Zak when I landed. He had borrowed a car from his friend, and was waiting outside the terminal to pick me up. He was beaming in his seatbelt, ready to go. I hugged him awkwardly over the console of the vehicle, avoiding his lips. He frowned, and put his hand on mine when I offered it. I was cranky. I looked out the window while he talked endlessly of his life. I barely retained a word.
The entire weekend was like this.
He tried to make me happy. I met his friends. We went skiing. We went out to eat for dinner. He showed me his campus. I helped him write a paper. We had sex. I was trying to get back the feelings I had for him over Christmas break, over the previous summer, during high school. But he was getting further and further away and I couldn’t relate to him at all anymore.
When I went back to Bozeman I felt empty and restless. I was miserable. Our relationship was worse every time we saw each other, but we desperately tried to grab at the final shreds of what we had.
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