Lily of the Valley (15 page)

After my last class, I head back to the dorm and I’m about to call Alana when I change my mind. It’s weakness, but I shower instead and steel myself as I walk down the hall. I’m not even sure she’ll be home, but I knock anyway. She answers almost immediately.

“Hey,” I say. I will myself to look into her eyes and they’re positively radiant. It gives me the confidence to ask what I came here to ask. “Do you want to come to dinner with me?”

It isn’t a big deal, I know, but it’s something, and I am so happy when she says yes. Outside, on the quad, I take her hand and it feels almost like something real. These are the kinds of things people do. People who don’t feel like their lives are always in turmoil. I pause for a second and face her. “I thought you’d run away and never come back.”

“Well, I didn’t,” she says.

“Even after you saw what I am.”

“I told you. You’re not your father.”

“Tell that to everyone else.”

“Everyone else is stupid,” she replies and smiles.

This fucking girl. I laugh and it feels fantastic. Her grin gets even wider and she gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. I feel like I’m fucking twelve and I love it. Damn her. “That they are,” I agree.

As we walk, we talk about my past, about my friendship with Alana, about Dave, and about how we all found each other. I realize just how much I miss Dave, but he made the choice to leave us behind when he joined the military. Still, I wish he would write or something. I don’t have a lot of friends, and I love the dude, even if he is a mess.

Lily’s mostly curious about Alana, and I try to put her mind at ease. I know she can’t help thinking about us together, but it was for her. I would swear off everything in the world for one moment with Lily. We get to dinner before I can make any unreasonable professions of love, which is good, because that would be humiliating. Especially if she told me she just wanted to fuck Alana again.

She waves to her friends as we pass them, and I don’t know if she wants to sit with them or not. I have no idea what to do in this situation, because our “date” is shitty cafeteria food, surrounded by people I never even talk to. It’s awkward and uncomfortable, even though she sits with me in the back. I pick at the crappy food and try to figure out how to blend in, how to be someone like Lily, someone she would want.

“Do you wanna get out of here? Let’s go somewhere else to eat,” she says suddenly.

I could kiss her. I bring her to the café, of course, but it’s nice, because she’s seen the worst of me, and now maybe she can see something good. I forgot that I saw her here with that guy, but the memory stirs when we sit in one of the booths, right by where they were sitting. What if she remembers that morning? What if she decides she’s an idiot and she wants to be with him?

Liz gives me a knowing smile, but I shrug it off. I don’t know how to be this guy – the guy I make dinner for several nights a week. How do I sit here, on a date? I can’t remember ever having been on a date.
Is
this a date? Do people go to cafés because they are so fucking socially inept they can’t eat in the college cafeteria and then call it dating? Why am I incapable of even sitting here, having dinner with this girl, without making everything so complicated?

“Thanks for taking me here,” Lily says while we wait.

“You’re welcome.”

I take a sip of my soda and watch her. She doesn’t say much, but her lips stay partially open, as if the words are resting there, waiting to fall into the silence between us. I want to talk to her, but there is comfort in the quiet and I’m afraid to remind her of the multitude of reasons she should not even be here. So, while we wait for the food, I stare. She doesn’t seem to notice, her eyes scanning the café like she’s memorizing every detail. She blows a loose strand of hair away from her face and it’s incredibly sensual somehow.

When the food comes, the silence turns to something else – a satisfied stillness because the sandwiches are that fucking good. I realize after we finish eating and I pay that we’ve said nothing on our date. By the time we get outside, I feel the anger and the worthlessness tearing the night apart. I go for my cigarettes and light one, letting the burn singe away those last little tendrils of peace. What in the fuck was I thinking?

“I’m glad you came out with me tonight,” I concede, the parting words kind rather than bitter.

“Me too.”

“So what now?” The three words carry so much weight. Does she want to carry on the insanely amazing sex we had, now that she knows what makes me so carnal? Does she want to pretend there’s anything else? She doesn’t answer me, just looks out over the parking lot and sighs.

“Why’d you choose to live on campus? I mean, your house isn’t that far from school.”

It’s an odd change of subject, but I embrace it. “Like I said, all I wanted was to get away.” I confide my hatred, my exhaustion with the petty gossip, and she nods. I don’t get the impression she’s ever been on the receiving end of rumors that crack you apart slowly, from the inside out, but at least she doesn’t dismiss it.

“Has it helped?”

“Helped with what?” I ask.

“With escape.”

It hasn’t. Especially not now, not tonight, not with her. Because standing here, with the dwindling ash of my cigarette fluttering across the back of my palm, and watching her trying to connect with me, I think I will never get away from this. From this desire to feel what she makes me wish I had. A girl like her could change everything. She’s the kind of girl you run to, instead of leaving behind, and that means facing a lot more than I know how to face.

I shake my head.

“There will always be people like Dave and Alana,” she tells me.

“And you?” Is she suggesting that she could let it all go? That she could see me beyond what everyone else sees? There is still so much she doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, but if she thinks she could try…

There it is again. That faint elusive ghost known as hope.

She doesn’t answer. She changes the subject and asks about school. Talk of classes, of homework, brings us closer together, though, and suddenly my body is tight against hers, the cigarette long forgotten on the pavement, and I’m desperate for her. She doesn’t speak for a moment, but as she exhales, the smell of strawberries brushes against my lips and cheek. I want to grab her right here, to destroy her, to have every inch of her against me and to touch her everywhere. I don’t know how I resist her, but I suggest going back to my room.

She steps back and yet again changes the subject. Now she wants to talk about the rooming logistics on campus. I try to repress the vehemence that explodes within me, but I can’t and I almost growl as I light another cigarette.

“I don’t play well with others, Lily. I thought you got that,” I say in answer to her questions about my roommate situation.

“You certainly play well with me,” she says. Holy fuck, this girl. As soon as I start to tame myself, start to control what is causing the frenzy inside of me, she’s back and her fingers play with mine, following a path up to my wrists. The faint touch of her fingertips is enough to make me throw the cigarette to the ground and hold her body against mine. I breathe in her hair and kiss along her earlobe, down her neck, my hands holding her hips hard in position.

“You’re gonna spend the night, right?” I ask, but my voice is not that of a sane man.

She doesn’t move, answering with her lips just brushing against my own.

“I don’t know,” she whispers. “What are we, Jack?”

“I don’t know. Do we have to decide now?”

Now is not a good time. Now I would promise her anything she asked for, because I need to bury myself in her, to touch her where she’s wet, to feel her buck against me and beg me for more. I need to lose myself with this girl who’s already making me question everything I believe and know.

“What do you want this to be?” I ask her.

“I’m not sure.”

“So why isn’t that enough? Let’s just see. This isn’t the kind of thing I do, you know.”

I slide my hand up the back of her shirt, feeling the heat of her bare skin.
Ask me for anything
, I dare her silently.
I will give you everything I have for one kiss.
I fight this desire, this incredible need to be with her. I want to lean down and taste her, but kissing her is deadly. And yet I’m about to do it when she backs away again. I clench my fists, trying to fight both the sexual frustration and the hate that threatens to take over this moment still full of potential.

“That worries me,” Lily says. “You said Alana was your best friend, but you couldn’t date her. Are you going to give up on me, too? I’m not the kind of girl-”

“Oh, right. Now we’re back to being innocent.”

I kick a Styrofoam cup that was left in the middle of the parking lot. The tension in my forearms is intense, and my clenched fists shake by my side. Lily’s eyes grow wide and I look up to meet her gaze, knowing she sees what I really am in that second.

“I’m gonna call a cab,” she says and walks away.

Say something. Salvage this
, my mind screams, but I can’t speak. The violence and the rage and the hopelessness rush through me, pulling the air from my lungs and crushing my hope. I watch her walk across the lot and it’s like seeing every good possibility torn from my life. She’s nearly to the door when I call her name, the sound and my breath returning to me in a gasp. I’m shaking throughout my body and I hang onto my bike, hoping I can form a coherent sentence, maybe even something resembling an apology.

She turns around and looks at me. Neither of us moves for a moment and I want to say something, but I don’t know
what
to say. She walks back toward me, determination in her face, but doubt in her eyes.

“Start talking,” she demands.

“Look, princess, I’m sorry. But I thought we were clear. I’m trying to be better with you, but I’m not boyfriend material.” She shakes her head and I go on. “Why does it matter? You certainly didn’t care that we weren’t in a relationship for the last four days when you let me fuck you nonstop.” It’s a classless statement, but this is a power struggle and neither of us knows how to back down. Being matched in fortitude is new to me and I fall for her just a little bit more.

“No, but the last four days were something else. They were temporary,” she says.

“I don’t do permanent, Lily.”

“Maybe I’m not even ready for permanent.”

“So what’s the problem?”

She looks up at me and her eyes are sad. “I’d just like to know I was worth it to you.”

I laugh. It’s not a cruel laugh, but the comment is so ironic, so out of place. She cannot even imagine how willing I am to sacrifice everything just to have her look at me with those fucking perfect eyes and she thinks
she
might not be worth it to
me
. Me? The epitome of worthlessness? “I have no idea what it means to be worth it,” I tell her.

“You’re not worthless,” she says and she cups my face, bringing her lips in closer, but the moment is gone. I don’t want to have sex with her. I want to love her and it terrifies me. Watching my mother die is the only other thing that made me feel this out of control. I have spent years planning, arranging, knowing my limits. There were episodes of depression, of darkness, but with Lily, there is no answer, no clear path. And I want to scream because I cannot stop myself.

“If I could be the kind of guy that gets to be with a girl like you, I would be. I would give everything to be that kind of guy. However, it isn’t reality, princess.
This
is reality. I’m a piece of shit screw up who can fuck you like no one else can – and I have to be happy that you’ll even let me do that. That’s the best I can hope for; sooner or later, you’ll realize it.”

She looks at me and smiles faintly, before lifting up on her tiptoes and kissing me. It’s over before it even starts, in oh so many ways.

“I can be your friend,” she says. “But you have to let me.”

I grab her and kiss her this time, my tongue moving into her mouth. She mews against me as I do and it’s soft and perfect and I am so completely fucked. Her hands reach into my hair and pull me deeper into the kiss and I lose track of my own hands. We are no longer two bodies, but some sort of force, standing here in the empty parking lot, a force that annihilates everything that has come before us like a fucking atom bomb. All that stands ahead of us is a blank canvas, a wasteland, but somewhere on the horizon, there is light and an oasis. And Lily is the one who will guide me there. I love her – entirely. It’s something I don’t understand and I don’t want to understand.

She steps out of the kiss and smiles at me, her eyes dancing, and I want to cry. She may be my guide, but I am her apocalypse. An oasis in a barren world may be hope to someone like me, but for her, it’s a sad remnant of a world that used to be thriving. And I am the cause of that desolation.

Walk away
, I plead with myself.
Let her live her life without you ruining it.
But I can’t walk away and I hate myself for holding her in an embrace. Still, I try and I beg, “Don’t fall for me, princess.”

The words fade into the night, though, unheeded, and she kisses me again, before gesturing to my bike and telling me to take her home.

Chapter 15

Back in my room, I undress her and I need to take in every detail. For all her willingness to play my games, for all her kinkiness, I’m still afraid to touch her. It was one thing to fuck her when I thought it was some sort of escape for her, but now that it’s
her
and not some idea of the good girl gone bad, I don’t know how. I run my hands along her skin and every inch of her makes me feel so unworthy, yet she gives so willingly.

“Please, Jack,” she says, but it’s not a teasing, sexy plea. It’s the plea of someone who wants to cross a line that I have never crossed, the plea of a girl willing to put her entire life in my hands and willing to trust me entirely. I don’t know what to do with that kind of trust, and I’m terrified she will shatter into pieces.