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He smiled and sat up enough to grip my chin and pull me up for a kiss. It didn’t end for a long, long time.
***
Standing by theVolvo at nearly two in the morning, still shaking from the physical pleasure we’d shared, I leaned against Daniel and breathed in his scent. I wasn’t ready to go yet. We’d just rekindled this flame between us, and it was burning so hot that my body roared with it. But it was the middle of the night, and I had the morning shift at the library.
“Peter,” he whispered, stroking my back and burying his face in my hair. “I just want you to know that it’s not just about sex with you. I should have held back, taken more time to get physical again, but things here are so…” He let out a horrible sound. “And things with you are so good. I rushed in.”
“Don’t be sorry. I wanted everything we did.” I sighed and pressed against him. It felt like a role reversal—me reassuring him, when in the past he’d always seemed to be the one who’d reassured me. “Do you have regrets?”
“No. Not really.” He rubbed his cheek against my hair again. “I’m sorry that we’re starting something in the middle of all this personal chaos. My emotions are everywhere. I’m afraid I’ll screw this up.”
He was right, the timing was a mess all around, but I didn’t want to wait. I didn’t want to have some stupid rebound fling before coming back to him because this was “too soon” after Adam or wait for another year while things settled with his family. I just wanted us to ditch the past and carve a new future. We had the right. We could do this together.
“You won’t screw it up,” I reassured him. “Neither of us will.”
“So long as we’re honest.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That’s the most important thing.”
Daniel ducked his head and gave me a kiss. I sank into it, arms around his neck, heart fluttering as our mouths opened and our tongues touched. Somehow, in my time with Adam, I’d let honesty slip, but here, holding Daniel in his driveway with the midnight sky twinkling above us, all I wanted was truth from him.
Especially when the truth felt this beautiful.
Part IX
Late-August through Early-September 1991
Chapter Eleven
‡
Tiptoeing into thehouse and up the stairs so that I didn’t wake my parents, I showered and fell into bed. I’d get an hour and a half of sleep, and then get up and drive to work.
But, of course, I was almost too giddy to sleep. I kept replaying the night over and over in my mind, and when I did fall asleep, I dreamed about it, waking up rock-hard and flustered with my alarm clock shouting in my ear.
Once I’d grabbed another shower to wake up, I put on fresh clothes, and snatched up my backpack and some rolls of undeveloped film. As I passed through the kitchen, grabbing a granola bar for breakfast, I paused to read the note Mom had left on the counter yesterday.
Adam has called six times today. I hung up every time, but this is out of hand.
I picked up the pencil and scribbled,Next time he calls, don’t hang up. Tell him to fuck off and remind him that you’ll call the police. Then actually do it.
I didn’t want to talk to Adam. There was nothing he could say that would make me reconsider or think of going back to him.
As I headed out into the pre-dawn morning, I drove to a Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a blueberry donut and some coffee to help wake me up. I’d learned my lesson about the coffee machine in the library.
Finding parking was easy, which was a relief, and I made it to the library before whichever manager was responsible for unlocking the doors. The morning was cool, and I sipped the coffee to stay warm, hitching my backpack up on my shoulders.
Once inside, I was assigned the circulation desk near the front entrance. Being a Saturday, the morning crowd was slow to arrive, and when no one was around, I spun around in the seat, staring up at the high ceiling, listening to the echo of footsteps and the occasional burst of laughter throughout the library. I grinned like a loon remembering the night before with Daniel.
He’d put up twinkle lights for me. He’d cooked. He’d taken me down to the river to watch the sunset. He’d kissed me and touched me and made me feel all shivery and new. He’d asked to be my boyfriend.
I pounded my fists on my thighs, happier than I’d been in a long time.
Eventually, I managed to settle down enough to look through a book I’d grabbed from the returns, photos from the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.
Just before my mid-morning break, the morning’s manager, a woman named Ellie, came to relieve me. “Hey,” she said, passing me a list of call numbers. “When you’re done with your break, would you mind heading up to the stacks to look for these? We’ve got a demanding professor saying she needs these books for a student of hers.”
“Sure,” I agreed. This was a part of my job I hadn’t done yet, but April had explained it to me during the first shift I’d worked. Basically, you went up to the stacks and looked for the books where they were supposed to be, because people were often unable to successfully navigate the library, and if the books weren’t there, then you got a little more creative about it. An M with wear on the far-right side might look like an N to a hasty shelver. Or a B with a worn-away lower curve might appear to be a P. An 8 with a worn-away middle could seem to be a 0.
