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“Now you don’t want to get married?”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean that we don’t have to ever get married if you don’t want to. We could be one of those progressive couples that stays together forever but never gets married because we’re too cool for that.”
“Sounds like an excuse not to get married,” she says, leaning back on her hands and closing her eyes as she leans her head back.
I take the opportunity to take the promise ring out of my pocket. Then I lay the ring on her knee. She opens her eyes and stares at the ring for a while.
“What is that?”
“It’s a ring.” She glares at me and I laugh. “It’s a promise ring.”
She picks it up and examines it. “What kind of promise are we making?”
“I’m promising to love you forever. You can decide what kind of promise you want to make.”
She smiles and looks me in the eye. Then she hands the ring back. “Aren’t you supposed to put it on me?”
I take the ring from her, then I take her left hand in mine and slide it onto her middle finger. I lay a soft kiss on the back of her hand and look her in the eye.
“I promise to love you forever. Even when I’m lying in my grave, all dusty and cobwebbed. I’ll be whispering your name inside my coffin.”
“That is so creepy.”
“Creepy and romantic.”
She shakes her head and holds up her hand to look at the ring. Finally, she turns to me and places her hand on my cheek. “I promise to love you forever, and — ”
“There’s an and?”
“And … I promise to make sure they bury me next to you so you can still sing me to sleep when we’re dead.”
“Now that is romantic.”
She smiles, looking very impressed with herself. I lean over to plant a kiss on her cheek and she throws her arms around my neck. I lose my balance and fall backward. She lands on top of me and plants a kiss on my mouth. I grab her face before she can sit up again and lick her cheek.
“Ew!” She pushes off me and I laugh as we both sit up.
She straightens her shirt as she sits up straight and I lean in to whisper in her ear. “I’ll settle for your cheek, but I’d rather lick you in other places.”
She shakes her head, but I can see her brain working. Probably trying to think of a way to cut this outing short so we can go back to her bedroom or her dorm and lick each other. Not that I would object.
But first, I have a song I want to sing. What can I say? It’s the performer in me.
I grab the guitar and begin playing an upbeat sort of bubble-gum pop song I’ve been working on since the day Claire first gave herself to me. I don’t normally write that type of music, but I was on a bit of a high after that day. It seemed appropriate.
Claire spins around on the grass so she’s facing me and I begin the first verse.
* * *
“Sun in your hair, ignites my insides,
Glow of your skin, lights me up right,
Touch of your hand, I’m on my knees here,
Begging please, baby just stay near,
Yeah, right here.
* * *
‘Cause we don’t have to go nowhere,
This place is ours, it’s everywhere,
Yeah, we can stay,
Stay forever.
Ours.
It’ll stay forever ours.”
* * *
I’m about to start the second verse when she gasps. “Forever Ours? Is that the name of the song?”
I place my hand over the strings of my guitar to stop the resonant sound. “Yeah, why?”
Her eyes widen as she smiles. “I got you something. This is so funny.”
She reaches into the back pocket of her jeans and pulls out a smooth glass heart about half the size of my palm. She hands it to me and waits impatiently as I read the words engraved on the heart: Ever thine, ever mine, ever ours.
“I got it at a little stationery shop off campus.”
I chuckle as I realize what I said to her two months ago stuck in her head, too. “Thank you,” I say, then I kiss the corner of her mouth. “It’s perfect.”
She smiles and taps my guitar. “Sorry, I interrupted you. Can you finish the song now?”
I start the song from the beginning again, and by the second verse, a crowd of about six people have gathered around to listen. When the song is over, the crowd has grown to at least a dozen. They clap loudly and one man asks if I have a change bucket, but I tell him that’s not necessary.
“Another one,” Claire insists and the crowd joins in her plea.
I get the feeling I always get when I step onto a stage; that mixture of nervousness and excitement. That rush that I can’t get enough of. And I slip right into another upbeat song.
After four songs, I have to quit. The crowd is getting too thick and I don’t have a stage here to separate us. The last thing I need is for Claire and I to get crushed on the day I promise to love her until the day I die.
I give my appreciation to the crowd and say my goodbyes. A few people ask for my name so they can look for my album, but I have to tell them I’m not signed yet. Still feels good to be asked.
“Where are we going?” I ask as Claire and I walk back to my bike.
“I don’t care. Wherever you go, I go.”
Forever Studying
Senia and I went to our first college party last week. And she met a boy. A very handsome, very strong football player. Tar-Heel running back Justin Neely. I think the only way to get Senia to come out of her shell may be to ply her with alcohol.
Of course, I don’t drink. I never have. After losing my mother to a heroin overdose, I swore I’d never drink or do drugs. And I really have no desire to break that promise to myself.
But I must admit that it was fun to see Senia finally let loose a little. I wasn’t aware just how shy she was until she opened up to me the second week of school. I had just asked her if she wanted to go get something to eat at the campus café and she rejected me.
I didn’t think anything of it; though I was a bit disappointed. I’ve never really had any girlfriends, unless you count Rachel. But we only attended high school together for three weeks before she graduated. She’s always seemed a little annoyed by my immaturity.
I thought Senia would finally be my chance at having a normal female friendship, but she didn’t seem interested. So I grabbed some cash out of my wallet and I was all set to go to the café alone. Then Senia stopped me.
She opened up to me about how she only had a couple of friends in high school, but they went to a d
ifferent school. And they weren’t even good friends because her dad refused to let her go out partying or even to the mall or the movies. By the end of our discussion, I was beginning to think I had it good as a foster child.
So I gave her some time to loosen up a little, then we went to our first party last week. Neither of us are huge partiers, so we kept to ourselves most of the night. Until handsome Justin Neely approached shy little Senia and offered her a bottle of beer.
If it had been a cup, I would have made her reject the drink. But Justin opened the bottle right there in front of us, as if he knows the rules of staying safe at a college party. Never accept a drink from a stranger. Unless it’s an unopened beverage.
One beer led to two tequila shots. Which led to another beer. Which led to me practically carrying her back to the dorm. And she’s been babbling about Justin for eight days straight.
“He’s taking me to meet his sister today,” Senia says while brushing her dark, luxurious hair.
“Wow. Sounds serious. Do you mind if I make your bed?”
“Go ahead. Is Chris coming over?”
I smile in response. It’s really all I can do. I haven’t seen Chris in six days, but it seems like an eternity. I’m giddy with excitement.
Today, Chris and I aren’t going to stay in the dorm and have sex for hours. Not that I object to that. But I was thinking we could get out for a change.
I know we’re way past the dating phase of our relationship, but four months of weekends filled with almost nothing but sex and breakfast food feels almost wrong. Almost. I mean, we went to Moore Square a couple of months ago and that was beautiful.
And it’s so cold outside. I thought we’d go get some coffee. Or something that normal couples do.
Then again, Chris is the only guy I’ve ever really been with. I’m not sure I know what normal couples do. They’d probably envy us.
Senia twists her hair and pins up one side of her hair. “How do I look?”
She’s wearing a killer red dress she ordered online from an independent designer, accentuated by red lipstick.
