When I started college I told my therapist if I went down to the cadaver lab for study, they’d be horrified at what they found if they peeled back my skin.
But I think if you stripped me back now, maybe you’d see some of that. The inherent badness of Sloan Joseph and all the worries and all the wonders about conversations of years past and whether she really did embarrass herself that one night or if she’s done something awful she can’t remember. Maybe you’d see the dig I didn’t go on that one summer and some habits I formed that I shouldn’t have.
I think though, mostly, you’d see Tia. Talon. Jay.
Nights hand in hand, screaming their names under bright arena lights, and the feeling of my shoes against the sticky floors of their house at endless parties afterwards.
Dinners and away games and trips and jumping from rooftops into pools and all sorts of things you’d be horrified your parents found out you did in college.
You’d see Bohdan, sharp grey eyes that blink in time with the beat of my heart, and instead of ribs, I think you’d find his hands, suspended there in me, holding everything important in place.
You wouldn’t see the different types of failed therapy and medications that made me sick and lose all sense of who I was. You wouldn’t see my parents, a supportive omnipresence who just can’t understand why their daughter is so sensitive.
But Bohdan does and he always has, and when my life changed and crashed into his, this beautiful gift came along too: I got to watch him achieve his dreams, and even though it meant he had to move across the country, he’s always there to pick me up at the airport.
He leans against a pillar in the arrivals lounge, head resting against the cement, damp hair spilling around his ears from a post-practice shower, a faint shadow of stubble inching along hisjaw, and I light up from the inside out as the too-serious lines of his face split into a grin when he spots me at the top of the escalator.
People stop and stare, a few children point at him—he did score his first hat trick this week—but he only has eyes for me.
I feel my ribs—his fingers—strum against my heart. The chords they pluck and what they say.Hi, I missed you. I hate being apart like this.
His lips say it, too, writing symphonies with mine when he kisses me in front of the crowded airport.
He’s quiet in the car, the way he usually is—leaned back in the driver’s seat, one hand loose on the wheel, thumb tapping against the leather, and the other, stretched out against the back of my headrest, tugging on loose strands of my hair, tucking them behind my ear, thumb tracing the curve before it sends shivers down my spine.
Dropping my head back, I watch him drive, silhouetted against the backdrop of trees—evergreen and firs, some shedding their leaves, the colours faded by their time spent under the last of the fall sun.
The sun dips, and it might signal the end of the day, but to me, it signals the start. One whole week of Thanksgiving break, and even though we’re well into our second calendar year of long distance, it’s the first time I get to stay here for more than a long weekend during the semester.
The idea of us both being Canadian was somehow a funny joke for our friends, but it worked out when this week became something just for us.
“I brought you a present,” I say, sitting up to rifle through my backpack.
“It’s not you?” The corner of his mouth slants up.
“No. It’s a housewarming gift.” Pulling the cardboard box out of my backpack, I hold it up, triumphant.
His eyes cut to me, and he presses a thumb to his lips. “Candy Land?”
Frowning, I glance back at the board game, still encased in plastic, the jarring, bright colours juxtaposed against the muted landscape of Seattle surrounding us. “The Gumdrop King was very persuasive. It was the only thing they had at the gift shop.”
“They sell Candy Land at airport gift shops?” He cracks a real grin, amused, before his eyes are back on the road.
“It was this or a singing fish mounted to a Michigan license plate. Did you really want that in your new home?”
“Our new home,” he corrects, firmly and quietly.
I roll my eyes, tossing the game back down beside my bag. “Your new home.”
“Ours,” he repeats.
It’s a constant tug-of-war between us. He’s here in Seattle because it’s where he was drafted, and he bought us this apartment, meant to be our new home, but maybe not, because I can’t guarantee I’ll get into UW for grad school, and entirely not because I haven’t paid a single cent for it.
I didn’t bother applying back home after he was drafted.
UW makes the most sense because it’s where he is, but WSU makes the most sense because of the research streams I want to study: psychological and medical anthropology. It was a bit more of a reach to try and align my research interests with someone at UW. That’s not to say they don’t or won’t fit, and it’s not as good of a choice—it just doesn’t fit as well as WSU would.
But WSU is in Pullman.
