Unbound, p.16
Unbound, page 16
It isn’t a lie. I can imagine him sitting in his room, hand through Seven’s fur as he thinks about the best way to ask me to go out with him again. The thought stirs up something giddy within me.
“Okay, well, I’m asking you out, then.”
“Yeah?” He smiles, small with no teeth showing. I match him.
“Yeah. For coffee again, same place?”
He hesitates, mind working furiously behind ocean eyes. “No. We should… it should be better than just coffee.”
I reach for his hand, and he takes both of mine in his grip. It feels odd and stiff, like a reluctant couple at the altar.
“Bennett, coffee is good. And comfortable. And it’s close to where I swim.” His face is still twisted up, brows furrowed. “I like going there with you. Can we do it again?”
“If you’re sure.”
I nod. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.” He squeezes my hands where they’re still held in his. “But next time, we are going somewhere better.”
“All right,” I concede.
* * *
We meet at the same time in the same coffee shop, all the way down to the same booth.
I swam again, but took the time to dry my hair and wear something slightly better than our last date. Bennett, yet again, is dressed far nicer than me. I drink him in, broad shoulders covered with a flannel, sun-kissed brunette curls, ocean blue eyes and pursed lips. He’s so handsome my chest aches.
“Good morning,” I say as he stands from the booth and scans over my pretty thrifted cardigan and scrunchie-bound updo. Taking the initiative, I lean in to kiss his cheek, but he turns just in time to catch my mouth.
Breath huffs out of me, and my cheeks blaze at the warm feel of his lips.
“Good morning, P.”
His voice is low and scratchy, still sleepy and unused. It makes my body tingle, enough that I pull away from him and try to regain my wobbly footing and hazy vision.
Bennett is more intoxicating than I’d imagine any drug or drink might be. And because it’s so unintentional, it’s somehow headier.
I feel a bit like blustering out “Are you my boyfriend?” but anxiety grabs hold of my tongue. I’ve never done this before. My only experience with romantic relationships is… not normal. And I watched my mom cling to every drug-addicted man who showed her an ounce of attention or affection. Or money. Drugs.
The blissed out, lovestruck version of my mother was more palatable, so selfishly, I didn’t mind.
Until they turned their attentions to me.
I shake my head, clearing the dangerous thoughts.
There’s a girl working—the same brunette with the scowl—but it seems like she’s also babysitting two kids in a booth nearest the front, coloring sheets scattered across the table. We wait until she returns to the counter to order our drinks and food—which I let Bennett handle entirely, just standing at his side, his hand in mine, smiling.
It’s like one of my Prince Charming fantasies, but real. How I’d imagined having a boyfriend might be like.
We haven’t said the boyfriend or girlfriend words. It’s only our second date—and yet, I feel like if I asked, he’d say yes. In my head, it’s simple. He’d hold my hand and ask before he kissed me. Open my door and walk me home—without asking to come in or sleep with me. He’d take care of me without asking for something in return. He’d play with my hair and scratch my back. And he’d be just mine.
I think he already is.
Sitting back down, Bennett reaches for my hand across the table, thumb pressing circles into my skin. I smile so hard I think my lips might split from the force.
“I liked the poem you sent yesterday,” he says. “Or, I guess, song.”
“Did you just read it? Or listen to it as well?”
I’d taped a printout of the lyrics to “Roslyn” by Bon Iver and St. Vincent. Mostly because I love the song, and the lyrics are so interpretable. But also because Bon Iver’s music has been my sleep playlist ever since the night in the hotel room. It’s easier for sleep to find me with the lull of music and the memory of Bennett’s warm, safe arms around me.
“Both. I treated it solely as a poem first, reading your annotations—”
“Checking my work?” I snark, but grin through the tease of my words. “How did I do, professor?”
Bennett blushes and ducks his chin, shaking his head at my antics. “You’re brilliant, Paloma, I didn’t need to check your work to know that.”
He says it so simply, as if speaking of the weather or reciting hockey stats. Does he know it feels like a kiss to my skin?
“It works nicely as a poem, but there’s an added level of emotional complexity with the music. A haunting, eerie element unfelt without it. Even the repetition is entirely different with the sound element. Which, I think, means you categorize a lot of music as poetry.”
My eyes flutter closed as I nod, agreeing with his sentiment. Thrilled that he treated my choice for our game with the intensity of a John Keats ode.
“Which—” he continues, smile growing as he almost tugs on my hand in his excitement. “—means you like poetry.”
A laugh bubbles from my lips before I can help it, but I swallow down the sound with a blinding smile and shake my head.
“Maybe.”
Bennett tilts his head and softly presses a kiss to my hand before releasing it. “I can work with a maybe.”
“I really like you.”
It spews from my mouth, embarrassment immediately clinging to my expression, warmth spreading over my cheeks and down my neck. The entire phrase is so juvenile and insufficient for how I’ve started to feel for him.
Something worse yawns in my stomach, clawing at every insecurity.
Pathetic. What’s next? Begging him to like you? You’re good at that, Polly.
My stomach churns, the heat on my cheeks and neck turning clammy so fast I feel sick.
“I—you do?” Bennett stumbles through the words, which only heightens my anxiety.
“I like you,” I whisper. “A lot.”
“Yeah?” Ethan smirks as he tugs the sheet from my body just slightly. “You like me? C’mon, Polly, I’m not your middle school crush.”
My cheeks color, shame casting my eyes down as he pulls himself up and out of the bed.
“I think you more than like me, considering what you just did for me.” He laughs and pulls on my hair a little roughly before leaning over to tug his jeans back on. I swallow down the confusion, still reaching out to nuzzle against him when he beckons for me before he leaves. Desperate for the touch. For the affection, even if it’s mocking.
“Paloma?”
I shake my head, pulling back and knocking my head into the wooden wall of the booth.
Bennett eyes me, fear and concern overshadowing the awkward anxiety that plagued his features mere moments ago.
“Sorry—got lost in my head for a second.” I laugh, shaking my head and some of my lingering demons off. I try to bring up another poem, something else to talk about, trying to divert his attention from my weird display.
He doesn’t speak for most of the rest of our date, lingering worry dancing over his face. It isn’t long before our coffees are drained and my mostly one-sided anxious rambling stalls into tense silence.
Bennett walks me to my dorm like he always does now, but this time he pauses in front of the steps.
“Paloma? I’m not the best with talking about… this. But… I—” Again he trips over the word, face agitated.
I shake my head. “It was stupid. I don’t know why I said it.” I bite on my lip as my anxiety churns. “Can we just forget it?”
He frowns, shaking his head in a stiff denial.
“Please,” pours from my lips before I can stop it.
“Paloma, what—”
Get out of here. I have to get out of here.
I stumble back a step. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bennett.”
It’s easier today to leave him on the steps in front of my dorm. I don’t kiss his cheek, averting my eyes at his confused expression over the break in our routine, too focused on the swell of shame making my body feel hot and filthy.
I shower. Even as the water runs cold, I can’t get the sensation of feeling dirty off my skin.
CHAPTER 32
THEN: Freshman Year, October
Paloma
Things return to normal and neither of us brings up my desperate confession.
We continue exchanging slips of paper like normal. He sends famed sonnets, ballads, villanelles, odes. I respond with free verse and lyrical poems, sometimes song lyrics with strict instructions to treat as a poem first, then listen.
I spend more time searching for the perfect ones to send than I do on my actual schoolwork.
Halloween falls on a school night, which means most parties are postponed to the weekend. I invited Bennett with a heavy advance, making sure he was comfortable with hanging out at my apartment for the evening.
“Just us?” he asked, biting his lip and hovering in front of the door to our study room.
“Just us.”
“Does this count as another date?”
I laughed and nodded. To me, every minute I spend with him is a date.
And at 6 p.m. on the dot, there’s a knock at my door. My roommate left earlier in the day with no information on when she’d be back, but I’m glad for it. I don’t want to share Bennett with anyone. I want him to be only mine, at least for now. Even if it’s only in my head.
“Hey, Paloma.”
“Hey, Bennett.”
Gorgeous as usual; I specifically instructed him to dress in comfort clothes, and he clearly obliged. A soft black long sleeve with Waterfell Hockey across the chest in bright blue is tight against his broad shoulders, and his legs are encased in long gray sweatpants that make my mouth water a little. He looks warmer and cozier than I’ve seen him before.
I want to make a pillow fort around him and cuddle by a fireplace.
Bennett’s bright blue eyes scan over me slowly, taking in my oversized H is for Halloween T-shirt and soft black leggings.
Opening the door to my room feels terrifying. This place is my sanctuary, my one fully safe space: the blue walls covered with a floral tapestry, the glowing stars on the ceiling. A wooden skim board with multicolored hibiscus florals printed across it hangs precariously on one wall above my desk. I got flowers from the florist in Waterfell when they were going bad, hung them upside down to dry, and now they’re part of my wall décor. Prints of every size and color and style hang alongside them, some taken from restaurants or coffee shops as free giveaways, some thrifted along with everything else in my room, all carefully styled.
I’d gone a little overboard with decorating, but it was the first thing that was ever completely mine.
Growing up, I went trick-or-treating around the trailer park with the other kids. I’d worn the same costume until the princess sleeves were so high and tight on my arms they left marks. My mother never decorated for the holidays, though I asked often enough. But she often didn’t know what day it was.
“I bought a Halloween candle,” I stutter out. “A-and the ghost pillow. I wanted to find a blanket, but…”
I trail off, rolling my eyes at myself because what in the hell can I say? But I couldn’t afford it because the other decorations already went over my spending budget for the month?
I know that Bennett is much wealthier than I am. Granted, I might not know by how much, but he doesn’t need to budget the way that I do.
“Anyway, it’s… yeah.” I shrug, spinning in a tight circle to face him where he’s still lingering near the door. “This is my room.”
Bennett examines every item as he steps forward into the space. It feels like he’s seeing into a piece of my soul, closer than I let anyone else.
“I like it.” He smiles.
“Yeah?”
“It’s just like you,” he says softly, affectionately. “We should come here more often.”
“We can study here,” I say, a little too animatedly. “If you’d like.”
I grab for the stuffed animal sitting on my bed, considering tossing it under or into my closet, but as usual, Bennett’s eyes are already on me.
“It’s, um…”
I try to think of a more palatable way of saying what the stuffed bunny means to me. That it was something I found in my old room. That I thought maybe it was a gift left by my dad when he knew he wouldn’t be there with me, for me to have a piece of him. It was more likely that my mother had found it or accidentally stolen it from some kid thinking it was mine. But it was hard to let go of the fantasy.
And it’s just as hard to stuff this meaningful thing in a hiding spot. It’s too similar to how I’d managed to keep it all these years.
“The velveteen rabbit,” Bennett finishes my statement, nodding. As if me hugging this stuffed rabbit so tightly in my arms, like he might take it from me, is highly normal.
“Oh—yeah, it is. At least, I think so? I got it a long time ago.”
“It’s special to you.”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I watch as he steps closer to me and reaches for it, nodding silently. He takes the bunny from my hand before propping it next to the ghost pillow I bought. Then he reaches for me.
Heart squeezing and eyes burning, I take his hand.
“We can sit on my bed together, if that’s not uncomfortable.”
“That’s fine.”
He follows me, sitting only after I have, eyes on me while I turn on my laptop to a stream of Halloween movies—nothing scary. The overhead lights are off, leaving only the soft glow of my lamp and the stars on the ceiling.
“I’d like to hold you,” Bennett says, and our cheeks bear matching red stains almost immediately. “If that’s okay.”
I nod.
No one’s ever asked if they could touch me. They just… did.
There’s a wide grin across his lips, but his hands are shaking as he wraps one around my shoulder before pulling me back to lay against him fully. It’s the most physical contact we’ve had in a while, my back flush to his warm, soft chest. It reminds me of the hotel room.
We settle into my bed, my blue blanket tucked around us both as I use his biceps like a pillow. Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic play back-to-back: “Two of my favorites,” I quietly tell him.
By the middle of the second movie, I can’t take much more. I pull on his arm a little, curling farther into him. His lips have pressed into my hair a few times, even daring to touch the skin of my forehead. But I’m borderline desperate for something more now.
I feel like a wriggling fish on a line.
“Bennett?”
“Yeah?”
I swallow a hard gulp and turn my face to stare up at him, neck supported by his large biceps. He pushes himself up a little to look fully into my eyes.
“Can you kiss me?” My fingers dance over my lips absentmindedly. “Here?”
A heavy sigh falls from his mouth, his breath minty and cool.
“It’s all I think about, P, ever since the pool.”
A sigh of relief barely leaves my throat before his lips are pressed to mine, almost too hard, but so perfect. I kiss him back quickly, hands gripping the bedsheets so that I don’t grab for his hair.
My breath is almost too loud against Stevie Nicks singing “Crystal” off my laptop speakers.
His body is beside me, but with his lips on mine, he’s half covering me. I want to ask him to press his weight over me, to let me feel completely sheltered and swallowed by him. Like I could hide in his arms and absorb the calm warmth of him forever.
It’s safe here. I never want to leave.
His lips are deliberate, careful. With a slowness I’ll never master, he raises his hand and tucks it behind my head, lifting my neck toward him. He’s holding me entirely in his hands, his other reaching around to press against the center of my back, pulling me closer.
When we break for air, his mouth settles against the skin of my neck, his hands flexing against me. Now it’s his breath that’s loud, gruff in a way that makes my toes curl before he finally pulls back, kissing my cheek on his way.
“Was that good?”
I bite my lip and nod profusely. He smiles, sated and pleased—with himself or me, I’m unsure. Nor do I care.
When I try to settle back into our position from before, he moves me to lay across his front entirely, head resting on his chest, one leg settled over his thighs. His hand brushes through my hair, massaging the base of my scalp every few minutes, then trailing down my back.
I’m asleep far sooner than I mean to be.
The slight, quiet closing of the door wakes me hours later.
Next to me, there’s a piece of notebook paper; on it, a poem: “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond” by E. E. Cummings, one of my favorites. I know Bennett knows that. I know he picked the poem with the same gentle intentionality that he does everything.
Not to mention, it’s handwritten from memory and annotated.
At the bottom, the last stanza is fully underlined with the word “You” written in his perfect script.
And beneath the entire thing is a simple note:
Words don’t come easily for me but
I care very deeply for you.
-Bennett
Part of me wants to tuck it into the soft worn shoebox where I’ve kept every poem and note he’s gifted me. But I can’t bear not to see it, so I lay it on my bedside table, putting my new candle atop it to straighten the folded edges.
I drift back to sleep just looking at it.
CHAPTER 33
NOW
Paloma
I stare blankly at the folded notebook paper that’s fallen out of my bag through a new hole I’ll have to patch soon. My stomach somersaults again over how easily I might not have seen it slip from its usual spot of refuge.
Now it stares at me from the passenger seat, taunting me with the corner upturned where I can just make out the beginnings of “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond” haunting and taunting me in equal measure.
Adjusting in my seat again, I try to talk myself out of this ridiculous, inane idea. But my desperation just to see him is too intense to ignore.
