Page 88 of What It's Like in Words
Those aren’t the words I would use.
He was crude, but he delicately unbuttoned my dress.
I was being led to my bedroom like it was his.
Pushed onto the bed.
It wasn’t like coming home. It wasn’t beautiful. We both tasted like the cheese-and-onion crisps we ate at the bar, and when I removedhim, heavy and hard, from his red boxers there was a sourness, but it was the most alive I had felt since the glass shattered against the bedroom wall.
AFTERWARD,IASSUMED THAThe would leave, but he suggested a bath. He went to the shop and returned with a bottle of red and a chocolate egg. Don’t say I never gave you anything. I wasn’t sure if he remembered that he had given me one before.
We poured two glasses, and I waited in the water as he put some music on his phone. They were songs that he used to play, and it was like time travel. He climbed in, quipping: Sorry for the view. I unwrapped a bath bomb that Catherine had given me for my birthday. He dropped it in the water with a “kaboom,” and it spewed pink glitter that caught in the bubbles like dirt in a corner of a lake. He leaned back and closed his eyes; then he opened them and it felt like I had been caught staring at a stranger on the tube. But he just shook his head and said: I just can’t believe I’m here again.
Me neither.
Good surprise?
I’m not sure yet.
He asked if he had been a dick to me when we were together. I told him that I had been thinking about that recently. I was seeing someone, and the experience made me realize that I had been unreasonable. He shook his head. You weren’t unreasonable. You were just sensitive and I felt—
Like you were responsible for my feelings all the time?
He nodded.
When we got back together—
You don’t have to—
I know but—
I was the one who…
No, I was…
Our voices trailed off, and we just looked at each other. He saidthat maybe time was how we fixed things. I didn’t agree or disagree, because the moment felt too unsteady. He asked if I remembered our holiday, like it was an episode of a show we watched once. He said that he regretted going away together so early. I said that it was four months in. Either way, he said. I think we should have gotten to know each other more. I told him that it never seemed like he wanted to get to know me. He said that I never seemed like I wanted to be known. I felt brave then and asked: So, what do you wantnow? His eyes sparked, and he lowered his hand under the water. He started writing letters on my thigh. The first word was “I,” and the second started with a “w.” He was writing “I want.” I joked that this was like playing Scrabble. He moved his fingers up and asked where the triple word score was. He wrote the third word three times and then looked at me questioningly.
Yes, yes, I want you too, I said without speaking.
He adjusted so that he was on his knees and moved toward me. Water splashed over the side. I lifted one knee so he could push inside me. His hand reached around my back and pulled me closer. More water splashed over the side. Fuck, he said, fuck. Hands reached my neck and squeezed like he was trying to fold me up like paper. Pressure rose. My elbow caught the wineglass, which tipped and turned the water red. He caught it without removing his mouth from my neck. I reached into the water and touched myself until I came; then he pulled out and came on my chest.
Oh god. Oh my god.
That was the first time that had happened, and I had to fight to stop from crying. He said that was intense. I agreed but didn’t tell him why. I felt stupid that I hadn’t been able to do that before. He fell back by the taps, and the bath bomb shriveled to a raisin. He said that he had felt it fizzing and it wasn’t unpleasant. We laughed, and I pointed out that the water was cold. There’s not much of it left, he said with a double eyebrow raise. I bit my cheeks, and he asked me why I did that. I said that I thought it made me look like I had dimples. He said, dryly, that it didn’t. Then, holding up one hand, palmfacing me, he declared that he was a prune. I said that he was a prune before the bath, so it wasn’t a fair experiment. He splashed me, and I remembered being in the ocean with him on the holiday we never should have taken.
CHAPTER 31
The next day, I woke up feeling sick. It was partly the usual apprehension at it being Wednesday and having to talk to my mother, but it was also because I needed to talk to Ruth.
I told her that I was in the neighborhood, but I wasn’t. I was wearing the T-shirt that she had bought for me for Pride:THIS IS WHAT A FEMINIST LOOKS LIKE. We were really happy that day. I wanted her to remember that day when I told her.
As I turned the corner into the community, she was on the swinging seat wrapped in a blanket. She put her mug on the ground, and we went inside. She put the kettle on and waited for it to boil.
Go on then, she said.
I asked her how she knew, and she said that she could just sense it, like the seasons shifting.
God, is it that monumental?
