Bad Timing: A Letter

ALL CHARACTERS ARE OVER 18

Dear Rowan,

They say god puts people in your path for a reason, just when you need them. I say he has shitty timing. Why did he make us meet when he did? Just to be cruel? Just to fuck with us? Just because he could.

At first, I thought you were arrogant. The sort of person to argue over useless facts. I think that I hate confrontation, but you made me want to argue back. So, I did. We debated and we discussed. I enjoyed winning the argument, and for once, you enjoyed losing. In turn we learned that we were not so different. Appearances are deceiving. It's a cultivated toughness, a few tattoos but clean shaven and well spoken. You put on a good front, and it probably fools most people. But this is where I know better as I watch you quickly shut down the cocky intimations of another party-goer. You are just as cocky, but far more intelligent. You make a crack at him that goes way over his head, and when he slithers away, you apologize to me for having such rude friends. This is how I see through you. And I know that you saw through me.

Yes, I looked so fucking innocent and naïve at the time it was disgusting. Cracking jokes, trying to make fun of myself before anyone else could. Trying to hide my pain and my self-loathing. But I think maybe I impress you when you make a morbid joke about suicide and I don't bat an eye. You're trying to shock my goody-two-shoes looking face, until I match your twisted joke with my own. Neither of us are as good, or as bad, as we seem.

We sat across from each other- you on that lumpy old couch while I was tucked up on the futon, talking while everyone else in the room had drifted off to other corners. My boyfriend was more interested in talking to other people. He thought he already knew enough about me; he knew enough to make me think I was happy with him and to let him have sex with me. He thought I was pretty enough and seemed to worship me on that sort of superficial level. But that's not the same thing as knowing me.

You were intrigued enough to keep peeling back the layers as we talk, to discuss things that get darker as the night gets later. My boyfriend has fallen asleep on the couch, while your fiancé goes to bed because she has to get up early the next day to go to work. She is a saint of a girl. Generous and giving to a fault. She knows you are not all that you pretend to be, but she is too scared to look much farther than that. Instead of chasing off the inconsiderate party guests that just won't leave, she offers me food and coffee, only relenting when I assure her I'm not hungry. I think that she is too good for you, and you absolutely know it. The guilt is on your face even as she says goodnight.

Left alone, we keep talking. We share stories of strange happenings in our lives. Things supernatural and maybe true, apparitions conjured up by our minds. It's late enough that we begin to whisper and you need to go out for a smoke. I forget that you used to smoke back then. She made you quit eventually, before your first child was born. We go out to stand on the little deck outside your apartment. It's fairly dark outside because it faces an empty parking lot, overgrown with wild grass and weeds. I like it because it looks like a small cemetery, the hunks of cracked cement sticking up in places like forlorn headstones. It's a little cold for a spring night, a misty fog hanging in the air. You try to be polite and keep the smoke from drifting my direction. I say I don't mind and shift places, until my restless stance drives you crazy. You put your hands on my arms and pin them to my side and joke that I need to stay still. It's the first time you physically touch me. But not the last.

We chuckle at our little skirmish, and we keep talking. Somehow we segue to subjects even darker and more frightening than ghosts and poltergeists. It must have been the topic of nightmares. You make a statement about the fear of falling asleep as a child, waiting for the bogeyman that came into your bedroom at night. Something in your eyes is telling me a truth so awful I can feel my throat clutching shut. I interpret that look and then share my own coded message; a subtle hint about the horrors of being a teen girl. I make it a sick joke, and you chuckle as I chuckle, but we know what I mean. You give me the apology I've needed from a man, you say how awful it is to be a woman. And I think that's when I feel it inside my chest. A little ache to know that someone cares about me. But I bring the topic back around to you because it's still too raw a feeling to let it show, and I want you to keep talking.

You tell me how long you had the nightmares and how you endured it, and I let you tell me as much as you want. I let you talk even as I shiver on that little wood deck, watching you stub out your cigarette. You cuss more when you get agitated, and then you apologize for it. I demonstrate that I already cuss regardless of influence, and it cracks you up. My innocent little face and my potty mouth words. I'm so proud that I made you laugh so hard, and then you smile. The little ache inside me grows and I accidentally let it show. For once, there's silence between us.

You offer to go back inside; you've finished your cigarette. I'm cold but I refuse to give into it. I tell you we'll wake up my stupid boyfriend who's probably too drunk to be driving anyway, and I can't sleep because I've had too much caffeine. And I want to keep talking. Talking to you feels like talking to an old friend. The kind of friend you tell everything, the kind of friend who won't judge you. The kind of friend who won't spill your secrets.

We sit down on the crooked steps of the deck because I no longer have to keep clear of your smoky exhales. I'm wearing these overly gothic high-heeled granny boots and you can tell my feet hurt from standing. And I think you want me to sit next to you, and I'm glad.

We hear a car backfire, an old junker parked out front of your apartment. It reminds you of something. You then tell me a long story about you and your brother playing with fireworks. The ridiculous shenanigans of two adolescent boys left to their own devices. You show me the scar on your hand where you got burned, and I can't really see it that well in the dark. So I reach out to touch the scar. I glance up at your boyish grin when I pull my hand away, and I know I shouldn't have done that.

My body responds to the proximity and the way we make eye contact. Your eyes are just the shade of blue I like, a clear, steely gaze that you've used to intimidate many a challenger. But behind that chilled blue is an opening to the real you, and you're letting me stare into it. And this is the part that feels like magic. The unspoken language that our bodies know, the uncanny ability to initiate this communication.

You lean towards me, and I lean in. There's a sort of smirk on your face, daring me to come closer, until we kiss. I kiss back, a gentle connection, until you slowly pull away. But you don't go too far, just enough to catch a glimpse of my face. I probably look scared, or shocked, but I lean back in to tell you it's alright. You come back, and you kiss again. And again. The movements are subtle, but the reaction inside my body is not.

Somewhere around the third or fourth kiss, I know I should stop. Instead, I'm doing my damnedest not to involve my hands in any way. As if that would make it any less of a betrayal. You bring your hand up and gently hold my chin. I can smell the smoke in your hair, I can taste the ashy flavor on your lips. Normally, I hate cigarettes, and I hate the way they taste. Until now.

You do this thing where you run your hand down my throat, your fingers skimming my skin. I've never been touched like that. I only know the clumsy moves of my boyfriend, and before him was only the unwelcome loss of my virginity. This touch is different. An exploratory sort of caress, to see how it makes me feel. And how it makes you feel.

My flimsy sweater is the only thing that impedes your hand right as it reaches my collar bone, and with that interruption, you finally separate. You say that I'm freezing and we should go back inside. You say nothing else about what we've just done; your face says that you don't intend to. I can see your eyes gauging my reaction, trying to see what damage you've done. I think that I smile, even though I shouldn't, even as I feel like a horrible sneaking cheat. But you keep the smile on my face because you smile back.

You stand up and offer me a hand, then tug me up with you. I keep my face down, avoiding the eye contact that would lead to more kissing. You're waiting for me to go up the steps first, which I do, but then I turn to you just before I open the door to go back inside. I've got my hand on the doorknob, ready to twist it open; a measure of safety to behave myself. With this hand-hold of decorum in place, I decide I can face you, even though I have no idea what to say.

I can see the little grin fading as reality sets back in for you. You ask me if I'm ok, and you genuinely mean it. I nod to say yes. You look relieved but also sad. I tell you I won't have any nightmares after this, and your little smile returns. You tell me you won't either.

Sometimes, that is how I wish we'd stayed. Just that one precious moment of connection. Except life keeps moving forward. Time marches on and we get dragged along with it.

When I left your apartment, with my boyfriend finally sober enough to drive, I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again. I wasn't sure how good a friend you were to him, and as the awful twist of fate would have it, I later realize you two are actually quite close. Another sign that I don't know that much about him, and how little we as a couple, talk to each other.

The next time I see you, it's been two weeks since our kiss. When my boyfriend tells me we're going over to your place again, I panic. I think of excuses to get out of going, my period came or some other minor malady, but a selfish little part of me wants to go. She wants to see you again, and she knows better than to let me admit it to myself.

I'm riding a wave of nausea as we enter the party, and there you are in the center of it, telling some hilarious story per usual. I want to die, I want to sink into the carpet and never emerge. My boyfriend sticks out like the tall and lanky sore thumb, and you see us enter the room. Hugs are exchanged, the kind of bro hug with one arm patting the other male's back in a masculine display of acceptable affection. It's a strange moment to visually size you up against him, my eyes trying to take in what it is that I feel inside.

My boyfriend is not a terrible man, he's not unattractive. He can be sweet and goofy, and he tries to make me happy- but only to a point. He's making me happy so I'll make him happy. There's selfishness in almost everything he does, a selfishness that is growing by the day.

You wisely keep your distance from me as I shrink back into him, trying to reaffirm that we are still a couple. My eyes dart around for your fiancé and she is over by the kitchen, getting a drink for someone. She's laughing blithely with a toss of her very blond hair, handing out food she's made. When she sees me, she gives me a big hug as if we are long lost friends. She tells me how glad she is that I came. At first, I wonder if she's fucking with me until I realize she is just that sweet of a person. And I'm fairly certain you haven't told her a thing.

The party rages on its typical twenty-something way with discussions of pop culture and music. You, however, are holed up in the corner with another friend- loudly arguing about politics. Despite knowing better, I throw myself into the fray. It's a friendly debate, but your friend is getting a little heated. I agree with a final point you make, wherein you excuse yourself to go get a drink. I stay with the friend and we introduce ourselves. He's cooled down and telling me how long he's known you. I am intrigued and want to hear more, but you seem to hover in earshot. You don't want me to hear the dirt, and now I really want to know. At one point, you come back over and make a joke to not believe everything this guy tells me. I joke back that I won't tell anyone where the bodies are buried, and you laugh. The look in your eye is something beyond amusement, something that makes me warm all over.

Hours later, the pattern has repeated itself. My boyfriend is once again, fairly drunk, and your fiancé must work the next day. Apparently she works every Sunday, but she is too sweet to prevent you from partying on a Saturday night. The three of us talk together till he passes out, and the moment he does, I am secretly happy. You say you need to smoke, and I say I'll go with you. This is beyond dumb, but like all bad decisions, I do it anyway.

You're in an interesting mood. There is some pretense going on, a forced casualness that you pair with a little cockiness. You're almost daring me to bring up the topic we won't talk about. I had a drink, just one crappy wine cooler, and you tease me about it because I'm not yet 21. You, like my boyfriend, are older than me by two years. You tease me a little more harshly than usual, an edge of cruelty when you call me jailbait. I let you take a long look at my insulted face while you take a drag on your cigarette. You say you're sorry, you tell me to ignore the asshole whose maybe had too much to drink. The apology is genuine, but you're still angry. Because you are angry with yourself.

Neither of us is remotely tipsy nor showing signs of inebriation yet, but we need to sit down because standing feels too... convenient. We talk about alcohol and swap war stories of drunkenness, which leads to stories about our mutually alcoholic fathers. We are sharing more tragedy and more secrets. You pause at one point, and I pretend not to notice when your voice catches. This is the part of you that I've been waiting for. The person behind all the bravado and cockiness. I wait till you put your cigarette out, and I hold your hand. Then I lean into your shoulder, and I tell you how much it all sucks. The shitty fathers and the shitty world that lets them get away with it.

We stay like that, sitting on the steps, me leaning against your shoulder while we stare out at that little parking cemetery. You squeeze my hand with yours, a little gesture as if to say thanks. And I think we are safe, that we have maybe passed the awkwardness and can just be friends, until you make me look up at you. The darkness isn't dark enough. Tonight there is no misty fog, just a clear midnight sky full of stars. I can still see your eyes staring at me, a look that is disturbing for all the right reasons. You are examining me with those blue lenses of skepticism, and you are almost frowning. I was too young to really understand that look. A look that is both wanting and regret.

It's not until your eyes flick down towards my lips that I realize how close you are, and before I can stop you- or myself, we kiss. It's brief but intense, and again, you pull back first. You still look almost irritated, as if I should have stopped you. I'm no help. I sit there utterly confused and torn. You have told me all these things and revealed parts of yourself that no else has ever seen. You are fascinating and conflicting, erratic and incorrigible. And you see me.

You call me jailbait but tell me how I'm too smart for my age, that I'm too smart for my boyfriend. You tell me I may be the smartest girl you've ever met. Part of me is dying to hear you say that you think I'm pretty. Even though you won't because that's not your style. You dangle the carrot of your affections over me for the thrill of watching me reach for it. Because part of you is dying to tell me something else.

You whisper in an accusatory yet joking way that we shouldn't be outside. I tell you it's your fault because you had to smoke and joke that you should quit. You ask if I'm supposed to help you quit. It's a rhetorical question, loaded with another meaning. We grin at each other, we grin at our cleverness. The gleam in your eye sends a chill up my back.

I stand up first and you obediently follow me. Except when I go to the door, you stop me before I open it. You apologize again for calling me jailbait. The flirtatious cockiness has dissipated and you are vulnerable once again. The apology isn't really about the word, I know it is two-fold for what we have shared and what we have done. In response, I kiss you on the cheek. I've never kissed anyone on the cheek- not my mom, or a grandparent, not even my boyfriend. You give me an adorable, bashful smile. The kind of look you sometimes give your fiancé. We go back inside and I wake my boyfriend up to take me home. He's thankfully subdued and doesn't try to have sex with me that night. Which is almost disappointing when my body is still keyed up from being near you.

We now see each other weekly. The four of us hang out, the two couples, making dinners together in your two bedroom apartment that is slightly bigger than our tiny one bedroom shithole of a dwelling. Your fiancé is beyond sweet; always trying to accommodate us and make everything perfect. She likes having me around, she says I'm the little sister she never got. I even see you argue with her on a rare occasion. Her hurt comes across as silence for the rest of the evening. I can see you trying to make it up to her, but she makes it clear you are done for the night.

We behave ourselves on these dinner nights, but it seems the more we remain platonic, the worse it gets. Our flirtations seem to get bolder and you seem to find a way to make contact or get me alone. An excuse to help me open a wine bottle by putting both arms around me, or an offer to help me carry in the groceries we've brought from our car.

One night I trip over your discarded shoes and land on my ass with an embarrassing thud. You make a big comical show by apologizing for your messy and injuring ways, and follow the instructions of your fiancé to put my sprained ankle on ice. Which for some reason you decide is best accomplished by carrying me in your arms into the bathroom, then dumping the ice from the ever present beer cooler in your kitchen into the bathtub. I complain more about how freezing cold the ice is, squealing playfully as you set my foot in it.

You are enjoying this interaction immensely, staring down at me with a sternly facetious instruction to stay put, keeping your face inches from mine. I want to kiss you and I am sure that you see this when you bring a finger up to my lips and shush me. I keep my lips parted as your finger hangs on my top lip, and for a millisecond I am tempted to bite your finger. You barely pull away, taking a charged breath that admits you want to stay in the bathroom and do more with me.

The weather is getting warmer and the Saturday night parties are getting less frequent as finals hit us. We come to study and stay up talking once we've quizzed each other. You have only a year left before you get your Bachelor's, and then you are going to get your Master's because you want to be a teacher. I think you will be a good teacher, a natural fit for your somewhat bossy and know-it-all ways. And because the girls, and maybe a few boys, will like you and get a crush on you. I know you well enough now to tease you in my own way, to indirectly flatter you as if I don't mean it. When we both know that I do. And then you tease me right back, saying how I would be the old English teacher with her hair done up in a bun and her glasses on. I dispute your unimaginative stereotype just because I wear glasses, and you say that you like my glasses. It's as close as you'll ever come to saying I'm pretty.

When the term is over, everyone is ready to explode with relief. Your relief will be short-lived as your wedding is only a month away. A perfect June wedding. Your fiancé has become obnoxiously obsessed with details of the big day, and I try to humor her as best I can. Luckily, some mutual friends have organized a weekend away for all of us to stay in the country. There will be about a dozen of us, about half of us being coupled and the other half being singles, staying in this rustic farmhouse. When we get there it is clear this will be a weekend of mass consumption just based on the amount of alcohol we've brought. Usually my boyfriend would have been living it up, but he is recovering from a pre-weekend party hangover and wisely taking it easy.