Sideswiped, page 10
Bran settles his head on my stomach. “This right here? My favorite place in the world.”
I release a fistful of coarse gravel and let the grains catch the wind. “Have you ever watched a sand mandala get made?”
“No.”
“Tibetan Buddhist monks visited my campus one time. They worked for a week, started in the center, moved to the periphery, drawing the most intricate geometric shapes on the ground. Then they used special funnels and scrapers to fill the image in with colored sand. I skipped so much class to watch the process. When they finished, the piece was the single-most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then they destroyed it, ritualistically, piece by piece. So much effort for the sole purpose of being obliterated.”
Bran doesn’t say anything but his eyes never leave my face.
“Nothing stays the same, does it? I get so caught up wanting to keep life under control but that contradicts the natural order of things. Change is inevitable.”
“There are things I’m never going to let change.” Bran shifts on his side so he faces me. His cheeks are wind-burned. Impossibly, the rosiness makes his irises more jade.
“Yeah?”
He hugs my waist. “This. Me. You.”
“But we’ll have to.” My fingers ramble through his hair. I need to tell him about the Peace Corps interview. How? I’m not sure I want to do it, but the idea might have merit, be a possible avenue worth exploring. “Bran—”
“I found a way. The way.” Bran pushes himself up to kneel beside me. “For us, with the visa—you staying here.”
I slam my mouth shut.
“What if we got married?”
The fast-spoken words slam into me with such force my brain is leveled; no coherence remains. He can’t be serious but there’s no trace of humor in his intense expression.
Chapter Twelve
Bran
Talia locks her arms around her knees, staring at me like I’ve declared an ambition to become an oil baron. “But… what? You can’t casually lob sentences like that into conversations.”
“I’m serious. Let’s get married. Think about—”
“All I can think is that I want to strangle you.”
That’s not excitement shining in her eyes. She sniffles and a few tears escape. She takes a huffy breath, scrambles to her feet, and half runs toward the tent.
A gull swoops and lands, regarding me from a few feet away.
“Well, that went over fucking great.”
If birds can smirk, I swear that’s exactly what it does. A drop of rain hits my face. Another lands on my arm. The clouds seem close enough to scoop with two hands and sea foam flies off the back of restless waves.
When I unzip the tent, Talia’s on top of the sleeping bags, curled in a fetal position.
“Hey.”
“Go away. I’m serious, Bran. I need a second.”
I climb inside. “We have to talk.”
“About drinking unicorn blood? Slaughtering nursery tale characters?”
“What?”
“This is going to be hard for you to comprehend, but here’s a little life lesson—girls like their illusions of romance.” She raises a cautionary finger before I can open my mouth. “Look, I’m not demanding Hallmark cards, roses, or whatever the hell. But everyone has limits, and you’ve hit mine.”
I’m lost, without the first clue how to get back to where we were five minutes ago. The wind grips the tent, screaming like a drunken banshee. Rain batters the nylon like the storm wants to tear its way inside.
“A prank of this magnitude… it hurts my feelings, all right?”
“Who said I’m joking?”
“Please. I beg you—be serious.”
“I am fucking serious. More than I’ve ever been about anything in my entire goddamn life.”
The wind shrieks as if to accentuate my point. Talia goes silent and stares like I’m a stranger.
Out of all the imagined outcomes, a big, fat rejection was not factored into my calculations.
Her lips move. “You’re serious?” At least that’s what I think she whispers. The downpour drowns her words. She might be telling me to eat shit and die. I slam into protective mode, battening the hatches.
“No, Talia. I ask all the girls to marry me.” I pull away as orange flames alight behind my eyes. “Fucking hell, contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a clockwork toy. Break me open and guess what? There’s a heart in there—maybe not the biggest, or the brightest, but it’s real and it bleeds and right now you’re knifing it.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” She reaches her hands to search out mine. “I’m so sorry. You shocked the hell out of me.”
Her heartfelt tone extinguishes my sudden fire to a cinder.
“Or into you. You’ve been a hell demon since I made the suggestion.”
“A suggestion? Really? I don’t think so. Proposing to spend our entire lives together is another animal. A whole other genus.”
“What did you think we were doing here?”
“I—”
“You thought you and I were temporary? A bit of fun?”
“No, but—”
“This playtime for you?”
“Of course not. I—”
“Shoot straight, kill me quickly.”
“Shut up! I’m not against the idea but I’m trying to process.”
Okay, you’re still in with a chance.
I take a deep breath, simmer down a notch. “It’s mad but if you’ll hear me out, I think you’ll agree the plan has merit.”
“Marriage.” Her tongue brushes her top lip, tasting the word. “I mean, I guess I imagined something like that for us. Someday. But I’m twenty-one. You’re twenty-three.”
“Let me break it down. It’s a simple question of whether or not we should play the system. The answer for me is without a doubt.”
“I’m not following.”
“The Australian government—the machine—doesn’t decide who stays in the country based on compassion or human happiness. No, the machine needs to know that the correct cogs turn, the right boxes are ticked. In this case you’re an American on a student visa with an expiry date. But if we can give you a different identity, the machine will be forced to accept you, let you remain here with me—even grant you work rights. We play the game, Talia, but on our terms.”
“Play the game,” she repeats, dazed.
“Exactly.” Excitement hastens my words. “Marriage is a piece of paper, an institution, right?”
She presses her lips together so tight the edges grow bloodless. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“I don’t want anyone telling me we can or cannot be together. We do this and everything can go on status quo.” I’m taking fast now, throwing out words, hoping they stick. “The only difference will be paperwork saying we’re married, a legal document that will let you get a job, live here, keep us together.”
“You’ve researched all this?”
“Yeah.”
“I haven’t seen awesome things happen with marriage. Look at my parents.”
“Or mine. Or my sister. I don’t know anyone married who seems happy.”
Her expression is pensive. “Um, shouldn’t that be a red flag?”
“Hell no. This is subversion; we’re rebelling against the system.”
“What about love?”
“Love?” The word trips on my tongue.
Her gaze softens. “Yeah, shouldn’t marriage be grounded in love?”
“I love you like crazy, Talia.” I press my forehead against hers, willing my brain to transmit exactly how much. “I don’t need to put a ring on your finger to know that fact.”
“So get married and fight the man?”
My lips brush hers. “Yeah, sure.”
“And I’ll really be able to legally work?”
“Uh-huh.” I run my tongue along the seam of her sexy lips. “I want to be with you. Nobody can tell me that’s not going to happen.”
“Just a piece of paper?”
“That’s it. Nothing more. We don’t have to tell anyone. Hell, later, when the time’s right, we could do it again. Get the dress, have the big deal whatever-you-want party. Come on, sweetheart.” I tickle her ribs. “Say yes.”
A nervous giggle bubbles from her throat. “This is for real, for real?”
“You and me, kid, against the big bad world.”
“Marriage as revolution.”
“Exactly.”
Her laughter is deeper, more natural. “I’m surprised I was surprised at all.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You’re one crazy cat.” She lays one hand against my cheek. “Yes.”
“Yes, like yes yes?” She’s got to feel my heart accelerating into overdrive.
“Yep, pretty much.”
I know what I said.
Marriage is an institution.
A meaningless piece of paper.
A way to play the immigration game, win on our own terms.
But when I ease her down against the sleeping bags, my body isn’t dealing in intellectual abstractions.
Mine.
Possession heats my skin as my mouth covers her, desperate for a sweet fix.
Mine.
She responds with similar urgency. Our tongues speak a language our bodies instinctively understand, a top-secret version of the Rosetta stone. We act like if we push hard enough, we’ll break through, get to the other side, the place with all the good stuff. A place in the heart that for too long I imagined was fictional, the result of collective Kool-Aid drinking, fueled by those who profit from selling romantic bullshit.
She drags her fingers down my lower abdomen. I know where she’s going and nearly die by the time she closes around my thickening dick.
Right. This is so fucking right.
There’s only one place where I belong and it’s with Talia. The storm’s cold front sends the temperature plummeting. I cover her exposed body with mine while the wind attacks the tent poles as if the whole world is hell-bent on destroying whatever this thing is we’re building together with uncareful hands and impulsive deeds.
There’s a danger in being too happy. I don’t share Talia’s fear, that thinking something will make it true. I don’t even believe in fate. But I know joy can cut a deep groove in a human heart, and I know how sorrow fills those cracks after the happiness is gone.
I jerk her yoga pants off her hips, loving the sounds she makes when my fingers find her center like a heat-seeking missile. I drag my tongue across her skin, writing my name on her body, the story of us, a future infinite with possibility. With one glorious thrust I’m in, and we both cry out. Maybe it’s the wild storm or the fact that no one is around for miles, but Talia is louder than she’s ever been.
I grab the soft skin behind her knees and angle her legs over my shoulders. There’s a thrill in seeing how far you can go. I want to travel into Talia’s most unfathomable, hidden depths to a place without names, where I’ve wanted to go with her ever since she stopped to help my punk ass on Lygon Street. She’s revolutionized my life in ten short months, colored everything with her sweetness, her light, the way she finds the courage to love despite everything.
She’s close; her breath holds a ragged note. I’m chasing after her like a fool or a genius; there’s bugger all difference separating the two.
“Come for me, sweet girl.” At my command she’s there, and I’m right behind her. Our shocked gazes connect as we share the profound experience of seeing—truly seeing—another person.
There is nothing like it. And nothing like her.
“We can do this forever,” she whispers, fighting to catch her breath.
The wind screams.
Go on, world, do your worst.
“We’re invincible,” I respond, tracing her heart-shaped chin. “Unstoppable.”
Chapter Thirteen
Talia
I wait to reschedule my morning meeting with Phil until after Bran bikes into campus. My lips are puffy from his lingering good-bye kisses. He hasn’t lost this radiant beam—unparalleled in the history of fantastic smiles—since we returned last night. I twist the u-bolt necklace between my fingers and realize I’m quietly giggling. Yeah, I’m totally unfit to be viewed by the general public in this dreamy state. My plans for the day can be summed up on three fingers: wander the house in one of Bran’s old T-shirts, drink coffee, and smile at inanimate objects.
Incredible. Bran did it—he found a way for us to work. The idea is cliché, without a doubt, but also watertight.
We made a pact while driving from Ship Stern Bluff to tell no one about the not-a-marriage, our nickname for the audacious plan—mostly to keep my friends and my father from freaking the eff out. Marriage… sounds as foreign and adult as discussing mortgage interest rates and retirement accounts. The institution is so heavy, weighted with tradition, expectation, and a low rate of success. Mom and Dad are casualties on that particular battlefield. So are most of my friends’ parents for that matter. Sure, Bran’s folks remain together, but he describes them as more like business partners than a happy couple.
A cool, creeping sensation slithers across the back of my neck. What will marriage, even of the not-a-marriage variety, do to us?
Two nights ago at Ship Stern Bluff, after Bran’s proposal, I woke to my pulse pounding in my ears. It wasn’t from night terrors. The storm had retreated and the ocean was calmed to the point of near silence. Bran didn’t stir when I climbed from the tent to pee. I started walking, marveling at the night sky, the world a new place. The moon was nearly full and the beach bathed in a pale, silvery light, covered by flotsam and jetsam. I deciphered bits of tangled fishing line, logs the size of my body, and, half hidden in sand, the sharp gleam of a shark’s fin, no doubt hurled to shore during a recent Southern Ocean storm.
I crawled back into the tent but even Bran’s arms couldn’t squeeze away the sense of foreboding—a looming danger. Even now the ominous memory is shiver inducing.
I shake my head; I need to stop hiding from imaginary monsters.
We’re not sure of a wedding date. This is all so weird; after all, we’re not having a real wedding. I mean, it will be technically legal but that’s where the similarities stop. Someday, maybe in another seven or eight years, we’ll actually do all the ceremonial pageantry. But then again, maybe we won’t. I don’t know. What does marriage even mean? It’s not like a ring or a white dress will make me love Bran any more.
When I was younger, I dreamed of my wedding day. My mom filed away a worksheet from some ancient elementary school homework, the answer to the question, What would you like to be when you grow up? My answer: Be married. I stumbled on the picture while packing the house.
Why didn’t I want to be an astronaut? A veterinarian? Hell, even a member of the royal family? I mean, come on, Tiny Talia, dream big.
Big dreams notwithstanding, my eight-year-old self had the day dialed to the last detail. I’d wear a purple dress with a glittering tutu flaring at my waist. My lucky husband-to-be would don a velvet suit, and together we’d eat vanilla raspberry cupcakes and build the world’s biggest sand castle.
Ten months ago, when I landed in Melbourne, I was afraid of everything and was a meager percentage point from flunking out of school. Now here I am, not even a full year later and back on track. My bachelor’s is so close to being finished, and I can start applying for jobs. The Peace Corps plan can remain where it should—a pipe dream. Getting married will fix everything.
Married—there goes that funny shiver again.
I pace into the kitchen. Bran forgot his iPod on the counter. I pop on the headphones and crank the volume, curious about the last song he played. I smile to discover it’s “Sweetness” by The Waifs. The dreamy, folkie groove settles my nerves and I pad into the pantry to hunt down the remnants from Sunny’s recent care package. Despite her horror over my sugar consumption, she did me a solid and included a few packets of Pop Rocks. She won’t touch candy unless it’s crafted from boiled kale and sweetened with stevia. I don’t mind keeping my food on the healthyish end of the spectrum, but occasional crappy food binges are critical to my overall well-being.
I try not to look at her BAREFOOT AND PREGNANT apron hanging on the pantry door.
Mrs. Brandon Lockhart.
“No way,” I whisper to myself. If we ever do name changes, he can become Mr. Natalia Stolfi.
The window seat in the breakfast nook looks inviting in the morning light. There’s a cheerful view to the boxy backyard, dominated by an apple tree in full blossom. I sit in a sunny patch, wrap Bran’s shirt around my bare knees, and pour the last of the Pop Rocks onto my tongue. The sweetness explodes in a satisfying sizzle.
Our backpacks prop next to the table, exactly where we left them last night in our fight to reach the bedroom. A battle we mutually lost—or won, depending on your definition of what went down on the stairs.
I cover my face with my hands, hiding my smile and blush. My belly flutters like I’ve trapped a thousand butterflies in midflight while the muscles between my legs contract with slow deliberateness.
Winning. Yeah, definitely winning.
I slide my fingers along my thighs in a restless caress.
The shrill ring from the landline phone jars me from my delicious squirminess like microphone feedback. I vault to standing, but the T-shirt is still tight around my legs and I half fall while grabbing the receiver.
“Talia speaking,” I announce with a giggle, copying the formal way Bran answers the phone. No simple “Hello’s” down under.
There’s a pause—wrong number. I’m about to hang up when I get the urge to try one last time. Can’t shake the feeling someone’s there. “Hello?”
There’s a definite sniffle.
“Who is this?”
“Talia?”
I sink back to the floor. “Mom.”
We haven’t spoken since July. She blames me and my stupid, fucking OCD for killing Pippa and I’m not sure she’s wrong.
