Fire and Wind

August 16th - it’s our one year anniversary. Nate and I are sitting in a small Italian restaurant, an empty bottle of red wine between us. We’ve ordered another. It’s easier to let myself forget, to simply exist in this moment I’ve created, with the soft veil of alcohol clouding my thoughts. I feel myself slipping into the skin of the person that I’ve been waiting for all evening, like I’ve shifted into a parallel reality. This Lucy is flirtatious, care-free, basking in the candle-lit glow of a perfect romance. 

Nate is everything I wanted after all. Handsome, stable, fun, sweet. We spend our time together roaming the city, bar-hopping with adoring friends, then slipping away to a dark corner to indulge wandering hands, our bodies familiar but mysterious still. It’s the type of love where arguments and resentment don’t exist, like trying to ignite a flame in a vacuum. There’s simply no air between us.

“Lucy?” Nate puts a gentle hand over mine, which have been folding and unfolding a straw wrapper for an unknown amount of time. 

“Did you want dessert?” 

“Oh, uh, no thank you.” I respond, my words slightly slurred. “I’ll stick with the wine.”

“Just the check then, thank you.” Nate addresses the waiter who’s been anxiously hovering over my right shoulder. I can feel him towering over me, and though I can’t see his face without turning awkwardly, I somehow feel a piercing gaze boring a hole in my back.

Sometimes I wonder if people can tell just by looking at me that I’m keeping an enormous secret. That tonight Nate and I will make love, and then I’ll go home to my boyfriend.

—

Max and I met my senior year of college. I don’t remember going on any dates or being wooed with flowers and fancy meals. There was simply a day that he didn’t exist, and the next day he did. And once he was in my life he consumed every thought that crept into my tired brain. 

It’s true that I’d been somewhat desperate for a boyfriend at this point. The long nights of drinking and searching with wandering eyes for someone equally lonely were getting stale. It wasn’t particularly difficult to find company though. I’d learned to embrace my subtle beauty and gentle curves, tamed my wild, strawberry blonde hair, and played up my long pale legs with heels that toned my muscles, but didn’t make me taller than most men. 

After living a plump, pimply existence through childhood and adolescence, I harnessed this newfound power of seduction with the voraciousness of a vampire. I spent more time chiseling away at my body with hours of exercise and carefully planned meals. I wore my hair up because men complimented me more when it was pulled into a tight, high ponytail. It became easier and easier to fill the holes created by teenage bullies and endless nights alone. 

And yet, after just a couple years, my body felt empty, like I’d already given everything away. Every new touch felt the same, boring. I craved something passionate that would send adrenaline coursing through my veins, like the very first time I locked eyes with a stranger and just knew in that instant that he was mine for the night.

So when I met Max in line at a coffee shop near campus, something lit up inside me that I’d forgotten was there. Less than a second after “Hi, my name is Max” and “I’m Lucy,” he bent so close to my ear that I could feel the loose hair from my ponytail brushing his cheeks. 

“You’re driving me crazy in that skirt,” he hummed. 

He was handsome in a non-traditional way, his skin an unknown shade of pale brown, his hair messy, but purposefully so. His eyes were dark, with a gravitational pull unlike anything I’d known. 

We spent an hour talking over cappuccinos, absent mindedly sipping the deflated foam until the cups were dry. I skipped class, and frankly, didn’t think once about going after our conversation began. 

Max asked me question after question - Where did I grow up? Why did I choose to study literature? What was I scared of? - it was like he was a magician pulling an endless string of scarves out of my mouth only to be left with a mess of rainbow-colored silk. I was spread open, naked in front of him and I knew nothing about him.

When he asked me to come back to his apartment, a modern loft with sweeping views of the Seattle skyline, I quickly answered “yes.” 

__

“Let’s take a walk, yeah?” Nate holds out his hand and lets it linger as I remove my sweater outside the restaurant. The wine has created a rush of heat through my body that was masked by the crisp air conditioning inside. In a single motion Nate tosses the freed sweater over his shoulder and takes my sweaty hand, guiding us confidently. 

“You’re on a mission, huh?” I giggle through a hiccup.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just enjoying a brisk walk with the most beautiful girl in the city.”

Our banter is one of my favorite things about my relationship with Nate. We tease and poke each other in a way that’s never felt safe before, but that now feels as easy as laughing at a stupid joke with your best friend. I laugh so often in fact, that I have a near constant pain in my ribs. So very different from the one in my stomach, a malicious knot born from nightly sobs on the bathroom floor. 

Nate loves my laugh too, and every time I let out a true howl, he pulls me close and kisses the little creases around my mouth that never seem to disappear when I’m with him. This time he hovers over my lips for a moment, crouching down slightly so our faces are aligned. His is strong and tan, lined with stubble that softens the sharpness of his jaw.

“I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

We keep walking toward the pier, the city alive and swelling with laughter and music. People here know to enjoy the clear skies and warm breeze while it still exists. The water laps playfully against regal sailboats and luxury yachts, but inside I feel perfectly still. I’ve learned to savor these tiny moments where nothing exists outside the air I’m breathing, and choices have no meaning.

“Lucy?”

“Hmmm?” My eyes are closed and the back of my head rests against Nate’s chest, his arms around my waist.

“Can I ask you something?” I tiny swell of energy surges through my chest, though I keep my eyes closed in some manner of self defense. I don’t like questions like this. Not in my predicament.

“Sure.” 

“Will you move in with me?”

The lump in my throat drops to the pit of my stomach, awakening that familiar throb of pain. I hold my breath and try to slow the thoughts flying through my head, like sheets of paper in the wind.

It gets easier with practice - lying. But each deception is a piece of straw forming this flimsy house I’ve built for myself, and in this moment I realize that I’ll have to decide how to destroy it: with fire or wind. 

__

I didn’t leave Max’s apartment for three days. Hell, I didn’t leave his bedroom for three days. The sex was rough and raw and real, and in the hours between I slept, letting my body recover. The bruises settled into my skin as though they’d always meant to be there. It was easy, at first, to ignore the way they multiplied. 

We’d made a mess of his place, dirty sheets and clothes strewn about. Empty take-out containers lining bookcases and the kitchen counter. His cat, Dixie, stayed curled in the window sill all day long, occasionally glancing over at us with judgmental eyes.

“I’m going to need the apartment to myself for a bit,” Max declared one afternoon, climbing off of me.

“Oh, yeah sure.”

It’s not like I’d expected to stay there forever. The fake illness I was battling got me excused from five classes that week, but I’d need to spend hours catching up. 

I wasn’t prepared for the sting though. Max was a bandaid covering every inch of my bare skin, and he’d been ripped away with no warning. I was left red and tender. 

“I’m sure you have to get back to work,” I added, making up a logical explanation for his sudden desire to be apart.

But that likely wasn’t true. Max had a cushy job in tech that allowed him to work whenever he wanted, often through the night while I slept curled up next to him. 

When I walked out of his building an overwhelming sense of fear and isolation washed over me. I was completely invisible to everyone I passed on the walk home, and in some ways, I was convinced Max was the only person who would ever be able to see me again. 

We spent the next month in the same cycle - fuck, eat, sleep - and in between I’d try to pry tiny pieces of information from him. About his family, his life. But after muttering a couple vague answers, the conversation always ended in sex. His mouth covering mine, keeping me from digging too deep. His hands around my throat, getting a little tighter each time.

I knew there was something dark in him, I wasn’t oblivious. I’d try and meet his gaze while he thrusted, hard, in me, but it was like looking down an endless well. Afterwards, we’d lay silent, comfortable in this ambiguous routine. 

"Let’s go to dinner tonight?” I asked, my head on his chest.

“I don’t really feel like going anywhere.”

“Oh okay. It’s just…we never really go out.”

Max pulled himself away from me, my head falling to the bare mattress. The sheets and mattress cover tangled at the end of the bed.

“Is this not enough for you or something?” He stood abruptly and put his boxers on.

“I…I..didn’t say that at all,” I stumbled, replaying the last few seconds and searching for where I went wrong. 

“It just seems like you’re guilting me or something. I mean, you practically live here now what more do you want?”

“Max, I…I thought you wanted me here, Jesus.” 

I sat up, reaching for the covers to wrap around my vulnerable, naked body.

“Now you’re just twisting my words! I didn’t say I don’t want you here” Max spoke slowly and with force. It was like the words were coming from deep within him, sparks flying off a raging fire.

“Max, calm down, I’m not trying to argue with you!”

“Damn it, Lucy!” 

I didn’t see the water glass Max had picked up until it hit the wall. Shards scattered across the floor, with a few glittering fragments making it all the way to the bed sheets. I felt frozen, like moving might physically cause me pain - the glass leaping through the air to pierce my skin.

The tears came in one big swell, uninvited, but unavoidable. 

Max sighed. “I’m sorry.” With his head hung he inched his way back to me. “I’m so sorry.”

Ignoring the glass he crawled into my arms, and I wrapped them around his sagging shoulders. We sat like that for 30 minutes - or maybe an hour, I don’t know - our bodies melting into one.

_

“Lucy? You with me?” Nate cups my face in his hands, his eyes sparkling expectantly. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”

“I want to live with you, Lucy. I want to do this,” he expands his arms, gesturing to the world around us, “together.”

“I’m just… surprised I guess,” I force a small laugh to lighten the moment.

“Do you remember the day we met?” 

Of course I do. “Yes.”

“You had come into the pet store crying…” 

I think back to that day, the tiny store where Nate worked on the weekends while he finished law school. 

“Your…dog had just died,” Nate adds carefully, always worried that any mention of this fictional creature would upset me. “And you just wanted to be around some animals.” 

Also wrong.

The feeling returns immediately. The hole in my chest, the walk to the pet store to buy Max’s cat some more food because he was out and I needed to breathe. My arm still red and sore from where he grabbed me, his words reverberating in my head. Why do you push me like this?!”

“I knew from the first moment I saw you,” Nate whispers close to my face. “That I wanted to be with you, that you were special.”

I never expected it to come to this. I deserved it after all, didn’t I? I deserved some warmth and kindness in the midst of all the distress. It wasn’t even a decision, not really. Nate just…happened.

“Nate…I…” choices, lies, the truth, pain. “I have to tell you something.”

_

Max and I never had a discussion about being “official.” During one of the rare instances we had dinner with his college best friend, he introduced me as his girlfriend and in that moment, it felt like the very first time we met. I couldn’t hide the grin that grew on my face, the heat in my cheeks. It was the reward I needed, the one I’d hoped might be coming.

“So, you called me your girlfriend today,” I said when we were in bed later, my voice idiotically giddy.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so.” 

There it was, the pin in my balloon that was constantly being inflated then popped. I was nothing but holes at this point. 

“So, I’m your girlfriend then? And you’re my boyfriend?” 

“Why do you have to make everything such a big deal, Lucy.”

“I’m not, I just want to know how you feel about…this.” I put my hands out indicating the proverbial us to which I’m referring.

“You know I love you.” 

I did. He’d said it many times, the first being two months after we met. 

“Yeah, but…”

“But what!” 

His body grew tense, sitting up arrow-straight in the bed. Tears started stinging the backs of my eyelids. I did my best to hold them back, my forehead straining with effort. Crying only made things worse. 

“Sometimes it feels like you’re using me. Like I’m not really your…partner or whatever.”

“Oh my god,” Max sighed, exhaling a frustrated growl at the end. “We spend practically all our time together, I mean, why are you trying to control me like this?”

“I’m not trying to control you, Max,” my voice was shaking. “I just want some reassurance I guess. Like, are you sleeping with other people? Because I’m not!”

I’d said the wrong thing. I knew it before the words were even out of my mouth. We didn’t talk about others.

Max’s hand flew to my throat, the tips of his fingers hitting the sensitive muscles that shot pain through my temples.

“Lucy…do you not want this anymore? Are you going to leave?”

Despite him physically overpowering me, Max looked frightened in that moment, and in his eyes I could see the reflection of my own loneliness. He needed this, needed me. And in a matter of seconds I would apologize, we would forget this ever happened, and we’d sleep soundly in each other’s embrace. 

“No. I’ll never leave you, Max.”