What happens after that goes beyond anything I ever imagined. When I feel him inside me, and he looks at me, it’s like a dream where images and feelings combine to form something inseparable. Where time, space, and longings merge.
“Tucks,” he whispers hoarsely. His eyes are shining as if he has a fever, and his hair is damp with sweat. “No matter what happens, you have to believe me. I love you. That’s the truth, the only thing I want you to remember.”
For a moment, I think about what it was like for him with June and how many girls he had sex with, but as if he senses that, he kisses my forehead and my eyebrows, and my thoughts fly away.
“‘I love you’are just three words,” he whispers.
I know. But they’re also a goodbye. Part of me is afraid of that, and I just can’t say them.
Intensely, as intensely as I feel him inside me, he watches me. When he moves again, and we proceed, it’s a bit like dying. It’s as if I’ve jumped and fallen into an abyss. The world fades away until the seconds when everything stands still. A momentof nothingness, of floating, when he whispers my name, and I claw at his hair as the storm lets us fly and all contrasts blur.
I’m still not quite myself when I realize River remains inside me and watches me. His white-blond hair hangs over his face and tickles me as he kisses my forehead, the tip of my nose, and my lips. I smile and intertwine my fingers behind his neck. In that second, I realize I have never loved anything or anyone in my life as much as him. I also realize how vulnerable that love makes me because I can lose it at any hour, minute, second, or breath. And probably will lose it.
This is not the beginning.
I know it.
And yet, I feel free. A part of me has understood something important that I’m not yet fully aware of. That being hurt and love are always inseparable, as much as day and night. Maybe, within all its beauty, there is also darkness, and love never reveals all its secrets. Maybe I simply started engaging with life by letting myself connect with River. To love. I don’t know. I only know one thing, and I have to tell him. Because it’s the truth. Because it has to be said.
I pull River close to me until my lips touch his ear.
“I love you,” I whisper, feeling the words inside me like a melody that comes from somewhere unknown. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I say it four times, and four times, I don’t stutter. I simply say the words without thinking.
River moves back slightly, looking at me in disbelief. “Say... say something else, Tucks. Something beautiful,” he whispers.
“Because I can’t sleep, I play music at night.” Once more, I don’t stutter, and my chest feels lighter. I’m no longer afraid. Whatever was blocking me is gone. In this moment, it’s gone and so far away that it hardly seems to exist anymore. “I... I can speak again,” I whisper, still unable to comprehend it.
River shakes his head. “You always could. You simply didn’t. What’s different now?”
“I don’t know. This is... crazy.”
“I love crazy things; you know that.” River’s dark blue eyes gaze down at me as if he were a mighty statue, and for the first time since he met me, there is absolute silence in them. That’s crazy, too—my words, these free, detached words, are his silence.
For a few seconds, I’m afraid he’ll get up and leave, just leave me alone, but he holds me tight.
There have been so many significant moments in my life, moments that have sunk so deep into my soul as if they were written there with light. The moment Grandma read me a poem for the first time, when I fell in love with the word shadow-magic and knew that words would always comfort me in some way, and the moment Mom went sledding with James, Arizona, and me for the first time and I had these butterflies in my stomach as we raced down the hill, me sitting behind Arizona. The moment I sat on Old Sheriff with Arizona, and she told me I was carrying a treasure inside me.
However, this moment is completely different. Never in my life have I felt closer to anyone, felt more loved than now, when River is kissing me so gently and tenderly as if I was the most precious, most wonderful girl in the universe. It feels as if the world has regained its colors. Not only can I breathe—I can inhale them with my skin and hair.
Chapter 28
When I wake up the next morning, I immediately know that something is wrong. It’s too cold. The protective, warm arms that held me are gone.
River is gone.
The second I realize it, I jump out of bed and run to the bathroom.
“Riv?” I call out, much too loudly and notice in passing that I can still speak. But despite this realization, the ominous feeling continues to rise within me. The bathroom is empty.
He left.
He’s gone.
I run back in only my underwear. The wig and sunglasses are no longer on the couch where River left them; only the empty condom wrapper is there.
I wipe my forehead.Yesterday. This night. I love you. Suddenly, the bad feeling becomes an absolute certainty. I saidI love you, which fulfilled my list. River made every wish I had come true, but in the end, it was that deep love—that closeness—that brought my words back. I made myself vulnerable, risked being abandoned like I was by Mom and now that’s exactly what’s happened. He’s gone, possibly forever.
Still alive for you, June.
