“I will. Bye, Mom.”
I end the call and set the phone upside down on my thigh. Glance at Wes. “You don’t need to pretend you didn’t hear.”
A shrug. “I’m not. That conversation was between you and your mom. Not my business.”
“Certain parts of it do pertain to you, though.”
He nods. “True.” He eyes me, bobs his head to the side. “I did wonder. About…um, your fertility, and the treatments and all that. But it felt a bit forward to ask.”
“Understandable. It wasn’t something I was super eager to talk about. But, yeah, you heard. I’m sterile.” A shrug, more nonchalant than I feel. “I, um, I think I always have been, seeing as I’ve been getting regular treatment since before adolescence. I’ve never had a period. My body went through some parts of puberty. You know, body development and stuff like that.” I laugh self-consciously. “Although, I think I got stunted in that department.”
“You’re perfect and beautiful.”
I smile, shake my head. “You’re blind, but sweet. Thank you for saying that.” I wave my hand. “But yeah, I’m…infertile. No periods, no fertility, none of that.” I hesitate. “Which Mom was asking about because she was telling me that we need to be careful. To use, um, protection.”
He nods. “I mean, I guess I assumed we would, if and when we got to that point.”
“My point I was making to my mother was that there’s not any real need, in my case.” A long, quiet look at him. “Other than, um, protecting against, like, STD’s and such, I guess. Which I was sort of figuring it would be safe to assume wasn’t an issue with you.”
He nods. “You’d be correct in that. I’ve always been safe, the actual kind of few instances where, um, it was…necessary.” He looks at me a moment, then back at the road. “I didn’t want to assume that would happen with you. I’m still not assuming anything. I have to admit I hope it does happen with us, at some point, but that’s a big step and I understand if you…have some reservations, or want to take your time taking that step. And I certainly had assumed we’d use protection.”
“Is there any reason we need to, if you’re…clean or whatever, and I’m sterile?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never…” A hesitation, a frown. “Okay, well, I don’t know to say this other than straight up. I told you I’ve only been with two people. And there wasn’t all that many, um, instances, with either of them. But in every instance, we used protection. So I don’t know if there’s a reason to use it if we don’t need to. I don’t know.”
“Is it weird that I’m kind of glad you don’t know? Because I guess if you don’t know, then it feels kind of like we’re doing something for the first time together.”
“Not weird at all.”
A silence. I take his hand, tangle our fingers together. “Wes?”
He glances at me. “Hmm?”
“You can assume.”
He lifts an eyebrow, smirking. “I can, huh?”
I nod, feeling a bizarre mix of shy and bold at once. “I want that. With you. I was thinking about that in the shower…you know, afterward. How much I want more. I’m ready for more. I’m ready for…that.” I look at him until he meets my gaze for as long as he safely can while driving. “I want to have sex with you. Make love with you. Whatever words or phrases you want to use, I want that with you, and I don’t want to wait very long. I don’t have any reservations. I don’t want to take my time. I love how I feel when I’m with you, and I want…everything.”
“I want it with you, too.”
I wait for him to qualify it, withwhen you’re readyor something like that. But he doesn’t.
That makes my stomach flip. He wants me. Desires me.
I feel giddy all over.
Flower in the Dawn
Westley
She spends significantly longer on the phone with her grandmother. Their conversation is deep and intensely personal, and wanders across a vast range of topics, from her feelings regarding her terminal diagnosis to her relationship with me. It doesn’t sound to me as if she spares her grandmother any details or hedges her opinions, nor does she filter herself. And while I can’t hear the other side of the conversation, it’s clear her grandmother does the same for her. It’s inspiring, and heartwarming, and makes me want to call my own grandmother—even though I certainly don’t have that kind of relationship with her.
Finally, near the end of an hour, her grandmother asks a question that leaves Jolene speechless for a long, long time.
“Yeah, I’m still here, Grandma,” she says, after a lengthy silence. “Sorry, I just…I don’t know how to answer that.” She switches the phone to her left hand and wipes a finger underneath her eyelids, brushing away tears, though her voice gives away nothing of the fact that she’s crying. “Grandma, I…I genuinely don’t know what I believe, okay? I just don’t. God is…I’m conflicted. And I honestly don’t really want to talk about it. I know you want me to have, like, some literal, legit Come-To-Jesus moment, but I’m not there. If Jesus loved me then why am I dying? Yeah, Grandma, I know—no one knows the ways of the Lord. That’s not much comfort, unfortunately. Especially now that I’ve found a man I really like. I mean, according to Dr. Miller, it won’t be long. Before the year is out, certainly. And…god, Grandma, it’s just notfuckingfair. Don’t ‘language’ me, Captain America, I feel like I’m allowed to curse once in a while.” She sighs a laugh. “It’s a joke, Grandma, a reference to a movie I doubt you’ve seen.” A pause, listening. “Yes,Avengers, Age of Ultron, if you’d like to be specific. Yes, Chris Evans is very handsome—oh my god, Grandma! You can’t say stuff like that! You’re a grandmother and a Christian…well, yes, I know you’re still a woman at the end of the day, but—never mind, never mind.”
Another pause as she listens.
