Thirty-Two

Michael’s room was dark, with only a square of yel­low light pinned side­ways against the far wall. Emily’s crum­pled New Yorker remained alone on the mostly-made bed, wait­ing in the silence of the empty house.

A jan­gling came up the stairs, fol­lowed by a ner­vous gig­gle and a shush, and then the bed­room win­dow  care­fully slid up. Michael stepped into the room cau­tiously, and looked around as though never hav­ing been there before. Emily gave him his hand as she stepped over the sash and joined him in his dark­ened room. Neither of them spoke.

The two of them waited there at the foot of his bed, in the pale gauze of the neighbor's strong porch­light, but they didn't know what they were wait­ing for. Michael still cra­dled the fin­gers of Emily's right hand. The room held its breath: they could step into each oth­ers' arms now and embrace, there in the dark and with­out another word. It would be nothing—a  jour­ney through six inches of empty air—to change every­thing for­ever, to meet the other with kisses and touches and more.

But nei­ther of them moved, though both of them wanted to. The moment grew impa­tient and then slipped away and was gone.

Michael finally turned towards his desk, and Emily looked around the room, find­ing the beside light on his night­stand. Bending at the waist, she switched it on, then turned back to him in the but­tery light of the small lamp.

“I don’t like bright lights,” she mum­bled, not meet­ing his eyes. She smoothed out the front of her top. Emily was still wear­ing the clothes she had worn that hot after­noon, a thin and loose tunic top over small white shorts, and now, close to mid­night, she felt under-dressed and bashful.

“The lamp is fine,” he said, and then nei­ther spoke again. Both of them looked around the room, and occa­sion­ally caught each oth­ers' eye.

“It’ll be fun,” Emily finally said, in a quiet voice. “It’ll be an adventure.”

“It makes sense.” Michael nod­ded at her. “If we’re gonna hang out this sum­mer, we need to…do this. You know, at least once, to get it out of our system.”

Emily frowned, but said: “Exactly. Oh, and Michael? Don’t get some idea that this is about what hap­pened with the cop and you pro­tect­ing me. ‘Cause that’s too gross to even think about: all throw­ing myself at the alpha male who, like, backed down a com­peti­tor. Okay?”

“Okay. I promise,” he chuck­led, then strug­gled to find some­thing to say. “So…yeah.”

“Here, sit on the bed with me.” Emily was quiet again. She took his hand and they perched on the foot of his bed together. “I’ll tell you a story.”

“Alright,” Michael whis­pered. “What about?”

“Um, about the first time I ever saw you. Ever really saw you, I mean.” She smiled at him. “It was about two years ago. Do you remem­ber how, after you joined The Gang and Josephine had told me all about you and your real story…do you remem­ber how I avoided you?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I was totally devoted to just being as mean as I pos­si­bly could be. Ignore you when you talked, walk away if we were alone together. Well, you remem­ber. But then…in the spring I was in Dr. Gaughan's class after school had let out. The room was empty, it was just me, and I was look­ing out the win­dow, watch­ing every­one leave school. A rain­storm had blown in from nowhere, and peo­ple were freak­ing out. The under­class­men were run­ning for their par­ents’ SUVs, the upper­class­men were run­ning for their own cars, and every sin­gle one of them had their books, their school books, up over their heads. Like this, you know, to pro­tect their hair or their clothes from the rain."

Emily held her hands up over her head, as though she were hold­ing a text­book. The bot­tom of her thin shirt raised up just enough to show an inch of her belly, but both of them pre­tended to ignore it.

“And then I saw you just walk­ing away from the crowd, down to your bus stop. Everyone else was run­ning, try­ing to get to a car, but you were going the other way, just walk­ing through the rain. With the col­lar of your jacket popped up, I think. And you didn’t have a book on your head…you were cradling some­thing in your jacket, being care­ful to keep it wrapped up. You passed right by the win­dow, and when you adjusted your jacket and I saw what you were pro­tect­ing: your books. You were the best dressed kid in school, you had this wardrobe that just blew every­one away, but you didn’t care about that…you were just try­ing to keep your books dry."

Emily looked down at the dark wood floors of Michael's room. She bit her lip and let it slide out from between her teeth.

“That was like…yeah, that was like the first time I ever saw who you really were. And that’s when I knew that I had to find a way to be kinder to you.”

Michael didn’t speak for a minute, then shook his head slowly. “I don’t remem­ber that at all.”

“I know you don’t,” Emily whis­pered, then smiled up at him through down­cast eyes. She blinked twice, very slowly.

Michael raised his hands and placed them gen­tly on her shoul­ders, paus­ing just a sec­ond as his fin­ger­tips first brushed the thin fab­ric of her top. When he spoke, it was in a low but almost fal­ter­ing voice. “Emily, tell me this isn’t about the twins.”

“It’s not about the twins. It’s not. It’s about Michael and Emily.”

“Okay, then. Okay.” Then, in an even softer voice: “I always knew it would be you.”

“That’s what you said Thursday night,” she whispered.

“It was true.” Michael moved his arms down to touch her bare arms and then her soft waist. “It still is.”

They tra­versed the last impos­si­ble inches between them and then they were in each oth­ers' arms. He could smell her sham­poo, and she breathed in the last traces of yesterday’s after­shave. Emily clung to him with hands both firm and ten­der, lean­ing across to hold him in her arms and to be held by him in turn.

They moved up onto the bed with­out truly let­ting go of each other. Emily brought her face up into the warm expanse of his throat, and gen­tly touched a but­ton on his cot­ton shirt. The world was brand new, and when Michael reached back to turn off the lamp he invented the night and the dark­ness. He turned to Emily so she could find the notch of his shoul­der and set­tle into it.

Nothing hap­pened that night. No clothes were removed, aside from four sep­a­rate shoes dropped heav­ily to the floor one at a time. They lay side-by-side for hours, qui­etly touch­ing or whis­per­ing in the dark, some­times so low the other couldn’t even hear the words but lov­ing any­way the sound of the whis­per. When Emily finally, reluc­tantly, pre­pared to go back down the fire escape, they parted with the only kiss of the night, soft and warm on the oth­ers' cheek, as they pressed their bod­ies close one last time.

But some­thing had changed, there in the dark. When Michael first turned the bed­side light off, he turned back to Emily and she found him, pulling her­self beside him and into the space where her body fit against his. For a moment they were still Michael and Emily, two friends who had found them­selves shar­ing a bed. Then, like exhal­ing, they relaxed into each other. Each body found a way to accept the other, and it was then, that moment alone as they sunk softly together, that they became some­thing else.

“This is nice,” Michael whis­pered. It was an end­ing, and it was a begin­ning. They were together now.

Emily’s hand moved across his chest and found the slit between two but­tons of his shirt. She slid her mid­dle and ring fin­gers through the open­ing and rested her fin­ger­tips against his warm chest.

“That’s nice, too,” he whis­pered again. They could both feel the steady beat­ing of his heart.

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