“Sounds romantic.”
“It was fairly typical. We went on dates, then started going steady.”
“Did his parents know?”
“Yes. We tried to keep it from them for a while, but we weren’t very good at sneaking around. I think the first time Billy and I made love was in the back seat of his car.” She smiled at the memory. “It wasn’t very comfortable.”
“The car or the act itself.”
“Both. We didn’t know what we were doing. It was quick. The sex itself was always much more for him than me. I liked the holding and being close. It didn’t matter if it was physically satisfying because I loved him, so it was perfect.”
“I’m sure it got better.”
She smiled. “Not much.” Her smile faded. “We weren’t together long enough for us to get really good at it.”
She didn’t want to think about that, she reminded herself. So instead she recalled what it had been like to be with Billy. He’d been so attentive and eager—both for her and to please her. He’d always touched her as if she were the most precious creature alive. Perhaps to him, she had been.
But the sex itself hadn’t moved her. Perhaps she’d been too young, or they’d been too inexperienced. She’d never felt that ultimate pleasure, either with him, or the two young men she’d been intimate with during college. It was a sad state of affairs that the best it had ever been had been in a dream…with the man just a few feet away from her.
“So Billy was your first boyfriend and your first lover,” Arizona said. “Were you in love with him?”
“Yes. Deeply. He stole my heart and I’ve never been sure I got all the pieces back from him.”
Arizona pushed himself up into a sitting position. They faced each other. “So you believe in love, but you won’t believe in anything magical or mystical.”
“They’re not the same. I’ve experienced love.” She might have experienced magic—in the form of her dream—but she wasn’t ready to admit that to him.
“I don’t,” he said flatly.
It was the second time that night that he’d stunned her into silence. He’d mentioned it before but she hadn’t really believed him. Everyone had to believe in love. Her mind raced, but she couldn’t form any words. Finally she managed to blurt out, “How is that possible? What about all the weird stuff you research? You’ll put your faith in a rock or a story, but not in the depth of human emotion?”
“Exactly.”
“Are we talking about romantic love or all of it? What about parents caring for their children. Most would die for them. Isn’t that a demonstration of love?”
“Yes. I would agree that many parents have strong feelings for their children. In most cases I would be willing to call that love.”
His careful qualification of his answer made her curious, so she filed that information away to ask about another time. She didn’t want to get away from what they were already talking about.
“So it’s just the issue of romantic love you have problems with,” she said.
He nodded.
She was still having trouble believing this conversation. Arizona believed in things she couldn’t even begin to understand, but not love. But love was a fundamental part of the human condition.
“What are you so afraid of?” she asked.
He leaned toward her. “Do you believe in love between a man and a woman?”
“Of course. I plan to avoid it, but I know it exists. I’ve experienced it.”
“With Billy?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
She shook her head.
“So why do you want to avoid loving a man?”
She struggled to find the words to answer his question. “If you don’t get close, you can’t get hurt. So I avoid getting close.”
His face was in shadow. She didn’t know what he was thinking about. But she anticipated what he would ask next and braced herself for the pain.
“How did Billy hurt you?”
“He betrayed me.”
“With another woman?”
If only it had been that simple. “He died.” She wrapped her arms around her knees and pulled them closer to her chest. “It all gets twisted in my brain and I can’t figure out what happened when.”
She drew in a deep breath. “I went into the foster home when I was nearly fifteen. Billy and I began dating toward the end of my sophomore year of high school. The next fall, he started getting sick. It took the doctors a while to figure out that he had leukemia. He fought it for a long time. They used drugs and chemotherapy. He was in and out of the hospital. He promised to love me forever. He promised to get better. I believed him because I couldn’t face the alternative. Then one day, he died.”