I stare at the edge of the bed where she was sitting, sprawling her legs out like weapons. Her long, slender feet brushed against the hardwood floor like a dessert that I wasn’t allowed to touch, only to see.
You can feel the energy of sexual tension. It’s like a belt tied around your chest, slowly tightening. It’s as if molecules in the air are lightly stinging your skin. You become aware of every inch of your body, from the back of your neck, to your toes. You are fully awake, fully exposed and bordering on the edge of pain.
A few minutes later Dylan walks into the room and shuts the door. She’s wearing a dark green t-shirt and a pair of orange shorts that say Tennessee up the side of one leg. It’s the furthest thing from sexy a girl could wear. The t-shirt is so baggy it looks like it hardly touches her skin, just around her throat and chest, and my eyes linger at those spots until I pull them away.
She hops onto the bed and it creaks beneath her. I look over at her and she doesn’t seem the least bit weirded out, like life is just one long slumber party to her. Does this girl even feel sexual tension?
I pull the sheets back and we both climb under. I lie down on my back and keep my body as straight as a ruler. Even my toes are pointing forward.
Over the past year, I figured out a way to stop thinking about Dylan. The trick was not to think at all. As long as I filled my head with constant music and my life with distractions then I was fine. I only thought about her during the narrow cracks of silence, so I filled those cracks, cemented them tight and kept her out. I thought I could turn her invisible, as if she never existed. But all of our memories are my favorites. How do you forget your best times? How do you block out the best version of yourself? I can’t freeze memories that hot. They always thaw out and run wild again.
Dylan turns off a pink lamp on the bedside table and my eyes start to adjust to the dark room. I can hear thunder grumbling outside. I feel safer in the darkness; it’s like hiding under a protective blanket, blocking Dylan out. Until she speaks and reminds me she’s less than a foot away.
“Do you still think about Amanda?” she asks.
I stare up at the ceiling. Rain lightly taps against the window. Distant lightening flashes outside and illuminates the walls with flickering blue light.
“Yeah, all the time.”
“Is it getting easier?” she asks.
No one’s ever asked me this before. I think about her question and nod slowly. “It doesn’t hurt as much,” I say. “I don’t feel sick to my stomach anymore. That was the worst part. It was like my body was filled with acid. My stomach always felt like it was twisting.”
Dylan laces her fingers together on top of the blanket, over her chest.
“How do you feel now?” she asks.
“I’m not angry anymore,” I say. “I used to be so mad. I was mad at my parents for letting Amanda drive that night. I was mad at all of Amanda’s friends for inviting her to that party. I was mad at the doctors because they couldn’t save her. I was mad at God for stealing her, at the road workers for leaving that patch of hidden ice on the highway. I was mad that it was so sunny and beautiful out the day after she died. It’s crazy all the things you find to blame.”
The rain grazes the window like sand. It’s so soft it’s no longer a storm, just the illusion of a storm. Thunder rumbles a lullaby in the distance.
“I still miss her like crazy,” I say. “That feeling will never go away. But I don’t want it to. She deserves to have me miss her every day for the rest of my life.”
I look over at Dylan and I feel the medieval fortress crack and crumble. It’s a worthless pile of debris against her stare. I forgot how well she knows me, how her questions are like keys and she knows just the right ones to use to pick my locks. My feet start to relax, beginning at my toes and loosening up to my ankles. My knees turn outwards, closer to her. My back and shoulders finally sink against the contours of the mattress.
“Thanks for asking about her. You’re the only one who does,” I say.
“It’s not exactly an easy conversation,” Dylan points out.
I shake my head. “People avoid it all the time, like they’re afraid I’m going to fall apart and start sobbing. But you were right when we first met, you called it. I needed to talk about Amanda.”
A quiet minute rolls by. Dylan’s looking up at the ceiling and she sighs.
“I’m not tired,” she says and turns her head to look at me. Neither am I. Usually when we’re in bed together we’re naked and any talking we do consists of an afterglow sex recap or foreplay sex talk. This is new for us.