(she loves me)
Here's to falling in love. Easy, nice, clean, slow. A flower at a time. An open door at a time. A soft laughter at a time. A timid glance at a time. Well, in an ideal world.
Here's to falling with Quinn. Her blonde hair mixes in with the dark brown hues of mine, her fingers grip at my waist, my hands pull at her shirt. I don't know what this is but it's not as clear as love. I feel her nose gliding down my skin, her lipstick painting my neck a hot red. It's very messy, there's hardly a way to lie about it. My teeth sink in her earlobe and the word mercy vacates my vocabulary. She's a wild hyena, I'm a willing victim.
Sometimes we talk about it, sometimes we don't. Neither one is comfortable with this arrangement of sorts. For all that the Yale population is concerned, we hate each other like snow hates the warmth of spring. Funny though, everyone thinks we're iced, brutal, cold, mechanic, lost in the overachieving system. Much like everyone else around. Perhaps that's why people don't give us a second look. But I burn when I am with her, I flame up and I melt like a snowman in Hawaii. Quinn is so warm. Her body, at least. My thoughts are non sequiturs and babbles on the spur of the moment. We never hold hands. Rarely, she will draw circles with her fingertips on my stomach. If there was a softer world, maybe folks could be judged by the softness of their fingertips. And maybe Quinn and I wouldn't be getting dressed, wouldn't be leaving, wouldn't be walking in different directions.
She doesn't acknowledge me in class, not until we venture into another disagreement.
"The poem is about desperation – the desperation everyone feels to be unique, to be treated as special. It's foolish and an easy trap. The siren lulls the sailor in, it's wonderfully written, the dark humor and the descriptions of how tired she is of squatting and being trapped in a bird suit. She plays it up, asking for help and promising to reveal a mystery no one else is worthy to know. So of course the sailor believes her and falls for her deception."
I could have let her speak her mind and we would have likely moved on but it bugs me. It bugs me because I know Quinn thinks that being special for someone will inevitably get you hurt, that trying to be close to someone is like walking into a trap.
"The poem is about desperation but I can't find myself seeing eye to eye on the matter of the root of this desperation." I try to catch her eye but she's underlining or writing something next to the poem. "It's about the desperation of being alive, of touching something real. Atwood's poem is called "Siren Song" and it bears the structure of a monologue. It hardly mentions anything from the sailor's view. Why do you think the siren calls out for men lost at sea? In Greek mythology, it's the nature of the three sirens, the way they are and the way their blood thicks and boils down, to hurt and use these men. So, why do the men fall for it? Why, when they know about it, why, when they know nothing can save them? And there they are, setting on ships and looking for trouble. Because it comes with being alive, the desperation to feel, to year, to burn, to prove everyone else wrong or to prove yourself wrong. To feel something that changes you. You want to be foolish, you want to touch the siren, you want to know, even if it kills you. Don't you want to be wrong?"
"You're taking this too far, Spencer." She slices me out in one sentence. She quirks her eyebrow while my heart bleeds out. I shouldn't be feeling this way for her but shouldn't is only a word that gets me angrier. There are no shouldn'ts, this already is… well, whatever it is. "You're reading in too deep."
Everything she says could be a double entendre and our professor sighs and moves on quickly with the material.
The next time, a few hours later, when she is pulling of my wedges and I am throwing away her skirt, I try to imagine her with wings. Would she be Icarus? No, no she wouldn't . Her eyes are lovely, dark, and deep. I can see her as a siren. She throws me on my back, rough and careless, the way everything in this negotiation of physical pleasures between us comes to be. A muffled sound lodges out of her throat, halfway between a moan and a grunt. Nails trail down my ribs and I wish she could cut me open, I wish she could let me out of my cage. What would I do? What would I do when my words escape and my bones are bare? Maybe hope that the immensity of what I'm feeling touches her beneath the surface waters. Maybe hope that my snowman melted body has two small pebbles for eyes which I can throw at the lake of her doubts. I'm practicing my ripple.
Her tone is filled with venom and I know she hates me, I know she hates herself. But she doesn't say that. The devil's tongue slips from her mouth and into the shell of my ear. And I hear her loud and unmistaken. Seducing me and breaking me with the words of the poem from earlier.
"I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer."
I am desperate. I try to find something in her kisses that will help me keep believing that she is as well.
(she loves me not)
The first time I meet her, she's handing out flyers for a charity event. My friend knows her and introduces her.
"You're in Modern Poetry, too." She says without preamble.
"And you're the girl who keeps referencing the Bible and Leonard Cohen in class." I say it without malice but she seems ready to pounce and battle me for her right to love what she loves. Writing, the most tender bloodsport… I can't finish my thought and I don't quite know where it came from but Quinn is looking at me like she is trying to measure how hard to hit me so that all the air comes out. There's something about the curve of her eyebrows, the severity of her face and the tension in between her pressed lips. I could tell her that she's already stolen the air within my lungs but that's hardly important to a stranger, so why bother, right?
I hoped I wouldn't see her again the way you hope never to greet the same tornado twice but I bump into her in the library later. She gives me a mean stare and I pay my respects with the same. There's no way to avoid her in class, I reason, so slowly our glares become softer and our eyes meet for longer.
The first time I see her, rid of masks and pretense, is at a party. The music is too loud for us to spill masquerades of phrases and the room is too dark for us to have to play games. We are interested. At least I am. I take the way her arms brush around me as an invitation. We dance together. We drink together. We laugh together. We learn the traces of our smiles together. We end up running away from the frat house, from the smell of sweat and mixed drinks. We plop down on the cement, on a walkway between rows of old street lamps. Go, my dear college, go you, with your gothic and forgotten town atmosphere. It feels romantic and ghostly. Quinn tells me stars are the only perfect thing she knows to exist and I tell her that snowflakes are perfect too. Then, unceremoniously, she kisses me. It's not a question. I wonder if it's a dare. I wonder if I'll get to keep this feeling in the protected archive of memories or if the alcohol will give me a clean slate in the morning. Either way, I kiss her. I kiss her with pressure and force, with determination and need.
We end up in her room, or maybe it's my room, she says take me home, maybe I said take me home, we reach the closest destination that fits our criteria and we strip each other's clothes. Her dress falls like a Roman guarding gate, the zipper of my jacket parts like the Red sea, she hooks a finger beneath the clasp of my bra and I don't know about fishing and I don't care about metaphors. It's not sophisticated but it's sinfully sexy. My grammar leaves me, my mouth is a mix of letters all spelling please, please, more. I guess she plays Scrabble fairly well because she doesn't disappoint. Not to be an egomaniac, but I don't either.
We wake up together. We look at each other.
"Breakfast?" I say.
"Sure." She replies.
Oversized t-shirts adorn both our bodies and we're sitting on the floor eating on the floor. She throws her pomegranate at me.
"What a child you are!"
I retaliate with the apple piece in my hand. I wonder if she's thinking about Hades and Persephone and how they played with a pomegranate. I don't even doubt we're way past the sins of apples. She snakes an arm around me and she kisses me. It's soft, almost careful but she finishes it with what's not quite a bite, maybe a nibble. Reckon it's a reminder for me not to go too soft on her.
We spend some time messing around, flipping through her books – it turned out it was her room – and playing vinyl records.
"Kiss me very red," she says.
"Leave your lipstick on my neck," I reply. Her smirk tells me that will become a favorite habit of hers.
"Kiss me very white," she plays.
"You should stay the night," I tease.
"Kiss me very black," she tries.
"You're gorgeous, it's a fact." I'm fully aware we're being childish in our attempts at rhymes and I can see Quinn trying to contain a giggle.
"Kiss me very green." She laughs.
"Oh, how you're mean, you're mean." I can't help it, so I begin to tickle her.
"Kiss me very blue." She keeps going in between bursts of laughter.
"Treasure, I want you."
She kisses me in all the colors she knows and lets me do the same. When we tire of it, we invent some of our own shades. I could fall in love with this girl.
(she loves me)
We have been yelling for half an hour when we get to it. I'm tired of being a toy that's used and discarded. At least occasionally I get tired enough to argue.
"Is this about being gay?" I'm screaming.
"What the hell else do you think it is about!" And she's raging.
"Well little princess, life doesn't fucking work out the way you always want!"
"What the hell do you think you know about me!"
"Hell? Hell! I know that about your scared Christian ass! You're trembling in the might of your illusionary God and boasting priests, whoever else has put it in your pretty head you're not allowed to love me and this is just a quick fuck for when you're drunk or needy!"
"How dare you bring my faith into this, you ignorant bitch!"
And then we go on yelling for another half an hour. Or three hours. Or four years. Or a lifetime. My head hurts.
"It's not natural, it's not the way I'm supposed to be!" She's holding back tears. I know I am in the same boat.
"It's the way you are, Quinn, and you're great without trying to fit other people's molds." I'm trying to be careful. I'm sitting down. This is a hard fight to tackle. I guess the fact that she hasn't left, slammed a door or slapped me is encouraging.
"I don't want to be this way, Spencer." Her voice is weak and pleading.
"No one who truly matters will judge you."
"That's naïve."
"Maybe." I sigh, ready for me inevitable defeat.
"I can't lose my family, my friends, my Church. It's who I am."
"You are who you want yourself to be. If those people care for you, they will stand next to you regardless."
"You don't understand." Her eyes are red, her forehead - a wrinkled mess of worry.
"Make me understand then." I try not to yell but the challenge and need are evident.
She jumps at me, kisses me harshly, I feel her teeth, her jaw, her nose, her forehead, her cheeks, the way she moves, the way she breathes, the way she breaks. Then she slaps me, I was wrong, and backs a step away.
"Burn." She says and she leaves.
I don't follow her. I stay with my ashes.
(she loves me not)
I've started volunteering in the same organization Quinn does charity stuff for every now and then. She does mostly advertising and communications, I actually do hands-on things… which basically translates into helping elementary grade kids in New Haven with their schoolwork. I've been on a secret mission to get the class I'm responsible for to read more, which, shamelessly, is only an excuse to get Quinn to help me. She comes, more often than not, and reads fairy tales to the kids with me. Twice I've gotten her to dress up with me. With me, with me, with me. A dinosaur Halloween costume had to be turned into a dragon but the children took it in good spirit. She still doesn't hold my hand but at least I've gotten to learn her favorite stories, all by the Brothers Grimm, and that's some sort of win in my book.
I've been meaning to ask her to get dinner with me but that's hardly possible. She's civil and reserved with me in public at best. I'm praying it's mostly because she doesn't want people to even think we could be something else other than academic rivals. Praying. I amuse myself. To say that word. I'm scared too but then Quinn does these things I cannot place. She'll stay the night over or make me breakfast, she'll leave me post it notes on the fridge or lend me a record she loves that has a song I must hear. I'm trying to not get attached but my phone screen always shows her name, my laptop has a picture of her open and who am I kidding. I'm slowly but surely walking into that scary, dark place I've been avoiding. I'm falling for her.
It's raining a peaceful rain outside. Ordinary. Trite. Easy to fall asleep to. She tells me not to take my clothes off. She tells me my hair is a waterfall, my lashes are hills, my lips are volcanoes and my neck is a desert. She could tell me the sun is a moon and I would believe her.
"Are you trying to seduce me?" I blurt out. Maybe not my best move. My face is calm, my voice was even. But I wonder. Anything could set her off. Anything could tell her not to lie with another woman, that's it's an abomination to love, that's she's going to hell if she allows me to love her.
"Is it working?"
She doesn't let me speak, her fingers trace my lips, up and down, back and forth, from one corner to another, from inside to outside. I am happy to let her paint me a new mouth with her hands. Maybe this time she can give me one that is tender, that is careful, that doesn't harm her.
"You're safe with me." Well. If this doesn't make her run like a rabbit chased by a lion.
It doesn't. She grabs my hand and places it atop her heart. She puts her over mine.
"This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,"
She looks at me, not with promise but with hope.
(she loves me)
Of course I'm not pleased to see some tall male figure grinding behind her. I'm possessive and she's – great job. She's not mine, I tell myself. Maybe it's time to look for some random guy to occupy my mind with tonight. I dance with Jake or John or Jonathan and it's enough to jump from my worries about the crazy blonde to a glorious pit of nothingness and music.
Time passes.
Strobe lights flash.
He moves his hands around me. They're big, strong hands. They're warm and desire's popping on them like little blue veins.
"What on Earth are you doing?" She's standing in front of me.
"Quinn," I start, and I'm really not up for this.
"Get away from her, you ogre."
Okay, so she's not talking to me. I can't really follow their conversation. I think Jeremy or Jonah or Jim is trying to explain nothing wrong is going on and who does she think she is.
She drags me out. Later, she huffs in anger. I'm smitten with the fact she felt protective and I'm happy she wanted me. Warding other people off from me is probably the closest we're going to come to being exclusive. There's no doubt in me that had I tried to pull the same with her and the guy who was practically on her, I would be in trouble. Not that I'm not in trouble just by standing next to her.
The rest is expected – clothes off and hungry kisses in which we pour everything we can't brave with words.
I'm not surprised when we're yelling again in the morning.
"Did you have to let him be all over you? And everyone saw me dealing with me! I can't take this, Spencer!"
"I didn't ask you to do anything. I didn't need rescuing. We were dancing!"
"That was not dancing, he was feeling you up! Don't you lie in my face!"
"Yeah, go on and be all holy and pure, Quinn, as if you didn't have some bloke right behind you."
"It didn't seem to bother you last night."
"Of course it did! But I can't walk up and push him away, you'll go all Christian ape shit on me, and what do you expect me to do? Dance with you? Kiss you for everyone to see? What is it that you want! Make your goddamn mind for once! Do you want me, do you want some random guy, do you even care who you string along?"
"I'M NOT GAY!"
"I don't know who you're trying to convince, Quinn." I'm bitter. But she looks like a bird with the wrong pair of wings. "But I won't judge you."
"I'm not gay." Her voice is a whisper.
I look at her, begging.
She goes searching for her shoes.
"Where are you going?" She's walking outside but I'm following her.
"Church." She mutters.
"What for?"
She doesn't turn around but I hear her clearly when she speaks. Her words freeze me over and it's just then that I notice I'm standing barefoot on the cold ground and the wind is howling at me. I wish I could turn into a pillar of salt. I don't. I'm left with all my feelings. I just cry. Her words still echo,
"To repent."
(she loves me not)
She can't breathe. Sometimes I can't either.
We kiss all night.
She gives me gentle songs of lives we could have been leading. I build her imaginary worlds where we already are.
"I want to be sitting next to a window on a train. I want it to be raining. I want to be traveling somewhere in Europe. I want to fall asleep and sleep through the sadness. I want to leave my name an ocean away. When I wake up, I want you to be waiting for me in Venice. We'll eat pizza and gelato and we'll drink white wine and we'll get lost in a field of poppies and –"
We fall asleep in each other's arms.
(she loves me)
"Stay away from me!"
"Quinn, don't do this, we're better than this, we can work this o—"
"Don't touch me!"
"Baby, just listen to me, calm down."
"Don't call me that! Back away!"
"It's not easy but it doesn't matter that you're gay. It matters that you're miserable and it hurts you, okay, so –"
"Since when do you fucking care so much?"
"Since I fell in love with you, you stupid girl!"
I'm too damn familiar with the sound of her walking away. I wish that if she were to leave for good, she just would. I stop disagreeing with her in class. I don't look her way. Desperation is, after all, for those who can still carry some sort of hope for the better even if it's for a teardrop in the desert thirst. I have no more tears.
(she loves me not)
I rip open the envelope without paying much attention when I realize it's her handwriting. It's been almost three years. The view from my office, top of the city, fades when the paper with the inked words takes over my whole horizon.
Dear Spencer,
Words are like poison, and tears are like medicine. Tears are like poison, and words are like medicine.
At the end of each day, I have myself. As much as I tried to run, I couldn't escape who I was and who I am. When I told my father, he said I am no daughter of his. But when I told my pastor, he said blessed are the pure in heart. He didn't tell me I had sinned against God. He said I'd sinned against myself. And I have.
You were kind when I was lost and you were patient when I was searching. You helped me and I think you may have even saved me. You loved me, and sometimes I let myself love you too. How could I not have loved your large, still eyes?
My hands are open now, my heart is free.
I hope you can find it within you to forgive me for all the pain I brought to you.
There's no "sincerely" or "yours" or "regards" or anything. It's signed with her name. No preamble.
Her handwriting is tiny, slanted, and just like I remember it.
I press the sheet of paper to my chest as I take what feels like my first breath of air.
(dimitte mihi peccata mea)
I'm not Sleeping Beauty and I don't get to sleep through the sadness on the train. I know Quinn hasn't been able to either, despite all her wishing. I'm wishing too. It's a feeling, maybe yet another desperation of the lonely. Of me. Her envelope carried a stamp from Italy and that's where I step off from the train.
I'm trying to figure out how to start hunting down the address on the letter but I'm enveloped in a strong embrace before I even have to dwell on it. It feels like, at last, I belong in my own body. I've been living in a shell and distant memories. Not anymore.
"Why are you here?"
"What, me?" Quinn laughs and it sounds so free. "I like to have my morning coffee here." She winks. "Why are you here?"
Because of you, because I want another chance, because we deserve better than an unfinished story, because life is filled with possibilities, because we get to write our own fate. I don't say any of that, of course, there's time for it later. I kiss her simply and she kisses me back.
When I look at her, she seems hesitant and tender like a spring flower that's come out a day too early.
"Spencer, I'm here every morning because I hoped - but I don't deserve you being here, I know that – "
"I forgive you," I mumble into our next kiss.
There's whistling and I'm blushing. I'm shocked when I see her laughing that same ethereal, priceless laugh.
"Oh, this is Italy for you. People get excited too easily."
She's smiling, and she's shining. I beam back.
"Let's go home," she says.
"Let's go home," I say.
She leads the way through a small street with blooming flowers, filled with the smell of pizza, and gelato, and white wine and love that's mean to be.
We're holding hands.
This one goes out to Patricia, aka greetings-feline.
Poetry referenced here (somewhat in order), one way or other:
Siren Song – Margaret Atwood
Pole Dancer – Andrea Gibson
You Begin – Margaret Atwood
Poema 20 – Pablo Neruda