Two Punks In Love

Paradise Lost

Kat

Adventuring without a plan sounds romantic. In actuality it was an ordeal that involved a seventeen hour plane ride, two taxis, a brief incursion where Trace went to see a man about a boat but, perhaps, wrongly, determined it less practical than a Range Rover which we promptly got stuck in the mud, and finally a fourwheeler that Trace generously rented from a local who came to help us, until the Range Rover can be towed out.

Everything that couldn't be stuffed in a backpack was left with the vehicle, but it doesn't matter. We are finally here, wherever here is. When we got stuck in the mud, while Trace tried to work the truck out with a shovel and some plywood, and I, being absolutely no help, crawled into the backseat and covered my head in an attempt at a nap, Trace multi-tasked and asked the guy with the four wheeler where we should stay.

The helpful local called ahead and got this place for us. His cousin works here or something. It's an older, modest resort, but that matters not. I have never been so glad in my life to see a bed. I walk right in and just...kneel by it.

I begin to cry of course. Not sob. Just leak.

Trace has battled our difficult journey with optimism and calm, but now he kicks off his hiking boots, dumps crap out of the pockets of his cargo shorts, sighs heavily and says in that new, more patient way, "Okaaaaay...what's wrong now?"

"The bed is so white," I whisper. "And I'm so...gray," I say," holding out my mud-spattered arms to him. "We're completely incompatible!"

He breaks into a wide grin and laughs. "That's...a problem I have already solved."

"What?" That doesn't make any sense.

He hauls me to my feet, boosts me over his shoulder and carries me fireman style into the generous bathroom. The biggest tub I've ever seen—and I've seen countless tubs in countless resorts—is already prepared with perfumed water. The entire surface is cast in flower petals, a perfect red petal heart centered in a broader field of pink.

"It looks too perfect to disturb," I murmur, over his shoulder. He hasn't put me down. I'm hanging there boneless, staring down into the pink sea.

"Nah," he says, and he carefully tips me into the tub, clothes and all, as I squeal and hold up my shoes. He pulls them off. He undresses as I struggle with my soaked, but admittedly, scant clothes and in seconds he's sliding into the tub behind me. I tip my head back, resting it against his chest, and I'm so grateful when he playfully covers my face with petals.

Because it hides my shame.

When I kissed Colin, all I was thinking about was...whether or not I could actually do it. Whether or not, when the moment came, my brain would actually command my body to respond to him.

It turns out, cheating is not so hard. It's the aftermath that is nearly impossible.

For the last forty hours or so, I've pushed the extreme guilt away, and focused on tasks. I had to pack our clothes, pack Trace's medications. Our carryons that stay in a constant state of readiness had to be double-checked for passports, and consumables replenished. I had to think about readying myself in that casual but still picture-perfect-ready state that is necessary when a celebrity travels through airports—and thank god I did because we got caught in a storm of paps.

When the cameras started flashing and voices shouting, I had a complete moment of terror as Trace fended off a gal that got too close and she yelled at him, "Are you gonna punch me like you punched Christopher Manning?" I saw something flare in Trace's eyes, even though his rock star face remained firmly in place. When he muttered under his breath, more to himself than her, "Let's hope not," I realized that flare of energy in his eyes was fear, not rage.