Grayscale

Chapter Twenty-Four

We were lying together, and we talked about a lot of things and nothing at all. We talked about growing up in California and Mexico versus growing up here. We talked about his favorite movies and mine - Gnomeo and Juliet made the top five for both of us, which caused us to giggle like little kids. A cheesy cartoon remake of Romeo and Juliet was in our top five. And we talked about music and the few concerts we'd both been to. I talked about the way art put me in a place that nothing else had ever been able to, the kind of quiet, focused calm that washed over me, how I could lose myself for hours. He talked about his favorite pastime, working on cars. He liked to get underneath them and see what made them tick, how everything went together. He liked that there weren't a lot of men that did that anymore, so there was an abundance of cars available to work on. It also made him sad, though. He thought that people were missing out. "Working on cars isn't just a hobby," he said. "It's a kind of life." I thought that maybe he could be right, because no other men I knew lived the kind of life that my dad led, and when he was home, it was all we could do to pull him out of the garage.

We stopped talking about cars after I started thinking about my dad, and things got quiet for a minute. It seemed that the time for small talk, for getting to know each other, had passed. Neither of us wanted to talk about anything else, though. Neither of us wanted to focus on heavy issues. What was the point? I would just get irreconcilably upset, and he would flounder and try to help in the way that he did, and nothing would be okay.

At least this way, not saying anything at all, I was able to pretend that everything was fine, that the earlier part of the night hadn't happened.

Gabriel shifted his position on the bed, and all at once, I was very aware of everything. I was in a hotel room with my soulmate, and we were on the bed. But we weren't touching. Our legs weren't pressed against each other in that way two people could sometimes do that said both "I am pretending I am unware of this contact" and "I hope you notice I'm touching you, because I would really like you to touch me, too." Our elbows didn't accidentally hit each other when we moved our arms as we talked with our hands. And when we were totally still, our hands didn't brush. We were just two people, lying on a bed, talking about everything and nothing at all, and all of a sudden, I wanted very much to change that.

I shifted so that I was facing him instead of staring up at the ceiling, and when I did, I found he had done the same. Our eyes met, and not for the first time, I was struck by the brilliance of his. For someone who had gone through so much, they were so bright. Reed's had been beautiful, but even when they possessed some sort of excited light, that was undermined by how sad and dull they always were. But Gabriel's eyes? That light outshone everything else in them. And they roved up and down my body, and they took everything in, and I could see him - really see him - through them, when I focused beyond the brilliance, and before his eyes flitted away, I thought I saw desire. And unfathomable sadness. But also incredible happiness, too.

If you took the time to look, a person's eyes could tell you a lot about them.

The sadness made sense - he'd been through a lot, especially in the last day - and the happiness did, too. He was a successful man who had accomplished a lot for himself and his family, and he was only twenty-six. Plus, even if she was a wreck, he'd finally found his soulmate, and that was perhaps bigger for him that it was even for me.

That was one thing we had talked about, even if briefly. "I had a "forever," too, you know," he said, emphasizing the air quotes on forever. "She was beautiful. I thought I loved her, but when I found you . . . It wasn't love. It was filling the gap, trying to force her to fit into your mold. And for a really long time, that was okay. I wasn't unhappy. But when I met you, even though you wanted nothing to do with me . . . I don't know. It felt right."

It hadn't felt right to me. But nothing in my life felt right right now, so I chose to keep that to myself, because this moment, this second . . . that did feel right. I was where I needed to be, with the man I needed to be with.

His eyes met mine again, and before I knew it, his lips were pressed to mine for the second time that day. He tried to pull away, but I pulled him back with an urgency I had never experienced before. I needed this man more than I had ever needed anything in my life. We kissed with an intense passion, and before long, his shirt was on the floor. His hands were at the bottom of mine, a question in his touch. I simply nodded, and he slipped it over my head.

When it hit the ground, he paused, and he took my arms and he looked at the bandages there, and he whispered, "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you." The statement felt like knives in my chest, because I knew he was trying and he'd done everything he could, and he had no reason to feel at fault for the situation, but I also knew that telling him all of this wouldn't change anything. He would still feel guilty. So I just kissed him, and we lost ourselves in each other. I was drowning, and that night, he was my life raft.

Sex came easily at that point. It was my first time, though I knew it wasn't his - he had been with the other girl for almost four years - but that didn't matter. We weren't the virgin and the most-certainly-not-a-virgin. We were Gabriel and Calypso, we were soulmates, and we didn't say much of anything. We just kissed, and we had gentle sex. He was careful of my arms, and he made sure to ask if everything was okay, and if anything hurt. And I told him no, even sometimes when it did.

Everything was wonderful for that short period of time. Everything was wonderful when my lips brushed along his jawline and met stubble, and when his arms were wrapped around my waist. Everything was wonderful when his hands tangled themselves in my hair as he pulled my head back to kiss my neck.

I felt electric. Every touch sent tingles up my spine, and it was the most incredible feeling. And it made it so much better that it was him. That it was Gabriel, and it wasn't Reed. It didn't bother me that Gabriel had had sex with his not-quite-forever, but I liked the idea that his hands were the only ones that would ever touch me like this. I was his, and from this point on, he was mine.

When it was over, my head rested on his chest, and his arm wrapped around me, keeping me pulled tight to him. His heart beat in his chest a steady thump thump. I thought about that. About how he was alive, and he was here, and this was real. About how his kisses still tasted like whiskey, and his arms felt like home in a way that Reed's never had. About how this was the man that I would be spending the rest of my life with.

My last thought before I finally fell asleep was that the rest of my life would be okay if there were more moments like this in it, moments where we just lay together and we didn't talk about anything, and I just listened to his heartbeat until I slept.