Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,88

started, but then it wasn’t good for me, you could stop? After starting, I mean?”

He gave me a serious answer. “If we got started and it wasn’t good for you, I wouldn’t want to do anything but stop.”

“I might need to stop,” I said. “I don’t know. But what I do know—right now—is that I’d really, really, really like to get started.”

* * *

WE DIDN’T STOP.

I never even thought about stopping again after that.

All that closeness, and trust, and time we’d spent together—plus the fact that he was a Nobel Prize–level kisser—made it easy. There were fumblings and mistakes, and moments of self-conscious laughter. The point is, we laughed a lot, and we stumbled along, and we took things slow, and fast, all at the same time. At one point, he accidentally pulled my hair. A little while later, I accidentally elbowed him in the cheekbone. Somewhere in there, for a few scary minutes, he thought he’d lost Cousin Alex’s condom—which, laughing with relief after he found it, we decided would be a great name for a garage band.

But as goofy and silly and fun as everything that happened between us in that room, that night, on my virginal white bed, was—it was serious, too. And had nothing to do with the past or the future. We were just alive, and together, and happy—right then and right there.

Would it always be just exactly like this? Of course not.

The rookie was leaving, my mother was dying, and the world was full of monsters. Good things didn’t last, people hurt each other every day, and nobody got a happy ending. But that night with him made me see it all in a new way. All the hardships and insults and disappointments in life didn’t make this one blissful moment less important. They made it more. They made it matter. The very fact that it couldn’t last was the reason to hold on to it—however we could.

Yes, the world is full of unspeakable cruelty. But the answer wasn’t to never feel hope, or bliss, or love—but to savor every fleeting, precious second of those feelings when they came.

The answer wasn’t to never love anyone.

It was to love like crazy whenever you could.

So I kissed him back. And I made a choice to believe in that kiss. I stripped us down until there were no barriers left, and I made a choice to get started and see what happened.

What happened was good. What happened was just exactly what I needed.

There was something powerful between us, and I had this unshakable feeling that it could rebuild something essential that had crumbled inside me—the same way that laughter soothes sorrow, or company soothes loneliness, or a good meal soothes hunger.

It was a profound thing to realize. Love could heal me. Not the rookie, not some guy, but love itself—and my impossibly brave choice to practice it.

It really did turn out to be power, not weakness. The power to refuse to let the world’s monsters ruin everything. The power to claim my right to be happy.

I made a choice to trust the rookie, but it was the choice that mattered the most.

I won’t lie. Sleeping with the rookie that night was the hardest thing I’d ever done.

But it was also, without question, the easiest.

Twenty-four

THE NEXT MORNING, I woke up with a naked rookie in my bed.

I guess there’s a first time for everything.

Woke up late, I should add, because, understandably, I’d totally forgotten to set my alarm.

Nothing about this situation alarmed Owen—but everything about it alarmed me.

“Get up, get up!” I said, pulling the blanket to wrap up in. “My mom’s downstairs! It’s morning! We’re late! We’re on shift today! Come on, come on!”

He opened his eyes and took in the sight of me with a look I could really only describe as blissed out.

“Come on, man! You’re going to get me fired!” I stepped to the bathroom to run the shower, and when I came back in, he was just standing there, again, still, totally naked, fumbling for his pants. “Oh my God,” I said, slapping my hand over my eyes. “You’re so naked.”

“That tends to happen when you take off your clothes.”

I peeked through my fingers. “Do you want to know how many naked men I’ve had in this room?”

“Not really.”

“Zero!”

“Until today.”

“Until today.”

“You’re naked, too,” he pointed out as he buckled his pants. “Under that blanket.”

“We’re going to be late,” I said, back to business, “both of us, at the same time. They’ll totally know