My face is covered in tears. Any second she’ll come out and see me like this. And want to know why.

Fuck. I should’ve grabbed my shoes and keys and just left.

And I don’t know why. Just that it hurts.

Don’t think about that. I said I was coming out for a smoke. I reach in my pocket, pull the pack out.

I can’t believe she said that.

I can’t believe how much it hurts.

I think of how the parking lot was closed today, how I had to park three blocks away from Lather. How a man was selling flowers from big white buckets on the corner, and I decided, what the hell...

I wipe my face with the back of my hand. Try to breathe. I hate crying. But part of me wants to. Wants her to see how upset she’s made me. It’s a small part.

The rest of me, most of me, scrambles to wipe my face a second time. Better. I light my cig and take a big hit but it just makes me nauseous.

There are footsteps, a noise behind the screen door. Is she watching me now? Wondering how delicately she needs to tread around her head case of a girlfriend?

One of these days she’s gonna get sick of my shit, and leave. I take another deep drag, and wrap my arms around my knees.

“Shane? Can I come out?”

“It’s your house.”

I regret saying that, the instant it’s out of my mouth. I sound like a pissy teenager.

I need to act like a fucking adult.

She comes out quietly, and sits down next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I see her bare leg, her blue bathrobe. She’s looking at me. I should have wiped my face off. It’s too late. My hair’s in the way, thank god.

“Hey. I’m so sorry. That was really stupid of me to say.”

“Don’t.”

I bring my cigarette to my lips, suck it in. She hates it when I smoke. It’s just one more thing. Can she tell how messed up I am?

I’m angry though. She has no reason to apologize. She’s absolutely right. I need to make her see that.

“I totally deserved that.” My hair is falling in my face. I’m glad.

“No you don’t. Shane. You’re wonderful.”

There’s relief, that she still believes that. It’s hollow. I’m anything but.

I put my feet down on the bottom step, stare at the white metal holes in my black Chucks. How do I get out of this with a minimum of damage? How do I keep her from knowing-

I feel her fingers, gently moving hair back from my face. She’s gonna see that I’m crying. That thought makes it worse. I feel new tears pool, and fall. I close my eyes.

I suck my bottom lip into my mouth. I can feel her watching me. It’s too late. Shit. I wipe my face.

“I’m so s-"

“Darah!”

Her eyes widen, and ashamed, I look away.

Shit, I didn’t mean to snap at her.

Now she’ll think I’m being a bitch, in addition to a weepy lez.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But please don’t apologize. You have no reason.”

“You know what?” I turn to look at her. She’s staring straight out into the yard, getting ready to talk. Her eyelashes are very dark. The colored part of her eyes seems so pale, barely blue. “I think I do.”

“I think I do,” she repeats. “Because I think I said that to protect myself. I’m not used to these romantic gestures of yours. And I love them so much, I guess I wanted...”

I close my eyes. I know what she’s gonna say. I wrote that book.

I open my mouth but before I can get a word out, she’s talking. “...I guess I wanted to be the first person to put that wall back up. To beat you to it.” She looks down at her hands. “To protect myself. And I’m sorry.”

I just stare at her. It sounds like she’s describing me. She’s just apologized for being everything that I am. And I love her more in that instant than I ever have.

After a second it feels to much, us looking in each other’s eyes. I blink and look away.

“I’m sorry I got all weird,” I finally say, knowing that I need to be the one to make a showing, take that step. “I, um... Sometimes I’m afraid I’m not cut out for this.” I stub my cigarette out in an old soda can, left over from a warmer day, and I instantly wish for another one. “I try so hard to do the right thing but... I’m just guessing, half the time. And when you said that...”

I wrap my arms around myself. “Anyway. I feel... so... not cut out to be with other people, sometimes it feels like it’s gonna be permanent. I really do love you though.”

I love you so much, Darah, I think. The tears are back in my eyes. I better shut up now.

“I love you too,” she says, very softly, and I feel it slowly enter my body. Like a stiff drink, or like medicine. It feels warm.

She’s moving closer. And she wraps her arm around me. I let myself be pulled close. I rest my head on her shoulder, feeling the fabric of her robe. Her hair is wet, and feels cold under my cheek. I let myself shiver as her fingers move up my neck, to cradle my head.

“What do you say we go back to bed,” she says. I’m nodding.

I don’t know how she knows, but she does.

.

My heart is pounding as I lead Shane back inside; I take her hand and she lets me. First it hangs awkwardly in my grasp, then she walks with me. I catch her eyes as we turn to go upstairs. They are watery and smeary and somehow lighter for having cried. The sight of her that way spears my heart and she’s looking in my eyes and I let it open, let her see every tender impulse that is flowing through me.

I go back inside with one mission: to show Shane how much I love her.

She is compliant like a child, perhaps knowing that I’m going to give her everything she needs, she follows me up into the bedroom and once there, stands and looks at me with open, childlike eyes. I shut the bedroom door behind us. I don’t know why.

“I love you, Shane,” I whisper. It makes me feel naked to say this while looking in her eyes, skinless almost, and my own admission causes a shudder to start at the bottom of my spine and rise. When I meet her eyes I can feel that transfer, as tangibly as I was giving her a gift with weight and shape.

I want to soothe her, I want to ease her soul, but looking at her, she’s so beautiful that it makes my head spin, and I want to begin everyplace at once. I decide to touch her face, cupping her cheek with my hand, brushing the messy dark hair from her forehead. She closes her eyes, her thin chest rising as she takes a deep breath in. She leans toward my hand. I step closer, wrap my arms around her, hold her to me.

For a long time we just stand like that, and she’s limp in my arms like a doll, just standing there. Maybe overwhelmed, maybe just stunned by the force of emotion she displayed on my porch. I stroke her hair, run my fingers down her arm. Her hand rises to my waist, over the silky material of my robe, and it stays there. I’m glad she doesn’t feel she has to rush into sex. I hold her without moving, except to stroke her hair with one hand, rub her back with another.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I whisper.

I can hear her breathe but that’s all. It’s okay. She doesn’t need to say anything, do anything. I’ll do it all for her right now.

Her fingers curl around the fabric of my robe, as if she’s digging for a handhold. I pull back enough to look at her and she looks at me with new eyes, mute eyes, eyes in which there is so much happening. It’s okay, I think, stroking a line just above her brow.

She looks at me for a long few seconds, maybe searching, or trying to find something with which to comfort herself, maybe looking for the answer to a question. I just let her look at me, and stroke the fine hairs on her arm. I give her a slight smile, hoping it’s comforting.

She pulls me close again so that I can’t see her, her chest pressed to mine, her lanky arms wrapping around me, her breath coming warm near my ear. Warm gratitude fills me that she’s letting herself take this from me, embracing my offered comfort surely as she embraces me. Oh Shane, I think, I’ll stand here forever like this holding you.

It’s long minutes later, maybe hours, when she pulls back and sweeps her eyes over my body. Her hands tug the knot on my robe, rise slowly to my naked collarbone, and she looks me in the eye as she pushes the fabric away. Suddenly I’m breathless. My first instinct is to hide it but I don’t. I let my body breathe hard, let my eyes close then flutter open to meet hers again. I have to give her everything. Her eyes have changed, warmed. Is this what she needs?

Her eyes leave mine as the robe falls to the floor, moving over my body. I stand there and let her inspect me, heart pounding in my chest. She makes me wait while she looks at me, she’s killing me, it’s unlike her, and I wonder what she’s thinking as she looks at me. My nipples harden, more under her gaze than from the cool air.

After a moment I raise my hand to the hem of her tee shirt, moan in my throat as I feel the velvety warmth of her skin underneath it. I’m burning slowly as I raise it over her thin body. Silent-eyed, she lifts her arms to let me pull the shirt off, and now I know why she stared, because I can’t tear my eyes away from the long lines of her, her white flesh, the tiny pink points of her nipples.

I touch her in a way that marvels at the lines of her existence, her hips, her slouchy shoulders, ropy arms. I let everything that I feel show in my face as I touch her leisurely.

She pulls back enough to look into my eyes. She’s holding my face in her hands, and I shudder at the intimacy of it. “I love you too,” she says, and she kisses me hard.