BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS
Kristina Wright

It started with a text at 3:00 a.m. I miss you. The cynic inside me said it was a booty call text, but the realist said he’d either just come from a booty call and was feeling nostalgic or he truly missed me. Either way, I wasn’t awake to get the text until the next morning. And I responded with a smile: I miss you too. And not just at 3AM.

We always know when a relationship begins, but sometimes the ending comes and it’s not until much later that we can look back and pinpoint the end. “There,” we say to ourselves. “That was the last day, that was the end.” If we’re lucky, we get that kind of closure. If we’re lucky.

It didn’t happen that way with Erik and me. There was no ending. There was the last day I saw him—in a crowded parking lot at the mall around Christmastime—and then there was… nothing. It was, at best, a tumultuous relationship. One that should never have happened, I can acknowledge in retrospect. We were in different places in our lives and we wanted different things—a fact I didn’t discover until I’d already fallen in love. He was trying to be someone he wasn’t and I was trying…well, I was trying to believe he could be what I needed. It was destined to fail, but something—call it love—kept us trying. Fighting for it to work, when we weren’t fighting each other.

There in that parking lot, right around Christmas, he kissed me for the last time. I was crying, as I did so often in those last few months, and he was panicked he had lost me. He kissed me and I felt…nothing. Nothing good, anyway. The passion was tamped down and muffled by so many negative emotions I couldn’t even remember when his kiss—just his kiss—could make me soaking wet. That should’ve told me it was the end, but even then…well, we had been there before. We’d broken up three times in as many years, for weeks or even months, and somehow we always found a way back to each other. It was usually as a result of lies—to ourselves and each other—that generated false hope. But we did it anyway and for a while it worked, as make-up sex became our norm and we drowned ourselves in sensation and ignored the cold, hard truth—we just weren’t meant to be together.

Until…we just didn’t see each other again. We had a few phone calls that ended with one or both of us screaming, we texted each other those random I miss you messages, but ultimately they would devolve into accusations and anger. We talked about going to a concert we’d planned for before the last big blowup, but the tickets went unused—at least, I didn’t go and I never had the courage to ask if he’d taken someone else—and then the texts simply tapered off to nothing. I cut him out on all social media because quitting cold turkey seemed best for both of us and having any access to his day-to-day life seemed dangerous to my mental health. I heard through the friend of a friend that he had started up with someone else, someone who he could likely be more himself with, someone who was more easygoing and less intense. At least, that’s what I told myself. No way he’d find someone he loved more than me. I knew that. Knew it. Because I knew I’d never find anyone I loved more than him.

Time is a funny thing. They say it heals all wounds, but that’s not true. I let my communication with Erik taper off to almost nothing and felt my heart scab over nicely. The first year was hell—every holiday, every place I had ever gone with him, was a bad memory. I had to remind myself, over and over, the number of times we’d spent fighting on my birthday or in a crowded restaurant. It wasn’t a good relationship; I had to keep reminding myself of that. We were wrong for each other. So wrong.

Two years later and I was good. I had moved on. I had dated casually and been seeing a great guy for six months, one I liked a lot even if I didn’t love him with that all-consuming passion I’d felt for Erik, but it hadn’t lasted. He said I was too distant; I said I was simply mature. We said our goodbyes and the whole thing was drama free and very adult. I silently patted myself on the back. I’d grown up; I had learned from my mistakes. I was over it, over Erik, and had maintained a stable relationship for a period of time and not fallen apart when it was over. It felt like a success. A hollow, lonely success, but still…success. And then one night at 3:00 a.m….Erik texted me. We had devolved to texting each other only on our birthdays and at Christmas. Simple, empty texts, good wishes and nothing more than you’d tell a stranger at Starbucks. It was safer that way, better than dredging up the past, better than fighting. Better than never speaking again.

Then there was the 3:00 a.m. text, followed by my teasing response. I thought that would be it, but the next night, he texted again. It wasn’t 3:00 a.m., it was a little after nine and I was already in bed, reading the latest Stephen King. I glanced over at my phone, expecting a text from the guy I had been dating, as we were still friends (imagine that!) and planning to see a movie over the weekend. I entertained a thought that we might get back together again, that he might be right and I had been distant, but I dismissed it. No, I was done trying to conform and please someone else. I was feeling cocky, until I looked at my phone.

I miss you all the time. I would like to see you. Please?

My heart was trip-hammering in my chest even before I got to the “Please?” Maybe I wasn’t as over Erik as I thought I was. I hesitated. Should I see him? It was the first time since that missed concert that he’d asked to see me. I considered dashing off a quick rejection, telling him I was seeing someone. But that seemed like a game we would’ve played when we were together. I didn’t want to play games, but that didn’t stop me from putting my phone down and reading another thirty pages of my novel while my mind worked out how I should really respond.

Okay, I texted back an hour later. When?

He didn’t wait an hour. Less than a minute later my phone vibrated, as if he’d been holding his phone in his hand waiting for me. His response put the ball firmly in my court. Whenever you’re available. Just give me a date, time and location and I’ll be there.

I laughed out loud. That didn’t sound like the Erik I knew. Warning bells went off. What did he want? Booty call, I thought again. No, that wasn’t his style, either. At least not with me.

I didn’t know what to say and I didn’t want to say something I’d regret in the morning. I’ll check my calendar and text you tomorrow. That seemed fair. It wasn’t a game; I needed time to think.

Thank you, Fiona.

I fell asleep and dreamed of him and the next morning I gave him a date, time and location. I hoped I wouldn’t regret it.

“You look amazing,” he said four days later as he sat across from me at a new Mexican restaurant that had just opened the previous month. I’d deliberately chosen a place we had never been together before, not wanting to open the can of worms that was the many bad memories between us.

“Thanks! You—” I trailed off. He didn’t look amazing. He looked unbelievably thin and haggard. “You look happy,” I finished lamely, though his big smile did suggest happiness, even if it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

He laughed. “I look like hell and I know it. But thanks. I’m happy to see you.”

We placed our orders. I demurred when the waiter suggested a margarita and settled for a Coke. I wanted to keep my wits about me with Erik.

“So what’s up?”

He laughed, and it sounded good. Too good. “That’s the Fiona I know and—” His smile faded. “Yeah, well, it’s a fair question. I needed to see you. Life has been…tough lately and you were always a rock for me.”

I was literally biting the inside of my jaw at this. A big point of contention between us had been that I was always there for him but he didn’t, or couldn’t, return the favor. We were different like that—me the nurturer, him the one happy to let me nurture him no matter how much it depleted my own reserves.

“What’s going on?” I honestly didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to be dragged into whatever drama he was in the midst of. I had a thought—what if it was about a girl? What if what had precipitated his texts had been a need for relationship advice? That would explain the first late-night text—fighting with a girlfriend, reminding him of his ex. I literally groaned. “Please don’t tell me you need me to sort out a problem with a girl for you. Seriously.”

He looked at me wide-eyed. “You think I’d ask you to meet me for that? Seriously?”

I spread my hands wide, wishing I’d gone for the margarita after all. “Sorry. This is all kind of…unexpected.”

“There’s no girl problem, Fiona,” he said. “I have dated, yes, I was seeing someone for a while and it didn’t work out, if you want to know the truth…”

I shook my head, feeling myself getting angry. “Enough. I got it. You’re out there dating. Good for you.”

“That wasn’t my point.” He sounded as calm and patient as he had when he sat down. “I just wanted you to know I didn’t want to see you because I needed you to fix my love life. In fact, I didn’t want to see you to fix anything. Promise. In fact, it’s the opposite. Or whatever the opposite is of needing to be fixed. I’m good now. I’m okay. It’s been hell, but I’m okay. That’s why I wanted to see you.”

“What happened?” I asked, exasperated by now. I just wanted to know. “Are you dying?”

“No, but my dad did.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the table. I gaped at him for a long minute, no trace of humor on his face. He was serious.

“Oh my god. What happened, Erik?” I asked quietly. “What’s going on?”

“Massive stroke right after Christmas. He was just in the kitchen making pancakes one Sunday morning and the next minute…he was gone. It’s been rough on my mom, not having anyone close by. So, well, I’m moving to Chicago to be closer to her. I’ve already put in some applications at schools there.”

My mind was reeling. Erik’s dad, his idol, had died. He was moving to Chicago. I didn’t even know what to say or how to process all that, so I went for the easiest.

“School? You’re going back to school?”

He laughed. “That’s what you ask about?”

“I figured I’d start small.”

“Wise woman, always.” Our dinner had arrived by now, but I honestly didn’t think I could eat a bite. I couldn’t stop staring at him. “Yes, I’m going to back to school. To be a teacher.”

“You want to be a teacher?” I knew I sounded like a parrot, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt like I didn’t know this man sitting in front of me. We’d met when my downstairs neighbor in my apartment building had started a grease fire. Erik, looking like the stereotypical hot fireman, had shown up on my doorstep to evacuate me to safety. Of course, the fire had been contained to my neighbor’s stove, but still…it was the kind of meet cute that made for a great cocktail party conversation. And now Erik, the rock-climbing, skydiving, high-octane firefighter was going to be…a teacher?

“Wow,” was all I could manage when he laughed at my expression and nodded.

He told me he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps—he’d been a college professor—and how glad his mom was that he’d be moving back closer to home. We swapped work stories and I didn’t even know what else, my mind still in a surreal haze from his bombshell. There were long silences and longer looks and I had the sense of time slipping by and needing to say more, but all I could do was shake my head.

“Wow, this is strange,” I said, with a laugh.

“I know it’s a lot to take in, and I know maybe it’s too late for us, but I thought—”

I really wanted to know what he thought, but the waiter was there to clear our table of the plates I didn’t even remember eating from. Once we were alone again and Erik was signing the check, I found myself panicking. Dinner was over, and other than some small talk about me, and his laundry list of life changes, we’d not really said much. I didn’t know what I wanted to say, but I knew I wasn’t ready for this—whatever this was—to end.

“Want to come over to my place?” I asked, a little too quickly, as he followed me out to the parking lot. I sounded spooked, and I was. Erik…two years gone from my life, but never quite gone-gone, until now. Knowing he’d be hundreds of miles away suddenly made our breakup seem that much more final. “I feel like there’s more to say than just goodbye.”

If he thought that was corny, he didn’t show it. He nodded. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

A week that had started with me not having seen Erik in two years was ending with him following me home. My head was still spinning—no margarita necessary—when I let us into my place. This was the last thing I had expected to happen, him coming over, so my apartment wasn’t exactly spotless. I nudged the cat out of the way and straightened as I went from front door to kitchen.

“Can I get you a drink?” I asked, hoping my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I felt.

“I’m not really thirsty.” He had followed me and I found his close proximity unnerving. “And I’m guessing neither are you.”

I wasn’t. I was just going through the motions. And while I didn’t intend to be playing a game, it felt like I was. “Nope. Not at all. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, actually.”

He looked at me, blinked, and started laughing. That made me laugh. Pretty soon, we were both doubled over in laughter and the cat had fled for the bedroom. None of it was funny and nothing made sense, but one minute we were laughing and the next minute he had his arms around me and was kissing me— and there was nothing at all funny about that, either.

“God, I missed you,” he murmured against my lips. “So much.”

“Me, too.” I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to think. And when it dawned on me that I wasn’t talking or thinking, I put my hand against his chest and firmly pushed him away. “But what are we doing?”

He stared at me, his breathing a little ragged, as was mine. “I don’t know. I swear, this wasn’t what I intended.” He held up his hands as if to ward me off. “I really didn’t think we’d do anything but have dinner and catch up and—”

He trailed off for the second time in explaining what we were doing. This time, there was no waiter to interrupt. “And?” I prompted. “What did you want tonight to be about?”

“Honestly?”

I rolled my eyes as I leaned against the counter, putting as much space between us as I could in my small kitchen. It would’ve been easy enough to relocate to the couch in the living room, but I was tired of interruptions. I wanted to know what was going on in his head.

“No, lie to me.”

He sighed. “Yeah, well…I thought tonight would be about… starting over.”

It was a good thing we’d already eaten dinner, or I surely would have choked on my enchilada. “Starting over? You and me? Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

I needed to sit down, but the only way out of the kitchen was to nudge past him in the doorway and I wasn’t getting that close. “But…you’re moving. To Chicago. Soon.”

He nodded.

“But you were hoping we’d start over tonight?”

He nodded again. “I know it doesn’t make sense—”

I laughed. “Math doesn’t make sense. Politics doesn’t make sense. This, this is just crazy talk.”

“So you don’t want to?” His expression said it all. He was hurt. “You’re really over me?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter! You’re moving, remember? Moving. Whatever this might be”—I gestured to the space between us—“doesn’t matter. You’re leaving.”

My voice had risen with every word until I was practically shouting. I took a deep breath and said, very softly, “And no, I’m not over you. Obviously.”

He laughed again, and it changed his entire look. I liked it. “It’s only Chicago, Fiona. Seriously. My dad’s death hit me hard—look at me.”

I had been looking for the past couple of hours, but I did as he said. There were lines around his eyes I didn’t remember, a crease in his forehead that made him look pensive and older than he was. And the weight loss didn’t help.

“You look…not good.”

“I know. And honestly, I look better than I did a couple of months ago,” he said with a wry grin. “I feel better, too. Because I’ve had time to come to terms with Dad’s death and realize that I was kind of floating along in life, not really doing anything meaningful. Not really pursuing what I want for myself.”

“And what do you want for yourself?”

“You.”

I looked away. It’s what I wanted to hear, but that didn’t make it true. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You, but not just you. I want to be there for my mom because she and dad were there for me my whole life. I want to be a teacher. I’m glad I’ve been a firefighter, glad for the training and the experience, but I want to do something that makes me feel like I’m making a difference every day and not just when there’s an emergency. I want to trade in the balls-to-the-wall adrenaline rush for something more consistent and stable and, well, adult.”

“Adult, huh?”

“Yeah, Fiona. It was time for me to grow up and figure out what I want, and I want you. The only adrenaline rush I want is the one I get when I’m close to you.” He closed that short distance between us and took me in his arms.

My mind was spinning and I had nowhere to go, nowhere to look, except in his very earnest, very familiar eyes. I had missed him in a way I’d wanted to deny and that point was driven home by the moisture collecting between my thighs and the way I wanted to press my body against every inch of him, especially the bulge in his pants that was unmistakable. He was thinner, but the muscles were still there, flexing and holding me close as if I might run. But I had no desire to run; I was exactly where I had wanted to be. It was as if two years hadn’t passed at all, but in another way it was as if he were a stranger I needed to discover.

“Bedroom, now,” was all I could mutter as I reached up to press my lips to his. I didn’t want to think anymore. Later, I would think later. But right now, there was an urge growing in me. A need only Erik could satisfy.

He took my hand and I followed him into my bedroom. The bed wasn’t made, but instead of looking messy it simply looked inviting—as if it were waiting for us and had taken the time to turn back the spread and rumple the sheets so we would feel welcome. Erik tumbled me down lengthwise across the mattress and I fell willingly, aching for him.

Clothes came off a piece at a time, with each of us working to help the other. Naked. I wanted him naked, I wanted to feel his skin against mine. I caught my breath as I stared at his body; the weight loss looked unnatural on his muscular frame and it brought forth some deep protective urge in me. I wanted to feed him, fatten him up, bring him back to me. But first, god, I just wanted to fuck him.

I didn’t need an invitation to straddle him and press my wet slit against the length of his erection. He let out a groan that was as full of need and longing as I was feeling and I knew I was home. Slowly, I slid down his shaft, taking first the head then the entire length of him inside me. Yes. It had been a long time, but my body still remembered him, still tightened as he filled me, knowing his shape, remembering the way he filled me just so.

“God, I’ve missed you,” he said through gritted teeth, his breath already ragged. “I’ve thought about you, about this, so much. I should never have let you go. But I didn’t know how to keep you.”

I didn’t say anything. My brain couldn’t form the words to say what I was feeling, what I wanted. All I could do was show him. And I did. Leaning over his lanky body, I kissed him, using my lips and tongue and teeth while my pussy tightened on his cock and I rode him. He gripped my ass, holding tight while I moved on him, groaning into my mouth with every downward thrust. His tongue swept along mine, teasing out my own breathy moans as he slid his hands over the curve of my hips, up my waist and around to cup my breasts and thumb my nipples. The movements, the feelings, were familiar as a recurring dream— but there was something more, something new, about the way we connected. We found a rhythm that was harder, faster, more immediate. His hands stroked up and down my curves from breast to hips as he rose to meet my downward thrusts.

My orgasm surprised me. I was so caught up in watching his expression, enjoying the way his body responded to me, that one moment I was there, solid and present and completely focused on riding his erection and drawing forth his moans that mirrored my own, and the next I was flying to pieces, feeling breathless and weightless as my climax pulled me apart and Erik’s thrusts became the center of my world. I cried out as he held me to him and I belatedly realized he was right there with me in the midst of his own orgasm that left his body taut and quivering. I stroked my hand down his chest as I shifted off him, my head still fitting so well in the hollow of his shoulder. He played with the damp wisps of my hair as I continued to soothe him with a gentle hand.

“Wow,” he said finally when his breath had returned to normal.

I laughed. “That word is getting a lot of play tonight. That was…unexpected.”

“Yeah, but I can’t say it wasn’t what I was hoping for.”

“You said you weren’t expecting this,” I said, inhaling the heady scent of our lovemaking.

“Doesn’t mean a guy can’t hope.”

We were quiet for a while, and I wondered if he was attempting to process all of this madness with the same rapid-fire speed as I was. Probably not. I am notorious for overthinking things, and though he’d laid a lot on me at once and then fucked me senseless, I was trying not to make it more complicated than it was. But it was complicated, no two ways about it. And in the aftermath of the mind-blowing sex, my rational mind was trying to make sense of it all.

“So, Chicago, huh?”

“Yeah. Not for a couple of months, though. I have a lot of loose ends to tie up,” he said, his fingertips stroking along my hairline, teasing the shell of my ear.

I swallowed hard past the lump in my throat. “Am I a loose end?”

“No, I told you—you’re part of my plans for the future. If you’ll have me.”

“I see. And how do you imagine this working, with you in Chicago?”

He laughed, his chest rumbling with that happy sound, and it made me smile. “I don’t know. I’m flying by the seat of my pants here, Fi. I just know what I want and that I’m going to do whatever it takes to get it.”

“Long-distance relationship?”

“Sure, why not? It’s just a few hours by car. I’ve socked away a lot of savings and I have financial aid and grants, so I won’t need to work right away. And I will have all kinds of time during school breaks. You have vacation time. We can meet halfway; I’ll come here, whatever I need to do.”

He made it sound so easy. I was torn between elation and hopelessness. Could we make it work this time? Was it worth the risk? The answer was in the curve of his smile and the warmth of his body pressed against mine. Yeah, it was worth it.

“Okay,” I said, though there were a thousand questions I wanted to ask. Keep it simple, right? “Okay.”

He rolled over me, covering my body with his own, and I felt the press of his erection returning. The questions and doubts fled and all that mattered was this moment. We’d figure out the rest later.