Page 18 of Come Back To Me

A nightmare: he began to tickle me. Long fingers wiggling between my ribs, crawling up my sides. I fell over onto the wood laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe. David straddled me, laying kisses all over my face while his hands continued to find my weak spots. By sheer miracle, neither coffee mug was turned over, and when he was done with me he stood up and pulled me to my feet.

“If we practice every day—twice a day, actually—I think I can add a minute to my time each time.” He was joking, but he sounded so hopeful, like fucking me for an extended length of time would bring him true happiness.

He pulled me toward my bedroom then suddenly stopped halfway through the doorway.

“Do you want kids?” he asked.

I shook my head no.

“Hmm.” He pondered my face thoughtfully, like he didn’t quite believe me. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to fuck anyone else up,” I told him. It was the truth. Those of us who’d been fucked up thought of those things. Not everyone was an optimist.

“Do you think you’ll change your mind?” he asked, and I wondered if this was about to be a deal breaker. Usually men ran when you told them you wanted to have their babies, David was disappointed that I didn’t want to have his babies, or anyone else’s.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I said. “I’m not broken because I don’t want the same thing as everyone else. And, no, you’re not invited to fix me, or soften my heart, or make me want things I never knew I wanted.”

He looked at me for a long time, and then he said: “It’s human nature to want to fix things. That was my first thought, actually, but you’re right. Someone should take you as you are, not have an agenda for how they want to change you.”

I breathed.

I liked him a little more. More than I did five minutes ago when we were staring at a wall and drinking our coffee. If this kept up I was going to be in love by nightfall.

“Okay,” he said. “What about adoption? That way you’re not bringing more souls into the world, you’re just helping the ones already here.”

I’d thought about adoption before. But, I was only twenty-five. It still seemed like a remote idea.

“An older child,” I said. “Maybe eight or nine.”

“Wonderful,” he said. “I like that. I like that a lot.”

“Cool. Now, can we get down to business, or do you want to plan out our retirement next?”

“You’re catching on, English.” He smiled. “Seeing us as a long-term deal.”

I didn’t know if I was smiling because he was calling me English, which was utterly ridiculous, or if I was amused by the fact he was planning our life together.

We were on our way to the bed when he looked at me and said, “You’re not the same as everyone else. You think I sound crazy, but as soon as I looked at you, I wanted to write a song. That means something.”

“It means I’m attractive,” I told him. “And you have a dick. You’re not the first man to use his dick to store inspiration.”

“Shut up,” he said. “You talk too much.”

When I was out of the city and in the country, I felt choked, cut off from the vine. There weren’t enough heartbeats in the country; you had to be patient, have an ear for the voice of nature. I found that sort of silence too loud, so I squashed my life, compressed it into a dozen tiny studio apartments. I did that over and over, sampling the cities of America, learning their beats and then moving on. New York, New Orleans, Chicago, and Miami. I wore bikinis and tanned to golden brown, and then I faded to a milky white and covered myself in down coats and scarves—my nose perpetually dressed in a cold. I found reasons not to go home to the city that I loved most. It was almost time, though. I was on my last stop.

Except…David. He was making it difficult to think of leaving. I told myself that I was just having fun, so of course, I didn’t want to leave yet. But like all of my relationships, the desire to be with him would soon fade out and then I’d be ready to go home.

David had this grin. His lips would compress in a pucker between two deep smile lines and he’d look at you like he could already see you naked. Sometimes when he was singing, he’d grin like that and girls would lose their shit, holding their hands up to the stage and screaming. I could imagine him in a larger setting, grinning like that to an audience of thousands. It made me feel sick to think about. But, when he smiled at me like that, I imagined having his babies. I never told him that, but I did. Me imagining babies. His grin thwarted my mission. I was a muse, not a wife, not a mother. More than anything I was scared. Perhaps Ann had been right.

I learned that the best time to ask him questions about himself was post-sex while still tangled together and recovering. He’d taught me that trick the first time we’d been together, asking about my boots. Sometimes we took turns asking each other things; sometimes there was just one talker and one listener.

“Why are you a singer? Why do you have a band?” We were camped out in my bed, the clean white sheets tucked around us. Outside the rain fell. As soon as I said those words, he rolled onto his back and started laughing. Then he repeated everything I said in the worst attempt at a British accent I’d ever heard.

“Jackass,” I said. “So much for being interested in your life.”

“Come on, English.” He rubbed his socked feet against mine and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m a singer because I’m a narcissist. Isn’t that the way? And I have a band because I can’t play all the instruments myself.” His eyes were all lit up. He got off on teasing me. I got off on it too.

“No one is that basic,” I said. “We all have our shit.”

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