Page 113 of Bad at Love
Like blood from a stone.
My fingers bleed from trying.
It feels like dying.
Knowing I’ll never give you what you need.
I stare at the words—lyrics,for once—feeling the darkness coming. Clouds that were always there on the horizon, a storm I could ignore if I just turned my back and faced the other way. Faced into the sunshine.
Into the light.
Marina is that light I faced into.
I was happily blinded.
“Hey,” Scooby says from the doorway, munching on cherry tomatoes straight out of the container.
I blink, trying to dispel that horrible, aching, clawing feeling, and come back to earth, back to normal. “Let me guess, you have an interesting fact about tomatoes?”
“No, just saying hello,” he says, popping one in his mouth. “No wait, I do. Did you know that the scientific name for tomato is lycopersicon lycopersicum which means ‘wolf peach’?”
I stare at him blankly. “How do you remember that? I swear, the more pot you smoke the smarter you get.”
“I know!” he exclaims. “That’s what I tried to tell my mother when I was in high school but she kicked me out of the house instead. So when are you going to the gay pride parade?”
That last bit would normally sound odd but the fact is, today I’m picking up Noah and taking him to the parade in West Hollywood. This year the parade has sort of morphed into a resistance march, so now Marina wants to come too.
Of course all of this will be unbeknownst to my mum and Daryl. I’m telling them I’m just taking Noah to the beach. Then we’ll swing by Marina’s and pick her up after she’s done one of her live hive removals and Noah can get ready for the parade there. He’s just a spectator but he wants to say something by dressing up, whatever that may be.
“I should probably get going anyway,” I say, getting to my feet. I’ve donned a T-shirt with a rainbow steamroller graphic on it by The Oatmeal out of support.
“So, how is it going with yourgiiiiiiirlfriend?” Scooby asks like he’s ten years old.
“Good,” I tell him.
Because it has been good.
It’s been better than good.
We’ve been together for a few weeks now and, honestly, it’s been the best weeks of my life. Ever since New York, I’ve been living a dream, on a high that never ends, floating over the clouds, basking in the sunshine. I’ve never, ever hadthis connection with anyone before, never been so infatuated, so obsessed. I just want to be with her night and day, inside her bed, inside her, finding myself, my place in this world.
Marina has become my sanctuary, a place for my heart to be at rest, sheltered from the elements.
And she loves me.
Shelovesme.
She hasn’t said it much since that night at the show, in the bathroom, after our fight. I know she’s shy about it, tentative, because I have yet to say it back. But it means the world to me that she’s given me her heart.
I just…I’m finding it harder and harder to not be scared by the whole thing. It’s that insidious undercurrent that lurks beneath everything bright and new and happy. I’m scared that what she feels for me, I’ll never be able to give back to her. And I’m scared that when she realizes that, she’s going to leave me.
These are probably normal fears to have. I’ve just never been so wrapped up in someone before, I wouldn’t know how normal they are. Is this what it’s like in any relationship when you really care about someone? Being friends with Marina before we got together made it so she knows me inside and out, as much as I can give, and is still there for me, by my side. I just don’t see how I can deserve someone like her.
And yet I have her.
I have her big, gorgeous, red heart.
I have her open and giving soul.
