Ugly Love: A Novel

Six years earlier

Rule number one of no fooling around while our parents are home has been amended.

It now consists of making out but only when we’re behind a locked door.

Rule number two stands firm, unfortunately. Still no sex.

And a rule number three was recently added: no sneaking around at night. Lisa still checks on Rachel in the middle of the night sometimes, only because Lisa is the mother of a teenage daughter and it’s the right thing to do.

But I hate that she does it.

We’ve made it an entire month in the same house. We don’t talk about the fact that there are just a little more than five months left. We don’t talk about what will happen when my father marries her mother. We don’t talk about the fact that when this happens, we’ll be connected for much longer than five months.

Holidays.

Weekend visits.

Reunions.

We’ll both have to attend every function, but we’ll be attending as family.

We don’t talk about that, because it makes us feel like what we’re doing is wrong.

We also don’t talk about it because it’s hard. When I think about the day she moves to Michigan and I stay in San Francisco, I can’t see beyond that. I can’t see anything where she won’t be my everything.

“We’ll be back Sunday,” he says.

“You’ll have the house to yourself. Rachel is staying with a friend. You should invite Ian over.”

“I did,” I lie.

Rachel lied, too. Rachel will be here all weekend. We don’t want to give them any reason to suspect us. It’s hard enough trying to ignore her in front of them. It’s hard pretending I have nothing in common with her, when I want to laugh at everything she says. I want to high-five everything she does. I want to brag to my father about her intelligence, her good grades, her kindness, her quick-wittedness. I want to tell him I have this really amazing girlfriend whom I want him to meet because he would absolutely love her.

He does love her. Just not in the way I wish he loved her.

I want him to love her for me.

We tell our parents good-bye. Lisa tells Rachel to behave, but Lisa isn’t really worried. As far as Lisa knows, Rachel is good. Rachel behaves. Rachel doesn’t break rules.

Except rule number three. Rachel is definitely breaking rule number three this weekend.

We play house.

We pretend it’s ours. We pretend it’s our kitchen, and she cooks for me. I pretend she’s mine, and I follow her around while she cooks, holding on to her. Touching her. Kissing her neck. Pulling her away from the tasks she’s trying to complete so I can feel her against me. She likes it, but she pretends not to.

When we’re finished eating, she sits with me on the couch. We put on a movie, but it doesn’t get watched at all. We can’t stop kissing. We kiss so much our lips hurt. Our hands hurt. Our stomachs hurt, because our bodies want to break rule number two so, so bad.

It’s gonna be a long weekend.

I decide I need a shower, or I’ll be begging for an amendment to rule number two.

I take a shower in her bathroom. I like this shower. I like it more than I liked it back when it was just my shower. I like seeing her things in here. I like looking at her razor and imagining what she looks like when she uses it. I like looking at her shampoo bottles and thinking about her with her head tilted back beneath the stream of water as she rinses it out of her hair.

I love that my shower is her shower, too.

“Miles?” she says. She’s knocking, but she’s already inside the bathroom. The water is hot on my skin, but her voice just made it even hotter. I open the shower curtain. Maybe I open it too far because I want her to want to break rule number two.

She inhales a soft breath, but her eyes fall where I want them to.

“Rachel,” I say, grinning at the embarrassed look on her face. She looks me in the eyes.

She wants to take a shower with me. She’s just too shy to ask.

“Get in,” I say.

My voice is hoarse, like I’ve been screaming.

My voice was fine five seconds ago.

I close the shower curtain to hide what she’s doing to me but also to give her privacy while she undresses. I haven’t seen her without her clothes on. I’ve felt what’s underneath them.

I’m suddenly nervous.

She turns the light off.

“Is that fine?” she asks timidly. I say it is, but I wish she were more confident. I need to make her more confident.

She opens the shower curtain, and I see one of her legs make its way in first. I swallow when the rest of her body follows. Luckily, there’s just enough light from the night-light to cast a faint glow over her.

I can see her enough.

I can see her perfectly.

Her eyes lock with mine again. She steps closer to me. I wonder if she’s ever shared a shower with anyone before, but I don’t ask her. I take a step toward her this time, because she seems scared. I don’t want her to be scared.

I’m scared.

I touch her shoulders and guide her so that she’s standing under the water. I don’t press myself against her, even though I need to. I keep distance between us.

I have to.

The only things that connect are our mouths. I kiss her softly, barely touching her lips, but it hurts so bad. It hurts worse than any other kiss we’ve shared. Kisses where our mouths collide. Our teeth collide. Frantic kisses that are so rushed they’re sloppy. Kisses that end with me biting her lip or her biting mine.

None of those kisses hurt like this one does, and I can’t tell why this one is hurting so much.

I have to pull back. I tell her to give me a minute, and she nods, then rests her cheek against my chest. I lean back against the wall and pull her with me while I keep my eyes closed tightly.

The words are once again attempting to break the barrier I’ve built up around them. Every time I’m with her, they want to come out, but I work and work to cement the wall that surrounds them. She doesn’t need to hear them.

I don’t need to say them.

But they’re pounding on the walls. They always pound so hard until all our kisses end up like this. Me needing a minute and her giving me one. They need out now worse than ever before. They need air. They’re demanding to be heard.

There’s only so much pounding I can take before the walls collapse.

There are only so many times my lips can touch hers without the words spilling over the walls, breaking through the cracks, traveling up my chest until I’m holding her face, looking into her eyes, allowing them to tear down all the barriers that stand between us and the inevitable heartbreak.

The words come anyway.

“I can’t see anything,” I tell her.

I know she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I don’t want to elaborate, but the words come anyway. They’ve taken over.

“When you move to Michigan and I stay in San Fran? I don’t see anything after that. I used to see whatever future I wanted, but now I don’t see anything.”

I kiss the tear that’s running down her cheek.

“I can’t do this,” I tell her. “The only thing I want to see is you, and if I can’t have that . . . nothing else is even worth it. You make it better, Rachel. Everything.” I kiss her hard on the mouth, and it doesn’t hurt at all this time, now that the words are free. “I love you,” I tell her, freeing myself completely.

I kiss her again, not even giving her the chance to respond. I don’t need to hear her say the words to me until she’s ready, and I don’t want to hear her tell me that the way I feel is wrong.

Her hands are on my back, tugging, pulling me closer. Her legs are wrapping around mine like she’s trying to embed herself inside me.

She already has.

It’s frantic again. Teeth-crashing, lip-biting, hurried, rushed, panting, touching.

She’s moaning, and I can feel her trying to pull from my mouth, but my hand is wrapped in her hair, and I’m covering her mouth desperately, hoping she’ll never break for breath.

She makes me release her.

I drop my forehead to hers, gasping in an effort to keep my emotions from spilling over the edge.

“Miles,” she says breathlessly. “Miles, I love you. I’m so scared. I don’t want us to end.”

You love me, Rachel.

I pull back and look her in the eyes.

She’s crying.

I don’t want her to be scared. I tell her it’ll be okay. I tell her we’ll wait until we graduate, then we’ll tell them. I tell her they’ll have to be okay with it. Once we’re out of the house, everything will be different. Everything will be good. They’ll have to understand.

I tell her we’ve got this.

She nods feverishly.

“We’ve got this,” she responds back, agreeing with me.

I press my forehead to hers. “We’ve got this, Rachel,” I tell her. “I can’t quit you now. No way.”

She takes my face between her palms, and she kisses me.

You fell in love with me, Rachel.

Her kiss removes a weight from my chest that is so heavy I feel like I’m floating. I feel like she’s floating with me.

I turn her until her back is against the wall.

I bring her arms above her head and link my fingers through hers, pressing her hands into the tile wall behind her.

We look into each other’s eyes . . . and we completely shatter rule number two.