When I Look at the Stars, I Feel Like Myself

“What's the 'r' stand for?” Zack asks, from his place beside me on the couch in the back room.

“What?”

“On your tattoo. Erin Burgundy, I get that. But what was her middle name?”

Oh, okay, “Rachel,” I answer, “It was my aunt's middle name, too,”

“What's your middle name?” he asks, playing with the strings on my pajama top.

“It starts with an 'r', I'll tell you that,” I smile playfully.

“If you tell me, I'll tell you mine.” he smiles.

“I already know your middle name,” I say, laughing, “Steven,”

“Creeper,” he mumbles, causing me to laugh again.

“What do you expect? You're only the coolest member of All Time Low. Besides Rian,”

He pouts, “I thought I was your favorite,”

Yes, it worked. He's distracted. “You are my favorite. Rian is just cooler,”

His pout only deepens. I coo an apology, and lean in to kiss him.

“No,” he complains, turning his head, “I don't like you anymore,”

“I'm sorry,”

“It doesn't fix what you said,” he says, “You're not even really sorry, you're just saying that so you can get a kiss,”

“You got that right,” I shrug, continuing the teasing.

“Wait a second...” I wait for him to continue, “What were we talking about before this?”

I shrug, pretending like I don't know either.

“Oh yeah! What's your middle name?”

“Let's play the guessing game,” I suggest, clapping my hands together.

“If I get it right, you have to give me something,”

“Alright, what do you want?”

Nothing sexual, I hope. Though, I'm sure he wouldn't even think about asking something like that from me.

Which scares me a little. I'm glad he knows my boundaries without me saying anything, don't get me wrong. It's just a little scary to know that I'll have to take all the steps up in the relationship.

“Hmmm,” he vocalizes, thinking, “you have to play a board game with me,”

“I would do that anyway, so you don't even have to work for it,” I point out.

“Fine,” he huffs, “you tell me your middle name, and I'll give you a kiss,”

“Ehh, I can live without your kisses,”

“No you can't. I'm the best kisser ever, you just don't know it yet,”

“Why haven't you showed me yet?” I ask, feigning surprise.

“You always pull away right when you're getting into it,” he says quietly.

“Instinct, I guess,” I reply, a little sadly.

A silence falls between us. He's thrown off by my comment, I know that. But what is he thinking? I'm going crazy, thinking about all the possibilities. Most of which are bad, only a few good.

“I...” he starts, whispering. I lean in to hear him better, “I wouldn't hurt you. You know that, right?”

Now it's my turn to stop and think. Of course I know that. I do want to give myself fully to him. He wouldn't be my first, but I don't know whether to count all the other times. I don't consider them anything but bad luck and the most horrible moments of my life. But, Zack wouldn't be anything like them. He would be a hell of a lot better. Different.

He would be special.

“I know that,” I reply, a little attitude to my voice, “It's not that I don't trust you... It's just... I can't do it yet. I'm not ready,”

“Okay,” he says, “I just wanted you to know that I wouldn't ever do anything that would make you uncomfortable, or that would hurt you,”

“This is why I love you,” I sigh, breathing in the scent of his chest. Intoxicating.

He is silent, just running his fingers through my hair. The silence is only a little upsetting. I told him I love him, in my own way. He probably doesn't think anything of it, I throw stuff around like this in casual conversations.

“Hey,” I say, sitting up to look at him, “I love you,” the words tumble out of my mouth with no struggle, no second thought.

He pulls me back down, “I love you, too,”

For now, this is enough for me. I don't need much more than this. My only hope is that someday, I'll grow to want more, so I won't bore Zack with my stupid fears.

Understandable, but stupid.

I hate that I'm afraid of having sex.

X

“Skateboarding?” Zack suggests.

“Maybe later,” I reply, looking out the window, seeing the rain pour down, “It's raining,”

“We only have so many days of tour left,” he complains.

“That doesn't fix the fact that I don't want to get wet,”

“We can find an indoor place. Somewhere,”

“No,”

“Why not?” he pouts. He has the most adorable pout in the world, I've decided.

“Because, I've never skateboarded,” I admit.

“I'll teach you,” he offers.

“What if I fall and die?” I dramatize, collapsing on the space behind me on the bed.

“I won't let you fall,” he says, hovering over me.

It's funny how he can take a silly moment, such as this, and turn it into something sweet and special.

He leans down, and our lips brush. It's short, but totally on purpose.

“I win,” I smirk, pulling him down for a deeper kiss.

I can practically feel the words behind his kiss. 'Now you have to tell me'.

“Renee” I whisper against his lips. Not embarrassing at all, I just wanted something to fuss over.

After a few more moments, the kiss getting more intense by the second, Zack pulls off of me, taking a shaky breath. He stays there, just breathing heavily with his eyes closed. I just stare up at him, making no move to kiss him again. He seems a little off, it's confusing me.

“Alright,” he sits up, clapping his hands together, “Let's do something. Preferably something for little kids and that has bright colors,”

Umm... Okay.

“What's up?” I ask, sitting beside him.

“Paint by Numbers!” he exclaims suddenly, getting up to find the children's coloring sheet.

I decide to go along with it, I can't try to force him to tell me. I didn't tell him for a long time, and he did tedious things like Paint by Number to help distract me.

I can't force him to tell me what he was thinking. He never did that to me.

I'm just returning the favor.

X

“Oh, hey,” Zack starts passively, sounding bored, “Here's a shocker. It's another giraffe,”

I examine the picture, all the yellow and brown filled in, “Except, I think this one has gloves instead of a scarf,” I comment, trying to make sense of the random splotches.

“Huh,” he says thoughtfully, looking at it once more, “It does.”

We sit in silence again, coloring on our pictures. As I reach for the yellow, Zack's hand brushes mine. I know it's so dumb to think about, but I think I felt electricity in his very touch. And I know it's also childish and something a middle schooler would do, but we shyly pulled our hands away, and mumble an apology at each other.

“Please!” Alex yells from the doorway, startling the both of us, “You're never going to get some action moving like that, Zack,”

If looks could kill...

“That's not what I want from Elina,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Of course that's what you want,” he tries to reason, “Otherwise you wouldn't be dating her,”

“Okay,” he agrees, and my heart drops to my knees. That is all he wanted, all along. I can't believe I trusted him.

“I do want that,” he only proves his point further, each syllable shattering my heart even further, “Of course I do,” I'm crying by now, but too horrified to move or ignore his words, “But it's the thing furthest from my mind when I think about being with her,”

My heart does a weird transition from being sunk down in my toes to leaping up into my throat.

“She's not ready for that step, and I respect it. I try not to think about being with her like that, because it won't happen for a while. It's not what either of us wants right now,”

Well, I never thought I'd see the day, but Alex shut up. Finally.

He grabs his jacket from the back of the couch, stating he has to take a phone call. Probably to Sierra.

Zack looks over at me, the first time since engaging the conversation with Alex. His face softens, and he wipes a few stray tears from my cheeks.

When he asks me what's wrong, I let out a short laugh, “That was such an emotional roller coaster,”

He says nothing else, but pulls me onto his lap and rocks me back and forth, playing with my hair.

“You know what I love about you?” It was my turn now.

“What's that?”

“I love the way you look at me and your face immediately softens. I love how you play with my hair, and how you kiss me, and your smile. I love how you care about your family, and your band, enough to sacrifice your happiness to be with them,” the list could have went on forever, but Zack cuts me short.

“They're the most important thing in the world to me. If I lived in California 24/7, I wouldn't be very happy without my family,”

“See?” I say, “That's exactly what I just said,”

“Yeah, but my way was more elaborate,”

We share a small laugh, and sigh back into the comfortable silence. The kind of silence I can only get being in Zack's arms.

“What happened...?” I ask, referring to earlier, on the bed. I think I already know, but I want him to say it out loud, want to hear it.

“I knew if I kept going...” he starts, after a moment's pause, “I wouldn't stop,”

“I would stop you, if I got uncomfortable,” I reassure.

“Would you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it yourself, you kind of checked out all those times. I don't want to go any farther than kissing, and even then it feels like I'm pushing it,” he explains.

“I know that I could stop you, if I asked. Don't compare yourself to them,”

“What if you just got scared, and didn't know what to do? I mean... the main problem is dominance, right?” he asks, “If you feel like I have all the control, you won't do anything to stop it. I don't want to go any farther than that, because you might just mentally check out because someone else is dominating you,”

When his rant is over, I sigh. The whole point is going over his head, but I guess it's understandable.

“Then,” I compromise, “I should be the one dominating? I should be on top?”

He thinks, “That could work out,”

“Well, then,” my voice lowers to a suggestive tone, “Should we test it out?”

His eyebrows shoot up a mile on his forehead, before he says, “That would be a great idea,”

X

The next morning, I wake up cuddled in Zack's arms. It's a sweet moment, and I don't want it to end. With the final days of tour approaching on us fast, we're soaking up all the time we can together. Every waking moment we can have alone, we try to use it wisely.

Not just kissing, but other things too. Like skateboarding. We went yesterday, and I only fell once. That was my fault, since I insisted on Zack going to do his own thing, instead of spotting me on the board. I was gaining speed, and wasn't very good on the brake system yet.

Luckily, I have a boyfriend who really cares about me. Enough to be watching the whole time, only pretending to do some tricks on his own board, some amount of feet away. He was running over before I hit the ground.

It was really embarrassing, sweet, funny, and painful, all at the same time. I've decided that the skateboard is my favorite thing on wheels, since it's Zack's, too, and I didn't really have an opinion on the subject before.

“Mmmm,” Zack moans quietly in his sleep. I trace meaningless designs on his chest, just passing time. Both his arms are wrapped completely around me, protecting me and warming me up. The only parts of our bodies that are touching, but still cold, are our feet.

We're close enough to be sharing one pillow. I calculate the years in my head. I don't know why I haven't figured this up before, but I'm only six years younger than Zack, after he has his next birthday. It's really not that long, considering. My mom and dad were nine years apart. Not that their marriage was really working.

That doesn't matter. What ruined their marriage, was the secrets. I know my parents would be divorced right now, if dad were still alive. What's different between us two couples, is Zack and I know how to talk to each other, let each other know how we're feeling.

It may take a little while on my part, but I get it out eventually. Mom and dad never did talk, after they fought, they just went on, and pretended like it didn't happen. Never talked about what made them mad, or tried to reason with each other.

The anger was eating them apart.

That won't happen to us, I decide. No matter what happens, or how bad a fight, we will always make up, and properly. And we will always try to understand both sides of the story, and talk about what made us mad.

I will learn from my parent's mistakes, unlike they did for themselves.

“Elina...” Zack says in his sleep, a smile springing to his face.

This makes me smile. Even in his dreams, he's smiling at me. Also, this means he's thinking of me, always. At least, when he sleeps, I catch his mind's eye.

I really do love him. I truly believe he was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Too bad I'll have to leave him soon.

X

When Zack finally wakes up, we just lay in bed, talking. Somehow, we get on the subject of my trip to California with him.

“I'm planning it already,” he explains animatedly, “Soon. Probably after Christmas,”

“When are you buying the tickets?”

“I don't know, sometime this week?”

“We could do it now,” I suggest, “I mean, we're not doing anything else,”

“Okay,” he agrees.

So we sit up, and Zack pulls out his laptop from it's carrying case beside the bed. After typing in a few things, and clicking stuff, we're at a screen with all flights from Baltimore to Phoenix, from today, all the way to October of the next year.

“Well, I don't think we need that much,” Zack adds, a little confused frown on his lips.

He enters in just January flights, “What day would work best for you?”

“Well, I'd have to talk it over with my band, but other than that, it doesn't really matter what day I choose,”

“Wait,” he says, “You're only a senior,”

“And?”

“What about school?”

“I take online classes,”

“Oh,” he pauses, “Then, how come I never see you doing them?”

“I do my assignments when I have nothing better to do while being trapped on the bus,” I explain.

“Yeah, that's what I would do, too,”

Browsing some more, we try to find a good time to depart for California, too.

“Well, you'll be arriving on January 3rd,” I trail off.

“I wanted to spend a few days there with you, see where you grew up, where you liked to go,”

“Okay, so we'll leave for Cali a few days after that?”

“How about the 6th?”

“That's fine by me,”

After a quick call to Ross, on speaker so the rest of the band can hear, we purchase the tickets, and the trip is planned almost a whole month in advance.

“When will we be leaving Cali?”

He shrugs, “Whenever you want to go back, I guess.”

I nod, the look on my face saying 'I like this idea', and get up to get ready for the bus ride to the venue.

I don't know why, but all this seems too good to be true. It seems like I don't get to have nice things like random trips to California with my boyfriend.

It seems like I don't even deserve a boyfriend like Zack. He's too good for me, and I know it.

But, most of all, I can't shake the nagging feeling that Zack just spent money on tickets that won't even be used. That something will happen to him, me, or us, to stop us from using them.

Instead of voicing my thoughts, I push them back to the rejects of my brains, sizing them up to be just nervous thoughts about being all alone with Zack for an unprecedented amount of time.

I know that I should have learned my lesson by now about doing that, but I didn't care in that moment. I just wanted them gone, because trying to understand them made my head hurt. And I didn't need things like these getting in the way with my final days with Zack.

Not final, though. We'll keep in touch, and we'll see each other on that trip. I'm sure that when Riley's cancer goes into remission, we'll go on tour again, possibly with All Time Low.

Definitely not final days, just the last ones for a little while. Just until after the holidays, the ones I don't even celebrate.

Not final, just... final for now.

We'll see each other again, I'm sure I would die if I didn't. I love Zack too much to never see him again. I always want to be with him, so I will. We just might have to be apart for a little while.