Photographs of Graves

“How does this not bother you?” I asked, pulling on my shirt. The morning rays of the sun were shining white through the window, blinding me. Despite the light my thoughts were dark, lingering in a dark corner for the last hour or so. Graves mumbled something into his pillow.

“What?” he asked.

“I'm nineteen. You're twenty-five. How does it not bother you?”

“It's legal.” he rolled over again. Frustrated I slung my thong at his head. The elastic snapped as it left my fingers and hit the back of his head.

“Alright, alright,” he relented. A bit of his stubble was beginning to form again, which he rubbed at with one heavy hand. He sat up groggily. “Get your cute ass over here.”

I sat down next to him, taking back the red thong I'd flung at him and slipped it back on. Now that there was light out I felt like I had to maintain some decency. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“Babe, my father was ten years older than my mother. They married when she was twenty-one and he was thirty-one. When I lived with that kind of age difference I don't really feel much of a problem with you. It's also a lot more common in Europe.”

I thought about this for a moment before nodding. I stood, sliding out from under his arm, stretched, and began collecting my things.

“Where the hell are my pants?” I wondered. Graves pointed at a lamp from which my jeans were suspended. I pulled them down and slipped them on. Something was nagging at me, dragging me into a dark place I'd rather not be brought down into around him.

“Where are you going?” Graves got up, walking over to me naked and touching a hand to my back. He looked even better in the daytime.

“I, my dear Graves, am about to take the fabled Walk of Shame,” I smiled sweetly at him. “The earlier I go the fewer the witnesses.”

“Murph...”

“So I should probably get going. The sooner the better.”

“Murph...”

“Where's my other sock? Oh, over there.”

“Arden fucking Murphy.”

I froze as two arms wrapped tightly around my waist. He was warm. Hot. Burning. I felt something hard against my back.

“Is that a banana in your invisible pants or are you just happy to see me?” Yeah, that joke was lame. But I said it.

“Murph, I just don't want you to disappear now that we've had sex.” he murmured in my ear. I shuddered. “I know you can probably find another guy pretty damn easy, but just... Not until I'm gone. I'd rather you not go to another guy period, but I've got to keep it in perspective.”

“Dude, what?” I asked, whirling on him. “Dude! You're a fucking photojournalism legend! I might have been a good fuck for a campus visit, but why the hell would you keep me around. You can get fucking anyone, least of all a college student like me. What the hell are you playing at?”

“Murph, I want you. It's not just about how attractive you are physically, but, how you think. You're just brilliant. I want to keep you around.”

“No, just no.” A little part of me knew my anger was irrational, but that dark place inside of me came welling up in my chest like a geyser. “I'm not playing this game.”

“What game, Murph? What the hell are you talking about? Murph, talk to me -”

“This kind of stuff doesn't happen in real life. The college kid doesn't get the hot lecturer. I'm not falling for this.” I grabbed my satchel and slung it over my shoulder.

“Murph, what did I do?” Graves sounded almost panicked. I shook my head. I couldn't sympathize with him because I was ashamed. Lying awake last night I realized that I had chased something that wasn't real too far down a dangerous road. Graves was leaving tomorrow and I would be left with the hurt. I was ashamed.

Why would someone like him ever care about me? I was just another fuck. He probably picked up a new girl at each campus he spoke at. He had the ass and smile for it.

My thoughts grew darker and more paranoid with each disconnected thought, tainting the wonderful experience of the night previous. And it was me. All me. He hadn't done a damn thing to make me think this way besides being too good to be true.

I guess I couldn't accept something that came so easily. I wanted to be a war journalist, after all.

“Sorry. Sometimes I can be a little shit. I apologize.” I shifted, back to him. “I'll go now. Goodbye.”

“No, wait, fuck, Murph,” he shouted as I walked over to the door, “Dammit, babe, I meant it when I said you were my angel. Murph, I want to fall in love with you. Why won't you let me?”

I froze, although my mind sprinted out the door ahead of me. My hand was clammy against the doorknob.

In love with me.

“Because you're too good to be true,” I whispered before flinging open the door and departing, leaving decorated war photojournalist Theodore Graves naked and alone behind me.

~~

“You are such a dipshit.”

Zoe combed though my hair calmly, sitting on the lower bunk of our bunk bed while I sat on the floor. I wiped my eyes which had become dangerously moist and nodded.

“Yeah. I know.” I choked.

“Babe. You could have had a gorgeous, sexy, loving, semi-famous man, and you gave it all up because you got spooked. What the fuck, Ari?”

“Well you're the one who's good with guys, what do I do?”

“Go find the sexy fucker and get him back. That is, if you didn't completely humiliate and alienate him.”

“I dunno, Zoe. I just don't know.”

And I didn't. I wanted to love him, I wanted to be with him, I wanted to leave the fucking College of Xavier and go back with him to the Netherlands. But I couldn't. Why? Because I was scared shitless of getting close to someone that was so obviously too good to be true. He was too good to be true.

I just met him. I was already in so, so deep.

I just didn't know.