Silver Springs

When they had started out, they had been great. Lorelei had brought Gunnar to Mary Lou’s. They stole her mom’s wine and the three of them drank it on the back porch. It was cold. Mamie sat between them, but leaned into Gunnar. He was hard and smooth, like a rock.

But he was also too hard.

There were lines around his eyes because he was a stained kind of guy. Back then, Mamie thought it was romantic. But then it turned out that he wasn’t a boy she could save. –a boy who would drag her down with him.

But he was nice to her at this time. He laughed at all of her jokes, made faces of adoration at her when Lorelei wasn’t looking. And when the other girl had fallen asleep, in her parka in the lawn chair, Gunnar looked at Mamie and kissed her. Right there on her porch.

He took a bleary eyed Lorelei home and Mamie couldn’t stop smiling. She told Gunnar she’d see him later and she did. She was in her bed later that night and there was a little knock on her window. Hadn’t it been everything she had asked for? A boy throwing pebbles at her window? Her shaking her caramel hair out like Juliet? Oh, you like me? her expression would say in an apathetic kind of way.

But she giggled as she ran down her stairs and hugged Gunnar. “Mamie,” he said as she tittered off into his neck. He was laughing too because it had never happened this fast before. How could he like her so much? How could he not have known about her before this very night?

But he grabbed her and they ran to his black truck. They made out a little. Gunnar fumbled with her shirt because she looked like a sweet girl. She held his hand and said, “I like you, but I don’t know you.” He smiled and pulled away.

He said, “No, I get it.” They still took a drive and went to the end of the woods where there was a dilapidated tree. Gunnar had brought hot cocoa. He had thought this through; he was going to woo her.

And he did.

She sipped on the hot chocolate with stars in her eyes, she cuddled this stranger until it was dawn and then he took her home.

And she spent every day with him, from dusk till dawn, she was at his side. He took her fishing. She took him to her favorite art gallery. And then she lost her virginity to him. It was awkward because Gunnar had never had sex with a virgin and Mamie had never had sex with a person. But it happened.

Mamie cried and held her head in her hands at the foot of her bed because she was sad. It hadn’t been magical, it had been a little awkward and it had been painful. And she had done it; there was no turning back. Gunnar held her and thought it would be a perfect moment to tell her how he really felt about her. “I love you, Mary Lou.”

She looked up at him with her red eyes and looked around. The bed was disheveled and so was she and she thought, This is how it is supposed to be. Messed up, but happy, just like this.

She hugged him back and told him she loved him too.