The Boy From Hot Ice

I don't know what I was thinking, fucking Jeremy in the bathroom like that in the middle of the school day. I was still pissed at him for his lack of sympathy, for moving on before I had the chance to convince him not to. And I guess he was still pissed at me for the whole Steve thing.
I wanted to talk to him about us. I wanted to either establish that we could be a couple again or reaffirm that we had no business being together. One or the other had to be true, and whichever it was, I was going to find out. I had to. I'd go crazy otherwise.
But I would have him come to my house to talk, and we'd get three sentences into it before we were rolling around in bed together. Or I would drive out to the woods and we'd end up doing it in the car. Or wherever we decided to go to talk, we didn't talk. We fucked. And it was amazing.
I guess it was all the passion between us. I mean, we had a history. We'd been in love. Now we were angry, rough with each other, calling each other filthy names while we touched. We fought for dominance, fought to be the one who had control, and most of the time, I gave in and let him take over. Being dominated was strangely intoxicating, and when it was him - it was more like a drug.
But as much as I loved the rough sex and the name-calling and the dirty looks from down the hall, I wasn't a slut. I never had been and I never would be. And in spite of Jeremy's new rough exterior I knew he wasn't either. Deep down inside I knew he was still the boy who loved music and walking on water. As the new year approached, a year that would bring us some of the biggest changes of our lives, I decided to discuss the matter of us with him, no matter what I had to do... or not do.
"You're meeting me for dinner," I told him, not giving him an option. "I'm taking you out for your birthday."
"I have plans on my birthday," he said coldly, slamming his locker door and walking away.
"Stop being such a prick," I told him, following after and stopping in front of him. "We'll go out tonight. Then you can spend your birthday however you want."
"Girls don't take me out, I take girls out."
"Fuck, Jeremy, will you just go to dinner wit me already?"
His eyes grew wide. "If I say yes, will you let me through?"
"Yes," I answered.
"God, you're annoying! Okay, fine. I'll pick you up at five."
I knew that meeting in a public place, somewhere with people around, somewhere far from any of our normal spots, the chances of us participating in an actual conversation were greater. I also chose a Thai restaurant, figuring the spicy, starchy foods might get rid of any horniness either of us might experience that evening.
He was late picking me up of course, but I marched to the car and we drove silently until we came upon the downtown district. He jumped out of the car and proceeded to walk straight to the restaurant. I don't know why I expected him to open my door for me.
We were seated in a dark corner, the kind of seat I was hoping we wouldn't get, but I figured it would still be alright since we were at least in no position to start fooling around now. Still silent, still adamantly angry with me, he sat and fumbled through the menu. I picked mine up, though I always ordered the same thing, and I used it as a way to look at him, appearing as though I was just choosing between the Pad Thai and the Pad Se Ew.
"I don't know what the hell is even good here," he said finally, grumpily, like an eighty-year-old man telling the neighbors to turn the music down.
"Just order what I order," I told him. "I have good taste."
"Not in everything," he said under his breath, but I heard him.
"Shut up."
"Don't tell me to shut up, dammit!"
I didn't want to raise my voice, so I stopped. He could tell by the look in my eye, though, just how infuriated I was, and the smart-ass smirk in the corner of his mouth made me want to punch him out right then and there.
We ordered, and we didn't start talking again until after the food had arrived. I wanted to start with small talk, you know, talk about how his family was, see if he was excited about graduation, all the stuff I used to be able to talk to him about without even thinking. But I couldn't. I would either have to get right down to it, or not discuss it at all.
"What's going on with us?" I asked finally, breaking a pregnant silence that had gone on way too long at this point.
"I knew it," he smiled. "I knew this wasn't just dinner!"
"Of course it isn't just dinner. We have to talk about this. You know we have to talk about this!"
"We have!" He almost shouted.
"No, we've started to, but every time we begin, it turns into something else. You know, I'll say something, and before I know it, your hand is on my thigh, or you have your arms around me, or I'm unbuttoning your shirt, or..."
I started to picture him with his shirt unbuttoned. It was a tempting thought indeed.
"... No! But that's not the point," I continued. "We need to actually discuss this without sex getting in the way."
He nodded and placed his fork back on his plate. He leaned back, his eyes looking squarely in mine, his jaw finishing up the last remnants of noodle in his mouth, and he crossed his arms before he spoke. "You've changed, Patch."
I didn't want to hear this from him. From Allison or Charlotte or Jenny or David, sure. But not from him. He was the only person who loved me the way I was before, the way I used to look, my quirky habits and strange hang-ups and love of boy bands. Now that so many of those things had changed - now that he had noticed they'd changed - I feared that his feelings for me, even about me, had changed as well.
"When you left," he said, "You were this innocent, youthful, beautiful thing, you know? You had all the answers. You were my safe place."
"And I'm none of that now," I said, my words trailing as I came to the sad realization.
"You're... you're not those things the way you used to be. I'm sure you're still innocent in some ways, but not in any ways I've seen. And you still make me happy, but only because I know I can have sex with you any time I want. The other things we used to do, like riding my bike or going to the music store or running on the lake... I can't imagine doing those things with you now. Not the way you are."
"Jeremy - "
"No, let me finish. You wanted me to talk to you about this, so I'm talking. I trusted you, Liz. I thought you'd be the last person in the world to let me down. I was sure you'd never, NEVER cheat on me, but there you were."
"Oh my god, Jeremy, how many times do I need t tell you I didn't cheat?"
"I saw you kissing him!"
"He kissed my cheek," I explained in vain. I knew he'd never believe that. I knew he had seen what he wanted to see and would accept nothing else as fact.
"Whatever, Liz, it doesn't matter. Truth is, I shouldn't have trusted you. You shouldn't have gotten that close to some other guy when you were there."
"You're not allowed to tell me who I can and can't get close to."
"I know. But you should have loved me enough not to get close to him. You should have decided on your own. I shouldn't have to tell you."
I now felt nauseated as I looked at the food in front of us. I felt nauseated in general I guess. He was right, but he also needed to put himself in my shoes. But I hated arguing with him. Maybe this was how it was meant to end.
"You should take me home," I told him.

We had gotten about halfway to my house before I couldn't hold the tears back anymore. And as they fell, I turned my head to look outside so I wouldn't have him see me crying. I tried to stay silent, tried to wipe them away subtly, tried to get them to stop before I said goodbye. But they didn't. And I know he must have seen them, heard my sniffling, noticed my hand moving to clear them. But I didn't look at him. It hurt to look at him now. It killed me to see the damage in his eyes that had resulted from my actions.
We pulled up to my house, and I reached for the car door. I wanted to pull it open, but my hand was shaking - all of me was shaking. Jeremy didn't say a word, didn't urge me to leave, didn't call me names or tell me to shut up. He just sat beside me as I wept, my wails becoming louder by the second. And as I couldn't control myself, I suddenly felt the familiar warmth of his arms around my shoulders, pulling me into him. His hands patted my hair out of my face, and his flannel shirt soaked my tears. He held me like that for a very long time, though I can't remember how long exactly, and he allowed me to sob for as long as I needed until I was left gasping for air, pressing my palms under my eyes to evict the last few tears from them.
"I'm okay now," I said finally, pulling myself from him. "Sorry."
"I - I don't want to be the guy who makes you cry," he said in a most pitiful voice.
"You can't help it. You have different feelings than I have."
"I think the problem is that we have the exact same feelings," he said. "But we both have different ways of dealing with them."
"No, that's not true. I love you, you don't love me. Simple as that."
"You think I don't love you? You really think that?"
Of course I did. If he loved me, he'd want to be with me, right?
"Liz, obviously I still love you. If I didn't love you, it wouldn't bother me to see you with someone else. If I didn't love you, I could actually bear to listen to your stories about Washington. If I didn't love you, I wouldn't be so damn insecure when I saw you with another guy. I love you, Patch. I love you so damn much it hurts. And that's why I can't be with you. It hurts. And I don't want it to hurt anymore, babe."
I looked into his eyes. "Call me babe again," I whispered.
"You're always my babe," he answered back.
"I told you I would love you always, remember?"
"I remember. Of course."
"It's true, you know. And maybe your instinct is to give up, but mine is to keep going. I'm not going to stop loving you just because it's getting tough."
He hugged me, tightly, lovingly, passionately. I recognized this hug as the one he used when words didn't do justice to the things he wanted to say.
"Can we give it one more try?" I asked.
As he let go slowly, he placed his lips to my forehead. I studied his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard, searching for words, maybe deciding how to let me down easy.
"Don't say anything right now," I told him. I was scared of what a hasty decision might be made while we were still fresh off of an argument.
"I - want to..."
"No, please," I stopped him. "Just come inside with me tonight. We can worry about this in the morning."
"You really think sex is the best idea right now?"
I shook my head. "No. But at least it'll make me feel better."
"It'll make you feel worse," he told me. "We either need to be together as a couple or not at all."
I laughed. That was exactly what I was thinking that day. We were frightfully similar in so many ways.
"Can we have lunch together tomorrow?" he asked.
"Lunch? Sure. But why?"
"Because I'm dying without you. And it's not like we have to get super serious about each other. It's just lunch."
I smiled at his ways, his sweet, simple ways. "I think I can commit to lunch," I answered.