Into the Light

She was the only girl he had ever seen.

Yes, he looked at other girls, been with other girls, touched, laughed, fucked other girls. But she was the only one he had ever seen, ever sees, as in the only girl who can freeze time, tip the world upside down, make his vision tunnel into one point: her. She’s a goddess, he thinks, and reflects further. Determination is what will get him out of this city, he reminds himself, and decides he needs practice.

Obsessive. He sets his friends out on reconnaissance missions, collecting data, information, anything he can use. She takes the bus. She likes sports. She has fourth period advanced biology with Todd Eppstein. She has friends. She’s fairly popular. The more he thinks about it, the more he wonders. How hasn’t he seen her before? How hasn’t this magnetic pull steered him in her direction before as he felt it did now? Whenever he caught glance of her he felt the vibrations in the pit of his stomach humming to join its polar opposite.

She is his opposite. He tries to catch conversations of hers. She’s bookish, smart, assertive but quiet. Helpful and kind. Gorgeous. He thinks that she must know the name of every single person in their grade because it’s the nice thing to do, and she’s a nice person, and she deserves the world. It makes him think of what he is. Decisive, determined, confident, rash, aggressive, insensitive, a user, a jock. The one who never calls back. She must already know this. He hears her bell of a laugh and he feels a lump in his throat that he can’t swallow away.



It was easy. Not as in she is easy, but it was easier for him, after so many weeks, months of torturing himself. He’s not the one to fall apart, he thinks, and he’s not the one to put in the effort. He’s not the one to seek out, he’s not the one to pine, he’s not the one to care. But he does, so now he is. Even his game takes a hit, and that’s not how he’s going to make it big, not how he’s going to make his way out, and this is the reasoning he gives himself to just do it already, you pussy, just do it, she’s just a girl, she’s not just a girl, she’s the most perfect girl in the world, and she deserves better, someone--

His feet are already carrying him to her. She’s at a table by the window and immersed in her book. This is how she spends her time when she is alone, or wants to be alone, he learns, and he loves it, because it gives him chances to memorize her without fear. He hears a pounding in his ears that match his step and somehow he makes the connection in the back of his mind that it sounds like a funeral march.

She doesn’t notice him at first. She must be at a particularly riveting episode, he comments to himself dryly, as he gives her a quick look-over. She looks delicate enough to break with just a glance, and yet she could crush him. Easily. When she finally looks up, she has the courtesy to cover her shock with a pleasant smile.

“Hi,” she says first. “Mike, right?”

“Are you free Friday?” he manages to sputter out before he loses his nerve. He realizes that without introduction and pleasantries, what he’s done is impolite and even presumptuous, and he feels the sweat bead beneath his shirt.

“Yeah,” she closes her book with a snap. “There’s a movie coming out that I want to see. Pick me up at eight?”

She doesn’t wait for him to respond. The bell rings and she picks up her bag to go to class, hair swishing with her stride. He feels dismayed that she doesn’t look back at him, but then he wonders how she knows that he can pick her up, and how she knows that he knows where she lives, and he smiles. The second bell goes off, but he’s hearing a buzzer, and he got the game-winning goal.

Friday plans get changed to Saturday, and when he calls her and she doesn’t ask him where he got her number from, he knows it’s fine. Hockey’s first, she acknowledges, she wishes him a good game, and points out that tickets are cheaper when it’s not opening night. She doesn’t ask to come watch; she says that she’s got a few assignments to work on and college applications to review. He’s so relieved, because he’s sure that if she were there he’d forget what color the puck is.



He’s not wrong, he decides. She’s everything he’s ever wanted. He was becoming unsure if he built her up in his head and would have to face the disaster of being mercilessly brought back to reality, but she doesn’t let it happen. She eats a burger instead of salad for dinner, she picks the candy that’s most likely to get stuck in her teeth at the concessions counter. She doesn’t try to talk to him through the movie she doesn’t try to make him hold her. But somehow, he wants to. Any other girl and he’d already have his hand in her lap, thumbing the buttons of her jeans. He reaches for her hand, instead brushing the rough pad of his thumb across her palm. She gives him a quick flick of attention. Smiles with her eyes. Gives a squeeze of the hand. Focuses back on the screen.

After the movie they decide on ice cream, and she picks a double scoop of the one that makes her tongue and her lips turn blue. She tries to share but he declines. She spins in slow circles in her high seat at the window bar while licking up her cone. He watches her mouth. They finish and head towards his car. He opens the door for her, feeling the awkwardness of something he’s never done before. When they’re both in, she looks him dead in the eye.

“You’ve never really taken a girl out before, have you?”

“I’ve taken girls out, sure.” Crumples the hair on the back of his head with his free hand.

“I mean someone closer to a girlfriend.”

She’s got him there. He averts her gaze and instead decides that the steering wheel has never been more interesting before. He feels her slide a hand over his shoulder, down his arm, taking his hand. He feels stupid for his body reacting to such an innocent touch, but she leaves a trail of fire and his fingers are burning. He looks up and she’s there, right there for the taking. They’re so close he can count eyelashes.

“It’s okay,” she says slowly, her mouth turning upwards into a smile. “There’s a first time for everything.”

He leans in the extra inch and captures her perfect blue lips for himself.



She’s fire, he realizes, but the smoldering kind. Red-hot to the touch but without looking it. At least, that’s what he’s thinking as she’s taking off his shirt. He feels like he’s known her forever, though they’ve only been together for months. She’s touching and kissing and sucking as if she already knows every single part of him too.

He’s in unfamiliar territory. Sex, he knew. But love was something else, and making love is in an entirely different galaxy. It was too gentle, too slow, the moans too soft for it to be anything he’d ever experienced before. But it feels so right, and he’s never waited before, never had anything like this before, and she’s the one and he’s thinking she’ll be the one forever--

He wonders for a moment if she’s ever been with anyone else like this, because he sure as hell hasn’t, but he pushes it out of his mind. He’d rather not know. He’d rather just stake his claim. He stops for a moment to look her in the eyes, wide and innocent, like she’s thinking she’s done something wrong. He knows this is right. He says it before he can even stop himself, and he kind of wants to, because this is such a fucking cliche that he knows he’s going to be embarrassed later, but the moment is too perfect, and he just lets it out.

“I love you.”

“I’m marrying you someday.” She means it to be offhand and silly, but it’s too breathless, and she looks too eager. It’s a promise. They’re only eighteen and he’s still just a boy and he’s waiting for warning bell. He wraps himself around her tighter and kisses her softer, from neck to hip.