We the North

Dear Mom,

There was a thing about feeling nothingness and that was that it never ceased to tease. I could see it, the happiness being wave in front of my face like a bone in front of a dog, but that didn’t mean I could get at it. He seemed so far away.



“Oh God, Meredith.” Sean moaned as I sucked on his earlobe. His hands were firmly planted on my ass while we sat on the couch, me on his lap and him holding me prisoner there.

He groaned again, pushing his hips up into my groined all while crushing me closer to him. He quickly pulled my lips back down to his, and I took my time in knotting my fingers into his shaggy cowlick styled hair.

His hands were freezing cold as they travelled up my spine to the clasp of my bra, and after fiddling with the clasp hopelessly, I let him in on the secret and undid it myself.

“You never wear bras.” He laughed, “What’s the occasion, Mer?” His hands, reached back down to the hem of my shirt out of habit, but I shook my head and grasped his hands in mine.

“It’s cold, the sweater stays.” I warned, my throat raspy from the lack of oxygen wavered, but he couldn’t take it off. Not today. There were still puck marks from the removal and he’d see it, and then he’d ask. And I couldn’t have him ask.

“Fine.” Sean replied a goofy smile on his face while he lifted up the front of my shirt and pulled it over his head too. I started to laugh, but it turned into a groan as his teeth found their way to my hardened nipples, and his hands slipped in elipses along my sides. And it felt…perfectly alright.

I bucked my hips, back into his and leaned my head back, feeling useless as both his mouth and hands were busy. With my eyes shut tight I dared to let out another groan that slipped over the atmosphere like a baby seal on ice.

Sean was my long time non-boyfriend boyfriend. He and I had been seeing each other, like this, since December of first year undergrad. And in a world that had quickly crumbled around my feet over Christmas time, he was my only support. Not that he even knew what had happened. Sean was clueless to most everything.

We’d been unofficial for nearly two years, and frankly, it was perfectly fine by me. It was what I had wanted, and what I had asked for. Sean was never the type of guy I’d of wanted to introduce to my family. My mother would have hated him. But he was someone who I felt comfortable around, he didn’t push me, and I often felt almost good around him. He could half fill a void that had developed from years of friendless childhood life.

“Don’t stop.” I groaned loving the contrast of temperatures between my warm sides and breasts against his frigid fingertips.

“As you wish.” He agreed, slipping my other breast into his mouth with such suction it was shocking.

“Yeah, Sean, don’t stop.” Chuckled a voice from the door, and in about two seconds I was off of Sean and pulling my sweatshirt back down so it would hopefully cover my body. I could feel my cheeks heating up, burning really, as I made contact with Tucker. “Did you get lots of exam prep done while we were gone?” He added laughingly.

“Hey, Tuck.” I gulped, watching as my hairy best friend entered his house, and plopped bags of groceries down on the kitchen table. “Whatcha got there?” I asked my voice going up a few octaves.

Sean just smiled before getting up off the couch and helping his other roommate, Corbin, that had just arrived at the front door with more food. The two of them shuffled into the kitchen to join Tucker.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom.” I muttered walking out of the room, my cheeks were no doubt flushed with blood, but none of them seemed to notice. They were busy talking about what was on sale at the grocery store, and what they could possibly attempt to cook without gaining food poisoning.

Once in the small powder room, I yanked off my sweatshirt and reclasped the bra with some difficulty, wincing as it snagged on the puckered skin of my shoulder blade where a malignant mass had been perched a little more than twenty-four hours ago. I didn’t bother looking over myself. I knew it was useless. The tattoos did a good enough job of covering up scars, and I suppose when this thing was fully healed in a few months I would be getting another one.

I stopped short of the door, accidentally catching a glimpse of my own eyes in the mirror. They were cold, grey like boring and ugly rock, and seemed totally depthless. They ran in the family though, same as cancer, expect my mom’s eyes were usually sparkling. She was jubilicent and it poured out of every crevice her body had. Every pore, every hair, every everything about her seeped with happiness. When you were with her, it was impossible not to take on that aurora.

“Are you flushing yourself down in there?” Corbin shouted banging on the door. “I have to take a leak, Mere.” He groaned and I laughingly stepped out of the bathroom hearing something about how girls were the worst bathroom mates ever.

I walked into the kitchen, joining Tucker and Sean while they put groceries away. It was mostly burgers, chips and pop. Varsity hockey players are the healthiest of healthy you see.

“Hey babe.” Sean smiled, wrapping his arms around my waist and planting kisses down my neck. “Want to go to my room?”

“Please do.” Tucker coughed. Throwing his bushy hair back up into a bun all while shaking the frost out of it. Tucker was usually more of a joker, or sarcastically begging to see more, but this was oddly out of character. “And people complain about gay couples making out in public.”

“This is our house Tucker.” Sean sighed waving his hands between himself, Tucker and the bathroom. “It’s hardly PDA.”

“I don’t want to watch you with my bestfriend.” Tucker frowned, uncapping a bottle of beer and leaning back onto the counter. “When’s Liza getting back, Mer?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Why’d she go home? She’s more of a studying freak then Dani.” Tucker paused, comparing my roommate to another good friend of ours. Liza was my bestfriend, she had been my roommate in first year and she was still my roommate two years later. She wasn’t in the same program as Tucker, Corbin and I. Instead, she was in some kind of English program with Sean. Dani on the other hand was in our program, but so was her inseparable boyfriend Kevin.

“She was feeling sick, said she wanted her family Doctor.” I shrugged, feeling Sean taking my hand and beginning to pull me from the kitchen and up the stairs.

“I hope she can face what’s got her down.” Tucker nodded watching – probably in relief – as Sean dragged me upstairs to his room.

“She’ll be fine! It’s just exam stress!” I shouted now running up the stairs with Sean. We entered his room as quickly as possible, and in the dark he closed and locked the dark.

I could hear the grin in his voice as he pulled me close. “Now, where were we?” He teased his hands slipping up my back to fiddle with the bra clasp. He was successful in that attempt as he picked me up and let me down onto his tiny single sized bed. “Are you too cold to take your pants off?” He asked, his mouth planting warm wet kisses up and down on my stomach. I shook my head, and he smiled before undoing both of our zippers and pulling a rubber out from his bedside table.

Fifteen-minutes later we were lying on our sides, him cradling me into his bare chest, and a thick woolen blanket pulled over our breathless bodies. Overall I’d say it felt slightly better then okay.

Sean was still preoccupied with planting kisses along my neck and running his fingers up and down in low sensual circles on my stomach. I was letting off little hums just for his encouragement, hoping silently that if I acted into it enough that I would actually like it. “What do you want for Christmas, Mer?” He asked softly, his other hand was braided into my snowy blond hair, carefully untangling the sex crazed knots.

“Since when do we buy each other Christmas presents?” I sighed trying to wiggle myself closer into him. He responded immediately, his arms tightening around my body as he sniffed the scent of shampoo out of my hair.

“We’ve been together for so long, I thought it might be nice.” He sighed, turning me to face him and planting a simplistic kiss on my forehead. “I feel like I’m ready for us to be more committed to each other.”

I looked over his face, this was something Sean had been bringing up more often then not lately, but I shook my head. “I don’t think I can do that,” I muttered, “sorry.”

He pulled me harder into his chest, not willing to argue, and just added a final insult to injury. “Could you at least spend the night?”

It took every muscle and every will in my body not to snap or scoff at him. I couldn’t stay the night, and not just because I wasn’t in love with him, and I wasn’t his girlfriend. It was way more then that. “Since when do I spend the night?”