So there wasn’t any rush, I told myself, as I got into the elevator alone.
When I got to my room, I called Rachel. I had to tell her everything. I had to tell her how cute he was, how sweet he was. I had to tell her the things he said, the way he looked at me. I had to relive it with someone who would understand just how exciting it all was.
And Rachel did understand; she understood completely.
“So when are you going to sleep with him? That’s my question,” she said. “Because it sounds like things got pretty steamy out there on the sidewalk. Maybe you should put a date on it, you know? Like, don’t sleep with him until you’ve been dating this many weeks or days or months.” She started laughing. “Or years, if that’s the way you want to play it.”
I told her I was just going to see what happened naturally.
“That is a terrible idea,” she told me. “You need a plan. What if you sleep with him too soon or too late?”
But I really didn’t think there was a too soon or too late. I was so confident about Ryan, so confident in myself, that something about it seemed foolproof. As if I could already tell that we were so good together we couldn’t mess it up if we tried.
And that brought me both an intense thrill and a deep calm.
? ? ?
When it did happen, Ryan and I were in his room. His roommate was out of town for the weekend. We hadn’t told each other that we loved each other yet, but it was obvious that we did.
I marveled at how well he understood my body. I didn’t need to tell him what I wanted. He knew. He knew how to kiss me. He knew where to put his hands, what to touch, how to touch it.
I had never understood the concept of making love before. It seemed cheesy and dramatic. But I got it then. It isn’t just about the movement. It’s about the way your heart swells when he gets close. The way his breath feels like a warm fire. It’s about the fact that your brain shuts down and your heart takes over.
I cared about nothing but the feel of him, the smell of him, the taste of him. I wanted more of him.
Afterward, we lay next to each other, naked and vulnerable but not feeling as if we were either. He grabbed my hand.
He said, “I have something I’m ready to say, but I don’t want you to think it’s because of what we just did.”
I knew what it was. We both knew what it was. “So say it later, then,” I said.
He looked disappointed by my answer, so I made myself clear.
“When you say it,” I told him, “I’ll say it back.”
He smiled, and then he was quiet for a minute. I actually thought he might have fallen asleep. But then he said, “This is good, isn’t it?”
I turned toward him. “Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
“No,” he said to me. “This is, like, perfect, what we have. We could get married someday.”
I thought of my grandparents, the only married couple I knew. I thought of the way my grandmother cut up my grandfather’s food sometimes when he was feeling too weak to do it himself.
“Someday,” I said. “Yeah.”
We were nineteen.