It's been forever
“I got in.”
Church slipped the news in between the mu shu pork and the fortune cookies. She was glad that he took her to a different restaurant other than McDonalds. Chicken McNuggets every other night was getting old. There were so many ketchup stains on her floor, colors varying from tomato-can red to a kind of a, a lightish red, she couldn’t remember exactly what color the carpet started out as.
“You what?” Tex demanded, unsure she had heard him properly.
“I got in.”
“You did?”
He looked slightly sheepish. He cracked his fortune cookie is quarters and then eighths, and then it was a crumble.
“That’s so great! I knew you would. How could you not?” She faked excitement, knowing what kind of a problem this would pose.
Ever since Church had hatched the idea of transferring to NYU from the University of Maryland, his grades had been faultless. Big problem.
“I just want to sleep beside you every night,” he had told her back in December. “That’s all I want.”
She knew he would get in. She knew he would make it work. That was how he was.
“What does it say?” he asked, pointing to the fortune cookie in her hand.
“ ‘Beware the prevalence of ideas,’ “ she read. She crunched on her cookie. “My lucky numbers are 4 and 237. How about yours?”
“ ‘You are sexy,’ “ he read.
“No way! It doesn’t say that! Let me see it!”
He smiled suggestively and handed it over.
It actually did say that. How unfair. “So what about the money?” she asked, tossing her fortune into the remains of the plum sauce.
“Well.”
“Not good?” She felt the sesame noodles climbing back up her esophagus.
“I got six thousand.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Dollars?”
“Dollars.”
She tried to think. The waiter slapped the bill down on their table without stopping.
“Out of twenty-two thousand.”
“Oh.”
“Not including room and board.”
“Oh.” She flicked her chopsticks around. “How come not more?”
“My stepfather has more money than you think.”
“But he doesn’t give you any of it,” Tex burst out. In her world, parents paid for college, and if they couldn’t cover it, they helped you get the loans to pay the difference. She had no parents. She wasn’t going to college. Why the hell else was she joining the military?
Church didn’t look bitter in the least. He didn’t even look irritated. What Tex thought of as a right, Church didn’t hope for. “I know. Yeah. But that’s how it works.”
“It’s not fair that they count his money against you. Can you explain that he’s not going to pay you anything?”
Church shrugged. “I’m saving.”
“How much have you got?”
“One hundred and seventy-nine.” He picked up the bill. She grabbed it from him. “I’ve got this.”
“No. I want to.”
“You’re saving.”
“I know, but I can save and also buy you dinner.”
“And take the bus up here almost every weekend and buy me CDs?” She didn’t mean to sound mad at him.
He took out his wallet. She saw a corner of the condom he’d stashed there three or four months ago. “So we’re ready when we’re ready,” he’d told her when she’d first noticed it. He fished out a bill - a twenty, crumpled and weary, as though it were the last of its kind.
“Come on. Please let me.” She got her wallet out too.
“Next time,” he said, getting up, leaving her clutching her extraneous wallet.
He always said that. His arms were around her as soon as they made it to the sidewalk. It surprised her that they could walk in that degree of embrace.
On the way up in the elevator they took advantage of being alone. As soon as they were inside her room, Church went to his duffel bag and unzipped it. “To celebrate,” he said, pulling out of bottle of wine.
“Wait,” she said, taking the wine and setting it down.
“What?”
“I, uh,” she began. Why did she always open her mouth when she had nothing to say?
“Is everything alright?” he asked, worry fuzzing the edges of his words.
“Yeah, everything’s great. Just great.”
Church waited patiently while Tex found words.
“I’m joining the army,” she breathed out.
“Oh?”
“And…” She scanned his eyes. “I want you to come with me.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I need a ride, and if you come, the whole money problem disappears. I know it’s not your first choice of how to spend the rest of your life, but it would mean so much to me.”
“All I want is to be with you.” His hand rose to meet her jaw as he gave her a weak smile.
He clapped his hands and said, “Well. Let’s celebrate.” He took the wine back from Tex.
She eyed the bottle and asked, “Where did you get that?”
He tried to look mysterious. “I found it someplace.”
“Like in your house?”
He laughed. “It was sitting around. It’s old.”
She picked it up and looked at it. It was red wine from 1997. “Very funny.”
“Hang on.” He disappeared down the hall and came back with a corkscrew and two plastic cups from small kitchen in her apartment. He didn’t really know how to use the corkscrew and neither did she. At last, laughing, they poked the cork into the wine bottle. First he poured two cups and then he put on a Beethoven CD, the fifth concerto for piano, which he knew she loved.
“It’s loud,” she said.
“Nobody’s here,” he said.
“Oh, yeah.”
They sat cross-legged, facing each other on the floor. When they touched cups, the soft plastic gave, making no sound.
“To us together,” she said, knowing how happy it made him by the flush of his skin. She felt shy all of a sudden. She wanted to say something ironic, but nothing came. She took a long drink of wine.
“Is it good?” he asked, pulling her feet to get her to come closer.
“I don’t know. Is it?”
He drank some more. “Tastes kind of old.”
“I think I like it,” she said. She liked all the things about that moment, and the wine went along with them.
“Here’s more.”
“You have some too.”
She turned and lay back against him, wine in her blood and music in her ears. She guessed there were people who lived their whole lives without getting this happy. That thought was the single note of unhappiness in her happiness.
He whistled along with the violins for a few bars. “I think this is the best night ever,” he said in a quiet voice, thinking her thoughts, as he often did.
“Except maybe the night of the pool.”
“Right.” He considered. “But I didn’t know you as much then. I thought I did, but now I know I didn’t. And imagine how it will feel next year or the one after?”
Church was unafraid to think of the future, believing she was in it. He talked about them when they were thirty as easily as when they were twenty. He talked about babies and who would get Tex’s extra-long second toe. He wanted all of it. He wasn’t afraid of saying so.
He liked to tell her his dreams, and he always dreamed in we. “Who’s we?” she asked the first time he recounted to her a long, complicated scenario.
He looked at her, perplexed, as though she was kidding around with him for no good reason. “You and me.”
It couldn’t keep getting better, Tex decided. It just couldn’t. There was some law of physics that prohibited it. Seriously, there was some kind of law. Conservation of joy. No joy could be added to the sum in the universe without some being taken away. They were taking more than their share as it was. Yes, she was a pessimist. She didn’t understand any of those weird quotes, either. Seriously, what’s with them? “It's like shooting fish in a bucket.” Come on, don't you think it would be hard to shoot a fish into the bucket? And that stupid quote, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Well, duh. It’s rolling.
He poured more wine. She realized in an indistinct way that she was getting drunk. She realized it on one level and felt it on another.
The bottle and the plastic cups were somehow shoved out of the way and now they were kissing on the linoleum floor.
The second movement of the concerto began, too beautiful for anything. “How about the bed?” she suggested faintly.
Usually she was the one who kept guard in these situations. She’d make the decision that they weren’t supposed to make love yet. They were both still virgins. He was more than ready, but she still wasn’t sure. And as much as he pleaded, he didn’t push; he was a gentlemen.
Now she pressed against him, her hips seeming to know what to do without even bothering with her brain. Her shirt was off without her quite noticing. Some time ago, Church had gotten the knack of her front-fastening bra.
She managed to free him of his shirt. There was nothing better than feeling his bare skin against hers, and those few fine hairs in the middle of his chest.
If he was doing this, she wondered vaguely, and she was doing that, who exactly was minding the store? Son of a bitch.
They were hurtling forward now, doing the things they often did, but faster and more. Her body wasn’t consulting her at all anymore. She wanted to be closer to him; she wanted him inside her.
She meant to stop. To say hang on, wait up. Just to think, at least. To get her whole self on board. But she couldn’t say stop. She didn’t want to. She wanted to feel him inside. He was so close now.
“Do we have…?” she began faintly.
“Yes,” he said almost before a word was out of her mouth. He fumbled for less than a second before locating the familiar condom and tearing it open.
“Do you want to…?”
“I don’t know….”
She loved him. She knew she did.
And then in a moment, simple and pure, they were together in a way they hadn’t been before.
A/N: I have so much stuff to cover that I’m just going to bullet it.
- Church’s college: I used two generic colleges here. They both live in Texas. Let’s just say that Church went to college out of town or online or something. Mmkay? Mmkay.
- A little of both Tex’s and Church’s back-story revealed here. Tex is an orphan. Church’s parents couldn’t afford much and they’re divorced. His step-dad is loaded and selfish.
- I know that both characters seem extremely OOC here. It’s before the army. Tex wasn’t as bitter and guarded (though she was pretty guarded here. Kinda. In other circumstances. But she was drunk and that’s her excuse.) Church’s anger, etc. came from breaking up with Tex and them going their separate ways in the army. Recall him saying “All I want is to be with you.” When he’s not with her, well, you know...
- Yes, Tex lives in an apartment. She’s an orphan. It’s like, super cheap and everything. She found money on the ground? Yeah, let’s go with that.
- Kay, night of the pool. I don’t want to reveal too much, ‘cause I might write this later and everythin’, but they spent a night in a pool in their underwear and NO, they didn’t do it, or they wouldn’t still both be virgins. I just needed some coverage there.
- I think that’s it. I hope there’s nothing else for you guys to complain about. NOW you are allowed to comment. <3
Church slipped the news in between the mu shu pork and the fortune cookies. She was glad that he took her to a different restaurant other than McDonalds. Chicken McNuggets every other night was getting old. There were so many ketchup stains on her floor, colors varying from tomato-can red to a kind of a, a lightish red, she couldn’t remember exactly what color the carpet started out as.
“You what?” Tex demanded, unsure she had heard him properly.
“I got in.”
“You did?”
He looked slightly sheepish. He cracked his fortune cookie is quarters and then eighths, and then it was a crumble.
“That’s so great! I knew you would. How could you not?” She faked excitement, knowing what kind of a problem this would pose.
Ever since Church had hatched the idea of transferring to NYU from the University of Maryland, his grades had been faultless. Big problem.
“I just want to sleep beside you every night,” he had told her back in December. “That’s all I want.”
She knew he would get in. She knew he would make it work. That was how he was.
“What does it say?” he asked, pointing to the fortune cookie in her hand.
“ ‘Beware the prevalence of ideas,’ “ she read. She crunched on her cookie. “My lucky numbers are 4 and 237. How about yours?”
“ ‘You are sexy,’ “ he read.
“No way! It doesn’t say that! Let me see it!”
He smiled suggestively and handed it over.
It actually did say that. How unfair. “So what about the money?” she asked, tossing her fortune into the remains of the plum sauce.
“Well.”
“Not good?” She felt the sesame noodles climbing back up her esophagus.
“I got six thousand.”
“Oh.” She swallowed. “Dollars?”
“Dollars.”
She tried to think. The waiter slapped the bill down on their table without stopping.
“Out of twenty-two thousand.”
“Oh.”
“Not including room and board.”
“Oh.” She flicked her chopsticks around. “How come not more?”
“My stepfather has more money than you think.”
“But he doesn’t give you any of it,” Tex burst out. In her world, parents paid for college, and if they couldn’t cover it, they helped you get the loans to pay the difference. She had no parents. She wasn’t going to college. Why the hell else was she joining the military?
Church didn’t look bitter in the least. He didn’t even look irritated. What Tex thought of as a right, Church didn’t hope for. “I know. Yeah. But that’s how it works.”
“It’s not fair that they count his money against you. Can you explain that he’s not going to pay you anything?”
Church shrugged. “I’m saving.”
“How much have you got?”
“One hundred and seventy-nine.” He picked up the bill. She grabbed it from him. “I’ve got this.”
“No. I want to.”
“You’re saving.”
“I know, but I can save and also buy you dinner.”
“And take the bus up here almost every weekend and buy me CDs?” She didn’t mean to sound mad at him.
He took out his wallet. She saw a corner of the condom he’d stashed there three or four months ago. “So we’re ready when we’re ready,” he’d told her when she’d first noticed it. He fished out a bill - a twenty, crumpled and weary, as though it were the last of its kind.
“Come on. Please let me.” She got her wallet out too.
“Next time,” he said, getting up, leaving her clutching her extraneous wallet.
He always said that. His arms were around her as soon as they made it to the sidewalk. It surprised her that they could walk in that degree of embrace.
On the way up in the elevator they took advantage of being alone. As soon as they were inside her room, Church went to his duffel bag and unzipped it. “To celebrate,” he said, pulling out of bottle of wine.
“Wait,” she said, taking the wine and setting it down.
“What?”
“I, uh,” she began. Why did she always open her mouth when she had nothing to say?
“Is everything alright?” he asked, worry fuzzing the edges of his words.
“Yeah, everything’s great. Just great.”
Church waited patiently while Tex found words.
“I’m joining the army,” she breathed out.
“Oh?”
“And…” She scanned his eyes. “I want you to come with me.”
“Oh.”
“Well, I need a ride, and if you come, the whole money problem disappears. I know it’s not your first choice of how to spend the rest of your life, but it would mean so much to me.”
“All I want is to be with you.” His hand rose to meet her jaw as he gave her a weak smile.
He clapped his hands and said, “Well. Let’s celebrate.” He took the wine back from Tex.
She eyed the bottle and asked, “Where did you get that?”
He tried to look mysterious. “I found it someplace.”
“Like in your house?”
He laughed. “It was sitting around. It’s old.”
She picked it up and looked at it. It was red wine from 1997. “Very funny.”
“Hang on.” He disappeared down the hall and came back with a corkscrew and two plastic cups from small kitchen in her apartment. He didn’t really know how to use the corkscrew and neither did she. At last, laughing, they poked the cork into the wine bottle. First he poured two cups and then he put on a Beethoven CD, the fifth concerto for piano, which he knew she loved.
“It’s loud,” she said.
“Nobody’s here,” he said.
“Oh, yeah.”
They sat cross-legged, facing each other on the floor. When they touched cups, the soft plastic gave, making no sound.
“To us together,” she said, knowing how happy it made him by the flush of his skin. She felt shy all of a sudden. She wanted to say something ironic, but nothing came. She took a long drink of wine.
“Is it good?” he asked, pulling her feet to get her to come closer.
“I don’t know. Is it?”
He drank some more. “Tastes kind of old.”
“I think I like it,” she said. She liked all the things about that moment, and the wine went along with them.
“Here’s more.”
“You have some too.”
She turned and lay back against him, wine in her blood and music in her ears. She guessed there were people who lived their whole lives without getting this happy. That thought was the single note of unhappiness in her happiness.
He whistled along with the violins for a few bars. “I think this is the best night ever,” he said in a quiet voice, thinking her thoughts, as he often did.
“Except maybe the night of the pool.”
“Right.” He considered. “But I didn’t know you as much then. I thought I did, but now I know I didn’t. And imagine how it will feel next year or the one after?”
Church was unafraid to think of the future, believing she was in it. He talked about them when they were thirty as easily as when they were twenty. He talked about babies and who would get Tex’s extra-long second toe. He wanted all of it. He wasn’t afraid of saying so.
He liked to tell her his dreams, and he always dreamed in we. “Who’s we?” she asked the first time he recounted to her a long, complicated scenario.
He looked at her, perplexed, as though she was kidding around with him for no good reason. “You and me.”
It couldn’t keep getting better, Tex decided. It just couldn’t. There was some law of physics that prohibited it. Seriously, there was some kind of law. Conservation of joy. No joy could be added to the sum in the universe without some being taken away. They were taking more than their share as it was. Yes, she was a pessimist. She didn’t understand any of those weird quotes, either. Seriously, what’s with them? “It's like shooting fish in a bucket.” Come on, don't you think it would be hard to shoot a fish into the bucket? And that stupid quote, “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” Well, duh. It’s rolling.
He poured more wine. She realized in an indistinct way that she was getting drunk. She realized it on one level and felt it on another.
The bottle and the plastic cups were somehow shoved out of the way and now they were kissing on the linoleum floor.
The second movement of the concerto began, too beautiful for anything. “How about the bed?” she suggested faintly.
Usually she was the one who kept guard in these situations. She’d make the decision that they weren’t supposed to make love yet. They were both still virgins. He was more than ready, but she still wasn’t sure. And as much as he pleaded, he didn’t push; he was a gentlemen.
Now she pressed against him, her hips seeming to know what to do without even bothering with her brain. Her shirt was off without her quite noticing. Some time ago, Church had gotten the knack of her front-fastening bra.
She managed to free him of his shirt. There was nothing better than feeling his bare skin against hers, and those few fine hairs in the middle of his chest.
If he was doing this, she wondered vaguely, and she was doing that, who exactly was minding the store? Son of a bitch.
They were hurtling forward now, doing the things they often did, but faster and more. Her body wasn’t consulting her at all anymore. She wanted to be closer to him; she wanted him inside her.
She meant to stop. To say hang on, wait up. Just to think, at least. To get her whole self on board. But she couldn’t say stop. She didn’t want to. She wanted to feel him inside. He was so close now.
“Do we have…?” she began faintly.
“Yes,” he said almost before a word was out of her mouth. He fumbled for less than a second before locating the familiar condom and tearing it open.
“Do you want to…?”
“I don’t know….”
She loved him. She knew she did.
And then in a moment, simple and pure, they were together in a way they hadn’t been before.
A/N: I have so much stuff to cover that I’m just going to bullet it.
- Church’s college: I used two generic colleges here. They both live in Texas. Let’s just say that Church went to college out of town or online or something. Mmkay? Mmkay.
- A little of both Tex’s and Church’s back-story revealed here. Tex is an orphan. Church’s parents couldn’t afford much and they’re divorced. His step-dad is loaded and selfish.
- I know that both characters seem extremely OOC here. It’s before the army. Tex wasn’t as bitter and guarded (though she was pretty guarded here. Kinda. In other circumstances. But she was drunk and that’s her excuse.) Church’s anger, etc. came from breaking up with Tex and them going their separate ways in the army. Recall him saying “All I want is to be with you.” When he’s not with her, well, you know...
- Yes, Tex lives in an apartment. She’s an orphan. It’s like, super cheap and everything. She found money on the ground? Yeah, let’s go with that.
- Kay, night of the pool. I don’t want to reveal too much, ‘cause I might write this later and everythin’, but they spent a night in a pool in their underwear and NO, they didn’t do it, or they wouldn’t still both be virgins. I just needed some coverage there.
- I think that’s it. I hope there’s nothing else for you guys to complain about. NOW you are allowed to comment. <3