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“You’re exaggerating.” He laughed.
“You aren’t dying to be with me?”
“To kiss you. To touch you. To fuck you.”
“Same thing,” I said, defending myself with a grimace.
“It’s not, but you know that, right, babe?”
I nodded, but actually I didn’t know. I didn’t understand. Not yet.
92
_________
Leah
I had spent months with a five-hundred-piece puzzle in front of my nose, not knowing how to solve it, where all the pieces went. But little by little, it all started to come together. I guess there wasn’t just one moment; instead it was all my talks with Axel, looking at myself in the mirror, making decisions. With the passage of time, I saw myself more clearly, I took off my raincoat, and though the wounds still ached, I let them air out and heal. He came, love pulling on that invisible thread that had stirred up feelings I thought no longer existed. Routine, classes, listening to what people said around me. Painting, color, emotions to get out. And finally I found myself talking to Axel about my parents on the porch, remembering them and rescuing them from that place full of dust where I had kept them hidden for a year.
Everything went back to…normal. Life went on.
93
_________
Axel
It was the first saturday in October and Leah hadn’t gone to school; she’d had a break for the past few days. So we had killed time kissing each other all over, talking, staying up late at night, or trying new recipes in my little kitchen. In the afternoon, she would study for a while or draw, and I loved the feeling of watching her from my desk as she worked, so focused, so lost in thought.
That day I went by myself to surf for a while, and when I came back, she was crouched down on the porch painting with some watercolors she had bought with Blair on Wednesday. I liked that, her going out with her friend, hanging out with people, going back to being the girl she had been before, but with more layers.
I lay down beside her, still wet. The afternoon colored the sky orange.
“What you doing?”
“Just colors, mixing them.”
She took the heart-shaped sucker out of her mouth and bent over to give me a kiss. I held her there, bringing back her strawberry flavor on my tongue. She went on painting. I sighed and stayed there, relaxed. I closed my eyes, and at some point, sleep overtook me. When I awoke, she was sitting next to me with her legs crossed and dragging a fine brush over my hands.
“What are you doing?” I asked, groggy.
“Painting. You like?”
“Sure, what guy doesn’t like having daisies all over his hand?”
Leah laughed. She was light. She was happiness.
“I like it if it makes you laugh that way.”
The curve of her lips turned more pronounced. Leah slid the brush over the skin of my wrists, tracing out a small heart right where my pulse was beating faster and faster. I swallowed and stared at her.
“Remember the day I asked you if you realized I was going to die?”
Leah nodded and went on painting in silence.
“I couldn’t really explain to you what I wanted to say. The thing is, we’re all going to do it. Die, I mean. But do you know that? Have you thought about it; are you convinced of it? I think if we did think about it more, if right now we stopped and repeated to ourselves the absolute truth that we’re going to croak, maybe it would change things in our lives, maybe we’d get rid of the stuff that doesn’t make us happy, be more aware that every day might be our last. And I’ll bet you can’t guess what it is I can’t stop thinking about.”
She looked at me. The brush trembled in her hand.
