|CHAPTER TWENTY ONE|

They say that people change over time. They say that when push comes to shove people can do the unexpected. I always thought that the change they were talking about would be groundbreaking, that all of a sudden somebody would wake up completely different from the person they had been before.

I was wrong. And, I guess that's why people seemed constant to me for the longest time.

It's gradual, like the way the ocean waves polish rocks along the shore. We forget that as we're changing and growing, so are the people around us. Maybe they're in sync, being altered by life the same way we are. Similarities and differences in experiences leave nuances in behaviors, so much or so little that we hardly ever notice or we suddenly start to drift.

I didn't notice how much the people in my life had changed in the past year until I lied in an unfamiliar bed in a Manhattan dorm room swallowed by the dark, unable to sleep.

It was just a tour, just a weekend stay at the university I would be attending in the fall. Meredith had made the seven hour trip with me, an impossible feat I thought I'd never witness, and left me uneasy and nervous in a crowd of high school seniors I may see on campus later that year.

I didn't think of myself as a shy person, I could get my way through uncomfortable situations just fine. In fact, this is an experience I had looked forward to my whole life, to be able to step into a crowd of unfamiliar faces and become invisible. But, as I made my way through the crowd to register, I found myself feeling lonely and lost.

And, while there were fun moments in the tour and good laughs with the girl whose dorm I was staying in, I began to get homesick. I began to miss the people I thought would be easy to say goodbye to-and I'd been there less than twenty-four hours.

That terrified me. I wondered what had happened to me, what I had done to make myself so vulnerable to change and new atmospheres.

Here I was these past months pushing for a relationship with my mother I never thought I would have. Here I had been falling in love. Here I had been establishing an identity in entirely the wrong place. That wasn't supposed to happen until after I'd left Ashwood Creek so that I could start fresh and make my own rules. I wasn't supposed to bring baggage-just snip the ties and find myself.

It felt awful disappointing lying in a bed that was too springy with my eyes trained on the grey ceiling, melting it into a void of my own insecurities as they flashed before my eyes. It was so confusing to want to hate something that you loved. It felt wrong to want to let go of Ashwood Creek.

I'd grown far too attached to perishable things.

I just wanted to numb the stabbing in my gut and clamp my hands over my ears to stop the little voice in the back of my head from telling me all the things I was afraid of hearing. I wanted to stop feeling so much.

And even though at home, in Ashwood Creek, I was happier than I had ever been, deep down inside I wished that I had never changed. I begged the ocean to stop rolling over the shore.

I knew in the beginning that staying attached to things would do this, but I also told myself that I could end it all without so much as a frown.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.

As I listened to my roommate snore, I decided that I didn't regret these past couple of months. I only wished it hadn't affected me with this much intensity because saying goodbye would sting like a slap across the cheek-or like a permanent ache in a once impenetrable heart.

I knew there was nothing left for me to hold back anymore because it would all hurt the same way in the end. All the work I did to protect myself had been in vain.

Like everyone else, I drove back home with my mother thinking about what the future held. Where there used to be solid ideas now stood a vast arena of obstacles I did not prepare for.

"Did you ever feel unprepared?" I asked Meredith as I watched the ever-changing landscape fly past. My fingers twisted in my lap tightly, turning the knuckles white.

"I knew what I wanted the final product to look like," she told me, her eyes trained on the road ahead of her. "That's the best you can do."

I glanced at her anxiously, watching the dark baby hairs near her face be blasted back by the fans of the air conditioning, and her chin lower from its usual authoritative pose. She looked over, catching the panic in the reflection of my eyes.

Her hand twitched on the steering wheel, trying to decide, and then suddenly she reached over and placed it over my knotted ones. "You're going to be fine. I raised you."

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When I saw Bash next, the librarian at the upstairs reception desk yelled at me for running in the building. And, well, I wasn't actually running, so I didn't really deserve that scolding as I jogged past her and began weaving through bookshelves until the faint squealing of the book cart forced me to a halt and Bash's chocolate melting voice was in my ears.

"Jovial?"

I turned on my toes, finding him leaning over the book cart in confusion.

I can't explain what made me do it, can't possibly begin to dissect what was going on in my head when I bounced down the aisle and threw myself at him with so much force that he backed into the adult romance bookshelf and knocked down a few novels.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa-"

Holding his face close, I stood on tip toes to silence him with my lips.

He responded hesitantly, kissing me back lightly until he pulled his face back and gazed down with a puzzled expression.

"What is in the air in Manhattan? I just fixed this shelf... "

I lowered myself onto flat feet and looked down at the mess I made, wincing. "I'm sorry. I just...missed you."

I watched as the expression on his face morphed from bewilderment to a genuine breathlessness that only his face could illustrate so perfectly. His eyes hooded for a brief moment before closing completely and recapturing my lips, kissing me softer than before and with a certain kind of beautiful, romantic honesty that can only be felt when people are in love.

It wasn't until he was backing me up against the opposite bookshelf that either of us remembered how very publically we were displaying our affection-especially in his place of employment.

He pulled back slowly, and I noticed that, like mine, his cheeks were a burning hue of crimson. He laughed at himself and buried his face into his shoulder.

"Sorry."

My hands were on his shoulders, eyes watching him flush and stutter about the same way he always did when he was embarrassed. A smile stretched across my face as I watched him back up and duck down to collect the fallen books.

"I'm sorry," I told him, bending down to help him. "That was me. You're working, I shouldn't have."

I helped him line the books back across the shelf. When we finished, he swiped his thumb across his bottom lip and smiled at me.

After a moment of us standing passion-charged in the deserted romance section of the library, he confidently stated, "You never say it, but you do."

"What's that?" I asked, feeling my breath catch in anticipation of what I knew he was going to say.

"I love you."

My heart hurt as it hammered in my chest, because despite all the things I could say, those three words never tumbled out. So, I tried a different combination of words.

"Well, I do."

He caught a length of my hair between his fingers and tucked it behind my ear, watching my heavy gaze. He could make me feel like I was melting into the floor or flying as high as a bird when he looked back at me that way. "I know."

I helped Bash finish up at work. We went into the office and finished collecting returned books, he ran the front desk while the other librarian took her lunch break, and he pulled me into deserted aisles to steal a kiss when he thought none of the librarians would notice. But, when he grabbed his coat from the back room, the lady behind the desk winked at me, and I knew that everyone here knew more than they let on.

It was late afternoon when we left and headed back to his apartment. Sunday never felt more threatening and peaceful all at once. I knew I would have to be back at Henry's before the night got too late, but I was determined to be with Bash as long as I could tonight.

"Greg won't be back until later. He's out with work friends, I guess," Bash told me as we entered his dark apartment. The nicotine smell was always faint to none when Greg was out.

That meant that when I stood next to Bash in the tiny entryway, I could smell only amber and detergent and dust from old books. Something felt very different about being alone with Bash today, something exciting that made my insides feel like cotton.

He shrugged out of his jacket and helped me out of mine, but the lights were still out and when he turned back around, he crowded me back against the wall-whether on accident, or on purpose, I don't know, but it made pulling him forward by his shirt easier.

His lips met mine with an intake of breath, and he fell forward, pressing a forearm against the wall beside my face to support himself. I felt him take a step forward between kisses, pressing closer to me so that I could feel his body against mine.

My head was spinning as he ducked his head down, tracing my jaw with his lips and pressing kisses down my neck. I opened my eyes to watch a bead of light slip between the door and the floor, tracing a broken pattern across the scuffed floor. My skin was warm, and every kiss he pressed to my neck felt like fire.

Smoothing my hair back, he brought himself back to eye level. My lips parted in anticipation, but he simply brushed his nose against mine and looked me in the eye.

"Hi," he whispered lowly, his lips pulling into a grin.

I felt as though I could run a marathon or jump off the highest cliff into the ocean below, but none of that could compare to the kind of adrenaline I felt coursing through my veins.

I barely managed to say it back. My eyes were too busy being drawn to his and my fingers too occupied tracing the edge of one of the buttons on his shirt.

"Tell me what you're feeling," he queried, his voice much lower than I was used to.

I shifted against the wall, knowing I'd made up my mind.

"While I was in Manhattan I realized that I shouldn't be wasting my time with you-it's too precious. I don't want to regret not putting everything I have into this relationship, Bash. You're a very particular kind of feeling. Nobody else will ever make me feel the way that you do..." He lowered his forehead to rest on my shoulder, and I thought I would collapse from the electricity that jolted within me. "I feel like now is perfect. Everything is perfect."

"Even though this isn't forever?"

I tugged lightly at the back of his hair so that he'd look up. "Is that okay?"

The shadows on his face and his long hair made his expression hard to read. "It's okay," he finally answered. "I love you."

I craned forward until our lips met again, and then it all fell into place. My fingers undid the buttons of his shirt and rolled the fabric off his shoulders. He unhooked my bra and I pulled it out of my sleeve, dropping it to the floor beside our bare feet. I could focus on nothing else but the sound of our breath, the pulling apart of lips, and the sound of clothing hitting the floor as we stumbled into his bedroom.

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Bash's curtains were open, allowing moonlight to illuminate our bare skin in the otherwise dark and silent bedroom. I ached a little, but watching him trace the lines of my open palm with his fingers distracted me enough that I didn't mind.

Sex isn't how they make it look in the movies. There's awkward giggles and moments where everything is completely out of sync. Sweat drips from foreheads. Someone slips or holds their breath or pulls the sheets until they unhook from the mattress. And, yes, it's a little weird.

But, tossed in with that weirdness is a blend of real emotion: trust, desire, love, wholeness.

Bash kissed my shoulder and wrapped me closer against him. With his chest against my back, I could feel our hearts beat together.

"Are you okay?"

He was using the simplest words he knew all day, and I was grateful for that because there's something to be said about easy, unembellished conversation: it's often times more powerful.

I looked over my shoulder. "I'm more than okay."

His hands wrapped against mine and squeezed tightly.

I always thought I would regret something like sex. Maybe it's because I was an accident. But, I never regretted this.

We were deeply in love, and that's all that mattered.