How the Scene Plays

Author’s Note: The tense change is sort of intentional. Just so you know. It could be changed rather easily though, so let me know what you think about it.

How the Scene Plays

“Oh my god –I was so worried! Where have you been?” His voice sent chills. I hated that I had made him worry. I hated that note of fear in his voice.
“I’m sorry. I was going to call, but my phone was almost dead and I didn’t want to waste a call if I really needed to make one later,” I kissed his lips. “Are you mad?”
“You scared me. You know that I hate it when you insist on driving in this shitty weather.”
“Well, I can’t very well quit my job, Love.” I wrapped my arms around his waist. “I’m here now, so just relax okay? You’re always so tense.”
He sighed, wrapping his arms around me too and resting his head on my shoulder.
“Let me take care of you –just for a couple of hours?”
I smiled, “Take care of me?”
“Uh huh. For starters, lets’ get you out of these wet clothes. You’re going to catch a cold.” His fingers undid my belt and probed under the waistband of my khaki work pants, pushing them over my hips.
“Hey! Not in the living room!” I protested, swatting his hands away. “Cripes, you’re so…handsy!”
“Come upstairs then,” He suggested. His lips were soft against mine, sweet. “We’ll get naked and take a how shower together.”
“Tempting, but I never seem to get clean after a shower with you.” I teased.
“Getting dirty is half the fun,” He scoffed. “What do you say?”
“I dunno…I have laundry and schoolwork to finish. I don’t really have time—”
“You should make time to fool around. I’ll do your laundry for you tomorrow while you’re at work, and I’ll help you out with the school stuff when you get done.”
“Hmmm…You are infuriating, aren’t you? But sort of sweet. You just want to have sex.”
“Well, that’s part of it, but we don’t have to. If you don’t want to, just take a shower and crawl into bed. That would be okay too. I just want to be close to you… You scared me today. You were nearly an hour late, no phone call, no texts. None of your friends or even your Mom had heard from you.” He sighed heavily, hiding his face against my neck again. “I want you close. Where I know you’re OK.”
“Drama Queen!” I teased.
“Shut up. You’re so mean to me. You don’t have any horror stories from your journey for me, do you?”
“Err…not that you want to hear!” I smiled. Then I laughed when he grumbled deep down in his throat at me. He lifted his head.
“C’mon, lets go shower.”

The hot water felt good –rinsing away the day’s layer of grime and worry. I had managed to send him to the bedroom so I could spend a few relaxed minutes alone. I could hear him through the rhythmic pounding of the water, and the thin walls, putzing around in the bedroom. He was probably laying out clothes for me then. The short black shorts along with the one-size-too-small grey tank top that had a habit of riding up over my stomach while I slept. He likes me to wear these things, though I’m not sure why. Maybe he thinks that they make me sexy, but I don’t think so. If he thought I would go along with it, he’d ask me to sleep nude with him, but I won’t. I’m too self-conscious.
“Babe, are you almost done?” The voice came after a short knock and the creak of the door opening.
“Just gotta shave. Give me a few more minutes. Cripes.” I wasn’t really annoyed with him, but I let him think that I was.

In the bedroom, he played the voyeur while I got dressed. Then he gots up, taking the towel from me and scrubs my hair roughly with it. I laughed, tolerating the brutality for a minute before I yanked the towel away.
“Too rough,” I chided.
“My bad,” he shruged.

He follows me around like a puppy who wants to play while I throw my laundry into a basket and lug it down to our unfinished basement to load it into the washer. He helps me sort it out, teasing me about my underwear and adding just a little too much fabric softener to the load.
“Okay –laundry is done. What’s next?”
A glance at the clock and I give in to him. We go back upstairs for half an hour of play time. Afterwards, we’re only half-dressed, our bodies still warm and pressing lightly together with the sheets pulled around us. His breath is warm on my neck and I feel like I could stay in this bed forever. We hear the buzzer on the washer go off, even all of the way upstairs and I sigh. Back to business.
“Stay.” He pulls me back before scooting out of bed, pulling his boxers over his hips. I watch him move around the bed, listening for the sound of his footsteps once he’s out of sight. He’s gone for about fifteen minutes, and I get out of bed once to pull my clothes back on and turn up the heat a couple of notches before crawling back into bed.
“Clothes are in the dryer,” He kisses me as he crawls back into bed. “Hey –why’d you get dressed?”
I laugh at him again, “I still have work to do. Don’t worry, we can la here for a few more minutes.”
He sighs, sounding annoyed, “Fine.”
I curl up with my head against his chest and close my eyes.
Then without warning, I shift to sleep.

The next morning sends curses through the apartment. He tries to quiet me, but I still can’t help but be mad at myself. While I had actually gotten some decent sleep for once, my paper had continued to go unwritten and now it was Sunday Morning, with the prospect of work still looming.
“I told you I’d help you with it,” He reminds me.
I feel warm all of a sudden and I move to the thermostat to turn the heat down a few notches.
“You know that isn’t the problem.”
“Then what is?”
“I’m becoming to attached to you.” I turn to look at him and I recognize the expression of confused hurt on his face.
“What are you talking about?”
I sigh. It had gone on too long, this romance between the two of us.
“Did he ever tell you why we broke up?” We both knew who “he” was. My ex. His best friend and former roommate. We had met through him and gone out a few times behind his back when he still lived here before we decided to make a go of it.
“Not really, just that you grew apart. We’ve only been dating for a couple of months, babe. You can’t tell me we’re already growing apart!”
“That’s…that’s not what happened.” I sigh again. “I don’t like getting dependant on someone. I don’t like feeling this…this way.”
“What way? I don’t understand a thing you’re saying!”
“I don’t like feeling like I need you.”
“You don’t like the feeling of being in love, is that what you’re trying to say?”
I shrug, “Maybe that’s what it is. I don’t know…I’ve just never felt comfortable getting so close to someone. It’s like, it closes options to me.”
“What kind of options?”
I purse my lips for a moment, “You know when you start going out with someone, and it’s fun and care free, and then you get closer and closer to the person, so you start spending nights together, and then weekends, and you end up moving in together. Then suddenly you start talking about getting married, and having kids, and it’s like you’re completely tied to this person with no other life prospect ahead of you except this one person and this one life and there is no getting out of it unless you totally uproot the entire process.”
“Babe…” He shakes his head. “You can’t be afraid of life. That’s what happens –people fall in love, get married, have kids, grow old together.”
“But maybe I don’t want to do that!” I counter. “I want to have that option to leave you!”
“Why do you want to leave me?” He looks hurt again –the same look of hurt that I had seen on other boyfriends faces when I told them I couldn’t continue to see them. The same look of hurt that came when I told them that we were too close.
“I don’t want to! I want to have the option to!”
“Babe…you always have the option to leave me. I don’t want you to leave me, but…you can walk away from me any time you want. We can get closer, we can get married, we can have a family, and you can walk away if that’s what you need to do. But you can come back when you’re ready.”
“What if we do that –what if we stay together, and I walk. What happens to you then? What happens to our kids?”
“Babe, we don’t even have any kids.”
“Hypothetically, asshole,” I sneer.
“Then I’d take care of them until you came back.”
“And if I never came back? If I just left you with a couple of babies to raise on your own.”
“I’d have faith in you, and that would keep me going.” He pulled me into his arms. “This conversation is too serious –we’re only twenty, babe. We’ve got plenty of time before we’ve got to talk about a future together.”
His smell was intoxicating as he pressed his face against my neck, his lips brushing my throat. His fingers are cool as they move underneath the hem of my t-shirt. His arms are tight around my waist and he picks me up effortlessly a few inches off of the ground.
“Tell me you’re not leaving me.” He requests.
“I have to leave –I have to work in half an hour.”
“You know what I mean, smart ass.”
I smile, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, “No, I’m not leaving you. Not yet.”
“Promise me something.” He says, dropping me back to the floor.
“Yes?”
“When you do leave me…give me fair warning.”
I nod, “Can do, Love.”