the binding we were missing

we met at a bowling alley at my friend’s birthday party. he was her first cousin. he went to a different school than us, which somehow made him cooler. like he possessed some foreign knowledge we weren’t privy too. he was older. he could drive. we couldn’t. this held some weight in our minds. made him seem unattainable, although all that washed away the moment he said hello. 

i gave him my number. the next day, he took me to the movies. halfway through, he grabbed my hand. after, he kissed me. his lips tasted like candy. i didn’t know just how sweet lips could be, not until then. 

i wanted more. 

we started kissing a lot after that, in the back seat of his car, on my front porch, in downtown alleyways so nobody could see, as if we were doing something illegal. 

eventually, kissing wasn’t enough. i let him do more. that wasn’t enough either. i had to google the things he asked me to do, scour strange internet blogs detailing acts i never could have fathomed. and i did them all because i loved him. 

still, it was not enough. 

he told me this is the kind of problem people have when they love each other, that he knew the answer. he said the only thing still left for us to do would keep us stuck together. it was the binding we were missing, the glue on the shelf right in front of us. permanent, all we had to do was grab it. he told me a lot of things, but the thing i remember most was the way his eyes sparkled when he told me he loved me. i told myself a look like that would last forever. 

it didn’t. 

the night it happened, the sky was black, the stars hibernating. he picked me up in his car, a gray sedan with duct tape seats and a dimmed radio with a tangled auxiliary cord, spitting out the latest kygo song. “you look nice,” he said. 

“thanks,” i said, keeping my tone even. inside, i was beaming. i had put on mascara, a rare occasion for me; it meant everything to me that he noticed. his words always meant too much, his compliments rare. when it came to me, he preferred to fixate on the things that were missing. the holes in me, the fatal flaws he couldn’t bring himself to ignore. 

he pulled away from my house without waiting for me to put my seatbelt on, a detail i didn’t recall until a few weeks later. i had told my parents we were going to the movies; we went to sullivan lookout instead. he put the car in park, waited for the lights to turn off, for the other cars parked a few spots over to go on their way. i secretly hoped one chose to stay. 

when the last car drove away, he turned to me. “are you sure about this?” 

i said yes, though my voice wavered. how could i be sure about something i’d never done before? then again, he was undeniably certain. you don’t push for something that hard if you’re not. 

he told me we could take it slow. 

it was over before i even knew it began. 

of the act itself, i don’t remember much. it hurt, but it hurt more that he wouldn’t look at me when he was pushing himself inside. i wished he would grab for my hands, look into my eyes and make it seem like the binding he had promised it would be, an invisible string wrapping tightly around us until we couldn’t be torn apart. but his gaze was planted on the seat i was pressed against, his hands gripping the cushions like they were his lifeline. after, he rolled into the driver seat and buttoned his pants. i zipped my dress, straightened the fabric so it didn’t look so crumpled, and stared ahead, wondering how the city knew it was time to go to sleep. neither of us said anything for the longest time, avoiding any further touch like the other was infected with pox. after a while, he drove me home. he kissed me goodbye. said he loved me. i think i said it back. 

i cried when i went to sleep that night. i had always heard it would hurt. now, i knew. my body felt different, sure. but it was more than that. i felt like a piece of myself was drifting away in the wind, so high i couldn’t catch it anymore.