November 9: A Novel

“Are you sure about this?”

He nods, but everything else about his demeanor says he’s not.

Half an hour ago, we were making out on the beach. Five minutes into our kiss, he sat straight up and announced he wanted a tattoo. “Tonight,” he said. “Right now.”

So here we are. He’s sitting in the chair, waiting on the tattoo artist, and I’m leaning against the wall, waiting for him to chicken out.

He won’t tell me what the tattoo means. He’s getting the word poetic across his left wrist, written inside a music staff. I don’t know why he won’t tell me the meaning behind it, but at least it’s not my name. I mean, I like the guy. A lot. But permanently inking a girl’s name into your skin is a pretty alpha-male thing to do this early on in a relationship. Especially on the wrist. And why did I just refer to this as a relationship?

Oh, God. What if that’s why he’s getting a tattoo? What if he’s trying to come off as more of a tough guy? I should probably warn him that he’s doing it wrong.

I clear my throat to get his attention. “Um. I hate to say this Ben, but a wrist tattoo of the word poetic isn’t very alpha-male. It’s quite the opposite, actually. You sure you don’t want to go with a skull? Some barbed wire? Something bloody, maybe?”

His lip curls up into a crooked grin. “Don’t worry, Fallon. I’m not doing this to impress girls.”

I don’t know why I love that answer as much as I do. The tattoo artist walks back into the room and points at Ben’s wrist where he drew the outline of the tattoo a few minutes earlier. “If you like the placement, we’ll get started.”

The tattoo is sketched in ink from one side of his wrist to the other. He nods and tells the guy he’s ready. Ben motions to me. “Can she sit in my lap and distract me?”

The guy shrugs, pulling Ben’s arm in front of him, but he says nothing. As soon as the thought begins to cross my mind that this guy is probably wondering what Ben is doing with someone who looks like I do, Ben interrupts my bout of insecurity. “Come here,” he says, patting his leg. “Distract me.”

I do what he says, but the only way I can sit on his lap is if I straddle him. At least I’m in jeans, but I still feel awkward that I’m sitting like this in the middle of a tattoo parlor. Ben’s hand comes to rest on my waist and he squeezes. I can hear the buzz of the needle and the slight difference in the sound once it presses into his skin. He doesn’t even make a face other than giving me a tiny smile. I do what I can to distract him, so I continue the small talk we shared on the beach.

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Malachite green.”

I make a face. “That’s a very specific green, but okay.”

“It’s what color your eyes are. Also happens to be my favorite mineral.”

“You have a favorite mineral?”

“Do now.”

I look down to avoid him seeing my embarrassed smile straight on. I feel his hand squeeze my waist again. I’m guessing the needle is distracting him more than I am, so I throw out another question.

“What’s your favorite food?”

“Pad Thai,” he says. “Yours?”

“Sushi. They’re almost the same thing.”

“Not even close,” he says.

“They’re both Asian food. What’s your favorite movie?”

“These questions are boring. Try harder.”

I drop my head back and look up at the ceiling while I think. “Okay, who was your first girlfriend?” I ask, bringing my eyes back to him.

“Brynn Fellows. I was thirteen.”

“I thought you said her name was Abitha.”

He grins. “You have a good memory.”

I raise a serious brow. “It’s not that I have a good memory, Ben. I’m just insanely jealous and unstable when it comes to your past loves.”

He laughs. “Abitha was the first girl I kissed. Not my first girlfriend. I was fifteen, dated her for a year.”

“Why’d you break up?”

“We were sixteen.” He says that like it’s a valid reason. He can see the question in my expression so he says, “That’s what you do when you’re dating at sixteen. You break up. What about you? Who was your first boyfriend?”

“Real or fake?”

“Either,” he says.

“You.” I watch his eyes closely to see if there’s pity in them, but it looks more like pride. “How many people have you slept with?”

He tightens his mouth. “Not answering that.”

“More than ten?”

“Nope.”

“Less than one?”

“Nope.”

“More than five?”

“I don’t kiss and tell.”

I laugh. “Yes you do. In five years, you’ll be telling the whole world about us in your book.”

“Four years,” he clarifies.

“When’s your birthday?” I ask him.

“When’s yours?”

“I asked you first.”

“But what if you’re older than me? Isn’t that a turnoff for girls? Dating guys younger than them?”

“Isn’t it a turnoff for guys to date girls with scars on over half their face?”

His hand squeezes my waist and he eyes me hard. “Fallon.” He says my name like it’s an entire lecture in itself.

“I was trying to be funny,” I say.

He doesn’t smile. “I don’t think self-deprecation is very funny.”

“That’s only because you aren’t the self who’s doing the deprecating.”

The corner of his mouth twitches as he tries to hold back his smile. “July Fourth,” he says. “The whole country celebrates my birthday every year. It’s quite epic.”

“July 25th, which means you are officially older than me. I can safely pursue you now and not be considered a cougar.”

He runs his hand up my waist a couple of inches, and then his thumb moves side to side, slowly. “You can’t pursue the willing, Fallon.”

Oh, dang. He deserves a kiss for that comment, but there’s a guy with a tattoo gun two feet away and I’m not the type of girl who would make out with a guy in public. Apparently I draw the line at straddling them.

“There’s something I need to know about you,” he says with a poignant stare. “And when I ask you this question, I want you to think very long and hard about the answer, because it might make or break this connection we have.”

I swallow hard. “Okay. What do you need to know?”

He winces, just a little, and I’m not sure if it’s from the tattoo gun or because he’s nervous to ask the question. “Okay,” he says. “If you could only listen to one band for the rest of your life, which band would you choose, and why?”

I instantly relax. This is easy. I thought he was about to dig a whole lot deeper than my favorite band.

“X Ambassadors.”

“Never heard of them,” he says.

“I’ve seen them twice,” the guy with the tattoo gun says. Ben and I both look at him, but he’s focused on his work.

I look back at Ben and arch my eyebrow. “Why would my favorite band make or break us?”

“A lot can be said about a person through their taste in music. Pretty sure I read that in one of the books you gave me. If you would have picked a band I hated, it would have been a major turnoff.”

“Well, you might still hate them once you listen to them, so we aren’t in the clear yet.”

“In that case, I’ll never listen to them,” he says confidently.

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

“What’s your favorite lyric by them?” he asks.

“It changes depending on my mood.”

“Well then, what’s your favorite lyric right now?”

I close my eyes briefly and hum one of the songs in my head until I get to the lyric that fits this moment. I open my eyes and smile. “You’re so gorgeous, ’cause you make me feel gorgeous.”

A faint smile works its way across his mouth. “I like that,” he says, brushing his thumb across the skin of my waist. We stare at each other for a while. I can see the rise of his chest becoming more prominent, and knowing he’s getting worked up despite having a needle piercing his skin makes me feel a little triumphant.

I think about maybe just leaning forward and giving him a small peck on the mouth, but before I can, the tattoo artist says, “Done!”

I slide off his lap and we look at the finished product before it’s bandaged up. It turned out great, but I still don’t know what prompted it or why he needed it tonight, but I’m glad I got to be here with him while he had it done.

He stands up and pulls his wallet out of his pocket to tip the guy. When he takes my hand in his to walk me to his car, every step I take grows heavier and heavier, because I know with each step, we’re closer to another goodbye.

On our drive to the airport, I’m on edge the entire way. I keep asking myself if this new urge to not want to get on that plane to go back to New York is a result of my feelings for Ben or for New York.

I know I told him at the beach that I’m happy in New York, but I’m still almost as unhappy there as I was here. I just don’t want him to know that. I’m hoping my involvement in the community theater will help me make a few more friends. After all, it’s only been one year. But it’s been a tough year. And as much as I tried to stick with the homework he gave me, going on audition after audition is exhausting when all I get are rejections. It makes me wonder if my father is right. I might be dreaming too big. And despite Ben having given me a lot of my confidence back, it doesn’t make an industry built on looks any less shallow.

And Broadway is so far out of my reach it’s laughable. The amount of people who show up for auditions makes me feel like a small ant in a massive colony. The only chance I probably have of standing out is if the role requires someone who actually has facial scars. And so far, I haven’t gotten that lucky.

“Do you need another dramatic airport scene?” he asks as we approach the terminal.

I laugh and tell him absolutely not, so he parks in the parking garage this time. Before we walk inside the airport, he pulls me to him. I can see sadness in his eyes and I know without a doubt he can see in my expression how much I don’t want to say goodbye. He trails the backs of his fingers down my cheek and I shiver.

“I’ll come to New York next year. Where do you want to meet?”

“In Brooklyn,” I tell him. “That’s where I live. I want to show you around my neighborhood and there’s this really great tapas restaurant you have to try.” I type the address to one of my favorite restaurants into his phone. I also type in the date and time, not that it’s easily forgotten. I hand it back to him.

He slides the phone in his back pocket and pulls me in for another hug. We hold the hug for at least two solid minutes, neither of us wanting to let go. His hand is cradled around the back of my head and I try to memorize how his hand feels there. I try to memorize how he smells just like the beach where we spent over three hours together tonight. I try to memorize how my mouth rests right at the height of his neck, as though his shoulders were made for me to rest my head on them.

I lean into him and kiss his neck. A soft peck and nothing more. He lifts my head off his shoulder, tilting my face up to his, scrolling over my features. “I thought I was tougher than a word,” he says. “But I just discovered that having to say goodbye to you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

I want to say, “Then beg me to stay,” but his mouth is on mine, and he’s kissing me, hard. He’s saying goodbye with the way his lips move over mine, the way his hands caress my cheeks, the way his mouth moves to my forehead and presses one single, gentle kiss right in the center of it before he releases me. He practically pushes away from me, as if putting distance between us will make this any easier. He walks backward until he’s at the edge of the curb, and all my words are lodged in my throat, so I press my lips tightly together and try not to let them loose. We stare at each other for several seconds, the pain in this goodbye evident in the air between us. And then he turns and jogs back toward the parking garage.

And I try not to cry, because that would be silly.

Right?

• • •

I’ve never liked window seats, so when I hear the woman in the aisle seat say something to the affect of hating aisle seats, I offer her mine.

I’m not scared of flying unless I’m looking out the window. And if I’m in a window seat, I feel I’m taking it for granted if I don’t look out the window. And then I spend the entire flight staring at the world below us and it makes me panic more than if I just don’t put myself in that position.

I set my purse beneath the seat in front of me and try to get comfortable. I’m relieved Ben is coming to New York next year because the flight from L.A. to New York is one of my least favorite things.

I close my eyes and hope I can get a few hours of sleep. I won’t have time to sleep before rehearsals tomorrow, and I would just sleep in, but tomorrow is opening day and I have to be there for the last rehearsal.

“Hey.”

I hear Ben’s voice and smile, because that means I’m definitely going to sleep just fine if I’m already confusing reality with dreams.

“Fallon.”

My eyes flick open. I look up to see Ben standing next to me. What in the ever loving hell?

I look at his hand and he’s holding a plane ticket.

I sit up straight. “What are you doing?”

Someone is trying to squeeze past him, so he moves to where he’s standing as close to me as he can get. When the man passes, Ben kneels down. “I forgot to give you homework for this year.” He hands me a folded sheet of paper. “I had to buy a plane ticket in order to get it to you before you took off, so that means you have to follow through with it or I’m out a lot of money for naught. And who actually says naught? Anyway. That’s all. Totally not an alpha-move, but whatever.”

I look at the paper in my hands and then back up at him. Did he seriously buy a plane ticket just to give me homework?

“You’re insane.”

He grins, but then has to stand again to let someone else pass. A flight attendant tells him he needs to clear the aisle and take his seat. He winks at me. “I better go before I get stuck on the plane.” He leans down and gives me a small peck on the lips.

I try to hide the flicker of sadness I know is evident in my eyes. I force a smile just before he turns and makes his way toward the exit. A flight attendant intercepts him and asks why he’s not in his seat. He mutters something about a family emergency, so she allows him to pass, but right before he’s out of my line of sight, he turns around and winks.

And then he’s gone.

Did that really just happen?

I look down at the paper in my hands and I’m nervous to even open it, wondering what homework assignment could possibly be worth the purchase of a plane ticket.

Fallon,

I lied. Kind of. I don’t have a lot of homework for you because I think you’re doing a good job at adulting. I mostly wanted to give you this letter because I wanted to thank you for showing up today. I forgot to thank you earlier. It sucks that you have to go a day without sleep, but it means a lot that you sacrificed that sleep to follow through with our arrangement. I’ll make it up to you next year, I promise. As for this year, there’s only one thing I want you to do.

Go visit your father.

I know, I know. He’s an asshole. But he’s the only father you have, and when you told me you haven’t spoken to him since last year, I couldn’t help but feel at fault for that. I feel guilty for the fight you guys got into because my butting in didn’t help matters. I should have stayed out of it, but had I stayed out of it, I wouldn’t have had the privilege of finding out what kind of panties you had on. So I guess I’m saying I don’t really regret butting in, but I do feel bad that maybe your relationship with your father wouldn’t be so strained had I just minded my own business. So for that, I think maybe you should give him another chance.

When I realized I forgot to ask you to do this one small thing, it was worth the $400 plane ticket I just had to buy. So don’t let me down, okay? Call him tomorrow. For me.

Next year, I want all the hours of November 9th I can get with you. Let’s meet an hour earlier and I’ll stay until midnight.

In the meantime, I hope you still get laughed at.

Ben

I read the note through again before folding it. I’m happy he’s no longer on the plane, because the smile on my face is embarrassing.

I can’t believe he just did that. And I can’t believe I’m going to suck it up and call my father tomorrow simply because Ben asked me to.

But even more than that, I’m in shock he spent that much money on a plane ticket just to give me this letter. That seems like more of a grand gesture than an inconsequential moment. And I love it just as much, if not more than the inconsequential things he does.

Maybe I don’t know the first thing about falling in love, because I’ve been telling myself I’m not falling for him yet. That it’s too soon.

But it’s not. What’s happening inside my heart right now is way too consequential to deny. I think I’ve been misjudging the whole concept of insta-love. Now if I can just figure out how we can finish these next few years with a happy ending.