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crash
noun. an eponymous cymbal, producing a short, sharp, explosive sound.
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WE PART BY LESS THAN an inch, breathing into each other. "Go on a date with me."
Bay shakes her head, lips pressed together, hands still wrapped around me. "I'd be the worst girlfriend. The more I'd love you, the more I'd punish you for making me feel that way."
"What?"
Bay inhales deeply. The motion makes her shoulders rise and fall, her eyelids drooping shut like she's ready to sleep. But when her eyes land on mine, she looks wide awake. "Do you know why I really started to hate you?"
She already told me; I had what she didn't have growing up. She resented my family's money, was threatened by my talent and sociability. "Haves and have-nots."
"It's not that," she whispers, shocking me. What else is there? "Do you remember when we kissed at Toby's party?" I nod my head, so close to her that my nose brushes across hers at the motion. "I don't usually feel anything when I kiss people, when I fuck them, when I vanish the next morning, but I felt something for you."
My heart leaps hearing that. Yes, yes, yes.
"It was huge and it was terrifying, and I knew I had to push you away for good. I'm not a good person, and I lashed out. Eight-year-old shit. Playground tactics. I'm cowardly and selfish. That's me. That's why I started this rivalry."
I'm not buying it. Bay tries to slip out of my grip, sliding sideways against the bed frame, but I plant both hands on the wooden railing.
"You think I don't know you by now?" I argue.
I think of all the random philosophical concepts, -isms and tangents she's been throwing at me each time we broach a vulnerable topic, whether it's my vulnerability or hers.
"I know that you want to turn your emotions into concepts and your life into abstractions and, fucking obviously, you lash out at people that threaten that detachment. You're the last person I'd ever put on a pedestal, so don't worry about me falling from the wrong height. I see you. And I still want you."
"Why?"
Because I love you. "Because you're vulnerable when you feel safe enough to be," I insist. I've seen it. There's softness and kindness and generosity in her. "You wouldn't hurt me. Not if I loved you right."
I believe this wholeheartedly. She showed me art museums from a different lens, she kept the birthday card. She forgave her mother. She took the freshmen under her wing, she stayed up with me, unpacking little hurts from my childhood, sharing the same from hers. Instead of attacking my wounds, she caressed them, comforted me. She's bared a piece of her heart for me, telling me all her origins and history. I would have never pegged Bay to do something like that.
There's sentiment inside her titanium walls, and I know she's been refusing to let the world see it for fear of getting hurt again.
Bay gives me a wan smile, not smug or unconvinced—just completely resigned to the impossibility of us. "But what if, tragic backstory aside, I am just cruel and cold and selfish? Consequentialism says a person is how they behave, not what they think or feel. Actions over good intentions."
"Stop philosophizing."
"Alright. Do you even like me as a person, or do you like the way I make your body feel?"
Like her? She doesn't even know. She has no idea how much I care about her. As if to prove her point, Bay rolls her hips, rubbing my growing erection with her lower body. A lightning bolt of arousal travels up my spine, and she smirks.
Bay leans into me and plants a lush kiss on my neck, sucking hard enough to bruise. I curl an arm around her waist, relishing her seeking fingers sliding underneath the hem of my sweatshirt and splaying over my abdomen. Fuck. It's been so long, I had no chance. I shrug out of all my top layers in one quick tug. She sheds her cardigan and long-sleeve, and when I touch her back with cold fingers, she shivers against me.
"Is there a difference?" I grit out. "Who you are, how I feel about you."
I snap open her bra and throw it behind myself, cupping a firm, silky breast in each hand. I flick my thumbs over her stiff nipples and watch Bay's eyelids flutter. When I'm this turned on, I can't articulate things. I can feel myself losing the argument the longer I'm in her disorienting presence because I'm this close to fucking her senseless, speechless. Conversation over, but it won't fix things.
"Yes, there's totally a difference," Bay posits. Lusty brown eyes watch me intently as her finger circles the brass button on my jeans. "I know you, too, Callum. You have these half-formed feelings for me and you want to chase them down like the next thrill in your life just to keep yourself distracted." She unbuttons and unzips my jeans, reaching inside my underwear to grip my cock. The arousal that sweeps over me is debilitating. "The feeling will fade when you find the next curiosity—"
"—it won't—"
"—since I've watched you for the last four years fuck your way through our cohort without maintaining a single proper relationship."
"You're different. I'm different," I say, but I can't back it up. And for someone like Bay, who relies on both statistical evidence and theoretical soundness, unproven words are empty words.
She pumps her hand along the length of me, perfect grip and tempo, just like the maestro she is. I watch her sink to the ground, tugging the waistband of my pants lower. My cock isn't in the open air for two seconds before she takes the tip of it into her mouth, sucking with ebbing pressure, cheeks hollowed out. The inside of her mouth is hot and soft like satin, pressure like a vice.
"Oh, my God," I moan, bracing both hands on her bed frame.
Bay slides three more inches past the tight ring of her lips, sliding her head back and forward as far as she can get. I can feel the wet flesh at the back of her mouth, the gentle flex of her throat. Still she takes more, more than she's ever attempted. I stay very, very still, afraid of making her choke. Her eyes don't ever leave mine, a victorious type of adoration beaming at me. You want me so much, don't you?
The crazy thing is I don't love her despite myself.
If someone took me back to fall and told me—the me that hated her—if you proceed, you're going to fall in love with Bay I think I would have still done everything the same. Maybe out of curiosity, like Bay is accusing, but also because I've never been in love before. I wouldn't have thought twice if Past Callum had had the assurance that there existed this great big adventure ahead of him, the assurance that there is a girl out there with whom he can spend all day doing nothing and still not get bored, that there is a feeling that will quieten all the uncertainties. All of them. And Bay is it.
I don't wish Bay had different values to match mine, or that she was less mean and less coarse and less pessimistic. I don't wish I had a slightly-tailored version of Bay to present to my brother and my parents, to make my life easier, or one that would buckle right now and agree to date me. I don't even wish the last four years had gone any differently. I wouldn't trade any memory or knowledge of her. I want the difficulty of her and the pain of her and the hatred, too.
I love her when she's like this. I just fucking love her.
She reaches up a hand to cup me and I sharply withdraw, knowing that her touch would tip me over the edge. I hook a finger underneath her chip and tip Bay's head back. Her lips are wet with saliva, eyes ringed with tears. Heaven in fucking hell.
"Get up," I grunt. She smirks at me, rising slightly to swipe my cock with her tongue. I suck in a breath. "Now."
When Bay is back on her feet, I turn her around and bend her over the bed. It's raised higher above the ground than most beds, creating storage underneath, with the wooden railing at hip height. I tug her sweatpants and panties down the sweet curve of her ass, slipping a hand between her legs.
"Fuck," I whisper, feeling all the slick wetness gathered in her folds. I slip a finger inside and gently stroke her. Bay moans under her breath and lets her head fall back against my shoulder. I keep fingering her, and she grips tightly onto me.
"Callum." She reaches back to hold my wrist. "I want it."
Fuck. I nearly weep. "I don't have a condom." I left the house in such a rush, all my thoughts on getting to Bay and unraveling why she was leaving me— I mean, the band.
"I think I have one." Bay straightens up and kicks her pants completely off, walking over to her shelves. She rummages around her basket of sanitary products until she pulls out a condom individually wrapped in cardboard. I raise my eyebrows, and she explains, "It's from Safe Sex Week. The hall did a contraception drive."
Not complaining that it's pink and (apparently) strawberry flavored, I sheathe myself and press myself against Bay's ass, relishing the blood throbbing so hard in me that it almost hurts. She's completely naked but not shivering, all the familiar contours of her body arranged in a masterpiece. I realize the railing pressing into her hips might be painful, and hold her by the hips, my fingers pressed between her body and the wood.
I bury myself in a smooth thrust, pressing until my hips meet her hot skin. We make identical sounds of surprise, of pleasure, a hitching gasp in the silent room. For a second, my eyes roll back, pleasure flooding my system. She's warm like a fireplace in winter, tight around my cock, and squeezing me rhythmically, as if requesting more movement. I haven't had this in nearly two months, and I never want to go without it again. I fuck her in languid strokes, trying to get as deep as I can, feeling the impact in my hands against the bed frame.
Bay arches her back, allowing me deeper access, and ecstasy blooms in every cell of my body. "Touch yourself," I command, and feel the twitch of her pussy when she starts rubbing her clit. "Good girl." Hearing that, she squeezes me even tighter.
The view is insane, the toned expanse of her back, the smattering of sunspots across her upper shoulders, her body stretched around me, glistening with wetness where my length disappears over and over inside her.
Her core is pulsing around me, each flex of Bay's muscles pulling me closer and closer to the edge. I would be worried about finishing before her if those sensations weren't themselves signs of her orgasm approaching, steadily accelerating. There's an impulse to fuck her faster and faster, but I pace myself until Bay gasps shrilly, moaning my name and hunches over. Her body trembles where I grip her tight, both hands going to prop herself up on the mattress.
I slide one arm up the plane of her torso, hand resting at the base of her throat, and pull her up to lean against me. She's moaning swear words now, one hand sliding back to tangle itself in my hair. Her orgasm breaks over me like a wave, my cock held in a vice grip as her body trembles in my arms.
Then, half out of her mind with pleasure, Bay mumbles, "Fuck, I missed you," and I come undone, slamming my hips deep into her, spending myself embedded in her slick heat. I release a shuddering sigh, feeling my cock twitching slower and slower.
Still buried inside her, I hug Bay from behind, kiss her shoulder, and whisper, "Why won't you give me a chance?"
Bay is silent for a long time, one hand tracing lazy shapes on my forearm. We should just stay like this forever. Let our bodies to the talking. Nothing would ever go wrong. "Remember the first time we got high together?"
"Yes." I remember everything about her. This was before we ever fucked, ever kissed. I came across her on campus after a shift at the Foxhole, insisted on walking her home, and we smoked behind the Philosophy building.
"You said you wouldn't fall in love just to fill a void; a relationship had to extend your life in some way."
"I still think that."
"Okay," Bay says, turning her head to meet my eyes. "I'll come back to band, I'll go on a date with you if you can answer this. How would I extend your life? Instead of just complicating it in a fun way. Be objective."
My lips part to answer.
My initial response is to say that this is not fair; my brain is thoroughly shut off, my body wrung out from sex.
I can't think of anything objective.
But maybe that's Bay's point. If I had thought everything through before rushing over here, chasing my own impulses, I would already have the answer. Bay deserves intention, forethought, awareness, and both of us know today didn't have any of that.
"I thought so," she says. "Don't worry. Whatever we feel is just because we had a bunch of good sex. It'll pass if we give it time."
The corners of my eyes sting. I don't want it to pass. I don't to ever say goodbye to her. Maybe that's selfish when she's laid out so many reasons she doesn't want to date me, concrete and substantial reasons, and I couldn't even give one in opposition except because I wanna, like a toddler. I wish wanting something enough would be enough.
I ease myself out of her and pull the condom off, depositing it where she points to a lined trash can underneath her desk. "So was this the last time?"
"It should be," she says. I huff a bitter, silent laugh. She doesn't deal in absolutes.
"If I knew it was the last time, I would have made it different."
Bay smiles knowingly. "Is it that we didn't stop on your terms, or that we're stopping?"
"I really hate you, Isabella." I think we both know what I really mean.
"Good," she says, leaning down to pick up my sweatshirt and t-shirt, all tangled together. She turns the garments the right way around so that I could slip into both layers in one go. "Hold onto that feeling."