Wednesday, May 19, 2010

As long as we're together.

I wake up on the morning of my birthday; I don't remember which one right away. As the excitement and fears of another year wash over me, I make my way to the bathroom. I stub my toe on my dresser, and remind myself that it still needs to be moved an inch to the left. I hop/walk into the kitchen to make myself a cup of coffee, and there's a card waiting for me on the island, my named splayed on the envelope in the hurried, but beautiful, handwriting of my mother. Inside, it says, "Happy Birthday, daughter!" with $17 worth of lottery tickets. That's right, I think. I'm seventeen today. When I head back down the hallway to finally take my turn at a shower, my mother says, "Did you notice anything?" No, actually, I didn't, except for my damn dresser being an inch too close to my doorway. "Go back and look a little harder." Okay. Once I'm back in my room, I notice the vase with a single white rose inside. Next to it is a cd, and even from a few feet away, I recognize his handwriting. The songs are a mixture of old rock and new, soft and slow mingled with the hard and fast. "Jack and Diane" is number 14 and it makes me cry it's so perfect. Later, when we head to his lacrosse game in Canada, I put it in and replay it over and over again. At the game, I talk to his best friend Dan about their plans for the future. College. Sports. Dreams. He tells me how much Ben wishes I had my license; not that he doesn't like driving me around or anything, because he does. I tell him it's okay, I know, before he hurts himself from backpeddling so fast. He catches a ride home with us and I offer him the front seat (as usual). He declines (as usual). This has become customary for us. Comfortable. He's my boyfriend's best friend, and therefore a staple in my life. I like the way he makes me feel safe, the way he tells me how much Ben loves me every time he gets drunk. The leather of Ben's jeep sticks to me in the heat; it's unseasonably warm for April, but I don't care. In this moment, I am so happy I almost can't stand it. Ben reaches for my hand across the center console and grabs my pinky, then thinks better of it and rests his hand on my thigh. His sunglasses are on, but he looks at me anyway, as he sings Dispatch's "Carry You". We're driving fast now, and the wind whips my hair so that he can't really see my face either. Dan laughs in the backseat, and adds an off-key tenor to the chorus. While we wait at the border, he's talking on his phone and Ben seizes the moment of privacy, leans in for a kiss. He puts his forehead to mine and asks me if I had a good birthday. It was perfect, I say, giving him an eskimo kiss. In the last fifteen minutes of our drive, after we've dropped Dan off at home and promised to make it to the "rager" this weekend, I steal glances at Ben. He's smiling, and singing along with the music, and for a moment, just a moment, I want to run away. I want us to be together forever. It seems easy. We could sneak back home, pack our bags, and be a thousand miles away before our parents realized we were gone. I tell him this, and he agrees. Tells me about our future home and kids; the rustic log cabin with a double fireplace and a tin roof so that on nights when it rains, we can fall asleep to the sound. I tell him how ridiculous a log cabin will look with a tin roof, and he tells me he doesn't care. That we will be deliriously happy as long as we're together. As long as we're together.