Ruined

October 27, 2012

I still have no idea how I convinced him to do this, but as Mom slides the giant foam suit over Jacob’s head, he catches my eye and sticks his tongue out at me. I grin back.

Soon enough, we are in costume—tweedle dee and tweedle dum. Lauren and Sadie were in the Alice in Wonderland play a few years back and these costumes have been sitting in our garage ever since. So when Jacob asked if I wanted to do a couples costume…

He takes my hand as we walk out of the church building in our ridiculous get-up, and leans down to close the nine-inch difference (when we started dating it was just four inches), putting his lips right next to my ear.

“I hope you know how much I love you.” He does a little skip and the costume jostles around him.

I giggle and try to hip check him, but we’re both so enclosed in foam fat costumes that we just kinda bounce off each other and end up grasping each other for balance and laughing so hard that we almost fall over anyway.

We retrieve our candy buckets and trunk-or-treat with the rest of the youth. Rose is dressed up as Merida from Brave, which is just perfect with her flaming orange hair. She shows us the bow she crafted up in the hour before the trunk-or-treat. Poppy makes root beer with dry ice and we all gather around, chatting. It may be October, but tonight just feels warm and cozy.

When the activity starts winding down, Jacob and I return to the random classroom where we changed into our costumes. It’s a team effort to get the costumes off and we’re laughing again and I just..

..didn’t realize that I was wearing nothing but spandex and a tank top under my costume. Those costumes are heavy.. and besides, I’d made sure to change into the costume before he arrived. Somewhere in the back of mind, I realize that the last person, the last boy, I was this undressed in front of was you.

   But, I mean, this is Jacob. He’s seen me in a swim suit every day of water polo and swim season. It shouldn’t be a big deal.

He bites his lip and lifts his eyes to mine and I can tell it is a big deal, at least to him.

He steps to me, wrapping me up with tender arms and I allow myself to be swept away. His lips brush away time and place and it’s surprising how little I care about the silly trunk-or-treat now.

I tense up when I feel an aching desperateness enter the kiss. He begins attacking my lips and I push away, surprised.

When I see his eyes, I know I’m in trouble.

The flash of black. The hunger. It will never stop.

He pulls me back into the kiss and I’m so frozen that I allow it. I’m vulnerable and at his mercy. I can’t stop it. It’s happening again.

No.

In a second, I’ve pushed him off of me, shoving him away with a hand against his chest. At first he thinks it’s shared passion, but when my lips remain mine, he realizes.

I see this, and the disappointment and anger at himself, the struggle to regain control, all flicker across his eyes in a couple of seconds. He knows. God, he must know. He lost control. It’s a matter of time for us now.

After a moment that stretches and pushes between us, his body relaxes. He pulls me against him, and for now I let him, and we hold each other until the shaking stops.