By Gabrielle Barnes
Shane might be better in bed. But, Colby is so gentle. He doesn’t make me laugh like Shane does. I could put Colby through the guillotine. His 5 o’clock shaven—Brad Pitt jawline would lose its color. Maybe a sky diving accident. He likes adventures. Dying might be Colby’s greatest one. No, I won’t imagine him in pieces, spread across the greens in New Zealand. He would love flying down, but he’d tense up at the end and die screaming. His relaxed smile would tighten. His big biceps would be flipped and confused. I couldn’t do that. Shane’s smile though, that mischievous, sexy smirk. And his other smile: the one where I make eye contact two seconds too long. When I hope he feels what I feel, and then hope he has no idea. The smile that knows what I’m thinking before I do. But, when Colby holds me, everything dissipates. I get to dream of nothing rather than running from lions, comets, and old men. Shane might die from a motorcycle accident anyway. He could die that way and get it over with now. But knowing him….he’d somehow survive, only missing one leg. He’d be the one legged wonder. The girls would want him even more. I’d regret that die-cision. Shane would like that. He’d laugh and I’d feel good. Better then when I lay in Colby’s arms. Maybe. I don’t know. Shane could die in a fire and then I’d have to love Colby.
It would be for the better. Remember that one time when Shane asked me to go on a run with him and I played it cool and shook my head all serious— eyebrows raised. We agreed we’d laugh too much. We’d end up walking, only to make fun of parents with white noses and their kids falling over sand castles. He said it’d be kinda like if we were to have sex. And I said, totally confident, “Thank god you finally brought this up… I feel the same way bro!” He walked out in his ragged old Jordan’s and went on that run. I stayed there twisting my rings and staring at the lime green porch fan we painted. I pictured us having sex as the hammock swung east to west. I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to. I still don’t know.
When he got back he was all riled up from listening to Ja-Rule pandora and jumped on me in the hammock. We shot high up as he tickled me in my weak spots. My mouth ached from looking at his.
Then Colby called and surprised me with a plane ticket to the Blue Ridge Mountains that weekend. He said he had a visa gift card his step mom gave him for Valentine’s Day. We could buy some groceries and wine and massage oil with it. I realized I hadn’t gotten him anything for Valentine’s day. I had been with Shane that day and we drank IPA and ate taco bell till we were sick. We passed out right there— the fire still lit on Santa Monica Beach. The ambers would spit out heat, like burned fairy dust, landing on me. But, I couldn’t move away from him. He woke up with my feet on his face, and said, “Nasty girl!” I fired back. “Get your face outta my feet, dude!”
Colby didn’t mind my feet. He’d crack my toes and I’d tell him how it reminded me of how Nana used to do it. And he’d say, “You probably had the wild same laugh. The one I crave in silence.” He really said that. He said it twice actually. Well pretty much like that. And I’d pull my feet back, like oh this one? And then laugh till he grabbed my feet again, trying to pull me closer. The laugh he said he loved too much. The one he desperately tried to get out of me.
All I did for him that day was send him a picture of me in a black lace bra and a pink bathing suit bottom. I put the bra on just for the picture. I took it in the Taco Bell bathroom—right in front of the mirror, moving around, very concentrated. I was determined to get the right angle. The lady who just took my gordita crunch order came in and yelled something, so I ran out screaming “Code Blue! Fuck!” Shane grabbed the fire sauce and I grabbed him by his jeans, as we sprinted to the beach. I showed him the picture there and he looked at me and back at the phone, eyes squinting like he didn’t believe me. “Wow, take a look at my monkey. Colby’s one lucky kid.” He walked off into the golden dusted ocean after that and I watched him walk out as far as he could stand. I took a fake picture of him with my hands to remember.
Colby texted me back saying, “You’re the most beautiful being I’ve ever seen.” He could even make me feel that way when I walked off the soccer field. Right after I’d played like one of the boys and felt like one, too.
“We could hike down from our cabin to the market and get vegetables for lasagna. And get moonshine and drink under the stars. Just me and you baby.” I told him I didn’t want anything more. And that I wanted to eat a Georgia peach, before anything else. We could even split it, I told him, all cute and sweet. And we did. I bought it with some spare change I found in my Chinese lantern purse. The man at the rusty organ truck handed it to me and I said, “Don’t you worry my love, I’ve got this one.” And he shook his head, like he wouldn’t let me pay for anything. He looked so grateful. For the peach and for me. “You’re my juicy Georgia peach” he told me. I gave him this questioning look and said, “You seriously look too good sometimes, you’re freakin me out…” His electric blue eyes and crisp haircut turned away, blushing. I perked up on my white converse to kiss him. He grabbed my hips and made his lips little to fit mine. I closed my eyes and pictured Shane. I didn’t mean to.
All I could think of was that time we shared an apple. The pink lady we snatched from my mom’s garden. We threw it back and forth on our bike ride to Indian Creek. We loved to play that game. We did it with everything. My jumbled up car keys. The bouncy balls at Big Lots. Goldfish we stole from 711. We always passed and caught whatever it was. It was perfect. We tried to do it in front of people so they could admire us. Just like our duet of that one song. I felt like we were made for each other. I think he felt that way too. I know he had to.
I’d throw it in front of his bike with tacky flames on it, the one he borrowed from my little brother, and he’d race to the spinning pink lady and catch it with his metal basket. We’d cheer and run through the trees, screaming— pretending to be monkeys. Till I’d lay down, barely making out the words, “Shane…stop, I’m gonna fucking pee on myself!” That’d just make him go crazy— jumping around me till I’d have to turn over to breathe. He’d climb up through the forest, kicking down bark and unlucky leaves. He’d get to the very top while I’d lay there watching. He’d look down at me, and I’d squint staring up at the sun; as it spread through my parted fingers covered in gold rings. His silhouette wrapped around me with the sun’s lose rays shooting around him. I could always make out his smile looking down at me.
Colby collected wood for the fireplace. I walked his exotic, white dog down the stream and through old town. She looked at me like I was her owner. And I’d say “That’s my sweet girl,” when she’d let little kids or grandparents rub her wet nose. People would say ,”What’s her name?” And I’d respond like she was mine. I knew she could be.
When I got back, he had Neil Young playing. It was my favorite song. He was holding a bottle of Jameson, singing to himself by the fire. I wanted to love him as much as he loved me.
I danced over slowly, mimicking the flames behind him. I moved closer to him, as nonchalant and seductive as I could. He took me in, all of me— into his broad chest and breathed me in. He kissed my eyelids a lot. I felt so old and safe and beautiful and boring. I got tired so I put on Shakey Graves and me and Shane’s song came on shuffle. I felt empty for a second. I only sang the girl part out loud to Colby. I sang out “I was trying to find that crystal ball,“ and acted like the folk singer we saw in Austin last summer. Swaying my hips and acting kinda shy. I could hear Shane’s raspy voice sing his part after mine. “You and I both know that the house is haunted.” The lyrics felt too real at that moment so I stopped singing them. The room felt ghostly. Colby lit some candles and I told him I needed to call my mom before she went to bed. It was only 9. I called Shane and we did our usual “Yo’s” back in forth to replace hellos. I asked him if he missed us. When we hung up he said, “Rock and Roll kid,” and my stomach dropped as I walked back into the cabin, smiling. Colby smiled back, hopeful, thinking it was for him.
We laid on a zebra skin blanket and looked up at the deer heads on the wall. I told him stories for each of their lives—really elaborate stuff. And how I’d like to be one after I die. He called me his dear after that. It was like our thing, but it always bothered me a little. When we woke up in the morning I told him I loved him as much as sunsets and salmon and New Zealand and he turned over a little teary eyed to write it down in his leather notebook.
He bought me a matching one. Mine had aqua waves on it. He saw me write in it every now and then. I wrote about him when he was there. Now it’s all the things I don’t want him to know about, wrapped up in this matching notebook he got me. It killed me to write in here, but I loved the note he wrote on the first page. “So you can record your meta thoughts, and travels, and see how unprecedented your imagination is, and remember to be happy when I’m not there.” I cried the first time I read it, alone at the creek. I loved him and hated it all at once. I knew it was perfect, but I didn’t hold it like my friends might. Not like the girls in the movies did. It dangled from my hand, close to dropping in the water.
Shane drove my jeep and me to this brewery where there was live music on Sundays. I bought us some beer called “Lil Ole Pill Pale Ale”, because we thought it was funny. I dipped my finger in his. Then he dipped his finger in mine and we both chugged them at once. He grabbed my hand and lead us through all the old hippies to the front. We fit right in with our floating spirits. We were more rambunctious and got called on stage to play tambourines. The singer yelled out, “Big thanks to our happy couple, y’all,” as we walked towards the grass past the crowed waving back at them. Shane grabbed someone’s lawn chairs. Our knees touched just enough. It felt like a heartbeat was in there. I leaned on his shoulder. He licked my cheek and I whispered “Weirdo” into his neck.
When we got to his driveway, he told me I could sleep over if I wanted. We drank rum from the bottle and sat on the porch under Christmas lights wrapped around his big wooden anchor. We got too drunk playing an UNO drinking game. His crazy black lab chased after us through the yard as we knocked down his tacky flamingo and gnome. The neighbors shhh’d us, but we didn’t care. I fell asleep in the hammock and he went to bed. In the morning I laid next to him with hangover groans. I walked back in using his toothbrush. After my final spit, he grabbed me from behind and looked into my eyes holding his hand on mine to get the tooth paste from it. Our pinkies intertwined and he nibbled mine out of the way. He used his tooth brush without washing it off or anything and I thought, he has to love me.
We ate some of his roommate’s eggs— I scrambled ’em up the way he likes it. I threw on an old Wu-tang shirt I found in his bed and walked out the back door. He ran out and said, “Just gonna eat and leave, huh?” I yelled back with my raspy voice, “What are friends for?” He said, “Get outta here.” And right before he shut the door he looked back and said “Hey, I love ya, kid.” I said it back just the same. I took the long way home so my eyes would be less red when I got to Colby’s. The sand dunes enclosed around me as I rode down the coast. I put on a playlist I made Shane for one of our road trips. The waves guided me back as the wind overpowered my voice, but I fought back, hoping he could hear me and know I meant them.
Shane moved back to Kansas City that fall. Colby and I ended up in the mountains like we’d always wanted. We talk on the phone every now and then, usually an hour longer than Colby knows. I laugh again until I cry. Until I have to turn over in the grass to breathe. I walk up the Amber trails with our dog after. Sometimes running till I can forget where I am. Like a monkey pretending to be a dear. At the top I cry again until I can’t breathe. I write it all in here. I’ll keep Shane in here with me, in Colby’s matching book about us. I’ll lay in bed with him when I get home and kiss him till I fall asleep and dream of nothing.
