WHY DOES IT MATTER IF I FIGHT IT?
Dez doesn’t buy herself lunch. We cover her because, after her Oscar-worthy performance as Mindy, the least she deserves is a free sandwich. We sit down to eat, and I scarf down my foot-long chipotle turkey sub in four minutes and then, because we decided it’s not going to cause mass addiction chaos to have Addy give us or phones back when we’re out and about, aka not in the house, go outside and call dad.
When the others finish, we drive around Nashville for a little bit then end up going back to the mansion to work on figuring out what to do next. I pick my teeth with a pine toothpick, but only because Elliot got the last mahogany one. Dez has my laptop in the Hamana, and though I can’t see her, I hear tap tap tap tap tap. Elliot is reading a Reader’s Digest about trout fishing and is making a bunch of “huh” noises.
Trey brings our dirty dinner dishes into the kitchen and washes them next to Addy. I watch them through the window. Addy smiles at him like I smile at Dez. He makes her laugh, and in turn she makes him laugh. They clean the dishes, pots, and pans together. Since Addy’s unofficially joined the KOV, he’s been different. Good different. Like Addy’s existence has made him grow out of his un-thoughtful horniness. They finish the dishes, and thinking that none of the porch dwellers are watching, Trey turns to her and goes in for a kiss. I wait for Addy to reject him, ready for the entertainment at his expense, but she lets him. Heck, she puts her arms on his shoulders and kisses him back.
My jaw drops.
She’s liked him all along.
Elliot notices my incredulousness and follows my line of sight. Then Dez notices us noticing. She turns, sees them, and goes to say something, but I bring a finger up to my mouth and shush her. As strange as it is, I want Addy to enjoy it. I want her not to feel pressure, silly, awkward, or anything besides happiness. After what she did for me, the way she loves me, I want whatever her and Trey have to last. I don’t want anything to scare her into running away. No more running away for the Hawthornes.
Addy and Trey break apart, all smiles. He grabs the phone and comes back onto the porch. I watch Dez and Elliot to make sure they go back to their business, and even though they’re conspicuously smiling, they do. Addy comes out a minute or so later.
“What’s with the face, Trey?” Addy asks. I look at him. His forehead’s wrinkled.
Elliot, Dez, and I could make a bunch of make out jokes right now. I, for one, have millions, but I don’t, so the other two don’t.
“There are three Mason Crowells in Nashville,” Trey says. “I’m sure we can find the right one, though. Should we just call them all?”
“Yeah,” Elliot says. “Use Adam’s ‘team of researchers’ excuse and tell him we’re looking to do an interview.”
“We could pretend like we’re doing an interview on racism in Nashville. I feel like cops are always looking for ways to get on the other side of racism.”
“Abuela Treybo with the win,” Addy says, plopping down on the rocking chair and pulling a random book off the table next to her.
“Do it,” Dez says. “That’s brilliant. It’s like, using systemic racism to battle racism. I love it so much.”
“Alright, I’ll be right back,” Trey says. “I have to call my parents first.”
I catch Addy’s eyes and give her a brother-like nod. Red spreads across her cheeks, but she smiles and goes back to her book.
Dez disappears back into the Hamana. “So, do we want to go check out more of downtown Nashville tonight? We don’t have much else to do so we might as well, right? Or we could go get more pie. Mmmmmm, pie.”
“I kind of just want another day to relax,” Elliot says. “How about we paint the town some color tomorrow? We can just chill and play games tonight.”
“Trey hates board games,” I say. “Remember the time we tried playing Apples to Apples? He shoved everything off the table after the second hand and we ended up going to Pritchett’s.”
“Maybe we should just make Trey play games for tonight’s entertainment,” Dez says. “That sounds more entertaining than anything else.”
Elliot snickers and then sticks his toothpick into the mesh screen behind his head. “Yeah, well, while you guys think about that, I’m going to take a nap.”
I hold up my hand like I’m in class.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s just a nap, right? You aren’t going to go do your thing? Because if you want to feel something that badly, I can just punch you in the balls and save you the trouble.”
“It’s a for-real nap. Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“Why couldn’t you have just pinky swore or something?” I ask.
“Not as funny.”
Once Elliot’s gone, I walk over to the Hamana and part the fabric. To my surprise, Dez is sleeping.
I miss being home with her. It’s nice being on a trip, but it feels too sensational to be normal. With her around, monotony is an adventure. We could go to Pritchett’s every day, sit in our normal booth, order the same milkshakes, and she can make it feel different and awesome every time. I lean down and kiss her. My lips touch hers and my entire body ripples with warmth.
“It didn’t work,” she says, eyes still closed.
So she’s not sleeping. I lay down next to her, wrapping my arm around her waist. “What?”
“Not engulfing each other with our unnatural disasterness.”
She’s nervous. She told me her secret and now she’s scared of our closeness. I get that. I felt exposed after I told her about the reason for my suspension.
I grab her hand, hoping it will ease her worry.
“What happens when we erupt?” she asks.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? That’s not possible. Name one natural disaster that hasn’t destroyed something, even if it was a small destruction.”
“Hurricanes that don’t make landfall.”
“I bet all kinds of fish and birds die in them.”
“Can you just, not think about us in terms of impending doom?”
She spins around to face me. Her body adds to the burning of mine. We’re like a bonfire in a hammock. A bonfammock.
“I know you think we can be more than addicts. I’m trying to believe that, but the reality is I’m letting myself consume you: kissing, going on dates. What happens when I’m ready to move on?”
“You could just be, you know, doing normal dating things.” I lower my voice, knowing that even though Addy probably isn’t paying attention, she’s still on the porch. “Dez, we just watched Trey and Addy make out. I bet Trey isn’t freaking out or worrying if he’s consuming her.”
“Well, maybe he should be. We’re addicts; we move to keep things whole.”
“No,” I say, “Dez, that’s not true. It’s only true because you think it is. You’re not even trying to think anything else. They’re just letting it happen, why can’t we?”
“How can I think anything else? This is me. Don’t you see the cycle?”
“I do see it, but we’re—”
“Variables.” She kisses me and then leans her forehead against mine. “I wish I had your strength.”
“Says the girl who created a separate identity to get information from a multi-million-dollar studio exec.”
“It’s not the same. That was just a manipulation technique I learned from my family. In the Coulter Mansion of American Waste, no one can survive without learning how to manipulate and twist. Another cycle. How will we ever be greater than our addictions?”
I’m getting sick of arguing about this. The more I argue about it, the more I wonder if Dez is right. I’ve never let myself believe we can’t change, but I think somewhere in the dark corners of my mind, I’m afraid I’ll realize it’s true. I don’t want to find out that I’m like a ghost trying to touch another ghost.
Adam = live human.
Adam ≠ ghost.
“Because we just are,” I say, hoping she’ll let it go.
“No, Adam, I’m serious. How can you be holy and broken at the same time? I need to know before I believe it.”
I let out a gigantic groan. I feel it rumble up from my chest and into my throat. “Right now, I feel a burn that comes from being here with you, touching you, kissing you. But, at the same time, I know I’ll eventually have to get up and leave you, and that’s a beautiful pain. You don’t believe we can be anything but consumers of each other. You believe you’re an addict before you’re Dez and that kills me. That’s the hurtful kind of pain. Somehow, there are two pains, good and bad, and I feel them both at the same time. I know it’s annoying to think about, but what if there are some things in the world that are just indefinable? Like, the existence of two contradictory things. We can’t know how they fit, but they do, and maybe it’s not up to us to know how.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
“For hurting you.”
I kiss her and close my eyes. “You’re forgiven. I’m sorry for all the times I’ve hurt you, too.”
“Just don’t stop burning.”
I hear Mr. Cratcher saying, I’m not sure if that will be my decision. I almost say it to her, but I decide taking a nap next to my blaze-of-light girlfriend, Dez Coulter, is a better idea.
—
We’re in the middle of a game of poker. We’re casting our bets with organic peanuts. Dez has bet me a make out session if I win, but if I lose, I have to sleep in the tent in my boxers without a sleeping bag.
The pressure to win’s tremendous.
This proposal has turned Trey and Elliot into monsters—and Addy into their instigator. I don’t think any of us have ever been this competitive in our lives, but right now, we feel like we’re in the Olympics. I put my cards down: three eights, one five of diamonds, and one queen of hearts.
Trey lets out a charismatic “Yes!” and puts down a full house.
I curse.
Addy laughs and claps.
“I’ll give you best two out of three,” Dez says with a smirk.
“Dez! We just got Adam in his boxers fair and square!” Trey yells. “You aren’t making it easy for us to beat this kid.”
She purses her lips and shrugs.
It’s. So. Sexy.
“Maybe I want him to win.”
Dez deals another hand, and as soon as Elliot picks up his cards, he says, “I’m all in.”
Dez looks at me, one eyebrow raised. She’s egging me on. I know it.
Addy taps my cards. “Let’s see your poker muscles. Don’t let him push you around like a rag doll, honey child.”
I stare at my pile of peanuts then at my cards. I have an ace and a five.
I stand. “Author Waller R. Newell once said, ‘We don’t need to reinvent manliness,’ but gentleman, Dez, Addy, I think Waller R. Newell is a bucket’a’bull. If manliness stays static, it gets buried in the dust of progressive humanity.” I pause to let the words sink in, but I know the only one who cares about what I’m saying is Dez, which is the point.
Dez lets out a deep breath and then starts fanning herself. “Is anyone else hot in here? Outside of Adam, I mean?”
“Therefore, in reinvented manliness, I take my hoard of peanuts and declare, I am all in.” I push my peanuts to the middle of the table. “Oh,” I look at Elliot. “I also declare, suck it.”
I throw my cards down.
—
Addy’s up in her room, and Trey and Elliot are out cold on their mattresses, but I peek through the Hamana fabric anyway just to make sure we’re alone. Dez’s hand slides under my shirt. A snap of wind alters the roar of the propane heater. There’s no way I’m sleeping in the tent in my boxers.
“I’m so glad you lost,” she whispers, pulling her head back to look at me.
“I’m not. That manliness speech deserved better.”
“That manliness speech is why I’m making out with you right now. Your quote usage was awesome. I should give you some of the first and last lines I’ve always wanted to use but can’t find a context for.”
“Like what?” I ask.
“Like, ‘I am dead, but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.’ That’s the first line from Warm Bodies by Issac Marion. I’ve had an even harder time with the first line of Voyager by Diana Gabaldon, ‘When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles.’”
“Those are pretty context-less unless you know zombies who are afraid of water.”
She nods. “Oh, thanks for flushing my pill stash.”
Zombies to pill stash. That’s a conversational jump I’d never thought I’d make. I thought she was just going to ignore the fact that the night we got back from our date, I took all the pills out of her tent and gave them to the bowels of Nashville.
“You finally noticed?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t have any more, right?”
“Nope.”
“You promise? We have to be honest with each other if we don’t want to kill each other with our volcano-ness.”
She looks right into my eyes. Unmoving. Unblinking. “I promise, Adam.”
“You doing all right?”
“Yeah, I’m not in withdrawal. I’d just gotten back into them. Like, the two you found in my pocket were the first ones in about a year.”
“Why did you bring them when we’re supposed to be breaking our vice habits?”
“Why did you bring your computer when we’re supposed to be breaking our vice habits?”
“Good question.”
“I’m back to flasking now.”
I rub my temples. Fighting porn is exhausting enough.
Dating someone who needs as much encouragement and help as me = exhausting2.
“Can we not think about that right now? You still owe me five more minutes.”
She stares into the fabric hanging above us. “You’re actually keeping count?”
“I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m just staying true to your allotted time, being a gentleman and all that junk.”
“How strange of you.”
“Shouldn’t I get points for the small things, like counting?”
“There aren’t many small things with you,” she says.
I smile. “I find it ironic you’re telling me that, but I guess we both have complexes against small things.”
“Are you about to do what I think you’re going to do? Because if you do, I won’t ever let you leave this hammock.”
“I mean, I was always obsessed with big things.”
She flips on top of me. “I’m warning you.”
“That’s why, ‘When I was small, I never wanted to step in puddles.’ I went straight for the ocean.”
“Adam Hawthorne.”
“Yeah?”
“Either marry me or kiss me.”
I don’t have a ring.
So I kiss her.
—
We make out until she falls asleep. By all accounts, I’m tired. People don’t talk about the calories you must burn in that intense of a make out session. I feel like I should boost my electrolytes with a Gatorade or carb up with a plate of pasta. I might if it weren’t four in the morning.
I tried falling asleep with Dez in the hammock, but it squeezed my shoulders so tight it made me feel like I was in a garbage compactor. So now I lay awake in my porch mattress, staring at Elliot drooling on himself, thinking about Dez Coulter. I want her. I want all of her in a way I can and can’t describe and it’s making me twitch and turn. My heart races at the thought of her naked under me. I turn in my mattress for the one hundred and eighth time. I look at the Hamana. Should I? Should I not? I see the silhouette of her body, her beautiful curves, and—and I love her.
And I love her.
I go through the steps in my mind. We find an empty room. I take off her shirt, and then her pants. It will be my first time, so I’m guessing it will be awkward. I try figuring out what happens after I get her pants off, but the No Pants stage is as foreign to me as feudal Japan and Ethiopian food. Sure, I’ve seen the act a million times, but that means nothing. Doctors aren’t doctors just because they’ve watched hours and hours of surgery videos on YouTube.
I take a deep breath and throw off my covers. I swing one leg out, but a question begins to echo over and over in my gut: how will having sex with Dez be any different than porn?
I stare at the ground for a moment, trying to find an answer.
I can’t.
Could we have sex without feeding addiction? Without consuming each other?
I’d like to think so, but that doesn’t mean I actually could. I cross my arms. My lack of action = cold wind making parts that need to be big, small.
I love her.
But right now my love equals consumption.
Just like she said it would.
I curse under my breath. Dez is right. We consume. It’s what we are. She doesn’t need someone to consume her body. Too many guys are willing to do that. She needs someone to love her.
Does love = walking away?
Can love ever = consumption?
Can sex ever = love for a porn addict?
Can sex ever = love for any addict?
Is there such a thing as broken and holy consumption?
Question after question.
Gust of cold wind after gust of cold wind.
I can never love her greater than. I’ll always want to consume her. A voice comes back into my head that’s been absent for the last two months.
Sees the problem now, does he, Masters? People only hurtses people. Gollum!
A tear falls down my cheek. I wipe it away, because I’m sure it will fall on the porch with the crash of history’s loudest heartbreak. I can’t see how this is true, but I feel it. I know what Dez is talking about now.
Adam and Dez = expiration date, and all we can do is enjoy the burn while it lasts.
I stand, walk into the house, and grab a phone off the counter not caring who’s it is. I start making a video playlist. If I’m always going to be an addict, why does it matter if I fight it?