“You’re here now.”
We watch the sunset for several minutes, letting ourselves believe we’re together in this moment, sharing this same space.
“I always wanted you,” he says after a long moment of us just sitting there.
“Don’t lie to me,” I say. “Myfriendwouldn’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying to you. I wanted you then, and I still want you—if you’ll have me.”
“Then why did you push me away?”
“I didn’t think I was good enough for you,” he admits easily. Too easy for my comfort. “And because I knew you didn’t love me back. Not back then.”
“Karl, I—”
“Shhh. I know, doll. I know you had feelings for me.”
“And you turned down sex because . . .?”
“I really wanted you to love me back before we took that step. I’ll admit, I was giving in that last time, but then you said . . . you said you wanted someone with experience.”
We’re still not looking at each other, and somehow, I think we’re both afraid to look in the others’ eyes, to confirm what’s there. We’re both afraid of the same thing, I realize. He’s afraid I no longer want him, I’m afraid he no longer wants me—we’re both insecure about a love I’m certain we both feel and should be confident in, but for some reason, we can’t be.
Our faith is shaken.
So we keep on in our position next to each other, and I nod, shifting a bit over his shoulder. “Right,” I say, trying to remember what I said to him before he pushed me off him that last night.
“I don’t have it,” he says.
“What?” I ask, confused.
“Experience.”
That’s when I lift my head off his shoulder and turn to look at him.
His eyes are soft, if a bit downcast, a sad smile forming over his sculpted lips.
“What?” I ask again, confused.
He sighs, and runs his hands over his hair, missing the long strands he used to pull on when he was frustrated. “You want a man with experience, you said. And that’s not me, Lola. I’ve never had intercourse.”
37
LOLA
My instinct is to laugh at the ridiculous notion. The man hailed as the sexiest by any publication that curates such lists, coveted bachelor, rock god/sex god as proclaimed by all the tabloids. All the pictures of him with women.
At parties.
All orchestrated by Roger.
Staged.
It was all staged.
The women too?
I can’t laugh because his face is so serious; I know he’s not lying. “You’re a virgin?” I say more to myself than to him.