Page 62 of Teach Me To Sin
“I think it’s north.” Benji hooks his chin over the back of my seat. “Based on the sun.”
“Okay, Davy Crockett. Do you think you can do better?” We’re still bickering, but it feels gentler now, like we purged the worst of the pain.
Benji hops up and starts trying to step over the center console into the front seat. “Hey, be careful,” Colson complains, catching his good arm and trying to support him. “And don’t step on my detailing.”
He somehow manages to worm his way through the gap without hurting himself and slides into my seat next to me, nudging me up against the door. “Let me see.” Our hips and bare thighs press together as I hand him the map. The corner keeps folding over because his cast won’t let him hold it right, so I reach around behind him and flip it up. My nose brushes his hair, with its familiar citrusy smell, and his body heat melts into mine. At first, I thought he was trying to make a move on me, but he’s so enthralled in working out the map that he barely pays any attention.
To my surprise, he finds our location right away and starts giving Colson clear, confident directions that lead us along a quiet coastal road, then down through some trees to a small parking lot. “If you didn’t have me, you’d be in fucking Walla Walla by now,” he snarks as he struggles to work out how to fold the map back up. Colson’s eyes meet mine over Benji’s wild auburn tousle, and he gives me an uncertain but genuine smile. I don’t have the energy to return it, but it doesn’t seem to bother him.
I rest my nose helplessly in Benji’s hair one more time, then open the door and get out to stretch. We must have picked a shitty trail, because there aren’t any other cars or people in sight, despite the perfect weather–bright sunlight, with a soft, salt-smelling breeze to take off the edge. Colson puts some money in a collections box attached to an informational signboard, then comes back with a slip of paper that says we’re allowed to be here.
The path looks mercifully flat, with a drop on the left side toward the wide sea view, and a hill on the right dotted with wildflowers and small trees. One of us is going to have to help Benji, and I’m not sure I feel up to it, so I volunteer to walk the dogs. They’re stronger than they look, forcing me to lean backward with my full weight so they can’t drag me from one interesting plant and rock to another. Colson absolutely seems like the type to insist on proper walking manners, then give up and let them do whatever they want because they’re cute. I don’t really mind; their antics give me something to focus on besides my thoughts.
Benji’s putting on a brave show, but he moves at a snail’s pace and I can tell he’s tired after thirty steps along the dusty trail. Colson hangs back next to him, and I do my best not to let Hamlet and Triss rampage too far ahead. After about fifteen minutes, Benji has slowed down to an exhausted limp. I pause and wait for them to catch up. “Shall we turn around? I think you’ve hit your limit.”
He shakes his head, his jaw tightening stubbornly even as he leans against Colson and struggles to breathe. “Can we sit and look at the view for a while? I don’t want to go yet.”
“Look there.” Colson nods a few steps up the slope, to a grassy patch with nice, flat rocks under a leafy tree.
I watch him help Benji scramble to a spot in the shade, but the thought of sitting still again makes anxiety crawl under my skin. “Can you take the dogs? I want to walk down to the sea.” Benji gazes longingly at the water, but there’s no way he could make it down the steep trail and across the wide, pebbly span of beach.
As all four of them get settled, I slip and slide my way down the very not-park-approved shortcut to the beach, carved out by hundreds of impatient feet. The muffled clatter of rocks worn smooth by air and water soothes the sharp edges of my brain as I carefully pick my way across them. If I ignore the landscape behind me, I could almost believe I’m back in Italy six years ago, watching the Mediterranean and wondering how far out I could go before I never had to see the shore again. Following the gentle rise and retreat of water across the sand, I remember how it feels to have a dad who terrorizes you until you don’t remember how to saynoto him. During the worst years of my life, I would have burned down anything my father pointed to if I thought it would end the misery. If I can do anything to keep Benji from becoming me–haunted, lonely, afraid of the water he used to love–it would feel like some kind of victory.
When I come huffing and puffing back up the slope, flushed and sweaty, Colson has disappeared with the dogs. Benji is still where I left him, with his long, tan legs stretched out into the sunshine. I stop in front of him, and he tips up his chin to peer at me from behind his glasses. He seems quiet, but I can’t read his expression.
“Hey.” I reach out and brush my fingertips across his hair.
He just stares at me for a moment, then holds up his unhurt hand. It’s cupped around a small bundle of the purple and white wildflowers scattered all across the hillside. Somehow, he managed to arrange them in a tiny bouquet with a bit of grass tied around them. The delicate petals flutter against my palm in the breeze as I pick them up, and the broken stems smell sweet, like the earth and the sea together.
Benji sniffs, then swallows painfully. “I can’t tell you I’m sorry,” he murmurs, his voice still husky from the smoke. “There aren’t enough words in the world. If you decide we can never get past what I did, that’s fair, because I betrayed you.” His voice breaks, and he coughs. When he recovers, he pulls off his sunglasses, blinking watery, red eyes up at me. “My dad told me I’d never get to see you again if I didn’t obey him. That’s not an excuse, but I… I just want you to know that you’re the brightest thing in the whole world, and I would spend the rest of my life hating whoever gets to have you.” He pulls in a shaky breath and smiles a little. “So would he.”
When I look over my shoulder, Colson’s standing there. The corner of his mouth tips up. “Apparently I’m nobody special.”
I hold out my palm. “I got flowers. Looks like you got a bag of dog poo.”
“I was being serious,” Benji cries plaintively behind me.
Turning back to him, I crouch down between his legs, take his face in my hands, and bring our foreheads together. My thumb strokes his cheek, and I feel him sigh in relief. “I know it wasn’t your fault.” The words bloom out of the dark mire in my chest, true and alive. “I’m not okay, but I forgive you. And I want you. Both of you. I want to try.”
He squeezes my wrist and tilts his face to kiss my palm. “Thank you so much.” His voice is a choked-up mess, but he manages not to start crying. Careful not to drop my flowers, I sit down next to him and lace my fingers through his. The dogs settle in the shade, panting, and Colson lies down in the grass in front of us and slings an arm over his eyes while Benji kneads his side with his toes. The lawyer’s breathing slows down, and I remember that he spent all night waking up for Benji. We let him sleep for a while, as Benji grips my hand and asks me questions about how it feels to swim in the sea.
Colson
My body is not pleasedabout my nap on rocky dirt when I wake up, but I don’t really give a shit what it thinks. When I had nothing better to do with myself, I used to enjoy my share of sitting around moaning about joints and back pain. Now I have a giant man-child to carry around and someone who needs me to be able to stay awake all night so he can catch up on his rest. For the first time in my life, I want to push myself to the limit for someone else.
I am, however, starving, and that’s not a sensation I’m interested in ignoring. “Shall we pick up some food?”
Benji does his best to scramble to his feet, but his body almost gives out and Alek has to catch him. “I’m fine,” he protests, swaying a little. “My arm is broken, not my legs.” Then he drops into another fit of coughing that leaves him gasping against Alek’s chest.
“You pushed yourself too hard,” the dark-haired man fusses. “What are we going to do, carry you all the way back?”
Benji perks up and shoots him a hopeful look, then waggles his eyebrows at me.
“Fuck, alright.” I step down the hill and turn my back to him, so he can hop on easily. I almost stagger straight over the edge of the drop-off when he scrambles on and wraps an arm tightly around my neck. “I think we’re going to have to switch halfway,” I grunt to Alek as he untangles the dog’s leashes.
But even though I’m exhausted after ten minutes, I can’t bring myself to let go of him. Not with the feeling of his soft, drowsy cheek nestled against my neck, or the way his fingers grip my shirt like I’m a life raft in a storm.
I don’t think I’ve ever really loved someone. I’ve been in love, in that easy way where it feels good to have sex and listen to them talk because you need someone who will listen to you talk in return. And when we stopped feeling good, when the hollowness in me was too empty, I broke things until we didn’t want each other anymore. Again and again, in a merciless cycle.