Fourth Comings Read Online Free Page A

possibly tell, he recycles it for his high school friends when he returns to Alabama on breaks. Oh yes. Such a tale can be told many times over.

five
    B ut that’s not what happened. That dramatic scenario only exists in my mind. (And now in this notebook.) As it really happened, the erotic interlude ended not dramatically at all, but modestly, with a whisper.
    “Jessica?”
    You had fully extracted yourself from my body and were sitting up in the sheets. I had no idea how long you’d been sitting like that, looking at me. You were slightly out of breath, and when the exhalation hit my face, my stomach twisted in recognition of the brackish scent I knew as my own. I turned my head away, disgusted.
    I’d already decided that when I returned to Brooklyn, I would tell Hope this story, the real one, in its entirety. I wouldn’t even censor the nasty bits. I’ve always refrained from discussing the most delicate details of our sex life because my love for you transcended dishy fuck-and-telling. But there was already a shift in my brain that said,
Nothing is sacred anymore.
    So I couldn’t fall back on a histrionic deal breaker like the previously described dramatic scenario. I had to rely on the truth.
    “I don’t think I can do this.”
    You rested in the sheets, eyes closed, mouth open just wide enough to slip a pinkie finger inside. I couldn’t see the airflow, no telltale rippling of nose hairs, but I imagined that you were breathing in one nostril and out the other like a master yogi.
    “I don’t think I can do this,” I repeated in a momentary lapse of courage.
    One eye winked open to give me a look that asked, without actually asking,
You can’t do what?
    “I can’t…”
    “You can’t do what?” you said, this time out loud.
    (If you had any idea what I was about to say, it didn’t show in your eyes. And I was looking carefully. Did you know? I was searching for a hint anywhere on your face that revealed that you’d seen this coming. That you, too, thought it was inevitable and the best thing to do under the circumstances. But all I saw was you, unexpecting, and eager to hear what I’d say next.)
    “I can’t be…”
    The words hung there, suspended by an argument-in-progress that passed under the open window.
    “Ninja, dude.
Ninja.”
    “But, dude, wait. Seriously. What if…?”
    “What if I don’t give a shit?
Ninja.”
    “What if they fought on the open sea?”
    “For the love of fuck! A NINJA WILL KICK A PIRATE’S SWASHBUCKLING ASS EVERY GODDAMN TIME.”
    I paused. It wasn’t the dramatic scenario I’d had in mind, but it would suffice. This overheard inanity perfectly supported what I was about to say.
    “I can’t be the girlfriend of a college freshman.”
    You considered this for a moment. Your smile dimmed but had not faded entirely from your face.
    “Jessica, you’d be the girlfriend of…” You pursed your lips in contemplation before finishing. “Me.” Then your face crumpled under the awkwardness of the phrase. Was this the longest sentence you’d uttered all day? All week? In a month? Eight months?
    “And
you
are a college freshman,” I said. “A twenty-three-year-old college freshman.”
    “That’s not all I am.”
    “Of course that’s not all you are,” I said. “But it’s going to be a big part of who you are until next year, when you’re a twenty-four-year-old college sophomore, until the year after that, when you’re a twenty-five-year-old junior—”
    “I understand, Jessica.”
    “I don’t think you do.” And then more firmly: “You don’t.”
    And you sucked in your breath as if you had just been tackled by someone twice your size.
    “I know what’s going to happen here, Marcus.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes,” I said, “I do.”
    “Enlighten me,” you said with a tease to your tone.
    “You’re going to find that there’s a certain cachet to being the old guy on campus.”
    “Jessica…”
    “Seriously, Marcus, you’ll get a campus