Savor It

by Tarah DeWitt

This is me trying, and I’m still this much of a mess.” His eyes dart back and forth between mine. “Sometimes I get so lost in my head that I have to remember to breathe, Sage. I … Until I started spending time with you, it was like I forgot how to just be present.”

“I’ve always said that nothing screams romance like being submerged in the icy Pacific before seven A.M.,” he says.

“Did you know,” Indy says toward the end of another episode, “that Mom was coming home from one of those pyramid scheme MLM parties the day of the accident? Of all the stupid things in all the world, it’s like she died trying to find her people. Still trying to find somewhere to fit in.”

“I went running on the beach and did some push-ups and shit. But if you’re asking why I did that, I dunno? I guess because I’m on a journey of self-discovery and healing, and it seems like that’s the sort of thing one does during one of those expeditions.”

My chest lifts and falls almost comically, like I’m some distressed maiden trapped in a corset, but really I’m just trapped under my own skin and bones, desperate to fuse with his.

“I’d start by asking if it was against a rule to tell you I’ve been thinking about what you taste like every day since the library,”

“Okay?” he rasps. No. I feel myself being irrevocably changed, I think. I’m more than or something other than okay. “Yes,” I say.

Until he saw my mom—in her giant-skirted dress.” Her smile looks irrepressible. “He must have seemed truly desperate, because he managed to convince her to tuck him under it.” “Now that,” I say, “is how you meet a woman. He sounds pretty slick.”

“Jesus,” she says, staring at my dick, mouth open. Somewhere, my ego sheds a prideful tear.

Still, I’m irritated with him for having this kind of pull over me. Even more annoyed with myself for feeling this way. Silly, too-soft Sage yet again. I let the annoyance fuel me, and I throw myself into the task at hand.

too. Like, last night I was taking out the trash and saw you in the sunroom with the light on, painting your toenails, and I swear, Sage, for no sensible reason, it felt pornographic. From, like, fifty yards away.”

“I almost called the cops on you! Public indecency and all that. But then I remembered that one of those cops was your ex, and I worked myself into a jealous rage over that. Over an entirely imaginary scenario, Byrd.”

“Your laugh is … I don’t know what it is, Sage, but your laugh…” I feel the muscles in his back bunch beneath my hands, the ones in his stomach contracting and relaxing against mine. “I think your laugh could maybe defibrillate me.”

I think subconsciously I thought that getting physical might ease this feeling in me, but I feel myself tripping precariously into that addiction. Sage is honest and curious and vibrant in everything she does. Anytime I set out to tantalize her, she naturally ends up wrecking me.

And instead of hard or hasty, I end up wanting to draw it out, to stave off the inevitable and savor it as much as I can again.

I’ve spent so much of my life observing others, trying to learn the things I was missing, trying to make myself significant to them, but this man who has known me a month has made himself feel crucial to me.

“No,” he replied, gripping my chin. “I already know your modesty is—misplaced,” he said. “I just have a lot more nice things I’d like to say to you right now, and I think I’d like your mouth full while I say them.” He smiled full-out at the look in my eyes. “Then you’ll have to listen without brushing me off.”

He comes to kneel before me. “I’m in too deep, Sage,” he rasps, voice thick. My head snaps back down. “I—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m trying to do all the right things.

And I’m so sorry, Sage, I know you didn’t ask for this. I know we were supposed to accept the impermanence of this thing with you and me, and enjoy it in the meantime, but I just keep digging in, and now I’m drowning in you, Sage.” His eyes are swimming with tears.

“Fisher,” I say, the first tear escaping, more following each of my unsteady strokes along his face. “It’s too late for me. I’ve been too far dug,” I confess. His trembling hand comes around to cradle the back of my neck. “Just love me until then, anyway,” I say. “Please.”

I realized that infatuation was the shortness of breath, the adrenaline, the idea that we could ever just be friends and it wouldn’t kill me each and every day. Love is this. Love is breathing. A sweet, deep, aching relief. And it’s somehow even more disorienting.

“Ethan,” I reply with a nod of my own. “Ian,” he corrects. I pretend I didn’t hear. I reserve maturity for people I actually like.

Love me, love me, love me, I silently beg. Before we’re out of time.

And god, fear almost bowls me over right then because will I ever not find her in everything? Will I ever be able to not make everything about summer and Sage again? I’ll see some spotted cows and I’ll imagine her robe the night we met. I’ll taste berries and think of her lips. I’ll hear any pun and break into a sob. “It’s been a privilege to fall in love with you, Sage,” I tell her helplessly. Her expression shatters, and I kiss the tears from her cheeks before I have to wrench myself away.

My watch has gone off twice today with a redundant message that states something to the effect of, “Hey, your heart rate looks like you’re dying, but you also haven’t moved. Like, at all. Don’t you have to pee?”

I thought being with Fisher would be like cut flowers in a vase. Something lovely I let in, even knowing it couldn’t last forever. The problem is, I messed up and planted him here in all my places. I gave him my dirt, my heart, my home, and now he’s been uprooted again and I’m left with the upturned mess of it all.

“How can you stand it?” I ask her. “How can you stand seeing Ellis everywhere you look?” I had a summer with Fisher, and no corner is the same. She and Ellis had each other since kindergarten. “Time,” she says. “Time’s the only thing that increases your pain tolerance. Eventually, you see the good that came from it more than the pain.”

“D-did you know g-geese bond for life?! D-d-did you know th-they can get—can get depression?!” “I did not,” I clip. I try to pat her arm soothingly, but she jerks away with a scream. “And I just LEFT,” she says.

But you know what the bravest thing of all is? The most extraordinary thing?” I let out a relieving breath I feel to my very soul, because I also know the truth in what I’m saying. “To live by your own standards and no one else’s. To be happy by your own measure.

And then he’s there before me. A little too thin, hair a little too long, ears just sort of too big. Still walking around with far too much of my heart.

“First of all, you can’t tell me what to do,” he says. I let out a watery laugh. “Second of all, I’m so sorry I left.”

All I know is that I can cook anywhere, Sage, and I didn’t want to wait for the logistics and the minutiae to work out before I could start a life with you. I want every minute of it, every second.”

“You once told me you thought you were a lot of nots,” he says. “I want you to know that to me, you’re everything. I love that you’re full of terrible puns that you’re not afraid to follow with profound wisdom.” He thumbs my temple like he’s caressing my mind. “You’re all the shapes made perfectly to hold me, and you’re all my favorite colors.” His lips press against my chin. “You’re definitely my favorite flavor,” he says lowly into my ear, and I feel my laugh rumble through our embrace softly. “I love you so much,” I have to say. “I love you, too. Please bring me home.”