He gripped the door handle and I was determined to not allow this to feel so damn awkward. “Thank you, Nate, for everything. My photography project is going to rock.”
Suddenly he turned and met my gaze. His eyes were warm and sad at the same time. “Jess, please don’t think . . . I never meant . . .”
We stared at each other for long moments. I wanted to fill in the blanks for him, but instead I gave him the opportunity to do it himself. At least I prayed he would.
His fingers reached toward me and his firm hands cupped my face. I sucked in air as his lips hovered closer to mine. “It’s never been that way with any other girl. Ever.”
He brushed his lips across mine and my entire body prickled in response.
“You did something to me . . . brought something out in me,” he whispered. “Something I need to figure out. Something I liked doing. But also something I . . . loathe about myself.”
“Maybe . . .” I tried to get the words out as he stared so intently into my eyes. “Maybe it was the very thing you needed.”
I took a deep breath as he went still. “Maybe it only scared you because you never felt it before. Had the freedom to feel it before.”
“Fuck!” he said and then crushed his lips to mine in a bruising and all-consuming kiss. One that I felt to the very depths of my heart. His tongue traced over my teeth and gums and the roof of my mouth, tasting me everywhere, as if savoring it one last time.
Then he dragged his mouth away, shoved the door open and fled the car.
Nate practically sprinted to his apartment building without once turning around and I was left there, reeling and out of breath from that damn kiss.
Chapter Twenty-one
Jessie
For the next twenty-four hours, I could still feel him on me. The raw stiffness everywhere on my body, especially between my legs, where his lips had tugged at my skin. I liked that I could sense him and I despised it too, because it was a reminder of what I could never have again. At least not like that. But I’d probably take him any way I could, even as a friend.
I ran my fingers across my swollen lips in an effort to re-experience where his mouth had been. I had Nate on top of me and inside me and it was excruciating to think about when I’d even get the chance to see him again. Normally I saw glimpses of him around campus, at the bar, or in the shop—but if he was going to avoid me, which I suspected, we would probably be apart for even longer.
I took a lengthy shower and then headed to the university darkroom to develop some rolls of film. I needed to know what I was working with, which shots came through, in order to further formulate the photography project in my head.
The college had darkrooms for our private use, but students had to have authorization to use them. We kept a log in case someone got careless and mixed up compounds or forgot to clean up after themselves.
The university afforded the space, equipment, and chemicals, and we provided our own photography paper, which could get pricey, so I tried to use it sparingly. I surrendered my student ID to the guy working the desk and then closed the darkroom door behind me.
I snapped on my latex gloves and got to work preparing the three trays that would house the developer, stop bath, and fixer, keeping the checklist of procedures in my head for safe chemical use. You weren’t allowed to use the darkrooms unless you’d already taken a couple of prerequisite courses and those classes were heavy on proper practices and hazardous waste disposal. I was already used to safety procedures at Raw Ink, working around needles all day, so that this part came natural to me.
I shut off the overhead switch and clicked on the safelight, which had a soft amber glow. I loved the solitude and quiet of working in the darkroom, producing images with my own hands, determining exposure level and size—it was all so satisfying.
This visit I’d decided to do a sample of black-and-white prints first. It was my favorite format because of the contrast they revealed between faint and vivid tones.
It was my father’s favorite as well—he loved vintage photos in general—and he taught me early on that if you didn’t balance the exposure properly, the light overwhelms the darkness and essentially ruins the shot.
He always expressed his opinions or made arguments using photography terminology. Even in that beach memory that I’d shared with Nate on the car ride up—the one he seemed so moved by—my father used lightness and darkness as a metaphor.
And while that was a favorite memory of mine—inspiring me to have my father’s words inked into my skin—for Nate, the message spoke to something different inside him. I knew it in the way he’d responded up on that bridge when I’d felt his tender lips brushing over my tattoo, over my sensitive skin. Just thinking about it made my stomach quiver all over again.
I snapped my mind back into gear, working efficiently since I knew that by the time I cleaned up the chemicals and tidied my workspace, my appointed hour would be up.
I pulled the proof sheet from the tray of fixer after allowing it to rest in the solution for the allotted time. Then I turned on the overhead light to examine my work, and damn, the snapshots I had taken over the weekend were pretty darn good.
I zeroed in on photo after photo of Nate. In my memory, I categorized them into two groups: before and after shots.
The before shots were the first snaps, the ones taken by the pond and covered bridge. They were the ones I took when we first arrived in his hometown. A sadness and restlessness was infused in his very being in all of the photos, no matter how much he’d mugged for the camera.