We sat in the giant purple love seat in my living room, and he kissed me, finally, during the closing credits. He could play the songs from the soundtrack, beautifully, on his black and white, pinstriped guitar. Sometimes, I would attempt to follow along, my fingers stumbling over the piano keys of the ancient, out-of-tune piano in his living room, but, usually, I would just listen, curling up next to him, snuggling into his shoulder and breathing in his scent of aftershave and cooking grease. We quoted the lines and knew every lyric.
We were in his little blue Scion, driving back from dinner at Bottom’s Up Pizza, listening to the radio. I knew he was going to play our song, when he clicked on the CD player in his car, giving me that look that I knew so well- narrowing his eyes a little, focusing in on me, the right corner of his mouth turning up in a slight smile. Track 7. “Never knew I could feel like this,” he began.
“Come what may
Come what may
I will love you,
until my dying day.”
As he sang the last two lines, holding my left hand in his right, steadying the steering wheel against his knee, he squeezed my fingers three times. I- love- you. I understood. From then on, it didn’t matter where we were, who we were with, if we could speak out loud or not- three small touches were all we needed. I love you, “until my dying day.” It fixed everything- every fight about his neediness or my lack of appreciation, my over-emotional temperament or his lack thereof. Three touches, three words, and all was forgotten.
At seventeen, it was easy to fall in love, easy to promise to give our lives to each other, easy to ignore reality and foresee only a happily-ever-after. It was easy to keep counting the days of our togetherness- three weeks, two months, four months and a week and three days, or some other obscenely insignificant number that made us feel the need to celebrate, as if we were surprised that things that worked out for long. As if we were waiting for things to fall apart.
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