“John...I…”
He put his hands on my hips, quickly turning me around. “I know. No sex. But I can still do this.”
He reached in front of me and then grabbed my shampoo off the shelf. I heard the sound of his hands rubbing together and then his fingers were in my hair, massaging my scalp. It always felt great when my hairdresser would wash my hair before she cut it, but John took it to an all new mind-blowing level. I tilted my head back, closing my eyes, and his fingers continued massaging my scalp down to the ends of my hair.
“Rinse,” he commanded, turning my back away from him and toward the shower spout. He kept his hands on my head, rinsing out the shampoo from my hair and moving his fingers through my curls. He continued the same process with the conditioner and the pulled me against him. His lips replaced his fingers down my hair and to my cheeks and neck.
I turned around to face him, wrapping my arms around his neck and trying to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back. “As much as I’d like to spend all day in the shower with you, I can’t keep you from your final.”
I pouted. “Seriously.”
He kissed my forehead. “Seriously, but there’s always after your final. And tomorrow. And the next day. And the next day.”
“I look forward to it.”
I was almost late for my final and had to run across the quad with wet hair just to make it in the nick of time. There were icicles dripping off of my curls when I walked into the room, but it was worth it to spend the time with John in the shower. Ever since I found out about my cancer I felt like less of a woman. Finding out that a part of me had been damaged made me feel like all of me was damaged as well. And then there was the surgery that made me feel even more broken. Slowly, but surely I was building back up again and putting the pieces back together. It helped that there was an incredibly sexy guy who was always around.
Of course I had to put those worries aside to finish my finals. Spanish wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, mainly because John still kept encouraging me to speak Spanish in the heat of the moment and I found myself burning up every time I thought of the different verbs I would use and how they would roll off my tongue and into his mouth.
My other classes were another story. I had two final papers, a history final, and my Physics final. None of my teachers knew what was going on with my cervical cancer so I felt like all of them glared at me when I walked in. Like they knew I had been missing class and just assumed I started slacking. It was like I had to re-prove myself. As if the first few months of me doing nothing but showing up to class and diligently turning in my homework on time were forgotten and I was just another slacker in the crowd.
It also probably didn’t help that I would throw on one of John’s Alpha Mu hoodies with my jeans half the days I was running late to class. I think all of my teachers had some secret vendetta against fraternity guys. I even remember my British Lit professor asking what a nice girl like me was doing with a hoodie like that.
But the more time I spent with John, the less I really cared what other people thought. It was like Monica told me, “If they’re nobody, who cares what they think?” I proved myself enough by getting mostly A’s in my classes and to hell with what the kids in my classes thought of me. Maybe it was time to let go.
Then there was still cancer to think about. I made an appointment the Friday before break for another colposcopy. The doctor wanted to make sure they got rid of all the cancer and if there was still anything there we would have to explore other options. I didn’t want to think of the other options. This time John wasn’t the one to take me, though. Valerie came into town.
“After we’re done with this doctor stuff, we’re going shopping.” Valerie glanced at me out of the corner of her obnoxiously large sunglasses. There wasn’t much snow on the ground, but whenever the earth was blanketed in white, it seemed like the sun shone off of it and made everything brighter.
“Shopping? Don’t you have enough of that working off Michigan Ave?”
“Um, what I do there is work. Not shop.” She flicked on her turn signal to turn toward my doctor’s office. “Besides, I can’t afford to shop on Michigan Ave every day, or have the time to with all of these crazy hours. I haven’t even started Christmas shopping.”
“Okay, fine. You win. We’ll go shopping.”
“And we need to get you something to wear out tonight. I scoped your closet and your wardrobe is lacking.”
I shook my head. “You still want to go out tonight?”
I was hoping she’d forgotten about that idea. I remembered how sore I felt after my last colposcopy.
“Uh, yeah. My baby sister has a fake ID and her boyfriend can probably get us past the door without cover. I’m not missing out on that.”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”
“Besides, John stayed around on Christmas break for you. The least you can do is show a little skin and get him out on the dance floor.”
“He didn’t stay around just for me. He said he had some fraternity stuff to take care of.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew they were a lie. I didn’t remember the last time he actually stayed at the house. He was like my new roommate who slept in my bed. Maybe a night out before break could change that.
Valerie thumbed through some ties at one of the department stores. “What the hell do you even get for a dad you barely ever see?”
Valerie hadn’t done any Christmas shopping and her list was a mile long. I just got everyone Starbucks gift cards and called it a day. But Valerie thought it was too impersonal. Ever since we were little girls she loved going shopping and would spend hours looking for the “perfect gift” for everyone.
“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “Coffee?”
“Probably what he does need. Maybe I’ll get everyone something to go with your plethora of gift cards. I seriously can’t believe you got John the same thing as our mom. That’s just so weird.”
“Why? He likes coffee. Everyone likes coffee and if they don’t, they’re missing out.”
Valerie scoffed and then walked out of the men’s section. I followed her toward the purses. “It’s so impersonal, especially for your boyfriend. Don’t you want to get him something special?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Something that isn’t a gift card. Something that he would actually appreciate. Something that shows just how much you care about him.”
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously, Val, we haven’t been dating that long and he’s a guy. He doesn’t expect all of that.”
“I don’t think you give him enough credit.”
I let out a single laugh. “So now you’re going to tell me that you know John better than I do?”
“I’m just saying that I’ve seen the way he is with you. I watched him carry you up the stairs after your surgery. The guy has a serious heart.”
All of that was true, but there was still something that was holding me back. I had my guard up around him. Our relationship started out with me wanting to do nothing but jump his bones and now (while I still thought often about it) there was something that had changed. I was in love with the guy and it was getting harder not to express it. I had this deep fear that I would say it and he wouldn’t feel the same way and would run for the hills. He may have cared about me, but love was a different thing.
“We’ll see.”
After what seemed like forever shopping, Valerie finally finished picking out Christmas gifts and we went back to my apartment. I pulled the tags off my new silk, maroon tunic and then put it in the sink with some of my body wash. I didn’t want to go downstairs into the laundry room to wash one thing and it was supposedly delicate anyway.
“If I wake up in the middle of the night hearing you and John doing it, I’m going to be really upset with you.” Valerie leaned against the fridge.
“We’re totally not going to be doing it.”
Valerie crossed her arms over her chest. “You mean to tell me that after a night of bar hopping with that hot piece of man candy you aren’t just going to hump like rabbits and forget that your sister is sleeping on the couch?
