“Take it easy,” Polly said when she saw Gina chugging the brown fluid. “You don’t want it to go to your head.”
But she did. She wanted the booze to invade her brain, take over her senses, and relieve her of the doubt that had been tormenting her for days. And so she had another one.
She wasn’t sure when she decided she needed to see Nick, but she left the party without saying goodbye to Polly. It had been raining but she still jogged all the way to his apartment in the Village. She showed up at his doorstep, soaked and terrified that he would be there with his conquest of the week. But he was alone.
“Pearl!” he said. After he’d given her the necklace, he’d begun calling her by her middle name when they were alone. Only when they were alone. “What happened?”
She couldn’t bring herself to say the words, not because she was too drunk to sound coherent (she wasn’t), but because she was afraid he would talk her out of it. She knew how much he loved his brother. She thought of Alan and the connection they shared. She couldn’t even imagine how much stronger it must be for Nick and Bobby who had shared a womb. She had kissed him, fully expecting him to gently push her away with his strong muscles and tell her to leave. He would be loyal to Bobby, but she needed one kiss. One kiss to tell her if he was the one for her.
But Nick didn’t push her away. Instead, he pulled her closer, holding her with an urgency that made her think she wasn’t really there, like he was trying to hold on to a dream or a rainbow. She was running her hands through his hair, trying to memorize every inch of his neck, his back, his entire body. Then, suddenly, she felt him pull away, holding her arms gently, but firmly.
“You’ve been drinking.” It wasn’t a question. He must have tasted the alcohol in her mouth.
She nodded.
“You think I’m Bobby,” he said, squinting his eyes, his face closing as quickly as it had opened.
She moved closer to him and kissed him again. She felt him groan as he kissed her neck and smelled her hair. But then he stepped back, putting several feet between them.
“No, I can’t do this. I’m Nick, Pearl. Nick.”
Did he really think she was that drunk?
She walked over to him slowly, never taking her eyes away from his. “I know.”
He looked at her skeptically. She hadn’t slurred her words, hadn’t stumbled inside his apartment. Surely, he could see that she was fine.
“I’m not drunk,” she said again. “I drank. I’m definitely tipsy. But I know what I’m doing. I know who you are. You’re Nick. My Nick.”
His eyes darted across her face as if trying to understand what had made her want to kiss him after so long.
“Do you want me to leave?” she asked.
Instead of replying, he picked her up and kissed her while she was still suspended. She kissed him back, hungrily, clumsily, wanting to meld her mouth with his to form a new element. Before each step—removing her shirt, her jeans, her bra—he’d ask her, “Are you OK with this?” His tone was gentle, kind. When they were naked, he paused once again. “Are you sure? We don’t have to… if you’re not ready.”
She nodded without hesitation. She was sure, absolutely sure. It was reckless and crazy, but it was what she wanted. “But you should know… I’ve never done this before.”
She registered the surprise in his eyes, but there was no hesitation. “I love you. I love you more than I love anyone in this world.”
“I love you too,” she said, and she meant it. It complicated everything—but she meant it.
They made love with fury. They were two stranded people in an island who had found fresh water. They were two bodies jumping from a plane, seconds before opening their parachutes. They were fish leaving the confines of an aquarium, finding their way to sea. She had expected it to hurt, but it felt like the most natural thing in the world. She finally understood what the big deal was, why this physical act was elevated to the stuff of gods. She had never felt more alive, more elated.
They fell asleep in each other’s arms. Gina woke up at dawn and tiptoed to the bathroom to relieve her bladder. She found a black robe hanging next to a towel and slipped it on. Her heart was beating so fast. She made her way into his living room and sat by a window, looking at the naked trees and the quiet streets, and she thought of Bobby. She would have to break up with him. She wondered if she should tell him what happened, about her doubts. He would be hurt, but wasn’t it better to be honest?
Bobby.
Gina thought of his face, his sweet, loving smile, and felt her heart break. She loved him. If Nick made her lose her breath, then Bobby was like an oxygen mask. He made her feel protected and special.
I love them both, she thought.
Part of her thought of this as inevitable (how could anyone know Bobby and Nick and not love them both?), but she still felt like a horrible, selfish person. Her parents had been right. She never should have come to New York. This never would have happened at BYU. But how could she have stayed in Utah and pretended to believe in a faith that condemned her brother simply for loving another man? It wasn’t who she was.
But this—this woman who had sex with a man who was not her husband, who was, in fact, her boyfriend’s brother—was not who she wanted to be, either. It wasn’t so much that she had had sex before getting married. It was how confused she felt, how torn up she was about loving two men. She didn’t want
