Love Outside
He held my hand as he drove my blue Chevy up the ski hill, a thin layer of snow on the dirt road, but not enough to keep us from climbing higher, looking for a spot to walk and watch the mountains. We'd come the days before, with our friends, but we had finally pulled away for a brief moment, the sun threatening to set, heading up the hill. I had put my music on, Caamp playing over my stereo as I said to him, “just wait, I’m going to get them in your most played on Spotify.”
I’m not sure why I even offered this to him - they were mine. I always told people that their music was the only reason I believed in love anymore, their lyrics and melodies filling me with something like hope, an idea that I could love and be loved. But as we drove up further and the view of the mountains got clearer and he held my hand like he might love me, I offered my heart up to him.
Once we got to the top, we pulled my blankets out of the trunk, the wool Pendleton I got in Wyoming and the wool blanket from my parent’s college days in New Mexico, and we started walking up, through the dirt, not following a path until we found a clump of trees with an opening in the middle. He laid the blankets down, my blue beanie on his head, pulled his phone out, and turned the music back on. I won’t describe what we did on that hill, in those trees, but as I felt him move, I heard a song I’d only ever considered as a future, and the lyrics echoed over to us, my mountains behind me, while I looked him straight in the eyes, “you’d better not ruin this song for me”, my heart already knowing it was trapped, held in his hands, in these mountains, somewhere behind his eyes.
The heartache is the worst. It feels like your chest is splitting open, the seams of your ribs prying open, and breaking apart. I didn’t know what that could possibly feel like - I’d told Cat weeks before that I’d never sobbed before, never felt the inescapable, breathless, never-ending ache of the tears coming out. Even with the years of heartbreak I endured, I hadn’t ever let myself feel the pain and release through my tears. Until I fell in love. I’m not sure what was different about it this time, I’ve been in love many times, most years of my life, deeply with different men, with the circumstances of my life, with possibilities. Then I fell in love, after I’d already fallen in love with two boys that year. This one felt different. Deep, gut wrenching, all consuming sobs in the shower, in the bathroom at work, held in during classes, and released as I finally walked home, unable to hide the tears as they fall, concerned looks from each person passing me.
This kind of heartache doesn’t seem to discriminate or track what time of day it is. It takes me out at any moment, unaware and unprepared. Yesterday it happened while I was lifeguarding, sitting high on the big red chair, scanning the pool, the lap swimmers and the leisure pool, the fans blowing loud as the pool pump and muffled shouts playing against the water. It carried itself over me, starting in my chest, the splitting of my bones and skin, and moved along all the way to my eyes, clear tears sparking a home for themselves within my face, as I quickly blinked, asking them to leave, find another spot, even another time when I wasn’t working, surrounded by boys who smoke weed and cover their insides so well it makes me feel like an exposed, raw, all too much person.
Another day, it happened while I was on the bus. The sharp pain of memories carried itself onto my body and made itself comfortable, aching against my heart. I had all my ski gear on, skis in my hand, and my face covered by my dark blue wool balaclava. The tears fell that time, in front of the other bus riders, trying to pretend it wasn’t, trying not to let the world know.
Last night, it came quickly, sitting on the couch surrounded by Anya and Lauren, the girls I’ve been living with the past few weeks. Our candles were lit and the moon lamp and lava lamp were on, crystals on all of our side tables, Queer Eye playing on the TV, each of us scrolling through TikTok and Instagram when I felt the deep sorrow reach its way up. I pulled my soft silver blanket closer over my body, up my shoulder and around my head, trying to hold myself, kindly, lovingly, as the tears fell, heart ache making its way through me, pulling at my every seam.
Anya and Lauren tried to console me but there isn’t much to say when your heart is broken. Nothing that can make it better, make it whole, make it well. Lauren paused after they’d offered a few thoughts, “you know, I haven’t had a life like that in a while…”
“What, the kind that grasps your soul? Did this one grasp your soul, Claire?” Anya asked, my eyes squeezing shut as the tears rolled down my face. This one had, just like ones before and I knew like ones that were to come.
He called me when I was in New Mexico. It was dark at that point and all I had around me was the silhouettes of the mountains. I kept driving through Canon City, past Trinidad, up into the mountains on Highway 9. There wasn’t snow yet, just the curving road in front of me. I passed a couple small clumps of Elk or Deer, making me catch my breath and slow down. I lost service a few times, and put my music back on. I looked up at the sky at one point and saw a star falling through the sky, disappearing quickly enough I wondered if my eyes were playing tricks. I rounded the mountain toward Highway 24 and soon I was in Fairplay. The wind picked up, spraying snow at my car. I started driving slowly, inching my way toward the pass. It was past midnight but there were other cars coming down and one passed me going up. The snow was coming down and the wind was moving it all over the world. I turned my music off, my hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes focused, my heartbeat rising. I slipped once on the way down but stayed steady and the car caught the road again. The wheels turned me toward Breckenridge, the welcome sign inviting me past the Sinclair, away from main street.
I parked and jumped out of the car, stretching, shivering, finally home. I switched from my sandals to boots, grabbed a shirt, and tiptoed down the sidewalk to his house. I opened the door to the dark apartment and heard Buddie’s excited sniffles and tail against the couch. I poked my way through to his outstretched arms and fell into him. We kissed and laughed and held onto each other and whispered because it was 2am and his roommate was asleep. It felt like we were both breathing the other in deeply, grasping and pulling, asking the other to move closer. We stayed up talking for another hour and I finally fell asleep around 3am.
Later that day, the snow started pouring down while we stood on main street, waiting for our food. He came over to me and pulled me into his jacket, holding me against him. I looked up at him, squinting my eyes against the falling snow, his face turned down, smiling at me and kissing my forehead. And it felt like magic.