Virginia is For Lovers

We were on fire. 

We touched each other’s elbows and hips fluidly and constantly like we were strung together with silk. Our unrehearsed lines hit every time with bursts of laughter. The kisses between us were offered and sought simultaneously. It had been the best weekend of our relationship, maybe of any relationship that I had ever been a part of.  I’d loved you since the day we re-met, but this weekend I understood what it meant to be loved.

Even though you didn’t know anyone but me at the wedding, you pinned your confidence to your chest and revealed yourself to be everyone’s best friend.  You followed and fed and watered me and made me feel smart and sexy and wanted. You made everyone else want you; if only to be treated the way you treated me.

In the hours we weren’t together I let the maid of honor convince me to drink from a tiny bottle of cake-flavored vodka in the back seat of a limousine. It burned going down, but I felt confident and loved and a part of things.  Eventually, I felt a little drunk. You watched me walk down the aisle from your white folding chair in the grass, the Virginia vineyard spread out behind us, all of us with our fingers crossed that the October sky wouldn’t open up with rain.  It didn’t. The bride was beautiful, and there was no rain, and I fought tears as my friend wed the man of her dreams and I locked eyes with you across the crowd.

That night we danced. Your hand stayed on my hip. You let me drink wine with abandon; you held your own empty glass for hours ensuring you were lucid enough to take care of me.  Late into the night, you guided me to our room before I got sick, and were sweet when I woke up a little embarrassed.  You held me and offered to drive the rental car back to the airport so I could relax.

I’m sure that everything you pointed to on the drive north to DC was beautiful. The old farmhouses, the new sprawling single-family homes, the ways the hills dipped, lush and green, behind the trees.  I didn’t see much of it. My head ached with the memories of the night before, and when I closed my eyes, all I could see was you.