I was good at excuses by nature. I'd tell my mom I needed money to pay for a tutor, and then go buy Xanax and weed. I'd tell my sister I was going to Hunter's to play video games, and then go fuck Sage in her BMW. Excuses and lies were like a second language to me, and they rolled as effortlessly off of my tongue as telling someone my own name.

But when I knocked on the door of the little guest house AJ lived in, the afternoon after our date, with a bundle of orange roses (orange for desire, because red meant love, and I wasn't ready to stomach that possibility), my ocean of excuses had suddenly become a dried up desert, tumbleweeds and all.

I had never been to AJ's place before, but I knew it was on the nicer side of the island, closer to where Sage's parents lived but a few blocks in from the beach. She mentioned her mother's cousin was some kind of Doctors Without Borders volunteer and was rarely home, and she let AJ use the two-story guest house on the property behind the pool. It was low tide, so even the tiny inlets of rivers that snaked through the marshes were dried up, muddy and crawling with crabs. It was like the universe was telling me to leave, and that this desert would pick my bones clean, but I didn't care.

When AJ answered the door, and the scent of vanilla and lavender came wafting from the front hallway, I should have expected the look of surprise on her face, but it was more than that. It was a moment of sheer panic, and even though it was gone as quickly as it came, it still made me want to throw up over the side of the railing on her steps.

"Hey," she finally breathed out, a little more at ease as her eyes trailed down to the flowers in my hand.

"Hey," I grumbled, clutching the stems tighter in my hands. "I just uh...I'm sorry I didn't mean to just show up but uh...well, I thought it was probably really asinine of me to work in a flower shop and not give you flowers yesterday so..."

I stuck them out to her before I inserted my foot further into my mouth, and she took them from me gently, running her fingers over the rose petals. "I've never seen orange roses before. I love them, but you really didn't have to. Yesterday was...pretty great, even without the flowers."

"Okay," I let out a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding in. "Well, I guess uh..."

"Do you want to come in?" AJ blurted out, and then it was my turn to be surprised. I thought I was hearing things until she actually stepped aside and waved me in.

"Uh...sure," I nodded, following her into the front hallway. AJ immediately pulled me into her open living room and plopped me down on the plush beige couch. She fluttered around to the kitchen island and put the roses in a large mason jar, pushing them into the center of the island next to a basket of peaches. Other than a few pieces of art that looked like they were bought at the local gallery, the walls of her condo were pretty much bare, and the plain wooden coffee table that sat in front of the couch had one book on it - Humans of New York. A TV hung on the far wall of the living room with nothing underneath it except a jumble of wires. In the corner by the sliding glass door to the deck, a pile of half a dozen boxes were pressed up against the wall. I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't expect it to seem like nobody truly lived there.

"Sorry," she sighed out, leaning her elbows on the countertop and rubbing her forehead. "I'm just a little...stressed, I guess."

"About what?" I asked, perking up as she walked over to the couch. She sat on the other side, and even though there was only one cushion between us, the conscious effort she made to put some distance between us stung.

"This book I've been working on," she groaned and pulled at her hair, letting it drape over the arm of the couch. "Just...writers block, editing, deadlines...that's all."

"You can talk to me you know." I inched myself closer, and she seemed to ease up a little bit when I put my hand on her thigh.

"I know, I know." She took my hand in hers, but kept her eyes down. "It's not that I won't finish what I'm working on. I know I'll finish it, I always do..." her voice trailed off before she finally looked up at me, and for once, her smile seemed forced, and the glow in her eyes was dim. "It's just like, in the moment, ya know? You question everything. Then you stress about it, and then being stressed about it stresses you more."

"I kind of get it." I nodded. "Do you want me to read any of it?"

"No!" she blurted out. "I mean...it's just not ready. Not ready for reading."

"Oh, okay." I tried not to sound so dejected, but I ached to know. More importantly I wanted to mean enough to her that she'd willingly let me into that part of her life. She'd kept most of her writing secret from me, and maybe there was a part of me that felt like letting me read it meant things were getting serious.

"Anyway," AJ waved the thought off and squeezed my hand. "I was going to take a bath...if you want to join, you can..."

She got up and beckoned me towards her bedroom, and my heart rate doubled, rattling my ribs in my chest.

"What is it with you and wanting to bathe with me?" I jabbed at her. "Is this like your subtle way of telling me I'm dirty?"

AJ laughed, and it was like a switch was flipped. She was back to her usual self, and she skipped around her plush carpeted bedroom towards the bathroom. I glanced over at her bed, not messy but not quite made, her faded navy blue comforter hastily pulled up over her pillows. I felt my heart in my throat as I tore my gaze away from it, trying not to imagine myself tangled up there with her.

"I would never," she grinned. "I was taking a bath regardless of if you were here or not, it's just part of my Sunday ritual."

"Oh, of course," I nodded slowly. "Self-care Sunday, right? My sister is all into that shit. Just don't ask me to wear one of those face mask things."

"Nope, I masked yesterday," AJ replied, as if it was as normal as saying she slept yesterday. I followed her into the bathroom attached to her bedroom, where it finally looked like the first place in the house that felt like AJ lived there. Her makeup bag sat in the sink, and a row of perfume bottles were lined up against the mirror. Leaves from the eucalyptus plant she told me had died still hung from the shower head.

"Besides," she continued as she leaned over the large white bathtub and turned the water on. "I'd like to think this is a little more intimate than making out on my couch like a couple of teenagers."

"I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to either..." I shrugged, leaning against the granite countertop of the sink. "But I take your point."

AJ emptied a bottle of liquid into the tub, and that same lavender and vanilla scent from earlier seeped up into the air. When she turned to me, that light in her eyes was back, locked in on me like a siren beckoning me into the depths. She ran her hands down the front of my t-shirt and tugged at the hem, pulling it over my head and tossing it on the tile floor. She had to lean forward on her toes to kiss me, pressing her body into mine as the edge of the counter dug into my bare back. I pulled her tank top off and fumbled with the clasp on her bra, desperate not to break our embrace. Eventually we came up for air.

"Want ice cream?" she asked with a grin.

"Obviously." I nodded.

She dashed out of the room, leaving me to stare at myself in the mirror and overanalyze every line and bump on my face, every twist and lick of my hair, wondering what in the actual fuck she saw in me.

I tried to pull myself out of my own head, and I picked up one of her perfume bottles, running my hand over the stamping on the embossed paper stuck to the bottle.

REPLICA. A REPRODUCTION OF FAMILIAR SCENTS AND MOMENTS OF VARYING LOCATIONS AND PERIODS.

ORIGINALLY: BEACH WALK. PROVENANCE AND PERIOD: CALVI, 1972.

I sniffed the spray nozzle and was instantly hit with the exact perfect vacation smell I had come to recognize so vividly. Even though it was something real, manufactured and put in a bottle I could hold in my hand, to me it would always just be AJ.

She returned with a carton of half-baked Ben & Jerry's and two spoons.

We finished undressing each other slowly, then climbed into the bathtub. She scooted herself in between my legs so there'd be enough room for both of us, with her back pressed against my chest and her head resting in the crook of my neck.

For all the sexual deviance I'd had in my life, I'd never found myself so intimate with someone, where the quiet was calm and time seemed to slow to a total stop. I brought my lips to her cheek, and she played with my hands, running her fingers over every divot, every line, every scar. I longed for her to know me inside and out, and I wanted the same from her.

"AJ..." my voice was soft as I spoke into the top of her head. "Do you know what you want with your life? Like...do you think about the future at all?"

I felt her shift in the water, and bits of her wet hair stuck to my chest when she moved.

"I don't know," she answered. "Nobody's really ever asked me that."

I smiled faintly to myself.

"Do you?" she asked.

"I asked you first."

She sighed and shook her head. "Well, I've always wanted to just...see the world. Go to lots of places and write about lots of people. There's interesting people hiding everywhere."

"You're an interesting person," I said. "Would you ever write about yourself."

"No." Her answer came immediately, the word sharp and rigid like a knife. "I'm not ready for that kind of introspection. It's the one thing I'm still uncomfortable with. It would just...expose too much of my soul."

I felt myself frown, thankful she couldn't see my expression. As much as I felt like I knew her sometimes, there were moments like this when I realized I didn't. Not in the way I wanted to, anyway.

"Would you write about me?" I prodded further, hoping I'd get any semblance of light from her.

She shifted against me again, but eased herself into my body and let out a more satisfied sigh. "Yeah...maybe I would."

We got out of the bath, and as I dried myself off with one of her plush white towels, I watched her flutter around her bedroom again in a silky pink robe, opening and closing drawers like she was looking for something lost. I pulled my shorts on and sat on the edge of her bed.

"What are you looking at?" she asked with a faint smile.

"You." I returned her smile.

She came over to me and held my wrists in her hands, delicately running her fingers over the marks and scars on the inside of my forearm, tracing lines of mangled flesh and discoloration. I went to jerk away from her, but she held my hands and kept me close.

"You're going to move on from all of this, you know," she said softly. "You can, and you will."

"It's different for you," my voice was barely a whisper. "You can just get on with your life and nobody would ever know anything was wrong with you. I'm branded forever, like a curse."

"Well, I like your curse marks. They make you you, and I wouldn't want it any other way." She leaned down and brought her lips to my cheek.

"I still don't understand one thing." I took her hands as she sat down beside me. "Why do you give so much and expect nothing in return? Aren't you tired by now?"

AJ shrugged and gently placed her hand on my cheek. "I don't know. It's just always how I've been. But...I guess I am kind of tired."

"Well..." I looked down at my hands, and for the first time I noticed how clean they were, with no paint or dirt under my nails and no cracks on my knuckles. "AJ, I'd give you anything you wanted."

When I looked back up at her, her eyes glowed like the ocean when the light of the morning first hits it. I was in deep, so deep I was drowning, except this time...I didn't really want to be saved.

I kissed her softly at first, taking in every sensation of her lips on mine, her hands in my hair, her body pressed against mine with nothing but that silky robe of hers between us. The moment her lips touched my neck, my heart damn near exploded.

I leaned back onto her bed and pulled her on top of me, shimmying her out of her robe and running my fingers up the ridge of her back. Her hair was still dripping wet, soaking my cheeks and my shoulders. She reached down and slipped my shorts off, discarding them to the side.

She pulled away from me, her eyes dark like an impending storm that was destined to strand me out at sea. Her neck rippled as she swallowed.

"There's a condom in my bedside table."

I nodded, words an impossible task for me at that point, and slid myself over on the bed to her table. I yanked the drawer open harder than I intended to and fumbled around for the sticky plastic of the condom wrapper. With shaky hands I tore it open, mentally kicking myself for being as inexperienced with condoms as I was. Sage had always been on birth control, and risk of STDs had been the least of our ailments.

The moment AJ slid herself onto me, I was in sensory overload, my nerves firing on overdrive faster than my body could comprehend. My head spun and my lungs struggled as we moaned each other's names and frantically tried to keep up with one another, but it wasn't fucking like Sage and I would fuck. It wasn't angry and vindictive and callous. It was something entirely different. Something not of this world. All I really knew was that I liked the feeling of her skin on mine, and it made me feel like my soul had left my body.