She Will Be Loved

Note: "She Will Be Loved" by Maroon 5 is obviously not my song. In many ways, it is my song, as it seems to be the anthem for lonely young women out there, but I do not own the rights to it. Since I won't be profiting in any way from this short story of the same title or quoting the lyrics, please don't sue me...And yes, some of the lyrics are missing.

Eric Fielding met Amata Malaya at the tender age of five. At this age, nobody ever wonders "is this the person I was meant to spend the rest of my life with?" Instead, his main concern was securing a space in the sandbox. He had noticed that there was a space next to the little dark-haired, brown-skinned girl in overalls, so he took it. He never could remember exactly what he said that caused the impetuous young Amata to kick sand in his face and storm away from the sandbox for the swingset, but he was always certain that he deserved it.

Amata's parents, on the other hand, recalled quite well what caused their daughter to renounce playground society for the comfort of her books. For, as often is the case of international incidents, this was a misunderstanding. At such a young age, Eric could not understand the implications of mistaking a Filipina girl for a Chinese girl. The Malayas had instilled upon their young daughter at an early age a distinct pride in who she was, where she came from. The incident with Eric ended up being merely the first of many such incidents.

The fortunate thing about first impressions is that they don't always determine the dynamic of a future relationship. After a brief geographic explanation and ethnic clarification, Amata and Eric became fast friends. When Amata asked Eric where his family was from, it proved to be an awkward moment. The young boy went home to his parents, determined to find out who he was, but only got a simple explanation of "You're an American, and be proud of it!" from his father, who didn't quite feel that his son was under a good influence around "that foreign girl." When Eric told Amata that he was an American the next day, she simply laughed and said, "Yeah, so am I, but where did your family really come from?" Eventually, Amata and Eric gave up their search for Eric's ethnic identity. Instead, they focused on exploring the park and worrying their parents greatly. It was usually Amata's free spirit which got the two of them in trouble, and continued to get her into complicated messes up until their senior year of high school.

By the time she was 18, the solid walls of Amata's identity based on her family and nationality had crumbled. She knew she was not white, but it had always been difficult to fit in, a bit of caramel drowned beneath a sea of chocolate and vanilla in the sundae of middle-class Midwestern society. In elementary school, she got into playground fights which did not end as civilly as her initial introduction to Eric. In middle and high school, none of the cafeteria cliques really accepted her. She did not even feel a sense of belonging with the "outskirts" kids, the pot-smokers, the skateboarders, the kids who often swapped anti-depressant medications in the same way kids used to trade twinkies for bags of chips. Even her home life had deteriorated, as her parents were constantly on the verge of divorce, with many a mismatched set of dishes as a testament of missing plates which had been smashed against the cracked walls.

They were never "boyfriend/girlfriend" mainly because of her parents' strict decree that she was not to date until she graduated from high school. Yet this never stopped her from sneaking around with other guys. She had gotten one of the worst reputations in her high school for her actions, but more often than not, the rumors were unfounded as she was still a virgin. Eric never saw Amata as anything more than a friend until one day when he got into a fight with a guy in the hallway who had called her a slut. As he slammed the asshole into a locker repeatedly, Eric realized that he was not just angry about someone insulting one of his dearest friends. He was actually jealous of the mere implication that she could be sexually interested in anyone but him.

The only secure thing in her life was Eric. After she got her driver's license, Amata would "borrow" her dad's car and go driving. She would often call Eric at the last second and pick him up at the corner by his house. They would hang out in the cornfield outside of town, thinking about how much better their lives would be after they graduated. As troubled as Amata was, she was intelligent enough to maintain her grades. Eric often spent weekday nights studying with her, as it was usually impossible for her to get any work done in her tumultuous house. He never truly understood what it meant to her to spend an evening in a quiet house, but he left his window open for her. As unpredictable as Amata's life and behavior became, Eric was stable. She only applied to one school in California, risking non-acceptance despite knowing that her test scores and grades were more than enough to get into a state school. On the other hand, Eric applied to as many schools as possible, convinced that he would be lucky if one accepted him. He was nothing particularly special: second-string varsity football team, only got into National Honor Society after his second application, occasionally played piano for church services. In yearbook pictures, it was nearly impossible to pick him out from the other white-bread kids. Yet no matter what, he could always find her in any crowd. She had grown up to be beautiful, filling out in a voluptuous figure contrasting against the status-quo of straight stick-figure manufactured magazine beauty. To Eric, she was beautiful because nobody noticed the beauty in her unconventionality. The idiot who had taken her to prom under the pretense of believing that he could gain an easy lay from an insecure girl obviously missed out on that. It was then that he realized that it would be unthinkable for him to approach her with any ideas of being together outside of friendship.

Yet Amata did keep her secrets. It was only after graduation that she confided to Eric about her secret encounters that year. Perhaps she felt the need to escape the academic pressures and tedium of high-school life. Perhaps she wanted to quietly rebel against her parents' and society's expectations of her by being provocative. Sometimes she would end up driving to Eric's house, tapping on his window until he let her into his room. She would lie curled up on his bed while he stayed up writing research papers or scholarship essays. He had no idea where she had been, nor did he care. Eric would sit awake in his desk chair long after he had wrapped up working on his computer to just watch her sleep. Only on a few nights did he dare to sleep next to her, adjusting the errant strands of midnight-black tinged with blue over her face to behind her ear, so he could see her face clearly and trace the curve of her cheeks with his fingertips.

I don't mind spending everyday
Out on your corner in the pouring rain
Look for the girl with the broken smile
Ask her if she wants to stay awhile
And she will be loved
She will be loved

When she finally got grounded and punished to the point where her parents had locked her door from the outside and barred the windows, Eric would drive to the corner of Mission Street and Oxford Drive and park his car. It was May, the rainiest month of the year in those parts. He would get out and stand beneath a large oak tree with no umbrella, his chestnut hair plastered over his eyes. Eric was convinced that she never saw him, but he still hoped for the day when she would run out to him, somehow breaking the locks and bars which held her back. Sometimes throught the driving rain, he was convinced that he saw her wan smile from behind gauzy curtains and black bars. When she was released two weeks before going off to college, she ran back to Eric.

Tap on my window knock on my door
I want to make you feel beautiful
I know I tend to get insecure
It doesn't matter anymore

The familiar tapping came from the window. Eric eagerly opened the screen and helped her climb in.

"So, you've decided to bust loose and run off with me?" he half-joked.

"I'm free Eric!" she threw her arms around him, "I'm going off to California in two weeks. I'll never have to come back here again since I can crash with my cousins over breaks!"

"I'm so happy for you..." he smiled faintly, realizing that he would most likely never see his closest friend again.

Eric inhaled deeply and grimaced. He could smell cigarettes on her. No matter how many times he told her she should quit, she never did. Then again, her impetuousness was part of what he loved about her in the first place. Yet beneath the smoke smell, there was something else: orange peels, like when they used to share oranges they bought from the local grocery in the winter; cinnamon, like the cookies she used to bring as study snacks for finals week before winter break; and one final scent of which he could not quite pinpoint the source. Eric had read somewhere that the sense of smell was deeply tied to memories in the brain. He had shared most of his life with this young woman, and the possibility of creating no more memories, scent-related or otherwise, with her made him feel a pain in his chest, far deeper than when he had strained himself at football practice sophomore year. A lump settled in the back of his throat, similar to when he made the mistake of attempting to scarf down too many s'mores at one time at summer camp in middle school.

Amata pulled back and read his expression, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm just a bit tired, that's all..." he sat down on the bed and stared at the floor.

"I know you better than that," she punched him on the arm, "You know you can tell me anything, right? I owe you that much for being my confessor."

"Amata, how long have we known each other?" he asked, looking up into her night-dark eyes, recalling all the times they spent together on the hood of her car watching the night sky for shooting stars over past summers.

"Is this about when I kicked sand in your face? Geez, I said I was sorry..." she mock-rolled her eyes at him.

"I'm being serious..." this was not going well. He could already see her retreating for the window even though she sat frozen next to him.

"Eric--"

"Please, don't say anything, I'm probably making a mistake, but--" he decided to risk everything for once, the same way she often did.

This was the first pass he did not fumble in his brief 18 years of life. Even with closed eyes, his kiss landed on her lips before she could respond, or at least respond with a "no." When he felt her hand reach up not to push him away, but caress the back of his neck, Eric knew that he had done the right thing. He ran his hand through the sable softness of her hair, her pseudo-punk days washed out with the blue hair dye. In many ways, she had returned to the same girl he had first met, more sure of herself than anything else. It was his turn to be the vulnerable one, to put it all on the line for one chance to fully be happy with himself. Yet unlike Amata finding herself on her own, Eric found himself in her, could only define himself through her.

The kiss deepened as they both entwined their limbs around each other, one testing the tactile limitations of the other. Eric could taste the contraband cigarettes and cheap vodka on her tongue. Sometimes he wondered if he knew her at all, but he realized that he was the only one who truly knew her, just as she was the only one who truly knew him. It wasn't his parents that he told his insecurities about getting into college, or his dream of becoming a composer. It was Amata, always Amata. Eric was a church-going young man, but he sometimes felt his own doubts about God and his own family. Yet with Amata, her ups and downs made his insecurities seem insignificant.

Yet there was another insecurity floating in his mind which was dispelled once he heard her whisper "I'm on the pill" at the first hint of hesitation on his part. If there was any connection between them at all, this proved it. They knew each other better than anybody else could have known them to the point where they could gauge each other's thoughts.

The growing need between his legs pained Eric as he fumbled with the button and fly on his jeans. Amata couldn't help but giggle at his predicament as she steadied his shaking hands, but immediately caused him to resume trembling as she traced a solitary fingertip down his stomach and traced around the length of his erection. He started sweating harder than he ever had running laps at practice. The pounding in his chest would not subside despite her gentle ministrations. He had not been so unsure in his life since his college rejection and acceptance letters arrived in the mail that spring. Now that his and Amata's futures were secure, Eric was still terrified of the implications of what they were about to do even if he knew that he was indeed doing the right thing.

He undid the hook-and-eye closures of Amata's top, hands trembling as they had been. As he slid her sleeves down, he admired the curve of her shoulders and the golden glow which emanated from where his dim room lamp shone behind her. Amata's dark hair fell behind her back and a couple of portions fell over her shoulders, creating a dark halo around her head to contrast the light one above it. A black padded bra supported the breasts which she had always seen as "too small," but he saw them as nothing less than perfect now as she undid the hooks behind her back. She halted, eyes wide and consulting him as to where to go next.

Eric reached out to her, not to comfort her as he had so often in the past, but to touch her in a way he was certain nobody ever had -- with pure love. His fingers touched her hair, shifting it behind her ears and down her back so he could see her completely. His fingers wandered down her jawline as she closed her eyes, down her throat and onto her shoulders as they both lay back on his bed. Her skin was the smoothest thing he had ever touched. Eric marveled as he touched his lips to her shoulder for the first time. She tasted cool and distant, which worried him at first until his hand traveled down to her breasts. There, Amata's heart gave away yet another secret, pounding full of a heat he had never experienced before. Was this same heat the unrecognizable scent he had smelled on her earlier?

His lips followed his hands, kissing from one breast to another, pausing in the space between to inhale her scent. Everything about her was so familiar. Amata ran her hands through his thick brown hair, noticing how her hand contrasted against the paleness of his neck but not feeling the need to comment on it anymore. She placed a hand beneath Eric's chin and eased him up to meet her lips again. Amata placed a kiss on his shoulder, curious as to how she still had any of her blood-red lipstick remaining on her lips. She laughed and continued exploring someone she had believed to know in his entirety, but was pleased to know that there were still things she still didn't know. For example, Amata found that Eric would elicit the most ache-filled sigh if she licked the spot behind his ear. She arched her back, allowing him to trace his hand down her spine, which caused her to emit a low-pitched moan, another discovery made in the name of anatomic explotation.

Eric found that his hands had stopped trembling enough so he could help Amata shift her jeans and panties down her legs and onto the floor. He tickled her kneecap with her fingertips and ran his hand up her thigh. Eric allowed his eyes to roam as he leaned on his side. Perhaps this was the only time he regretted not taking a drawing class with a particularly eccentric art instructor from high school, yet there was no use in regretting anything now. His hands on her body would have to perform the function a pencil and a paper could not. He continued tracing her frame upward, lingering on the juncture where her hip met her thigh and spreading his fingers and palm against the plane of her stomach. Eric removed his hand and kissed her there, swirling his tongue around the edge of her navel. His ears savored the sigh which escaped from her lips as one of his hands simultaneously crept up her thigh and traced around the folds of her outer lips. It was after he felt the slick heat of her passion escaping onto his fingertips that Eric knew Amata was ready for what he had spent many of his teenage years dreaming about.

He positioned himself over her, slowly spreading her legs wider with his knees. Realizing that his boxers were still on, he slid them off in a hurry. He paused a moment before kissing her, looking down as if to ask if this was what she really wanted. Amata's eyes remained half-closed in her euphoric bliss, barely able to look up and smile at him to affirm her readiness. He grasped his shaft and positioned it so the head grazed against her clitoris slightly. Reading her gasp as a good sign, he continued pushing, slowly at first. If Amata was not a virgin, she definitely did a good job of hiding it. Eric wondered how much it was hurting her, considering how tight the fit was. He looked at her and saw a tear escape from her tightly-closed eyes. He almost pulled out when she wrapped her legs around him, entreating him to continue.

After pushing his entire length into her, Eric bent down for a kiss, wiping away the tear streak on her cheek with his thumb. Amata wrapped her arms around him again, the left wandering down his back as the right stroked his hair. He pushed himself up again, easing his way in and out of her. He closed his eyes in rapture. Amata felt better than he had ever dreamed on his late nights spent alone in his room. Smiling, he opened his eyes again, watching her, feeling her hands brush ever so slightly against his skin. The trembling started again as she arched her back to meet him. He wondered at how perfectly his fingers fit into the small of her back, reminding him of his old favorite catcher's mitt; along with how right his hand felt at the back of her neck, fingers against her vertebrae, as it did on the neck and frets of his guitar. Tonight, she was his work in progress, and he would make her sing in the way he knew she always could, but didn't because she held herself back too much.

He watched her eyes shut tightly again, but not from the same sort of pain as before. Eric knew that it was close for him too, but tried his best to hold out until her climax had completed. He heard her breath slow to a near-silent gasp. He felt her pulse against his lips as he kissed her neck before building up his thrusting speed once more. As her back arched, Eric could feel her trembling and knew that it was time. He closed his eyes and allowed the memories to flood him, of driving nowhere in particular, of standing in the rain, of holding her in his arms...

"I love you..." Eric wasn't sure if he had heard her saying it, or if it was his own voice, but he didn't care now. He was happier than he had ever been.

The next morning he woke up to the creaking of the window being opened.

"Where are you off to?" he yawned sleepily, squinting at the sudden sunlight.

Amata jumped as if not expecting to be noticed, "I shouldn't have spent the night...I should get back before my parents call the cops or something."

Eric sat up, "Since when do you care about what your parents think or do?"

"Look Eric..." she looked off to the opposite corner of the room, "This was a mistake."

This revelation immediately shook Eric from his dream-like haze, "What? Last night had to be one of the best experiences of my life. How could you tell me that you didn't feel the same way?"