“Did you bring condoms?”
We lay across two twin mattresses shoved together on the floor of her co-op dorm. Two four-hour flights and a San Francisco layover had chewed me up and spat out the gristle on the Austin-Bergstrom Airport curb. She’d come to pick me up, stepping out of her car smiling in the early-morning heat. Back in her room, unfurnished except for a desk and a strip of coloured LEDs stuck to the wall by the room’s last student, we started making up for lost time.
It wasn’t too long since we’d last seen each other. Only six weeks ago, we’d met online while she was in Vancouver, bored and looking for an excuse to ditch a family trip.
I cut class half an hour early and we went to watch the cruise ships come in at Canada Place. Within a week, sparks fanned by looming separation and credulous wonder had us whispering love and half-joking about elopement.
In the weeks after I dropped her off at the Four Seasons in Richmond, where the Eagles mocked us with “Take It Easy” over intercom speakers, we talked on Zoom calls almost every night. We soon realized this was new ground for both of us. I’d never had a long-term sexual relationship, and she’d never tried to make one work long-distance. Neither of us knew much about remote flirting, phone sex or any of the other awkward little gestures that give love airplane wings. Clumsily, we made it work. A few long weeks (and one embarrassing photo involving a strategically placed can of yerba mate) later we were finally together.
And no — I did not bring condoms.
She laughed and asked me why the hell not. The days before my flight were a blur of stuffed backpacks and panicked searches through crowded drawers in pursuit of travel documents. I shrugged and said I forgot. I assumed she’d have some.
“Well,” she sighed, pushing herself up off the mattress. “Guess we’re going to Target.” The thought of subjecting my bloodshot eyes to the desert sun was not appealing after the soothing cool darkness of her dorm. I groaned and sat upright.
“Hold on. When was the last time you…” she trailed off.
I stared up at her. I figured I’d gotten a decent sexual education in high school. A doctor had come in, explained things and answered all our questions, and I’d since taken learning into my own hands a few times. This was the 21st century, not a ‘90s teen comedy where the bio teacher saran-wraps a cucumber and calls it a day. But it’s possible there were some oversights.
“Y’know…” she said to my confused silence. “Jerked off.” She went on to explain a few of the finer points of my own biology to me. “So if you haven’t masturbated in a while we could do… some stuff without one.”
I hesitated. Two months earlier — June 2022 — the US Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, and Texas’s Republican lawmakers jumped at the opportunity to make the lives of their constituents significantly worse. Abortion was made illegal in all cases except to save the mother. I didn’t even know if emergency contraceptives like Plan B were still legal in Texas.
“No, I guess we should go get condoms.”
“Yeah.”
“In a minute.”
“Yeah.”
She fell back onto the bed with me. The wall’s LEDs turned purple, then blue and red, and the sun slanted through the blinds as we pulled each other close and slowly made each other forget about our half-hearted supply run.
The next two weeks taught me more than just a few strategies for avoiding parenthood on a budget. I got to know Texas and the Austin student co-op scene. I met her friends and we drove two hours through the desert to the next town because she knew a diner that served the best pancakes. Soon we were wiping away tears in the drop-off lane, and I thought I had learned enough. I was smitten. By her, and by her life here in Texas, by everything my madly darting eyes could take from the dwindling landscape outside the airplane window. Long-distance was hard — I knew that better now than ever. But I was all in.
We would make it work.
That fall was my first term at UBC. New friendships were everywhere, from Wreck Beach to Buchanan. But I didn’t care — the only person I wanted to talk to was far away over the Rockies. I don’t have an addictive personality when it comes to drugs or drinking, but I never considered moderation with her. I met some amazing people and made a few friends that I appreciate more deeply today, but that year they were all background noise to me.
Eventually, my unrealistic expectations and stupid decisions spurred by self-isolation started to gnaw at the long strings between us. We kept trying, we visited each other a few more times. Each we said would be the last — we’d spend a precious handful more days together and then call it quits when our time was up. And each time we changed our minds on the way to the airport, or in bed the night before.
As it turned out, being together did not make it easier to say goodbye.
By the time I reached my limit, we’d decided we weren’t dating anymore but still texted almost every day. The dissonance built to a clamour. I was learning not to shut myself off to the world in Vancouver, but I couldn’t open the doors while she was still inside. I called her up. Then I clicked ‘end call.’ In the year that followed, I would learn to branch out, to find love in all the people around me instead of just one.
But education is slow, and I’m still a student. Sometimes, on summer nights when the air is dry and my window is open, I sleep restlessly and dream about Texas.