I'll Be Here (18 page)

He stood up and adjusted the waistband of his shorts.  I noticed the dark red marks the shorts left on the pale skin of his stomach.  “I’m leaving for a new school and that’s why I’m telling you guys.” 

When he looked out over the green space to the edges of sky, I suppose that he looked as depressed as someone like him could get.  “My parents found some of my stash so they’re sending me away to a boarding school.”

“Oh,” I muttered awkwardly.  Alex was looking at the small pile of ash and paper on the ground near his feet.  Clearly the remnants of Sam’s “stash.” 

I sat down and let my feet dangle into the shadowed air of the hole.  “Is it safe?” I asked.

“Sure, sure.”  Sam shrugged.  “Julian Mills showed me.  And his dad was a builder you know.  And this place is manmade so…” he said it like it was a qualification.  “It opens up down there just under those big rocks.”  He pointed to a spot about fifteen feet away.    

“Look…  I’m sure it’s safe,” he continues.  “But I wouldn’t mention it to your parents because then you’ll get a bunch of people down here and that’s not what you want.”  He said it like he knew what Alex and I wanted.

Standing beside me, Alex wasn’t saying much.  He just had his head cocked to the side like he always did when he was thinking.  He only asked one question.  “What’s the third thing?” 

Sam looked confused for a minute. 

“The third rule,” Alex clarified. 

“Oh yeah.”  He smiled then.  Conspiratorially.  “No sex.”

Tonight, I still blush remembering the look on Alex’s face.  I wonder if he can tell in the muted light thrown by the downturned flashlight.  There’s silence and the shuffle of our feet scraping the hardened earth.  “It looks like more people have been here,” he says pointing the beam of the flashlight at a small collection of candy wrappers. 

“Yeah, last winter I showed it to some seventh graders that live at the end of Canary Landing.” 

I almost fall over a raised rock and I have to catch myself against the wall.  Dirt falls through the spaces between my fingers.  Here the walls narrow.  I don’t like this part but I remind myself that I’m almost to the open air of the beach.  “It was probably a mistake but I was feeling generous that day.”

Alex glances back over his shoulder as we emerge on the other side.  The stars shift and then come into focus.  “Seventh graders, huh?  So you ruined a perfectly good hiding space.  I’m sure that Dustin loved that.”

I speak before I can think too hard.  “I told you that I haven’t been here.  I never brought him here.”

Alex turns and looks at me. 

I shiver. 

The wind blows in over the sea grapes and the maze of snarled branches and ruffles my hair in my face.  I taste the salt on my tongue.  The sound of the waves beyond the rocks is a whisper. 

We are quiet for two beats.  Two minutes.  Two hours.  Two years. 

“Did you want to make him jealous tonight?  Is that why you asked me to go to that party with you?”  His jaw is clenched tight like he’s waiting for me to say something that he doesn’t want to hear.

I nod.  I don’t want to admit it out loud.   

Alex looks up at the sky and the crowded stars.  I try to think about how this would go if I were better at this sort of thing.  I try to think of the perfect line that a cool and clever girl would think of, but if that girl exists she is not me.

As usual Alex surprises me.  The words that come out of his mouth aren’t the ones that I am expecting.  “Do you love him?”

I look up and straight into his blue ocean eyes.  They are alive with the nighttime lights, almost glowing with their own bright intensity.  I don’t think that eyes like those should even exist in the real world. 

Do I love Dustin?
 

That’s a very good question.  I’d told my mom that I did.  I’d been sure of it myself.  But, now when the words should come smoothly, I can’t find them. 

“I don’t know,” I croak.  I clear my throat and cough.  “Maybe I loved him once and maybe I still do.  I don’t know anymore.”

Alex takes a step closer and the breeze doesn’t cut against me so hard.  “But you want him back?”

“I’m not sure,” I say quietly pushing loose strands of hair away from my face. 

I know once I’ve said the words that it is the truth.  Maybe yesterday I thought I wanted Dustin back but suddenly I’m not so sure what I want.  Everything is swirling and I feel like I’m a kite being held by a taut string and at any moment a large gust of wind could come along and snap it.  

My heart is beating furiously.  Love, college, family, art... the future.  These things dance along with my pulse and threaten to spill from my eyes.   

Alex steps in front of me, his wide shoulders angled against the wind and his long-fingered hands braced in his pockets.  He’s a good five inches taller than me and I have to look up at him.  He’s shaved and I want to touch the smooth skin around his mouth.  I take a deep breath.  “I’m not sure what the right answer is.”

 “The right answer,” he says considering me with lidded eyes, “is
no
.  But I am decidedly biased so you probably shouldn’t trust me.”

In response I smile and give into temptation.  My hand comes up and I run my fingers along the side of Alex’s face.  His eyes close and his mouth parts on a sigh.  When he tilts his head into my cupped hand I stand up on my tiptoes and place a feather light kiss on his warm lips.  At the feel of my mouth his blue eyes flare open and I can see the desire there.  And I know that is exactly what he must see reflected in my own gaze. 

Strong hands find my waist and pull me in.  No longer hesitating, his mouth crashes into mine and the sensation of our lips moving together is so overwhelming that I release a moan into his mouth. 

I wind my arms up around his neck and press my body against the length of his.  I can feel that he wants me as much as I want him, and
all
I want is him.  His tongue slides along the inside of my upper lip and I open my mouth further to take him in fully.  Alex draws his hands across the curved lines of my body stopping when he reaches my face.  His palms are flat against my cheeks so that the tips of his fingers rest behind my ears where they graze the soft hairs at the base of my neck.  When he pulls back and looks at me, his bright eyes are smoldering. 

“Actually,” he whispers, his mouth snaking forward to sweep his hot tongue in a trail from my neck to my collarbone.  “That answer was even better.” 

***

“Oh my God!” She squeals into the phone.  I actually have to pull it away from my ear.

“Seriously Laney, will you chill?”  I’m laughing.   

“Give me every detail,” she insists.    

I start to talk but there’s a muffled noise and Laney cuts me off. 

“Wait,” she commands.  “Colleen wants to hear the story too so come down to the record store and tell us everything.”

Why not?  It’s Sunday and Mom, Jake and Aaron are out.  I don’t have any homework except for a couple chapters of reading and I can do that later.  Plus, there’s no chance of seeing Alex.  When he dropped me off last night, he told me that “unfortunately” he had to head back to school early and wouldn’t be able to see me today.  I liked that he thought that not seeing me was unfortunate.

As I fell asleep last night with Ferdinand tucked into my side and the grey-blue starlight pressing against my windows, I let myself think about that night two years ago when things went so topsy-turvy.  For the last two years I’d been telling myself—no,
making
myself believe that all those feelings I’d had for Alex weren’t real—that it was just a magnified crush and I’d only imagined that it could ever be anything more. 

But after our incredible kissing session, my mind began to catalog all of the things that had drawn me to Alex in the first place.  And I can’t say that the memory of all the places that his hands had been and what they had made me feel didn’t make me want to scream into my pillow in delight.

I practically skip out of my room.  I decide not to change out of my pajama pants because:

 a) If it weren’t for the small yellow ducks embroidered along the leg cuffs, they could pass for pink workout pants.

b)  I’m too hyped up to bother. 

c)  I kind of like the ducks.

Grabbing my car keys, I just slip on a pair of flip flops near the front door and pull my hair into a loose and messy ponytail. 

The record store is just around the corner from my favorite coffee shop.  I park my Honda in an angled spot and pick up a mocha cappuccino before heading to the record store.  I step off the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a grumpy looking elderly man in a ratty jacket and I think that I hear my name being called. 

“Willow!”  Louder this time and in a recognizable voice.  My heart squeezes.

I look down, second-guessing the decision to keep these pants on.  Yellow ducks glare back at me.  I run my hands back over my hair but decide that it’s a lost cause.   

Dustin’s smiling as he jogs to catch up in a pair of loose-fitting gym shorts.  He’s not wearing a shirt.

“Nice ducks.”  Dustin pants as he leans forward with his hands braced on his knees.  I forgot that he runs this route sometimes.  A single dark blonde curl falls forward on his forehead.

I pull myself straight and try not to stare at the small bead of sweat that’s making its way down his neck to a secret place beneath his collarbone.  “Thanks.”

Two girls, who look to be in middle school, pass by us brazenly staring at Dustin in all his shirtless and sweaty glory.  They giggle. 

Dustin and I stare at each other with our mouths held in tight lines to suppress our smiles. 

When the girls are out of hearing distance I let go of the chuckle I’ve been holding in.  “It seems you have some new admirers.”

Dustin cocks his head and grins mischievously.  “Hmmm.”

His response is a challenge I can’t pass up.  “What?”

Dustin’s dimple is showing itself.  “I’d prefer to know if you’re still one of my admirers.”

I don’t want to admit this but I stagger a little.  Is Dustin Rant
flirting
with me? 

I swallow in an attempt to normalize my voice.  “Well, I guess that’s up for debate.”

 He turns on his mega-watt smile.  “Fair enough,” he says.  “So Willow Josephina, what are you and your ducks doing downtown?  Getting coffee?”  He nods to the shop window just beyond my shoulder. 

“Yeah, and actually I’m going to see… uh—” At the last moment I remember Dustin’s face last night when he saw me with Alex and decide that a little jealousy never hurt anyone.  “I’m meeting up with a friend.” 

A friend. 
I’ll let him think what he wants to think about that.  Hopefully it will fester beneath his skin.  That’s what I wanted, right?

Dustin’s forehead creases.  He links his thumbs together and glances down the road still puzzling through what I’d said.  “I better keep going before my heart rate gets too low.”

“Sure,” I say taking a step to the side.

As Dustin passes me he spins and jogs backward for a few feet.  “Willow?”

“Yah?”

“I’ll see you at school, okay?”   

I smile.  “Of course you will.”

Dustin tips  his chin in a confirmation.  As I walk down the block to the record store I wonder if Dustin is watching.  I imagine that I can feel his eyes on me but I don’t look to make sure.

***

Taylor stops texting and looks up.  She’s waiting in front of my locker.  The first bell just sounded so that means we have five minutes before we have to be in class.  It’s Monday morning.

Hi,” she says slipping her cell phone into the front pocket of her green leather bag. 

I nod because I feel uncomfortable and I don’t know how to talk to her now that we’re not friends.  Not anymore.  Maybe we never were.

“I saw you at the Hooch Saturday,” she starts out casually like it’s up for debate whether we saw each other or not. 

She’s leaning into the locker, her thin shoulders popped forward and her honey-colored head cocked to the side as she looks at me.  “You’re
boyfriend
is cute.”

I know that she’s digging.  I can tell that she’s dying to know the who, what, where, and why of Alex and me.  There’s no way I’m going to grant her the satisfaction so I simply nod again because it’s the simplest thing to do.  Under the best circumstances I’m not a great liar and these are not the best circumstances.

Taylor’s body weight shifts to her other foot.  Strangely enough she seems almost as uncomfortable as me.  “I want to apologize about the way I was to you after the…”  She takes a visible breath.  “
You know
.”

Well, that’s one way to phrase it. 

“Okay,” I mutter, continuing to shuffle my things around my locker.  “Apology accepted.”

She twists a strand of long hair around her index finger.  “So, was that guy someone you’re seeing?”

I pause and give her a look that I hope chills her.  “That’s really none of your business Taylor.”

Taylor half-smiles—impish and girly.  I’m not sure what she means by it but somehow that is the end of our conversation.  She moves towards her first class, her blonde hair waltzing around her shoulders as she walks away. 

I chide myself because I didn’t have the guts to ask her the right questions in the beginning and I don’t have the guts now.  There are still things I want to know—to work out. 

Momentous things. 

My eyes swing down the hall to Taylor’s disappearing back.  Our classes are in the same direction.  I have to go that way anyway…

And just like that I am running to catch up to her. 

“How long?”  My voice is high and breaks her stride.  She turns to me.

There is silence even though the hallway is clogged with students chatting, humming, stomping.  The silence exists in the four feet between Taylor and me.   

Taylor cringes as if this scene is actually bothering her. 

“Since that party at Finn Perry’s house.  I think that you were with your dad,” she says finally.    

“Huh.”  I do some quick calculations.  That party was just before Valentine’s Day so that means that Dustin and Taylor were going behind my back for over two months.  And Dustin got me flowers on Valentine’s Day.  Red roses.  A whole dozen in a crystal vase spliced with Baby’s Breath and green ferns.