Night Sky (21 page)

“Hey, Jay?” She puts her
hands on either side of my face.
I’ve seen
Sky vulnerable before, but nothing like this.
I push off her, once again hovering. Waiting for her to tell
me she’s not ready. “Be careful with me.” The words come out in a
rush of her breath.

“Yeah,” I whisper back. “But no added
pressure or anything.” I smile. “It’s cool.”

Our mouths meet again, but a twinge of
uncertainty starts gnawing at my gut.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask, but her
mouth is on mine.

“I don’t know. But I’m okay with that. I
trust you, Jay.” Her eyes are closed. Her hands are on my
shoulders.

I don’t think I can do
this…not like this
. Which honestly sucks,
because we’re so close.
“You’re the one
who said it wasn’t about levels, that it was about getting to know
one another.”
And why on earth am I not
taking advantage of the situation?

She kisses me again. “But you’re ready, I
think. And Jay, you’ve been so good to me. I just, I don’t know,
before I left seemed like a good time and…”

“You’ve changed me.” I
smile as I push up a little to hover over her. “The thought of
doing this when you’re…”
Unsure
. I can feel the
disappointment creeping in, but it’s better than feeling like crap
afterward…I think. My body is not going to be happy with me over
this, that’s for sure.
“Maybe before we
met, I’d have jumped at the chance.” I let out a breath. “But not
anymore.”

Her hands slide down my chest, down my
stomach. “Are you sure?”

“Not at all.” I shake my head. “You feel too
good right now for me to make a rational decision.”

“I feel like I owe you.”

“
Owe
me?” I let myself slide over
until I’m lying on my side facing her, making sure her body’s still
touching mine. Because even if we’re not going any further, feeling
her skin on mine is addictive, just like everything else about her.
I rest my hand on her bare stomach and try not to stare at her
bra.

“I…there’s things, about going home that I
need to tell you.” Her brows pull down.

“And you said that it involved a lot of
people and we’d talk about it later.” It seems like a reasonable
enough answer. She’s trying to protect the privacy of the people
she knows.

She leans forward and I feel her lips on my
neck and on my chest.

“You’re weakening my decision.” I run my
hands up and down her back.

“Sorry Jay, the decision’s already been
made.” She wraps her leg over my side pulling me close. “But that
doesn’t mean we can’t kiss.” Her chuckle comes out in a whisper
against my neck.

“You okay?” I ask.

Her hand reaches over in
her response and runs from the center of my chest to my
stomach.
Guess so.

Our lips and our bodies
meet again.
I never want this night to
end.

TWENTY-TWO

“
I still can’t believe you’re leaving,” I say while standing
on her grandparents’ porch.

Our morning was just as good as last
night—but short-lived. Now I’m anxious for her trip to be over
with. Let her do what needs to be done, so we can continue where we
left off. If she was almost ready last night, surely when she gets
back…

Our separation pushes into me again. Sky
feels so far away when she’s in Alaska, out of my reach, away from
any kind of protection I can provide. Sky and I should be
different. The world should look different. But our reality is the
same. She’s still leaving, and I’m still a little confused about
the whole thing.

“I’m sorry I have to go.”
Her hands clutch mine.
Is her heart
pounding as hard as mine?

“It seems like I should be with you,
protecting you, or…”

She shakes her head. “My aunt and uncle will
be at my mom’s house. I’ll be safe, Jay. I know that’s what you’re
worried about.” She leans up and kisses my cheek. “I feel okay
about it all. And I’ll be back in Vegas as soon as I possibly
can.”

“When?”

Her face clouds over. Just
long enough that I’m afraid to hear whatever she’s about to tell
me.
“Soon.” She lets go of my hands and
holds me tight. Her arms feel desperate. I’m sure mine feel the
same way.
Why am I so anxious about this?
We’ll only be separated for a couple of weeks.

“I’ll call you the first chance I get. You
can email me, but I won’t be able to check much.”

“Okay.” And then I watch
her step inside her grandparents’ house.
Away from me…
And it feels
significant.

***

It’s been three days since Sky left, and I
still haven’t heard from her. School is almost over, graduation is
around the corner and I can’t focus on anything. I’m sitting on my
bed, staring at the pool and all I can think about is Sky. I can’t
stand it any longer so I call her cell.

“Hey, Jay.” Her voice sounds thick.

Her tone immediately makes my heart pound.
Fear pushes me to standing as I imagine the worst.

“I’m in Ketchikan for the day. I planned on
calling you.”

“Are you okay? What’s
going on?”
And why do I suddenly feel so
crazy?

“Relax.” I hear a soft chuckle. “I’m
okay.”

“Are you sure? I feel like you’re just
trying to protect me, or something. I’ve been going crazy.”

“I wasn’t sure what to
tell you.” Her voice sounds shaky, even her
breathing
sounds shaky.

My chest drops into my
stomach, which drops to the floor. Just as fast as my legs pushed
me up, they’ve collapsed beneath me. “Tell me what?” It sounds like
I’m choking on my whisper.
Why am I
shaking? What’s going on?

“I have a daughter.”

My brain shuts down. My
thoughts are silenced. I am stunned.
Sky
has a daughter?

“I know I should have told you. It’s what
all the clan meetings are for. They want her here. I want her out.
One of my aunts has her now, but it makes things difficult when the
chief’s son is your baby’s father. We’re matrilineal and daughters
should stay in the clan, but my aunt switched clans, which is
creating a mess and…”

“And this is like the
biggest thing going on in your life right now.”
And she left me out of it…completely.

“Yeah.” She sniffs once.

“This is something
everyone in your group knows?”
It’s all
coming together now—the meeting with Tony’s dad, Windy getting
kicked in the foot by Jen.

“Um…hmm.” Her response is high-pitched,
she’s probably crying.

“I feel like you just
kicked me in the gut, Sky. How could you not have said
anything?”
How could you shut me out when
our entire relationship was about being honest with one
another?

“I don’t…it’s just…” She
can’t talk her way out of this. It’s too big
.

“Am I not important enough
to you? Is that it? This is
huge
, Sky. This is a life-changing
thing for you and you kept me completely in the dark. I don’t get
it!”

“I didn’t want to scare you away and…”

“Scare me away! All I’ve done is chase after
you, Sky! Now I think you just don’t give a shit and that I was
some kind of distraction for you! Did you think I’d like you any
less for having a baby? Is that how little you think of me?”

“If my aunt isn’t granted custody, I can’t
leave. I’ll have to stay and…”

“And what, raise the baby
yourself? What about Gunnar?”
Why didn’t
she tell me she might never come back? Why isn’t she trying harder
to make me understand?

“Gunnar? Yeah, Jay, that’s the best part of
it. He took what wasn’t his and he’s trying to do it again and if I
can’t fix things, I’ll be stuck here forever.” Her voice stops.

“Forever?”

“Besides you weren’t fair
to me
either
!”
I’ve never heard her raise her voice at me before.

What is she talking
about?
“How the hell do you figure that?”
I’m screaming into the phone and I don’t care.

“I got involved with you even though you
still have feelings for Sarah!”

Is she kidding me?
“Don’t go there, Sky.” I shake my head. “You
can’t even compare the two situations. You’re talking about a
lifetime of experiences you didn’t tell me about, things that made
you who you are, and you’re comparing it to my unresolved feelings
for
Sarah
?”

“Have you told her how you felt about
her?”

“No.”
Because it doesn’t matter…

“Then it’s
unresolved.”
I can tell that she’s crying.
I’m trying not to care.

“That’s not fair!”

“Call me when you’ve taken care of
things.”

“No, you call me
when
you’ve
taken
care of things!” I hang up the phone and hurl it across the room.
It breaks apart as it hits the wall.
Shit,
that’s gonna cost me.

I slide to the floor
wishing I had a punching bag.
What’s she
going to do? Why didn’t she trust me with this? Shit, what’s going
to happen with Gunnar?
I’m just angry with
her for making me feel this way. There’s no way around the fact
that she has a daughter. There’s a part of Sky out there in the
world. A part she didn’t even trust me enough to tell me
about.

Sky
actually
lied to me.

It hits me again—Sky has a
baby. Who is she? How old is she? Why did Sky even come here if her
daughter is in Alaska? These are the kind of things that you don’t
forget about for a night…an hour…or
even a
minute
! She thought about this every time
we were together and she never said anything—
ever
. Every time I think I’ve
reached a level of misery that couldn’t possibly be matched,
something proves me wrong.

I don’t sleep—at all. My alarm is in pieces
on the floor, and my feet crush what’s left of my phone as I walk
outside. I’m not looking forward to school…or anything.

The day passes in a blur. I know more than
one person asks if I’m okay, but I don’t know who they are, if I
like them, or if I even give a response.

Coach Carlson lets me swim on my own. I go
back and forth across the pool, changing strokes but keeping the
same steady rhythm. I don’t realize practice is over until the pool
is empty and Coach blows his whistle calling my name.

Now that I’m home, I don’t
want to be here. But I don’t want to be anywhere, so maybe that’s
not a fair thing to say. Right now, three things are certain. Sarah
left me. Dad left me. And Sky shut me out so completely that in a
sense, she left me too—if she was ever actually here in the first
place.
Now I have to wonder what the hell
I did to deserve this?

***

“Jameson, are you okay?” Mom asks, sitting
next to me on the couch.

“What?” I look around. The TV is off and
I’ve probably been staring at it for a while. It’s dark outside,
and I’m not sure when that happened…the darkness or the blank
TV.

“Are you okay?” Mom’s brows are pulled
together, while her obvious concern pulls the edges of her mouth
into a small frown.

“I don’t know.” I breathe out. “Can I borrow
your phone?”

“Where’s yours?” she asks, pulling her cell
from the front pocket of her jeans.

“In pieces on my bedroom floor.”

She opens her mouth to say something, but I
hold a hand up between us.

“I know it was stupid, and I’ll pay for it.”
Right now, I’d do just about anything to avoid a lecture.

“It’s not that. It just…” Her voice trails
off and she briefly rubs my back before heading into the
kitchen.

I dial my voicemail
inbox.
Do I want there to be a message
from Sky? An apology? Or am I still too angry for it to do any
good. Why does anger have to hurt this much?
Hearing my Dad’s voice instead of Sky’s answers my question.
I’m mad.
Wow, anger really does hurt this
much.

“Jameson, please answer your phone. We’re
not together anymore, Jameson. Me and… Well, stop by the casino
sometime or just call me back—anytime, it doesn’t matter.”

The next message is just more of the
same.

“I spoke with your mom, and she’s okay with
me coming to your state swim meet…that is, if you are. Please call
me when you get a chance.”

There’s a sort of sad,
lost tone to his voice that puts me on edge. I don’t want to feel
sorry for my Dad.
I use Mom’s phone to
text him.

MY PHONE BRKN. YOU CAN COME, IF YOU COME
ALONE.

Am I doing the right thing
here? Or I am just creating a distraction?
I actually don’t give a crap about the swim meet. I don’t
care about graduation, or finals, or swim times or anything. All I
know is that my family’s a mess and Sky’s thousands of miles away
and
…shit, I wish it all didn’t hurt so
much.

TWENTY-THREE

Third period English; where I sit next to
Sarah. I’m not even sure how I feel about it anymore. I walk in
just before the bell rings, giving us less time to chat.