One Pink Line (5 page)

“No, you weren’t.”

I could see him looking at me, as I was straightening-out the blanket underneath us. “Just drop it,” I mumbled, as my cheeks got warm.

The sky was black as ink, with the exception of the moon, and the air was breezy but warm. He tapped the ground next to him. “You could drive a car between us, care to come closer?”

I gladly inched my way over to him and he placed his hand on my knee.

“I love coming down here at night,” Ethan said.

“With all your dates?”

“You’re the first…girl I’ve brought down here…not my first date,” he clarified. “That came out wrong,” he smiled at me. “I actually wanted to ask you out years ago.”

I was stunned; I hadn’t even known he existed prior to Taylor’s party. “Really?”

“Really, even though you were too busy to notice a six-foot-two hockey player you had three classes with.”

He was right. I’d spent my entire high school career lusting after Andrew Harrington. How many other amazing men had I overlooked? “I’m flattered,” I said.

Ethan talked about college and how he was trying to decide on a major by the start of his sophomore year, which was only a couple months away. He asked me about my family, my sister, and my fears about leaving them in the fall. We talked for two hours about our lives, our dreams, our friends, and how weird it was that we never connected with each other before that night.

Ethan sat upright. “I think you’re beautiful, Sydney,” he said so abruptly and honestly I almost cried. “Can I kiss you?”

Our eyes met, and his body came over me like a large shadow, forcing me to lie down in the sand and disappear beneath him.

I playfully put a hand over his mouth. “Aren’t you going to wait for my answer?”

“Nope.”

And with that, we had our first real kiss. His mouth was smooth and open, and not too moist. We lay there in various positions in the sand, kissing and tugging each other’s hair for almost an hour. He seemed much larger in that domineering state, and I was straining to get my arms around his chest at times. We were both highly focused, panting and breathing rapidly, but neither he nor I attempted to take it to the next level. There was nothing I remember doing that I enjoyed so much in all my life, and I never wanted it to end.

“You okay? I feel like I’m crushing you,” he asked, backing away slightly.

I sat up and shook out my hair. “I’m great.”

After another fifteen glorious minutes, he reluctantly inched away, stood up, and offered me his hand. I took it disappointedly, because I knew it meant he was taking me home.

“We don’t want to get you grounded again, do we?” he said.

“Some things are worth the risk.”

Ethan pulled into my driveway and put his car in park. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

“I would love that.”

“Goodnight Sydney.”

“Thank you for tonight, and for not crushing me,” I grinned.

“My pleasure.”

I memorized his face before exiting the car. I’d dated a few guys before that, but none that had given me butterflies the way Ethan did. I could feel them fluttering their way through my body, first at my toes, then at my waist, and finally landing up inside my head at the root of my unruly hair. I watched him drive away, and then entered my house through the garage door. It was dark inside, except for the light in the kitchen, which my mom always left on to deter potential thieves.

The next two months were spent with Ethan, kissing in the sand and taking our relationship to the next level.

Ethan was not my first, but he was my first love. I’d had sex once before with a guy named Charlie Fleetwood, behind the public tennis courts near my house, and it was quite a disappointment. In fact, we weren’t even naked, just lying with our pants pulled down and grass in our hair. The sex was almost as quick as my entire relationship with Charlie.

But with Ethan it was different, and felt more like what I would have wanted my first time to be like. We were at the beach one night, him lying on his back, me on my side, and we began to kiss. I moved on top of his stomach, leaning over his body, and he lifted my shirt over my head. It was the first time he’d seen me without my top on. He paused and propped himself up on his elbows.

“You look amazing,” he said, excitement in his eyes.

“Thank you,” I blushed.

Ethan stood and removed his own shirt too. His chest was as smooth and solid as a slab of marble, and his muscles were so naturally thick that they flexed with every little gesture he made. I lay down on my back and he stroked my hair, kissing my neck and bra.

He paused to look at me. “Are you okay?” he asked.

Code for ‘will you have sex with me?’

I nodded.

“Are you sure?” he very politely confirmed.

I nodded again and pulled him closer to me, my hands shaking, body trembling with indescribable anticipation.

And he did not disappoint.

CHAPTER FOUR

grace

I
've looked down on my mom since I was nine years old. Not because she was an embarrassment, or led her life in a contemptible manner, but because at nine years old, I was a towering five-feet-six inches to her five-feet-two. I’ve always been tall, and people have never ceased to remind me.

“Grace is so tall!” they would say.

“Yes she is,” my mom would add.

“Where does she get her height?” they would ask.

“Her father,” Mom would add.

“Well, she got your looks and his height I guess,” they would conclude with a wink, while I would just stand there feeling shy and ridiculous. I may have been tall, but deaf I was not.

People were right; I did look like my mom with her almond shaped blue eyes, sun kissed blond hair and full lips. But physically that’s where the similarities ended. She was petite and small-boned, and I had broad shoulders and more of an athletic build. My dad stood just over six-feet tall, not a giant by any means, but larger than most people in our family. He had much darker features though.

My mom used to tell me how my infant and toddler clothing was always two sizes ahead of my age, and how she and I shared t-shirts when I was seven. My rapid vertical development never had much of an effect on me until someone else would comment about it, and the remarks over the years left me with mixed emotions. At first, my self-esteem took a hit. I would get embarrassed and inch closer to my parents, thinking if I stood behind them people would shut-up. Honestly, what sort of response did they expect to get from telling me how tall I was:

Then one day I was with my dad at the grocery begging him for Lucky Charms when our neighbor, Mrs. Phelan, barged in and opened her big mouth.

“She’s going to need a king-sized bed soon!” she exclaimed, and winked her intrusive eye at my father.

My dad turned and looked at me in confusion, then back at her. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“She’s just getting so tall,” she said with her smeared cherry red lips.

My dad looked at me and sensed my discomfort. “Should she be getting smaller?” he posed the question to Mrs. Phelan with the utmost concern for my well-being.

Mrs. Phelan strummed the handle of her cart with her inch-long finger nails, and looked away from us both. “I just can’t believe…well you know, she’s just getting to be such a big girl…a lady…you know.”

My dad rubbed his head, lifted my arms carefully one at a time, like they were covered in hives, and looked me over in horror. I just giggled and reveled in Mrs. Phelan’s own embarrassment.

“Nice to see you both,” she said, and waddled off.

From that day forward, I learned how to handle people in almost any given situation. If someone was going to make me feel awkward, they were going to regret it. I credit my mom with my looks, and my dad with my personality.

I’ve always had a great relationship with my parents. One that was honest and open. They always encouraged my brother, Patch, and I to talk things out with them rather than resort to a shouting match. However, my teen years were the most harrowing on my relationship with my mother. She and I would easily kick ‘talking’ to the curb and have it out over things like what I was wearing, how much I talked on the phone, and how often I smacked Patch.

Patch is five years younger than me and has always been a peanut. A tiny, skinny little guy who hadn’t a care in the world, least of all bumping his head on anything. I remember when he was four years old our pediatrician said he was in the 25
^th
percentile for height, and the 25
^th
percentile for weight. That same day, she said I was in the 200
^th
percentile for height, and the 150
^th
percentile for weight. We looked forward to doctor’s appointments back then, because it was a tradition that we’d go for Dairy Queen after each visit, regardless of whether it was an annual check up, or vaccination. I remember that particular appointment because I was just beginning to understand what the percentages meant, and it was the last appointment I looked forward to. The nurse asked my mom if I’d gotten my period yet, when she was finishing her routine check.

“Oh no, Grace hasn’t even turned ten years old,” Mom said.

The nurse re-examined my charts. “Yes, of course, she’s just so tall!” she wailed. “I’m always thinking she’s so much older.”

I gave her an evil look. “Maybe you should check Patch for pubic hair,” I suggested.

My mother’s jaw dropped, and only Patch got ice cream that day.

Whenever my mother was annoyed with something I’d done, she would ask my dad to have a word with me about my behavior. Oftentimes, he would just saunter into my room and say, “Mom wants me to have a word with you about your behavior.” And we would both smile and roll our eyes. I wasn’t a bad kid, and he knew it. Once he’d leave the room, I’d go looking for my mom and tell her that I loved her. She would hug me, and we’d move on. She never liked for there to be animosity between us.

There were times when she and I would go shopping and spend hours at the mall. She’d pack sandwiches for both of us, and we would take turns sitting on the floor of various dressing rooms while the other tried on outfits. We had a very straightforward thumbs-up, thumbs-down rating system for things. No grey area, she’d say to me, either I thought she looked fabulous in the clothes, or they should be burned. Unfortunately we could never share anything because I was so much bigger than her.

I received a Christmas gift from my Nana Lynne the same year I turned ten years old. As usual, it came via UPS in an enormous pink box. Patch looked at me and the elegantly wrapped package with envy because there was nothing from Nana Lynne for him. Inside were two shiny, new American Girl dolls surrounded by loads of miniature contemporary fashions and matching accessories. A vacation on the Swiss Alps? They’d be prepared. Horseback riding in Telluride? No sweat. Yachting in Bermuda? These gals had ascots in four colors. The problem was that I’d grown tired of American Girl dolls the year before. But as I unloaded the contents of the box, underneath the patriotic beauties and their travel gear was another, smaller box wrapped in red glittered paper. I fished it out and read the card.

With love from your Aunts,
it read.

I tore open the paper and inside was a brand new iPod. Apple’s newest musical phenom, which had only just been introduced to the public, and there it was, like the Hope Diamond in my hands. My friend Amy’s older brother had one, but that was the only one I’d ever seen. I cradled it like it was an American Girl doll and I was five years old.

“Mom!” I shouted from the kitchen.

“In here, Grace,” she yelled from the family room.

“You have to come here!”

“On my way,” she said, and I could hear her place the remote onto the glass coffee table.

I was holding the iPod high in the air as she walked in the kitchen where the pink and red boxes had exploded in a frenzy of sparkles and tissue.

“What is it?”

I walked over to her, and placed it in her hand. “It’s an iPod, can I use your computer?”

She looked at me like I’d just gotten away with something. “This is too much for you, that was very generous of them.”