Summer's Desire (20 page)

"Thank you," I murmur,
pressing against my chest the little bundle he's given me and covering my bra.

"Just hurry and get out of those
wet clothes," he tells me huskily. He lets his hand fall from my cheek and
makes to go.

"Seth, wait!" He turns back to
me with enquiring eyes. "There's something that you need to see." I
grab the plastic bag from the washing machine and hold it out to him. "I
found this tonight. Take it with you and look inside."

He frowns. "What's this about?"

I smile sadly. "Please just do this
for me."

After giving me another searching look,
he takes the bag. "All right. Now go shower." He shuts the door
behind him.

I look at the clothes in my arms: there's
a pair of gray drawstring pants and a comfy-looking, high-neck green T-shirt. Slowly,
like in a dream, I lower my face into the T-shirt and inhale the clean, woodsy scent
that imbues the fabric.
Seth's scent.
Another tug at my stupid heart,
and this time I turn cold with fear. God, I have it bad!

In the shower stall, I set the water as
hot as I can bear. But I still don't quite manage to chase away the cold.

* * *

His T-shirt is enormous on me, reaching down
to my thighs, and feels wonderful. His pants are much too big as well, but I
cinch the drawstring tight at my waist so at least they won't fall down. I also
roll up the pants legs, five times, to avoid tripping on them. Finally I put on
my necklace, slipping it under the T-shirt. I brush my teeth, delighted at
using Seth's toothbrush again, then wash and dry my face. My hair is still a
bit wet after the towel-drying I gave it, so I let it loose to dry naturally.

I can't delay my stay in the bathroom
any longer; I've already done everything I could do, as slowly as possible. I force
myself to the door but then stop before it and rest my forehead against the
cool wood.

I know I need to get out there, to Seth...
but I'm so very scared. Scared of his reaction. Scared for myself because I've
let myself hope again. To hope for Seth. And what if he tells me that the
letters don't change anything between us?

Was it only this morning that I opened
myself to him and he rejected me? Or yesterday morning now, I guess. Still, it
feels like a lifetime has passed, not less than 24 hours. I feel like I've aged
a hundred years.

And now I'm procrastinating again.

Don't be a coward!
I chide myself.
You came all the way here, didn't you?
Yes, I did. I can't back off now.
So I pull in a deep breath for courage and open the door.

* * *

He's lost the jacket and the boots and
is sitting on the floor in the living room, leaning against the couch. He's surrounded
by stamped envelopes, and in one hand he's clutching an opened letter.

His frame is strung as tight as a
bowstring on the verge of breaking from the stress. His eyes are scrunched
closed and his face... God, his face reveals such horrible anguish it's as if
he's suffered a mortal blow. It cuts me deep inside to see him like this; I
would do anything to take his pain away.

I approach him slowly and sit down on
the floor, just a few feet away from him, and I know he's heard me, but he
doesn't open his eyes to look at me.

"This letter I'm holding..." His
voice is like scraped sandpaper, rubbing all my senses raw. "This letter
is dated the 12th of March, five years ago. I remember that day with perfect
clarity."

I remember that letter as well. It was the
last I wrote to him.

"That day in the evening, after
getting off work, I went to the Andersons', just like I always did every second
day during the first year after you left me."

On hearing this, joy and grief clash in my
heart: joy because he waited for me like I did for him, and grief because he
must have suffered like I did when the wait proved in vain. He still hasn't
looked at me and I want—I
need—
to touch him, but I know that I cannot.
Not yet. He's telling me something important to him, and I have to hear him
out.

"Jessica answered my knock as
always before and told me so-damn-kindly that no, this time too there had been
no letter from Summer. There never was any damn letter, and I hated Jessica for
the pity in her eyes when she told me this. Most of all, I hated myself for missing
and needing you so badly that I would put myself through this useless ritual
and have fucking Jessica Anderson look at me with pity in her eyes... again and
again and again.
And
"—here his voice cracks slightly—"I hated
you
for not needing me like I needed you."

I can't stop my tears anymore, so I let
them flow silently down my cheeks. And I clasp my hands together, painfully
tight, to keep myself from reaching for him.

"So on that day," he continues
hoarsely, "the 12th of March, the day you wrote me this letter telling me
how empty your life felt without me and to please forgive you for whatever you
had done that upset me, and for hounding me with too many letters; but please
could I call you just once at this number, please just one time, you needed to
hear from me, even if it was for the last time, even if afterward I no longer
wanted to be your friend... You know what I did on that day?" At last, his
eyelids lift and he looks at me, and oh God, his eyes are bleeding agony.

"On that day,
I gave up on you.
I went to a party and got drunk, and I had sex with some random girl. I did it
to punish you but ended up punishing only myself—because no matter what I did,
I couldn't forget you. But by hell, did I keep trying! I thought you'd betrayed
me.
And I gave up on you...
" His voice, full of torment, breaks
again.

My heart, too, flails in anguish. His
pain is like my own, only it hurts so much deeper than mine ever could. Like an
awful black hole, it sucks all light and hope out of my world. It's more than I
can bear; I can't stand to see the hell in his eyes and keep away from him any
longer.

So I give in to my need and go to him.

I climb onto his lap and press myself
into him as close as I can, holding onto him frantically with arms and legs. His
arms come around me instantly, and he rises in one smooth motion, supporting me,
while I'm clinging to him with all my limbs wrapped around him. He takes a
couple of steps and sits down on the couch, settling me on his lap, gripping me
so tightly that I can barely breathe; but I'd sooner stop breathing than tell
him to let go, and I try to get even closer to him even though we are already
melded into each other. I bury my face in his neck and let myself cry the pain
of the five years without him.

His right hand rises and curls around my
nape, caressing me, and his husky voice is soothing in my ear: "Shh,
Sunny, shh! Stop crying, baby, please stop crying. I can't stand the sight of
you in pain."

But tears keep streaming down my face in
an endless stream of remembered grief, and my body is wracked with the force of
my sobs. And Seth keeps on holding me in a desperately tight embrace,
surrounding me with his body, calming me with his touch.

And giving me solace at last.

Chapter 15

An eternity later my tears stop, but I
don't let go of Seth. If it were possible, I probably never would; the way I'm
feeling right now, I could stay here in his arms forever and die happy. His firm
grip on me doesn't loosen either, and his right hand continues to stroke my
hair in a lulling rhythm.

With my forehead still pressed into the
side of his neck, I start to quietly tell him my story. "After leaving
Rockford, it took some time until I could make any phone calls. But once I
could, that's the first thing I did—call your number. Only this voice message
came on, saying that the line had been disconnected."

He explains, "Mom sold the house just
a few days after Grams died. I couldn't do anything to stop her. And when the
house was sold, the old phone number was disconnected."

I give a small nod, and my nose slides along
the column of his throat. I keep breathing him in, filling my lungs with his familiar,
woodsy scent. "I started writing to you. Just like you had made me
promise, I sent you a letter every day."

After a short silence, he observes
gruffly, "There are 365 letters here."

My mouth twists in a slight smile against
his skin. "You counted them?"

"Yes. And I'll read them."

 "You will?" My voice is tiny;
I feel so terribly vulnerable, all of a sudden.

"You wrote the letters, didn't you?
So I'll read them." Another taut silence during which his arms tense
around me even more. "Sunny, after you left... I yearned so damn much for
even one letter from you. One word. Anything." The emotion in his tone is
heartrending, and I tremble in his embrace. Truly, this boy keeps breaking my
heart even as he's mending it.

He seems to hesitate before speaking again.
"So if you wrote a letter each day, it means you wrote to me for a year. Before
you decided to stop." He sounds... conflicted, and I wonder what it is
that he really wanted to ask. Why did I stop writing
then
?
Why
did I write for so long? Why not for longer? Maybe even: Did I hate him when I never
heard back from him? Did I give up on him, as well?

With my face hidden in the crook of his
neck, somehow it seems a little easier to try and put my feelings into words
for him. "A year seemed like... a punch-in-the-face kind of milestone, I
suppose. You hadn't called, hadn't written in all that time. I waited and waited,
and I kept hoping... And it was all futile. Only, I didn't want to admit this,
didn't want to give up. But that one-year mark, Seth... It was like a turning
point where I felt that I
had
to admit it, I had to take my blinders off
and accept..."—my voice hitches a bit—"accept that you wanted to cut
all ties with me."

"
Sunny!
" My name and pain
and reproof—all mixed together.

My voice becomes very small again. "In
truth, I only stopped writing because I thought that was what
you
wanted—what
you were trying to tell me by never calling back. And if that was how you felt,
I didn't want to keep being a nuisance to you." Even so, it had been the
hardest decision I ever had to make. I'm upset just remembering that terrible anguish.

I don't know how much of what I'm
feeling comes through in my tone... but I fear it's too much. Seth's arms
convulse around me, and his accent is gravelly when he says, "Sunny,
please, I need to see you. I need to see your face while you're telling me all
this. Please, baby, will you look at me?"

After an infinitesimal hesitation, I nod
against his neck. Slowly, I unglue my hands from his back, draw them carefully
back along his sides and squeeze them in between our bodies. I put my palms on
his chest and his arms fall to my waist, still holding me close. The feel of
his heart beating strong under my right palm quiets my inner turmoil. I lift my
head at last and give him what he's asked for.

I show him my face, overflowing with all
my emotions: all my old sorrow, and my new burning hope, and the terrible
vulnerability that infuses every cell in my body. Our gazes connect with
fierce, nearly unbearable intimacy, and the storm in his eyes flares wilder.
Please
don't hurt me again
, I silently beg of him.
I don't know if I'd survive
it this time.

"I kept waiting for a letter from
you," he says huskily. "I was so damn anxious when no letter
arrived—so damn worried that something bad had happened to you! I called social
services, but they wouldn't tell me anything. Then I called Ms. Owens, and she
told me that you were fine, as far as she knew. So I had that much, at least.

"But she wouldn't help me get in touch
with you. I was going crazy worrying because I'd had no word from you, and
there was nothing I could do except to keep waiting. But all the waiting was
useless and I began to lose hope. Eventually I stopped waiting." Dryly, he
adds, "Outwardly, at least."

"Outwardly? What do you mean?"

His lips curl into a tender smile, yet
his eyes are still so incredibly sad. "That means, my precious girl, that
in my heart I never stopped waiting for you. I would've waited for you
forever."

I look at him sadly. "But if you really
felt that way, why didn't you want me in your life when we met again? I understand
that you felt betrayed—I felt the same thing—but even so I reached out to you..."

His angel's face softens further.
"I didn't get the real significance of your gesture then, but I do now,
and I'm staggered, Sunny. You thought I'd broken my promise to you, and still
you tried to make excuses for me and offer me your friendship.

"But I didn't know this; all I
could think was that you had put me through hell five years ago and seemed to
not even care." In a lower, rasping tone, he says, " All through our
childhood, you were the best part of me: the one pure, perfect part of my life.
That you could turn your back on me so easily after you'd left Rockford—thinking
that crushed me." His eyes are grim with memories.