Taking Flight (24 page)

“No. The people here aren’t exactly my type,” I explained, grimacing, and to my relief he laughed and dropped the subject.

“Right. So Dad mentioned you’ve got a make-or-break test next week? Is that why you and Cammie are skipping rafting tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Lots of studying to do.” I cleared my throat awkwardly, glad he couldn’t see my face at the moment. “I, uh… need an 82.”

*   *   *

“What’s your
real
favorite book?”

Cammie arched an eyebrow at me, stretched out on her bed just feet away. We were both lying down on our sides, facing each other, and she was wearing a low-cut tank top I’d scoffed at last night when she’d put it on. For now, I was content to stay in my own bed.

“I would’ve bet my
life
that with my family finally out of the house your first question would’ve been ‘Can we make out now?’”

I shook my head silently, only barely smiling. “Talk to me.”

She shifted slightly, pressing her elbow into her pillow and resting her head on her hand. “Really?” She smiled, amused.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve slept with more girls than you can count back in Los Angeles. But you won’t even kiss me again.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No, it confuses me.”

“Does it really? Obviously I don’t want things to be the same with you as they were with the other girls. That’s kind of the point. Tell me what your favorite book is. And
don’t
say the Bible, because I know you play up the religious stuff for your mom.”

She grinned at me. “That verse I shared with you was the real me, you know. It helped me come to terms with being gay.”

“You could just not be religious,” I joked, and she gave me a stern, knowing look. “Kidding! Seriously, answer my question, though.”

“It’s lame.”

“Don’t insult my question, douche.”

“I meant my answer’s lame!” she laughed, and it was my turn to grin.

“What is it?” She shook her head. “Tell me!”

“Ugh. Harry Potter.”

“Oh my God, Harry Potter is not lame. That’s blasphemy.”

“It’s just such a generic answer; I feel so un-unique. And it’s lame that I would sneak them at night and read them. My mom didn’t want us to.”

I envisioned a preteen Cammie huddled under her comforter with a flashlight and a book the size of her head, and laughed aloud. “That’s so sad. But very adorable.”

“So what’s yours, then?”

“I don’t read.”

“Yeah, you do.”

I rolled my eyes. “
The Catcher in the Rye
.”

She laughed harder than I had, this giggly, happy laugh that was almost contagious, and rolled over onto her back. Then she turned her head to look at me. “Shut up. No it’s not.”

“It could be.”

“Lauren!”

I bit my lip to hide a smile. “It’s this lesbian novel called
Fingersmith
. I read it when I was fourteen, actually, when I wasn’t busy getting into trouble anyway.”

“You knew you liked girls that far back too?” she asked.

“Yeah. But I didn’t grow up learning there was something wrong with being gay. It was a pretty easy transition. I hooked up with no one, then I hooked up with girls.”

“You’ve never even kissed a guy?”

“No.” I shrugged my shoulders. “I get the girls that have, though. For some people they don’t realize… they think they’re just weird, or that mediocre is just as good as it’s gonna get for them. Or they feel pressure, like you.”

She was silent for a moment, thinking, and then she turned her head to look to the ceiling and sighed. “I’m so… or I
was
so set on what my life was going to be. There are jokes everywhere about how marriages are sexless and terrible. I know I could get through it. But I don’t think I fully realized what I was missing out on until you came along. I don’t know what to do now.”

“You don’t have to figure it all out in one week,” I suggested, mostly because she’d already heard my opinion a few days ago in the stable. There was nothing more I could add there.

“The semester’s almost over, Cammie. We have a massive test in a couple days, then Winter Break, the holidays, and Scott’s wedding. There’s plenty of other stuff to focus on for a while. And I’ve been here just over two and a half months, so I’m not leaving for another, what, five months?”
Three
, I corrected mentally, but pushed that aside for now. “So slow down. Not that I know much about it, but I hear it’s okay to take things slow every now and then.”

She rolled her eyes, albeit smiling, and took the pillow out from under her head to throw it at me. I deflected it and blew her a kiss mockingly, and she hopped out of her bed and raced to mine, pecking me quickly on the lips before I could react. By the time I’d blinked, she’d already left the room.

“Hey! Cammie!” I stood up and trailed after her, calling, “I need to know your favorite color before we do that again!” Then I followed the raucous laughter, grinning all the way.

Chapter Sixteen

“I love you.”

Maddie looked like the last thing she wanted to do was be near me, but I ignored her scowl and wrapped my arms around her, mildly crushing her against her locker. “Thank you thank you thank you! You’re a miracle worker. You literally, just, like, taught a monkey calculus. That is the kind of miracle you’ve pulled off.”

“You’re not stupid, Lauren,” she deadpanned. “You know that.”

“I am at this!” I released her to jab at the test paper in my hand, grinning. “An 83, though?! This is a total and complete act of God. Coming from an Atheist, here, by the way. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said at last. “Please go away.”

“Let me make it up to you,” I insisted. “We can go to the drive-in, or… I don’t know, anywhere you want. Cammie showed me that awesome burger place you guys have; we could go there.”

“Lauren,” she sighed. “We’re not friends, okay? Things aren’t going to go back to how they were. I can tolerate you, and I’ll help you out if you need it. Occasionally, you might be able to get a smile out of me. But I’m not going anywhere with you. Especially not to all of those weirdly date-y places you just listed.”

“Those aren’t date-y,” I mumbled. “I went to them with Cammie.”

“Okay, now you’re purposely being an idiot,” she hissed, then glimpsed over my shoulder and added, “Speak of the devil; it’s the Homecoming Queen herself here to talk to her subjects.”

Cammie glanced awkwardly to Maddie as she arrived beside us, and then focused her attention onto me. Her voice a whisper, she asked, “Hey, um, do you think we could talk for a second on the way to lunch?”

“Sure.” I instinctively raised a hand to wave goodbye to Maddie, but thought better of it and turned away to walk with Cammie instead. “What’s going on?”

“Things have just been getting worse every day with Tiffany and me,” she explained. “I can’t take another lunch period with her.”

“You can sit with us, if that’s what you’re asking. If your rep can handle it, that is.”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I’ve been caring less and less about that lately. Particularly on rainy days.”

I hid a smile at the reference and settled for bumping her shoulder with mine. “It’ll be okay,” I murmured. “Fiona and Nate are nice.” Then I showed her my test paper and grinned. “Guess who’s not a failure?”

*   *   *

Watching Cammie interact with Nate and Fiona was like watching a baby bird take a nosedive out of its nest. Cammie being the baby bird, of course, and her usual social group, the nest. She was so out of her comfort zone that just looking at her made it hard to keep myself from choking on my own laughter.

“You’re so paranoid, oh my God,” I told her openly. “Nobody cares that you switched tables. You’re so lame.” I arched an eyebrow at Fiona and Nate, who looked just as amused as I did. “I see what you meant on that first day; popular people suck.”

“It’s not that I don’t like you guys,” Cammie insisted. “I’m just not used to this. Being practically kicked out of my social circle. Ever since Peter and I broke up and I chewed Tiffany out, they’ve all been passive-aggressively letting me know I wasn’t welcome there.”

“The dark side of the cheerleaders,” Nate confirmed gravely. “Now that you’ve seen it, you can never go back.”

“We won’t kick you out unless you’re a raging racist,” Fiona added casually. “Or a homophobe, for Lauren’s sake.” She paused, then, frozen and wide-eyed, and clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh my God, Lauren, I’m so sorry.”

“Cammie knows,” I explained, holding back laughter. “It’s okay.”

“But I didn’t,” Nate cut in, though he didn’t look surprised at all. In fact, he was grinning. “I assumed, though. You and Maddie went through all of the stages of a relationship in the span of, like, two weeks.”

I felt Cammie shift uncomfortably next to me, and rushed to change the subject. “Anyway, now that we’re all caught up, and we’ve all established that nobody is racist or homophobic, can we eat in peace?”

Nate gave me a thumbs-up, then proceeded to shovel a glob of macaroni into his mouth via spoon while Fiona looked on with disgust.

*   *   *

Winter Break came a few days later. Fiona’s family took Nate on vacation to some ski resort, so with Maddie still upset, I had no one to hang out with other than the Marshalls.

Scott and Wendy busied themselves with Scott and Jill’s upcoming wedding, and David busied himself with keeping Wendy in check and giving me the occasional check-up as well. Those had been getting less and less frequent the more of a non-entity I became, and now David only sat me down once or twice a week to talk about my problems. With Scott’s wedding impending, it slowed to a solid once a week.

Cammie, meanwhile, busied herself with me.

“Girls are so soft.”

“Mhmm.” I hid a smile and kept my eyes closed as her fingers trailed across my cheek.

“You’re seriously so soft.”

“My lips are softer, you know.”

She gave a sarcastic laugh and whispered, “Uh, and my parents could come upstairs at any moment.”

“Except it’s past their bedtime, and you’re already in my bed. I think we’d be caught regardless right now.” I puckered my lips. “How many times have we kissed? Like, less than five.”

“We’re taking it slow, remember?
Your
idea.”

“I was thinking, like, turtle slow, and this is snail slow.”

“Fine, let’s just strip down right now.”

“Right now?” I echoed.

“Right this second.”

I grinned. “You first.” She tapped my cheek with her hand, huffing, and I winced. “Careful. I’m sensitive.”

“Yeah, right.” She smirked down at me, hovering over my head, and I stared back defiantly, struggling to keep the corners of my lips from turning upward. She bit at her own lip just for a second, and her gaze flickered down to mine. I reached up to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, and just like that, the mood had changed.

“I haven’t told my friend from back home about us,” I admitted quietly, letting my hand fall to my side. Hers stayed at my cheek, her thumb rubbing back and forth across the skin there.

“Why not?” she asked. Her tone was simple, casual. She wasn’t being judgmental, only curious.

“I’m afraid she’ll tell me I can’t do this. She’s my Maddie.”

Her eyebrows furrowed with concern. “What does that mean?”

“My friend Caitlyn knows me better than anyone else back home does. Just like Maddie knows
you
in a way no one else does here. I talked to Maddie about us the Saturday I went to her house to study, and she said she doesn’t think you can do this. She practically laughed at me for wanting to try it out.”

“You shouldn’t have talked to her about us,” Cammie replied, removing her hand from my cheek. “It’s none of her business.”

“I needed someone to talk to.”

“Talk to
me
,” she pressed. I could hear the frustration growing in her voice. “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I know more about my own feelings than some girl I’ve hardly ever talked to who just
happens
to know that I’m gay does?”

I sighed deeply and reached up to cover my face with my hands. “I know. I know, Cammie, you’re right.”

“And maybe if your friend says you’re incapable of falling in love with someone then she’s not really your friend. Maybe she doesn’t know you as well as she thinks she does, because I know you pretty damn well and I’m not worried about you.”

“You’ve known me three months, Cammie,” I mumbled, taking my hands off of my face. “She’s known me for years.”

“I don’t care. I trust you.” She leaned closer and brushed her lips across my cheek, up to my ear. “I trust you, okay? And you can trust me.”

“Can I?” I whispered.

She tensed briefly. I heard her sigh into my ear, and then she moved to kiss my temple, murmuring against my skin, “
Yes.
”

I pulled away, turning to look at her, and she reached out for my cheek again, a small smile on her lips.

“Promise?” I pressed.

She nodded. “Promise. You promise I’m not a booty call?”

I let out a short laugh, nodding back. “Yes, I promise.”

“Then we’re good.”

“We’re good,” I echoed. She glanced from my eyes to my lips, and I knew before she moved that she was going to kiss me.

I pressed close to her, cupping her cheek in my hand and rolling her backward onto her back, my body positioned half on top of hers as she sighed into my mouth and wound her arms around my neck. She pulled me closer and I was suddenly overly aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra. Neither was I.

As our kisses grew heavier and heavier, so did the pounding in my chest. I was sure Cammie could feel my heart hammering against hers, and the thought embarrassed me. Kissing someone had never gotten my heart pounding so hard so quickly.

Moments later, I pulled away to take a breath, and she bit her lip and arched her body up into mine. A soft little noise I almost missed escaped her, and she repositioned her hands behind my neck and gently pulled me closer again. Her normally bright blue eyes had shifted toward a darker hue, and I swallowed hard as I moved to close the distance between us again. My skin tingled everywhere she touched: my neck, my cheeks, the strip of bare skin just above my waist where my tank top had ridden up.

We kissed for what felt like hours, and at last I broke away from her only to see that her eyes had remained closed. With her breathing audible, a slow smile spread across her lips, and at last her eyes fluttered open to look into mine.

“Every night,” she whispered, still breathless. “We’re doing this every night.”

I leaned back down, chuckling, and buried my face into her neck. “Okay, Cammie.” My hand slid to her collarbone and I managed to get a small part of my palm over her heart.

It was racing faster than mine had been.

*   *   *

I’d like to say that Christmas with the Marshalls was fun. I’d like to say that we all baked cookies together and shopped for a Christmas tree and decorated it as a big happy family and I felt like I
belonged
and like everything was going to be okay in my life forever because I wasn’t spending Christmas with Caitlyn and a bottle of vodka.

But that wasn’t even close to the truth.

Christmas with David, Wendy, Scott, and Cammie was somewhere between “mediocre” and “mildly unpleasant.” For one thing, I’d always learned that Christmas was about giving and receiving presents. Basically it was a lesson in generosity. And an awesome holiday – when I actually ended up getting to give and receive presents, that is.

With the Marshalls, it was about Jesus. Jesus this, Jesus that, Jesus was born, Jesus in a manger, songs about Jesus, baby Jesus, which church baby is gonna
play
baby Jesus, and much more. Then I had to actually sit through the play, which was only manageable because I got to sit by Cammie and mess with her while the lights were dimmed. She was unamused.

The presents were the highlight. I was given money to shop for each of the Marshalls, and they each bought me something as well. I mostly got clothing, which I was thankful for. I’d needed stuff for a while that could actually survive farm work.

The tree ordeal was a pain in the ass. Wendy and David argued about which tree was prettier while Scott and I chased each other up and down the aisles of trees like a pair of twelve-year-olds. Between the two of us goofing off, David’s arguing, and Cammie getting distracted by constant texts from a still-pissed-off Tiffany, Wendy threw a fit, gave up, and headed back to the car, demanding David choose whatever tree he wanted.

Then David, being David, picked a tree that was too tall, so we wound up with a Christmas tree that bent over at the top. Scott managed to get an angel to stay up there anyway. For about a day. It fell and broke apart at the neck the next morning. I took one look at the decapitated angel lying on the living room floor and laughed so hard I cried. Wendy wasn’t pleased with that.

Too soon after the tree incident, Cammie and I baked cookies while we were home alone and left them in for too long. When the rest of the Marshalls came home to a smoky kitchen, we had to find a way to explain it without mentioning the part where we made out for ten minutes while we were supposed to be extracting the cookies from the oven.

All in all, it was a train wreck. But it beat home by just a little bit.

Only a little bit, though.

I called Caitlyn on Christmas morning, eager to hear about what she’d gotten. Zeke always gave her the best presents. He worked as a golf caddy and last year it’d been a golf cart.

Cammie sat alone in the living room with me as I dialed, and nudged me pointedly just as the phone began to ring. “You should do it,” she mouthed, and I dismissed her half-heartedly. She was right about the timing, though. Her family was outside feeding the animals.