The Infinite Moment of Us (12 page)

it felt. And she wanted to keep on going, even so. What had

this boy done to her?

“I want to understand them, or try to,” she said, “but I

don’t want to put them away in boxes. And if there doesn’t

seem to be an explanation for something, I don’t want that

to scare me away. I don’t want to force an explanation to

fit or throw my hands in the air and give up. You know?”

He nodded. A faint shadow of stubble ran from his hair-

line down and along his strong jaw.

She swallowed. “Does that make any sense?”

He pulled his eyebrows together endearingly, like a little

boy trying to act grown up. “You’re saying the mysteries are

worth examining, even if they’re too big to be understood.

That maybe they’re bound to be too big to understand, but

that doesn’t take anything away from them, and in fact just

adds to their beauty. Is that close?”

“That’s it exactly,” she said. He put it into words so

beautifully: Marvel and wonder all you want. There will

always be more. She laughed, and the surprised smile she

got from Charlie was a pure gift.

Then he grew serious. He pulled his eyebrows together

again, but this time he didn’t look like a little boy at all.

“Hey,” he said. He propped himself up on one elbow.

With his other hand, he reached out and lightly, lightly

stroked her cheek.

Wren’s chest rose and fell. She almost felt as if she were

out of her body, except she was very much in her body, and

her body knew what it wanted.

Charlie leaned in, and she leaned to meet him. His

mouth found hers, and her thoughts flew through her, as

loud and raucous as magpies. My first kiss. I am eighteen,

and this is my first kiss, unless I count Jake What’s-His-

Name in eighth grade, which I don’t. Because this is . . .

different. So different.

And then her thoughts dissolved into lips. Breath. A soft

sigh, a shifting thigh. She gave herself over to Charlie and

the night and the world, full of mysteries. She allowed her-

self to just be.

More than.

c h a p t e r e i g h t

Charlie wanted to see Wren again. She was all he

could think about—kissing her, touching her, being with

her—and he wanted to do it again. Right away.

He called her the morning after P.G.’s party.

“Charlie?” she said when she answered, and his heart

jumped.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“I’m good. How are you?”

“I’m good,” he said. His conversation skills sucked. He

couldn’t talk worth a damn, but last night he kissed her,

and she kissed him back. So, yeah. He was very, very good.

“I was wondering if you’d like to do something,” he said

abruptly. “I’d like to see you.”

“Today?”

“I could grab some sandwiches if you want. I could

come pick you up. I was thinking we could go on a picnic,

if that sounded like something you might like. Is that . . .

something you might like?”

“Um, sure,” she said.

“Great. Awesome.
Great
.”

She giggled. “What time?”

“Now,” he pronounced, and she giggled again. He was

too thrilled to be embarrassed. “I’ll be at your house in

fifteen minutes. Hey—are you afraid of heights?”

“Of heights? Why?”

“No reason. See you soon.”

He took her to a spot along the Chattahoochee River where

the sky was wide and blue. Trees lined the bank, and birds

sang as they flitted from branch to branch. The water was

brown, but it glinted and turned to gold when it splashed

over the moss-covered rocks.

Charlie drove here when he needed to think. Until

today, he’d always come alone.

“It’s beautiful,” Wren said after climbing out of the car.

She was wearing a sundress, or some sort of dress, and it

swished against her thighs. She had on cowboy boots, and

her hair was pulled into a ponytail.
She
was beautiful.

“Come on,” he said, almost reaching for her hand. He

didn’t, and he cursed himself.

He headed up the trail. She followed.

“Do you go hiking a lot?” she asked.

“Um, what do you mean by hiking? You mean like what

we’re doing now?”

“I guess,” she said. “Being outside—is that something

you like?”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah. When I was a kid, I was inside a lot,

so yeah, I’d rather be outside if I can.” He glanced back at

her. Her skin was smooth and creamy. When she stepped

over a log, he caught a glimpse of the paler skin of her inner thigh. There, and then gone.

Take her hand, he told himself, and this time he did.

“And you?” he said. They started back up the trail. “Do

you like being outside?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “Especially the ocean. Oh my

gosh, I
love
the ocean. I love catching waves and getting all salty, and hungry—I get so hungry after swimming in the

ocean—and then flopping down all wet on my towel and

letting the sun soak in.”

She made a small sound that was almost a moan, and

Charlie’s cock stirred. Wet and warm and salty? Damn.

Everything she said, she said so innocently, and yet she

drove him crazy. She drove him more crazy because she

was so innocent.

Discreetly, he tugged at his jeans. “I’ve never been.”

“To the ocean? You’ve never been to the ocean?”

He shook his head. “One day.”

“Oh, Charlie, you have to,” she told him. “If you like

being outside—wow. You will love the ocean. It makes you

feel so . . . I don’t know. Small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger. It gets

you out of your head, if that makes sense.”

She almost tripped on a root. Charlie caught her.

“You all right?” he said.

“Yeah, thanks,” she said, looking embarrassed. She let go

of his hand. He wished she hadn’t. Then, after a moment’s

hesitation, she looped her arm through his, and he was

elated. Her breast brushed against him. She brought her

other hand across her body and rested it on his biceps,

above their linked elbows.

She smiled shyly up at him. “Is that okay? I’m not mak-

ing it hard for you to walk or anything?”

She was, but not in the way she meant. Yes, it was okay.

“Do you think that life has patterns in it?” she asked.

“Patterns? Like what?”

She exhaled in a sweet way. “Like, in a non-random way.

Like, do things happen for a reason?”

“Hmm,” Charlie said. Science and math were subjects he

did well at, and in general, he was more comfortable with

ideas that could be expressed in formulas than ideas that

couldn’t fully be explained. Then again, scientific theories

started with the seed of an unexplained idea. Mathemati-

cal formulas often described phenomena that couldn’t be

physically verified.

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’m certainly not willing to dis-

count it.”

“Me either,” she said. “And, okay, this is going to sound

silly, but when you called me this morning . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Well, when I heard your voice, I felt . . .”

He waited.

She blushed and squeezed his arm, and he realized that

she wasn’t going to answer. But he thought that if the world

was layered with meaning, then she was the evidence, right

here. She was the mystery and the explanation, both.

They reached the place in the trail Charlie had been

waiting for, and he gestured with his chin at what lay ahead.

“Hey,” he said. “Take a look.”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Whoa.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said.

“How did I not know this was here?” Wren said. “How

have I never been here before?”

“Let’s go up,” Charlie said, leading her toward the

embankment. Above them stood a decaying railroad bridge

that was built probably a hundred years ago. The wooden

support beams stretched like a row of giant As into the

clouds. The steel rails that trains once rode on were long

gone, but the underlying tracks remained.

At first, Wren kept her arm linked in his as they climbed.

Then the dirt grew loose, and she had to use her hands

for balance and to clutch at branches. Charlie, behind her,

glimpsed the curve of her ass and a flash of panties.

He took several big steps to pass her. From the top of

the rise, he extended his hand.

“Oh wow,” she said, breathing hard. “We’re as high as

the treetops.”

“Let’s go out,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “You want

to go out?”

“To the middle of the bridge?”

“Yeah, come on.”

Two rotting wooden tracks, each approximately three

feet wide, stretched across the gulley below. They were

sturdy enough to walk on—Charlie would never put Wren

in danger—but the ground dipped steeply away several

yards past the top of the embankment. Walking along them

was like walking along a wide balance beam, only much

higher off the ground. Charlie went first and kept Wren’s

hand in his.

“Crap,” Wren said when they reached the center. The

trail they’d hiked up was now fifty or sixty feet below

them. “O-o-okay, this is far enough for me.”

“Let’s sit,” Charlie said. “Wait, hold on.”

He let go of her hand and dropped to one knee. He

brushed sawdust and decaying leaves from the track, and

a musty, earthy smell rose up. He took her hand again,

and then her forearm, steadying her as she lowered herself

down. Then he sat beside her and let his feet hang over

the bridge. After checking his expression, she gingerly

scooched her legs to the side and did the same. Her cowboy

boots dangled in the air. She was so cute. And last night—

her lips, and the moonlight, and the way she pressed up

against him. He hadn’t imagined that, had he?

No. Of course not.

She shifted to arrange her skirt, and her leg touched his.

“We’re on top of the world,” she said.

“We are,” he replied.

A breeze lifted her ponytail, and he smelled her citrus

shampoo. He smoothed the hairs by her face.

“You are so beautiful,” he told her. “I’m going to kiss you

now, okay?”

Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, possibly to

answer, but he actually hadn’t been asking for permission.

Later, they sat on the hood of his Volvo and ate the sand-

wiches he’d packed. He’d brought a two-liter bottle of Dr

Pepper, which for some reason she found funny, and they

passed it back and forth. Their legs touched, her bare skin

against his jeans.

She smiled as they talked, and leaned against him, and

once she reached up and pushed his hair behind his ear,

which nearly undid him. She also scarfed down her entire

sandwich, a bag of chips, and at least three of Pamela’s

homemade cookies.

“I’m starving,” she marveled. “I don’t know why, but I

am seriously
starving
.”

“We walked a pretty long way,” he said. “And that hill,

to get to the bridge, it’s pretty steep.”

“I guess,” she said. She seemed happy, which made him

happy. Happy and proud. “Charlie?”

“Hmm?”

“Earlier, I was going to say . . . well, I’m glad you called

me.”

“Of course I called you. Why wouldn’t I call you?”

She ducked her head. “I don’t know. I’m glad you did,

that’s all.”

He lifted her chin with his finger and gazed into her

eyes, which were brown with flecks of green. He leaned

in and kissed her, because now that he knew he could, he

planned on kissing her every chance he got.

c h a p t e r n i n e

By the time Charlie took Wren home, it was

nearly seven. Wren knew her parents would be waiting for

her to come eat dinner. They were probably peeking out

the window of the front room and checking on her, though

they would pretend not to be when she walked in. They

were acting very stiff around her. It hurt her feelings, but

one good thing came of it. Since they were pretending not

to care what she did, she could do whatever she wanted.

Like go on a picnic with Charlie, and when the picnic

was over, sit with him in his car in her driveway. Hold his

hand. Talk. Hopefully kiss him again—and be kissed again

and again—before they finally said good-bye.

She asked him to name five places in the world he’d like

to live. Quick, no overthinking.

“Hmm,” he said. “Well, Italy. Brazil . . .”

“Brazil?”

“Really cool waterfall. Really cool
big
waterfall. Iguazu Falls? Second biggest in the world after Niagara.”

“I didn’t know you were a waterfall guy.”

“Huh,” he said. “Guess I am.” He folded his arms over his

chest, which was hard and strong. She didn’t want to stare,

or rather she didn’t want to be caught staring, so she filed

away a mental image that she could return to later.

“And Italy?” she asked.

“Pasta.”

“Ha. Okay, three more.”

He took a moment to think, and she said, “What about

Paris? Aren’t you going to say Paris?”

“Paris,” he said.

She laughed again. “Omigosh. All right, why Paris?”

“Because maybe you’ll go there with me?”