Kennedy chuckles and shakes his head. “I don’t need to dare you to do something like this. You dared me to skinny-dip earlier today, remember? If you want to put on this dress, you don’t need me to dare you to do it. Nor do you need me to tell you how beautiful you would look wearing it. You’re the bravest girl I know. You don’t need me to remind you of that anymore.”
He was right. I could do this if I wanted to. I eye the row of porta-potties with lines half a mile long. Without a second thought, I yank off my tank top and pull off my shorts right in the middle of the festival grounds. With the exception of Kennedy, whose laugh rings in my ears, if anyone reacts to my disrobing, I don’t hear it. I slip the dress on and look up at Kennedy, grinning.
He snakes an arm around my waist and pulls me close. “As much as I love that dress, I’m going to enjoy taking it off you later,” he growls.
I giggle, which is an entirely new ability since agreeing to date Kennedy. I bend down to pick up my tank top and shorts and toss them into a trash can. “Old Annabel has a million tank tops and shorts at home,” I say to Kennedy’s two very raised eyebrows. It’s not like I’m planning on changing my entire wardrobe or my entire being, for that matter, but I do feel a little different. Bravery. Kennedy was right. I feel brave enough to do whatever I want to do.
As we continue to amble through the festival hand in hand, I can’t wait to tell Grandma that she was right about going on this trip. The minute I manage to find cell service, I call home. When I finally talk to her, she tells me that of course she was right, and then cusses me out for wasting my time talking to an old woman. She even uses a few German curse words, so I know she’s feeling all right.
Once I hang up, I spot several girls doing what can only be described as interpretive dance meets Hula-Hooping. I open my mouth to comment, but Kennedy places a finger over my lips. “Just watch before you mock.” I furrow my brow and cross my arms. I had agreed to skinny-dipping and tent camping and even body painting, but I didn’t exactly feel I was ever going to see a grown woman Hula-Hooping without a good joke on deck.
Three minutes later, and once again, Kennedy has me entirely rethinking everything I thought about the world…or at least everything I’ve ever thought about grown women Hula-Hooping. It’s hypnotizing. Like some tribal dance meant to evoke an ancient god of want and need and lust. Their bodies shift and bend in ways that would make any yoga teacher proud as the hoop travels.
Kennedy hands me my camera and I take the opportunity to get some killer shots. One of the girls finally catches us staring. She stops the flow of her Hula-Hoop and nods toward me before rolling it my way. I catch the hoop as it hits my toes. “What does she want me to do with this?” I whisper to Kennedy.
“Try it,” he replies, nudging his shoulder into mine. “Think karaoke, skinny-dipping, dress,” he reminds me, noting my hesitation.
“Here, I’ll show you,” the girl who rolled me the hoop pipes up.
For the next five minutes, I get a crash course on the basics of Hula-Hooping. She shows me moves with names like the front walkover-cartwheel combo, the chest roll head toss, and the whip. She’s a very patient teacher, not even hinting at a laugh even though most of my attempts at the tricks involve the hoop hitting me in the head or having to chase it down before it rolls off into the crowd. Kennedy, on the other hand, finds it all very amusing, even choosing to take a few pictures.
I’m too busy having fun to really care. “You have to try this,” I manage to get out despite being crazy out of breath.
“You need an inhaler or some water over there?” Kennedy teases.
“It’s way harder than it looks.” I laugh before the hoop knocks me in the head for the tenth time.
“Oh, you’re making it look plenty hard. Don’t you worry,” he says with a grin.
“I have another one if he wants to try,” the girl offers.
“Is that so? I think he def wants to try,” I reply, matching Kennedy’s grin.
“Oh, no. Not for me,” he sputters.
“How would you know if you never tried? Maybe you have some secret latent Hula-Hooping talent that you just don’t know about it yet. Think about all those festivals you’ve attended. All those missed opportunities to discover your superpower. I mean, I’ve seen how you can move that body,” I tease with a wink.
Despite being the same boy who sang Drake in front of an entire bar without any hesitation, Kennedy actually blushes. The girl giggles behind us. Kennedy clears his throat. “Hey, if you want to use one of those double dares, I’ll be happy to do it.”
“Waste my double dare on something like this? We’re way past that now. What was it you said earlier? Something about being brave. Just think karaoke and skinny-dipping,” I say, throwing back his own words at him. I grab his hand and start pulling him toward the Hula Hoops. I’m smiling so hard, my cheeks are beginning to hurt. “Just think about the dress and taking it off me later,” I whisper so the girl doesn’t hear us.
“You don’t fight fair, Annabel Lee,” Kennedy groans.
An hour later, we’re both proud owners of our very first Hula Hoops.
By the time we head back for dinner, I’m at a real loss for where the time went. The only way I could even mark the passage of time was the later in the day it got, the wilder the masses became. The effects of controlled substances and the beating sun were a powerful combination indeed.
As we walk back, Kennedy having decided it would be fun to give me a piggyback ride, we’re still both laughing over the guy we saw streak by naked halfway through the Yeah Yeah Yeahs set. Grandma was doing well, and I was having a blast. Maybe Kennedy was right. Maybe I should spend less time worrying about what could go wrong and focus on all the ways life can go so right.
“I’m gonna start the grill. Do you want cheese on your hamburger?” Kennedy asks.
“Sounds good. I’m just going to check on my grandma again,” I reply. Except as I go to call, I realize I don’t have service. The reception inside the festival was hit or miss, but Kennedy seemed to have better luck since the trip started, so I decide to ask if I can use his phone. “Kennedy?” I call out. “Do you have service?” I ask, hoping that like when we came out of the mountains, his phone would have service even when mine did not.
Kennedy pulls out his phone and frowns. “No. Looks like I don’t.”
“Oh, yeah, man. We’re in a real dead zone. Something about a cell tower being down. There’s a few places inside the fest, but otherwise it’s no communication,” our neighbor informs us, overhearing our conversation.
I can feel the blood drain from my face. “I can’t not have cell phone service.” What if something happens in the middle of the night while we are sleeping?
“It’s going to be—”
“Don’t tell me it’s going to be okay,” I say, cutting him off. “I have to be able to reach home. I told my mom I would call her again tonight to check in. How am I supposed to call and check in when I can’t call anyone?” I ask, feeling the panic rising inside me.
“Take a deep breath,” he says, grabbing my shoulders. “Get your phone, and we’ll head back into the festival and find a hot spot. Just give me a second to put out the grill.”
“I’ll take care of it, man,” pipes up our neighbor, clearly cognitive of the fact that I am about to have a full-on anxiety attack.
“Annabel, you talked to her today. She was fine. Everything is going to be fine. I promise,” Kennedy says.
I nod, feeling a little bit numb. A million thoughts are zipping and zapping through my mind. Some of them have to do with my grandma, while others have to do with how embarrassed I should feel about the scene I caused. But sometimes I can’t help it; once the panic sets in, the need for control is overwhelming. It’s been like this ever since the accident. When I was about twelve, Mom and Dad tried to convince me to see a therapist, but that just didn’t fit into my schedule. I didn’t have time to wallow in what I lost. That wasn’t the girl I wanted to
be.
Kennedy grabs my hand, and we start walking back toward the festival. “Wait,” I say, a thought dawning on me. “What about your Milton submission?”
Kennedy shrugs. “No biggie,” he says.
I stop and pull on his hand so he’ll stop, too. “No biggie?”
“Yeah. Who cares? It’s just one submission. Let’s go,” he says, yanking on my arm.
It takes us a good hour to find a spot on the festival grounds where either one of us manages to get a few solid bars. Once I reach Mom and make sure Grandma is all right, Kennedy suggests grabbing something at one of the food trucks instead of heading back to the campsite. He’s all about making sure we meet with our travel mates to see White Panda.
That he seems to care about. Not making sure his tire doesn’t go flat. Not getting in his Milton submission. No, those things are inconsequential in Kennedy Harrison’s life, which seems more and more like one giant excuse to have a good time.
I’m pretty quiet as Kennedy drags me from show to show. If he notices, he doesn’t say much. Having ditched my camera in the van when I went to check my phone, I don’t even have that to distract me from the doubts that keep nagging at me. Thoughts like what it would be like to share a life with a boy who has no ambitions when you have so many. Wouldn’t he just grow to resent me when I chose to study for midterms while he wanted to drive all night to New York to see Modest Mouse play at the Bowery? In some ways our differences are what make us so great, but we couldn’t go on ignoring the fact that the differences matter.
Or at least I can’t.
When it comes time to meet up for White Panda, the last thing I want to do is pretend I’m all down for shaking my groove thing to music heavy in bass but low on actual content. “I think I’m just going to go back to the tent. I have a headache,” I lie. I watch as the war wages in Kennedy’s eyes. “Go and meet up with those kids. I’ll be fine. I promise. I’ll warm up the tent for us,” I say, trying to force a smile.
“Are you sure it’s just a headache, Annabel? You’ve been pretty quiet for a while now. I thought maybe you were just dealing with all the stuff with your grandma, but now I feel like maybe I’m missing something here.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, kicking at the dirt beneath me. It’s easier to look there than at the boy in front of me. “I just have a headache.”
“Come on, Le Chat. What’s wrong?” he begs. “You’re upset about something. What did I do? Clearly this is about me.”
“Can’t we just talk about this later? Go enjoy your show.”
“Fuck the show. I want to talk about this now.”
I take a deep breath. “I told you to send that submission before we went inside the festival.”
“Is that what you’re mad about? Doesn’t matter if I attempted to send it then or now, Annabel, as the internet still would have been down,” he counters.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t even seem to bother you. Besides, we had an agreement. I do the dares, and you turn in the submissions.”
Kennedy sighs. “Look, I’ll make sure to get the rest of them in. I’ll even do some research and find another one to make up for the submission I missed. It’s not something to get all bent out of shape about. Definitely not worth missing a show.”
Right. Of course it wasn’t. Promises were just words adhered to when it was convenient. Suddenly I’m feeling stupid in this dress. Things don’t feel so different anymore; I don’t feel so different anymore. I’m back to being the same old Annabel looking at the same old Kennedy.
“Come on, or we’ll be late.”
“I’m tired. I’m going to head back,” I reply quietly. Before he can argue, I give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Have fun. I’ll see you when you get back to the tent.” I spin around and head toward the exit.
I cry the whole way back.
Chapter Nineteen
Kennedy
Maybe it’s the melodic beating of the rain against the tent, or the deceptive quiet of a music festival campsite in the early-morning hours, but I swear I’m creating a song to the inhaling and exhaling breaths of the girl lying next to me. The impossible and stubborn girl lying next to me. Interspersed between the verses of her song slithers in the harsh words from last night, words I know are entirely true.
I am a selfish ass, and lying next to me is the most selfless girl I’ve ever met. She did a heavy as fuck thing when she let me back in her life after what I did, and I couldn’t even do the one little thing she asked me to do. Why? I dig writing, and maybe I’m not entirely crappy at it. I just can’t bear to see her watch me fail.
I didn’t even follow Annabel after she left, and I wonder how long I will regret that. I don’t know how to care for things that feel impossible and out of my reach. Except her. That I did without thinking. I had learned that lesson.
So, I stayed for the concert. And despite the lulling effects of the weed and beer offered to me, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had messed up big. It rang in my ears louder than any music. When I finally left the festival and got back to the tent, Annabel was fast asleep. I didn’t have the heart to wake her. I didn’t know what to say to her even if I did. So instead, I sat there and watched her sleep until I fell away, too.
The song that fills our tent stops. Despite her back toward me, I know she’s awake. I can’t help myself. I curl my arm around her and brace for what I’m sure will come next: Annabel telling me to piss off. But she doesn’t. I stop breathing momentarily as I feel her tense, but soon she’s relaxed. Her body rests gently against mine.
The rain beats quietly on the tent, and it’s like a whole new song starts playing on the record player. I kiss her under her ear. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. I kiss her on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” I say again. I gently turn her, so she’s lying on her back. Her eyes look up at me, wet with unshed tears. I’m not sure what I’m sorry for. Continuously letting her down? Not being the man she deserves? “I’m sorry,” I repeat, kissing right underneath her eye.
“Me, too,” she says, her voice a bit hoarse from not being used in a while. She reaches up both of her hands and places them on my cheeks.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I say, looking down at her.
“Of course I do. Ninety percent of the time, I’m impossible to be with,” she says, her voice choked with emotion.
“That’s crap. One hundred percent of the time, I wouldn’t want to put up with anyone else,” I say before kissing those beautiful lips of hers.
Our kiss is slow. The kind of slow that could burn a man straight through. Our tongues dance with each other. She licks my bottom lip, and I move so I’m on top of her, careful not to crush her under my weight. I just need to feel her against me.
We start to move against each other, and if I wasn’t awake before, I certainly am now. She feels me harden against her, and her kiss becomes much more desperate. She starts to pull her shirt off, and I do all I can to assist her in the process. Soon after, I pull mine off as well.
I kiss every inch of her that I can. Across her collarbone. That space on her neck right under her chin. The roundness of her perfect breasts. I kiss and kiss and kiss because I want to carry the taste of her with me everywhere.
“I want you inside me,” she breathes.
And for a second the whole world gets sucked up into a black hole.
The biggest metaphorical mic drop in my entire life.
“You sure?” I ask.
She nods, biting down on that bottom lip.
I reach for my bag and pull out the handful of condoms I packed. Maybe it was presumptuous, but I pack them along to all my music festivals. I’d give up every festival girl for the rest of my life for another moment with this girl right here. Once we’re good to go, I pull her mouth back to mine, letting it linger there for a while. I know full well that once this happens, things cannot go back to how they were before.
Annabel was right. There are a lot of things in this world we can’t control, but th
ere are a lot of things we can. And I want this for us.
She reaches and grabs me, guiding me toward her. Knowing that for this to work in the way it should, it will take both of us. When I enter her, she cries out. “Are you all right?” I ask, afraid I hurt her.
I’m always afraid I’ll hurt her.
She nods, clutching my back with her hands. Her nails dig in just enough to let me know she wants it. I push inside her, and I can feel her welcome me in all the right ways. Then we start moving together. It’s no wonder so many musicians write songs about this. Because words aren’t enough to describe how it feels. Only a combination of words and instruments can do it justice.
Because our bodies are the instruments and our moans and groans the lyrics.
It’s tightness and release all at once. It’s rhythm and blues and joyous choir music.
“I want to be on top,” she says, gasping.
I nod and carefully flip us over. She rides me slowly, letting all of me come out except the tip, taunting me with the prospect of no return, only to welcome me home again and again. She arches her back as she slides up and down me, and I reach up my hands and cup her breasts.
She moves a hand down and starts gently massaging her clit. “There you go, baby,” I say. I could watch her do this every second of every day for the rest of my life.
My hands move to her back. My fingers trace the length of her scars. Like a map of our relationship. As I caress, she moves faster and faster until I think I might just die if it doesn’t stop or doesn’t go on all at once.
She cries out, and I’m only milliseconds behind her. If nothing else, this, this we know how to do. And I’m not just talking about sex. I’m talking about connection. Intimacy that doesn’t need words. When we’re like this, there isn’t any fear. Just acceptance.
When we’re both satisfied, she lies on me, her head on my chest. I run my fingers up and down her bare back. “We should have been doing that for years,” I muse, kissing the top of her head.
“We certainly are good at it,” she says, drawing circles on my chest with her fingers. “I think I’d like to lie in this tent forever doing this very thing.”
Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart Page 18
