In that moment, I wanted our old friendship back. But I wanted so much more too. Instead, all summer, I had nothing at all.
**
As fall approached, Nate stopped bringing other girls around. He stayed with me, always close by but not quite close enough. The proximity of his hand, resting beside mine as we sat under the pier, tortured me. How many times that summer had I hoped that I’d somehow find our fingers linked? But here it was, my last week at the beach, and we remained painfully separate. So I sat beside him, pathetically waiting for the accidental brush of our hands, believing I could still feel the warmth of it minutes later.
I was so focused on Nate that I didn’t realize Jordan and his friends had arrived until my brother began squeezing in between us. Reluctantly I moved my hand back into my lap. He’d clearly had a few drinks too many, and it made him jovial and affectionate, in a Jordan-sort-of-way. He draped an arm around my neck and then rapped on my head with his fist repeatedly.
“Ow,” I complained, trying to pull away. “Cut it out, Jordan.”
He looked over at Nate, assessingly. Nate looked back.
“You know if you touch my sister I’m going to fuck you up, right?” he asked casually, but there was no laughter accompanying it. He meant every word.
“Jordan!” I hissed in embarrassment.
Nate looked at the ground uncomfortably before he looked back at Jordan. “I’ve got no interest whatsoever in touching your sister.” His words hit me like a blow. I didn’t know how much I’d been hoping for until that moment, when it was all taken from me. I looked back on all the weeks that had elapsed with new eyes, and was shocked I could ever have hoped for a different outcome. Of course he didn’t like me. I was too skinny and too young, too boyish and nothing like the girls he dated. I’d been deluding myself all summer, and it made me want to writhe on the ground with the pain it caused.
“Good,” said Jordan, apparently satisfied. I sat in silence, pretending to be fine, but there was a roaring in my ears that made it impossible to listen. I was sick, and I was angry. It was the kind of anger I could never admit to. I wasn’t even sure why I felt it in the first place, but it seemed very possible that I might explode, whether I knew the source or not.
I stood suddenly. “I’m going home.”
Nate shrugged, casually. “I’ll go too.”
I glared at him. “No.”
I stomped off, not waiting, and a moment later Teddy caught up. He walked at my incredibly fast pace, trying to pretend it was normal.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, sounding so not fine it was laughable.
“You seem kind of mad.”
“I’m not.”
“Okay.”
We continued to walk in silence, and finally he said, “Hold up, Maura.”
I stopped. “Why?”
He came close, watching me guardedly, and then I knew. I didn’t really want to kiss him, but Nate’s rejection had left me feeling broken and ugly. Just when I’d decided I was too skinny and gawky to ever have a boy like me in that way, a boy was offering to prove me wrong.
But as he approached, there was movement in the darkness and suddenly Nate appeared, coming between us, lightly shoving Teddy backward.
“Go home, Teddy,” he muttered.
“Fuck off, Nate,” Teddy replied, his hands clenched.
Nate stepped into him, drawing up to his full height. He towered over poor Teddy. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”
“Asshole,” Teddy muttered under his breath, trying to save face. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Maura.” When he walked off I turned toward Nate, livid beyond all comprehension.
“You. Fucking. Asshole,” I hissed, pushing him hard in the chest.
“You didn’t want to kiss him.”
“It’s not any of your business who I want to kiss,” I said, turning on my heel and heading toward the house.
“Maura,” he called. The sound was soft, apologetic. “Stop.”
“What do you want?” I snarled. I was sparking with anger. I could feel it buzzing in my hands, in my arm, longing to swing out and strike at him.
“I’m sorry,” he said tentatively.
“You should be,” I snapped. “I’m sick of you scaring people off. You’re not my dad.”
“That’s not what I’m sorry about.”
I looked at him, waiting, and when he said nothing I prepared to walk off again.
“I lied,” he finally said. “Before.”
“Lied about what?” I asked angrily.
“When I said I wasn’t interested,” he said, looking at the ground. “I lied.”
My anger dissipated, and in its place I felt all of the grief I’d been holding down. “Then why did you say it?” I asked, sounding small and distraught.
He approached me slowly, like I was a wild animal he might frighten off. He tucked my hair behind my ear, leaving his fingers resting there against my cheekbone. His eyes focused on that point, avoiding mine. “I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want things to be weird.”
“They’re already weird,” I whispered.
“I know.”
My heart was hammering now, my breath coming quickly. I wanted to make things normal again, and I couldn’t do it.
He looked at me for only a second before leaning in to brush his lips against mine. I held my breath, feeling stunned that it was happening even as it happened. He pulled back to look at me.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded breathlessly.
His mouth tentatively returned to mine, lingering this time. I smelled his soap and the salt on his skin, tasted him in my mouth. And when he finally pulled away I felt it, all the happiness I’d been denied all summer, rolling over me like a wave.
“Was that your first kiss?” he asked.
“Yes,” I admitted, wondering if he’d known because I’d been bad at it.
“Good,” he smiled, taking my hand as we headed home. “I wouldn’t want anyone else to be your first.”
CHAPTER 8
My mother calls me three times over the course of the next two weeks. And despite the fact that I haven’t said a word about Ethan, she knows every detail. She knows he’s come up two more times. She knows he stayed all weekend. I had no idea she was capable of this level of excitement.
“You know, one day he’ll inherit the beach house,” she cooed.
“I think that’s sort of crappy. It’s a house, not a monarchy. Why shouldn’t it be Lily’s too?” I barely knew Ethan’s younger sister, but I didn’t need to know her to see that this was unfair.
“Well honey, it’s just that way. And besides, that means one day Jordan will get ours and you and Ethan will have one of your own! It’s so perfect.”
“Mom,” I say sternly. “Stop talking about Ethan and I like we’re a done deal. I’m leaving. Moving. That means no spring wedding or whatever other crap you and Mrs. Mayhew have got in your heads. If I have sex with him, that will be the closest our families ever come to merging.”
And my mother, who under normal circumstances would be aghast if I referenced anything beyond hand-holding, just giggles. Which tells me that despite my best efforts, this thing is already out of control.
**
When Ethan comes up the following weekend, I bring the topic of our mothers up hesitantly. It’s a long shot, but maybe if he squashes it on his end, and I do on mine, the furor will die down.
“Um, are you aware that our mothers are plotting?” I ask.
He grins. “How so?”
I flush. I really don’t want to bring this up. Even referencing it in terms of this-is-something-I-don’t-want feels too premature with someone I’ve only dated for a month. “Like, I think they’re picking out baby clothes for our 2.5 children and all that.”
He laughs. “I guess I’m not surprised.”
“I’ve been telling my mom to lay off, but she appears to not be hearing me,” I tell him.
Hint, hint.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Let ‘em have their fun. This is the most excitement they’ve had since they won the doubles tournament a decade ago.”
“I just don’t want them getting carried away,” I say quietly. “I thought maybe you could put in a word on your end.”
“Maybe I kind of like that they’re a little ahead of you,” he grins. “I need all the support I can get.”
**
After he leaves on Sunday night, Jackie collapses on the couch dramatically.
“Oh my God, please tell me you finally slept with that poor boy,” she begs.
“Not yet.”
“That’s criminal!” she shouts. “He’s going to explode.”
I sigh. “It’ll happen eventually.”
“There must be something seriously wrong with you,” she says with folded arms and narrowed eyes.
“You just don’t understand my family,” I tell her, knowing even as I explain she still won’t understand. “If I sleep with him, I may as well be wearing an engagement ring. If we’re that together, that official, there is no coming back from it.”
“And you really find it necessary to announce to your family that you’re banging him?” she asks.
“You have such a charming way of phrasing things, Jackie,” I laugh. “No, of course I’m not going to tell them but they’ll just … know. And Ethan will know. It’s as much about Ethan as it is them. He wouldn’t be after me if he wasn’t serious, so it’s kind of a big commitment. I’m moving. I don’t want to be making commitments to anyone right now.”
“Dude,” she groans. “You are so over-thinking this. If you don’t fuck him next weekend I may have to.”
And knowing Jackie, it isn’t entirely an empty threat, but that’s not why I give in the next weekend, when my dress is around my waist and Ethan is begging me not to say no again. It still feels like the wrong decision, but I like him, and I want to like him more, the way he likes me. It seems possible that this – sex – is the missing link that will make us feel right together.
“Thank God,” he breathes when I concede. Much as with kissing, Ethan is good at everything and it doesn’t surprise me. He groans as my nipple tightens in his mouth. I feel it register in him, feel him harden against my leg, and it excites me that I have this effect on him. His mouth trails down my stomach, between my legs. I clutch at the sheet to keep from pulling his hair.
“Oh God Ethan,” I breathe. It’s been so long that the words sound almost awed. My orgasm has taken on a life of its own, and is running hard for the finish.
I hear his zipper, hear the slide of his khakis as they fall to the floor. He crawls over me and I reach down to guide him in. I come in seconds, and he’s not far behind.
It’s good. But it doesn’t make me fall in love with him.
And, just as I’d worried, it now feels as if I’ve agreed to something nameless, something that is much, much more than sex.
CHAPTER 9
When I came back to the beach at 15 I was not the same girl. I’d spent the preceding year dating with a vengeance, because I wanted the practice. I wanted to be as good, as knowledgeable, as the girls Nate was with during the year, older girls who knew what they were doing.
I was ready when he appeared under my window. He caught me when I landed, holding me by my waist, a little tentative. I suppose neither of us knew where things stood.
His hands stayed at my waist. “You look older,” he said quietly.
“Is that good?” I asked, feeling insecure suddenly.
“Yes,” he whispered. He leaned against me, meeting my mouth. He parted my lips, grazing my teeth with his tongue. It was a single moment better than all the moments I’d spent kissing other boys put together, and I suddenly understood what might make people want to progress beyond it. I met his tongue with my own, wrapping my hands around his neck and pressing into him.
He pulled away suddenly, looking troubled and angry.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. Here I’d been thinking it was the best kiss ever, and yet he wasn’t happy. I suddenly wondered if all my practice hadn’t been enough.
“You didn’t kiss like that last summer,” he finally said, staring me down. He was definitely angry.
“Well of course I didn’t!” I argued. “I didn’t know what I was doing last summer!”
I could tell it was the wrong thing to say the minute it left my mouth.
“That’s the problem, Maura,” he snapped, folding his arms across his chest. “Because you do know what you’re doing now. How exactly would you explain that?”
I was momentarily speechless, and he stood there, waiting for an explanation, seething. I’d tried to impress him, and instead I’d ruined everything. “I wanted to practice. I wanted to be good at it when I got back. You’re older …” I trailed off as my voice broke.
He continued to glare at me.
“Nate,” I gasped, my eyes pleading with him to understand.
“I don’t like it,” he growled.
I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I’m not sure what you want me to say.”
He stood, looking at me, still breathing quickly. And finally his shoulders sagged. He stepped toward me, cupping my face in his hands, resting his forehead against mine. I could still feel the tension drawing his muscles tight. “No more practicing, okay?”
I tried to agree, but the sound was muffled by his lips, returning to mine, a little more forcefully than before.
We never did much more than kiss, but we couldn’t keep off of each other. As my friends and I sat out on the field at night watching the boys play baseball, he was the only thing I could see. I loved just being able to stare at him, watching the muscles in his thighs as he ran for base, the fierce concentration on his face as he prepared to pitch. “The two of you are disgusting,” Heather said, as he grinned at me from the pitcher’s mound. By the time the game ended I no longer heard their ribbing. I was too focused on him, on the look in his eyes as he approached me – it was the same look he had when he pitched. Determined, intense, almost feral, and it made me feel that there was nothing he might want that I could refuse him.
If there wasn’t a game we went to the pier with everyone, sitting close, abuzz with anticipation. By the time we’d wandered off into the darkness and isolation of the beach, I could barely contain the desire to be pressed against him.
He worked, so I had less time with him during the day, but at night and on weekends he was mine. I luxuriated in it, in him, sank myself into those hours the way you would a soft bed or a deep bath. Saying goodbye to him at night was sharp and bittersweet, happy and yet full of longing, already missing him for the day ahead. He’d walk me home and then press me against the door of my grandparents’ kitchen, trying to take in enough to get us through the next 18 hours apart. I timed my entire day around his work schedule, and every afternoon I’d hear his car pull in the driveway just as I got out of the shower, knowing I had just enough time to dry my hair and get dressed before he’d emerge from his house, hair still wet, skin damp from the shower, smelling like soap and fabric softener.
We thought we were so subtle, Nate and I. We thought, because we saw so little of each other during the day, that it wouldn’t attract attention. And we thought – or at least I thought, naively – that it wouldn’t matter if we did. But one day, as I raced home right on schedule, I found my grandfather waiting on the front porch. It was a surprise. He still worked and usually stayed at his office until dinner.
“Hi Grandpa,” I said, stepping onto the porch tentatively, knowing something was amiss.
“Have a seat, Maura Leigh,” he said, nodding at the rocker beside him. Internally I sighed, already trying to plot what corners I could cut in order to meet Nate in time.
“You’ve been spending an awful lot of time with Nate,” he began, looking at me with an eyebrow raised. His face held a slight smile, as if the fact didn’t displease him.
“Yes sir,” I said quie
tly, speculatively.
“He’s a good boy,” my grandfather said. “I’ve known him since he was small enough to fit in my hand.” I nodded in agreement, unsure what to say in response. “Mayhews ought to be ashamed of themselves. Should have at least provided for the boy instead of pretending he doesn’t exist.”
I nodded eagerly, wanting more. I knew only the most basic facts – that Ethan’s uncle had left town after Mary got pregnant and never came back. “Mary and your ma were friends. Did you know that?”
“No,” I replied. It explained a lot. My mother was always uncomfortable at the beach house, particularly when Mary was around.
“They were. I’ve gotten used to it, but it was strange at first, having the little girl who used to play dolls on my living room floor cleaning it instead. Your grandmother never wanted them to play together, but there were so few girls Eileen’s age.” He looked at me again. “Your grandmother has never approved of you spending time with Nate, either. I overrode her. I’d rather you were sneaking out to swim with Nate than playing with those girls you’re friends with.”
I gasped. “You knew?”
He smiled slyly. “I’m old, Maura, but not that much escapes my attention.”
“Did grandma know?”
He shook his head. “Figured I’d best let that one sit. She wouldn’t have taken it well.”
We rocked in our chairs and I wondered, with growing anxiety, how much more my grandfather knew.
“You and Nate, together,” he began. “Seemed pretty inevitable. Even when you were a baby he doted on you. You were two peas in a pod. Always have been.”
I smiled, feeling slightly more at ease. As if he had read my mind, my grandfather’s tone changed.
“Your grandmother … she doesn’t see it that way,” he said. He stopped rocking. “Your grandmother didn’t even want you two as friends, so she sure doesn’t want you dating.”
“Does she know?” I asked haltingly.
“Nope, not yet. Cause she’d have already packed you up and sent you back to Charlotte if she did. But I guarantee if the two of you keep carrying on the way you do right there in the backyard she’ll know soon enough.”
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