by Adi Alsaid
“This is such a cliché,” Dave said, offering dozens of little pecks all over her face, beneath her ears, those three freckles on her neck, which he could have devoted his attention to for the rest of the night.
“What is?” Julia’s eyes were closed, her arms on his bare back.
“Sex on a beach.” He kissed his way across her throat, down to her collarbone. “The fire, the moon. Virginities lost amidst romance. We are so cheesy.”
She pulled him up and kissed him firmly, wrapping her legs around his, pulling him as close as they could get. “No complaints here.”
Sand continued to get everywhere, and every now and then a car would pass by unseen on the highway, sometimes with music blasting from open windows. Mostly it was the sound of the ocean and their kisses that filled the night, the occasional murmured I love you, or a joke that would make them both break out into laughter, burrowing their faces into the nooks in each other’s necks until the laughter subsided and was once again replaced by kissing.
This, Dave thought to himself as Julia’s hands ran down his back, as he kissed her over and over again, this was perfect.
PERFECT
THIS, JULIA THOUGHT to herself as Dave ran his hands down her sides, as she kissed him over and over again, this was perfect.
SUNRISE
DAVE WOKE UP—like he’d imagined so many times—with Julia in his arms. The sun had just barely risen behind them. Fog tinted the sky a light yellow and made the water look gray. Julia’s head was resting on his chest, her arm draped around him, their bodies keeping each other warm in the briskness of dawn. A few strands of her hair moved in the ocean breeze, clearing away to show her peacefully sleeping face. It was still perfect, except Gretchen was on his mind.
She’d never seen the sunrise. Well, maybe in passing, on the way to school or the airport to catch an early flight. But she’d never woken up specifically to see it, never taken the time to watch the sky lighten from complete darkness to unquestioned day. She’d told him that on their date at the harbor, and Dave had promised to take her someday. He’d already picked out the spot where they would go—Brett knew a way to get to the roof of the school, which gave an unobstructed view clear to the mountains in the east—but he’d been putting together a playlist for them to listen to and it wasn’t yet long enough.
Dave looked around their impromptu campsite. Their clothes were strewn about, one of Dave’s shoes dangerously close to where the fire had been. A forgotten marshmallow lay in the sand, half-buried next to the jug of iced tea, which had tipped over on its side. The sound of cars on the freeway was not yet constant, but Dave knew it would be soon.
Gretchen would be waking up right about now. He’d watched her wake up before, though they hadn’t gone as far as he and Julia had. She’d probably be on her side, curled into a ball, her hands reaching out to her cell phone as soon as she opened her eyes. He could picture the glow of the screen reflected on her face, in the big brown eyes that he’d been looking into so often the last couple of weeks, on those cheekbones. A sick feeling took root in his stomach.
He looked down at Julia, who kept sleeping peacefully, her breath steady as a metronome. He couldn’t completely see her mouth, but he imagined that she’d fallen asleep with a smile on her face and that it was still there. Unlike him, she would wake up with no one on her mind but Dave himself.
Dave remembered their countless movie nights, how he’d long for the loll of her head, which meant the movie was losing her and she’d soon rest her cheek against his shoulder. Once, they’d both drifted off, and Dave had woken up in the middle of the night to the movie playing over again, Julia’s arm looped through his. He’d kept his eyes closed and pretended to still be sleeping, the joy so simple that he didn’t dare disturb it. At one point, Julia had stirred, then nestled back into him, as if the same thing was on her mind. Strange now to think that it might have been, that everything he’d wanted had been well within reach.
He undoubtedly loved her. It had been an incredible night, extraordinary despite the clichés that were peppered in the details. It was a dream come true, literally and metaphorically, except that dream was now tangled up with the dream of Gretchen.
Dave shifted a little, bringing his hand to Julia’s temple and rubbing it in slight circles to gently wake her up. He wished he could just focus on this, let her sleep. He wanted to be overjoyed, rather than happy and wrecked by guilt.
Gretchen was going to be hurt, and angry. She might never talk to him again. The thought brought a panic in Dave’s chest that made him want to get up that instant, shake Julia awake, as if leaving could undo it all. But he’d been hoping for exactly this to happen for so long that it was impossible to walk away from it. “Julia,” he said softly, not knowing what else there was to say.
She stirred, but only pressed herself closer against him, planting a kiss on his chest before resuming her rhythmic breathing. A seagull suddenly appeared near them, stepping cautiously toward him. It peered at Dave suspiciously, its eyes little black marbles that saw him only as a threat. Dave nodded, as if to confirm that he dealt out harm all the time. The sun climbed higher through the fog. The seagull made away with the marshmallow. Emptied out by guilt, the shame rising from his stomach and exuding through his pores, Dave let Julia sleep a little longer, delaying what was to come for as long as he could.
RIDICULOUS
THE ONLY WORD Julia could use to describe herself when she woke up was ridiculous. It was ridiculous to wake up feeling so happy. She was like the cartoon of someone in love. Any second now animated bluebirds were going to land on her shoulder and start harmonizing. She felt like a Jack White guitar riff.
She kissed Dave again as soon as she woke up, laughed at how much sand there was everywhere. Sitting up, she looked around at the detritus of their little picnic: the half-empty jug of tea on its side as if it had passed out, the pile of ash in the fire pit, their clothes surrounding the towel like a blast radius. There were bird tracks in the sand, and Julia, amused, pictured those animated bluebirds singing around the two of them as they slept. The sun was already burning the fog away, and by the time they would get back to San Luis Obispo, it would probably be a perfectly clear day, the sky a deep shade of blue. Ridiculous.
Dave was quiet as they picked up the mess they had made and got dressed. Julia figured he was worried about getting caught by the cops, worried about getting to school on time, which there was no way they were going to do. It was his nature, and she tried taking his mind off those small worries by joking around. “By the way, there’s a video of you running naked into the ocean all over the Internet now.”
“Liar,” Dave said, kicking sand into the fire pit, bending over to grab the cap for the jug of tea.
“I was very sneaky about it. Don’t get me wrong, I felt awful doing it and e-mailing it to the entire school but it is explicitly mentioned in the Nevers, so I figured recording the event was kind of a must. I probably shouldn’t have added your grandparents to the e-mail, though.”
Dave chuckled, then picked up the towel and whipped the sand off it a few times before draping it over his arm. “Ready to go?”
“You mean we have to go back? I thought we might stay here for a few more days. Live off the land. Grow beards.” Dave was not laughing nearly as much as he should have been. This was golden material. “We could have really beardy sex. That’d be hot. Actually, can you even grow a beard? You can be honest. I’ll still be attracted to you. I would just prefer to know if I’ll be the more bearded one in our relationship. For logistics.”
Dave didn’t respond, and there was a brief flutter in her stomach, like something was wrong, though what could possibly be wrong? She went up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing herself to his back. “You know the joking around isn’t all I’m feeling, right?”
His arms went
over hers and he gave her hand a squeeze. “I know.”
“Good.” She kissed him through his shirt, sincerely hoping they might not leave at all. “You wanna, like, talk about it? Us...you know...sleeping together. And how we’re feeling about that?” She burrowed her nose into his back, thrilled and a little weirded out by what she’d just said.
Dave chuckled, then turned around to face Julia, wrapping her up in a hug. The ocean breeze blew by, the morning sun weak against it, sending chills down Julia’s spine. Held tightly in Dave’s arms, sensing the tenderness in his embrace, she’d bet that he was feeling the same, reluctant to leave. After a few moments, Dave loosened and pulled back, kissing Julia quickly on the lips.
Julia followed behind Dave, a little slow because she’d woken up about six minutes ago and the sand felt nothing short of magical between her toes. The whole world should have been filled with sand. Dave was already up by the highway shoulder, walking a little too quickly. Julia glanced back at the spot, because the day could survive another cliché. She took note of the surroundings, the trees on the other side of the road, the wooden fence that must have belonged to some unseen property. Oh, how trite it was to be a girl memorizing the details of her first time.
She turned back and saw Dave was already in the car, which they’d parked behind some boulders to avoid being spotted. He was in the driver’s seat with the engine started, squinting though the sun wasn’t completely on his face. They were a bit more than a couple of hours outside of San Luis Obispo, and Julia was going to relish every mile of the drive back home.
She put her feet up on the dashboard, undid her hair tie, and let the wind whip away the sand as they pulled onto the freeway. She grabbed her sunglasses from the center console but didn’t put them on, not wanting to lessen the brightness of the day. “I wish we’d brought some breakfast snacks,” Julia said, plugging her phone into the car for music. “You wanna stop at a diner somewhere?”
Dave leaned his elbow on the car door, looking worried. “We should probably get back soonish.”
“So cute, still worried about school.” Julia reached over and poked him in the stomach. “All right, no diner. But we need some road-trip food. I want Flamin’ Hot Cheetos for breakfast.”
“Gross.”
“David Babycakes Howard, you start bad mouthing hot Cheetos and I’m gonna take away your Mexican passport.”
Dave smiled at that, but he was squinting like the sun was in his eyes, worried. He reached over to turn the music up a bit, which was weird because a dance song was playing and Dave didn’t like dance music. Julia sat back and sang along, shoulder-shimmying in her seat, her hand out the window. It was cold enough outside to get goose bumps from the wind, but Julia was too happy to care.
They pulled into a gas station. “What are you having for breakfast?” Julia said, climbing out of the car. Dave didn’t make a move to get out. “Want me to grab you anything? Skittles? Red Bull? Hot Cheetos?”
“A barf bag,” Dave said with a groan.
When Julia came back out from the store with a bag full of junk food, Dave was resting his head back with his eyes closed. She stood and stared for a second, thankful she couldn’t see the look on her own face, how wide she was grinning. Dave, on the other hand, was not grinning very much. Quite the contrary, actually. He looked stressed. She was about to make a joke about postcoital vulnerability, when she was struck by a realization that she was surprised hadn’t come sooner. Gretchen was on his mind. His heart was too big not to think about her.
“You want me to drive?”
Dave opened one eye. “You’re never getting these keys back. I’m the driver now.”
“That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Sneaky.” She reached into the bag and tossed the Cheetos at Dave, then slid back into the passenger seat. Before he could turn the car back on, Julia reached for his hand, lacing their fingers together. “This is kind of cool, isn’t it?” She smiled, holding their hands up together, then bringing them up to her mouth and planting a long kiss on the knuckle of his middle finger.
Dave nodded, then did the same thing to her hand, though his kiss was short. Then he peeled away his fingers and turned on the ignition. Was it more than guilt causing him to be quiet? Was it doubt?
For two hours, Julia switched songs. She stared out at the ocean, which was as beautiful as she’d ever seen it. She laid her hand on Dave’s thigh, and when she saw his face turn tense she pulled the hand away, switched songs, made a joke. She tried not to think of Dave with Gretchen, but it wasn’t as if she was imagining things. He had been with her. Just yesterday, he’d kissed her, ran his hands through her blond hair.
“Would you rather... “ Julia started without knowing how she was going to finish, just wanting the silence to go away, “have to sit through eight years’ worth of Marroney classes or get lobotomized without anesthetic?”
“That’s dumb, of course I’d choose Marroney’s classes.”
“Err! Trick question. They’re the same thing.”
Dave laughed. “You are so in love with that guy.”
“No, you goof.” Julia sat up, reaching out for his hand again, looking out at Highway 1 curve away from the ocean as they approached San Luis Obispo. “I’m in love with you.”
“I didn’t say the two were mutually exclusive.” He chuckled, squeezing her fingers. Now it was Julia who reached to turn up the music. She wished they would have just stayed behind on that beach in Carmel. They should have kept their trip going, at least for the day. Julia watched the familiar surroundings of San Luis Obispo pass by her window. The chain restaurants in those strip malls, Laundromats and nail salons that wouldn’t have survived without a restaurant to draw traffic in. The farmland stretching from the edges of the city to the distant hills. The high school, which would be releasing into lunch any moment now, the seniors scurrying away in their cars to get slices at Fratelli’s down the street.
“You’re just gonna go ahead and drive past school, right?” Julia said. “It’s almost noon.”
“Yeah,” Dave said, trailing off. She could hear Gretchen on his voice.
“Can I come over to your place? Watch a movie? The last few movie dates we had I’ve been dying to cuddle with you.”
“Julia Battlefield Gunteski, I had no idea you were so sentimental.”
“Shut the fuck up. Cuddling is not about sentimentality. It’s about the immense pleasure of skin on skin, especially when that skin contains someone you feel more or less strongly about.”
Dave was quiet as they arrived at a stoplight. He gripped the steering wheel, rubbed the back of his neck. She tried hard not to remember what the a cappella group had looked like as they got ready to sing on the far corner.
“Seriously? This is the first red light we get in town?”
Dave broke out in a smile. “I don’t know about a movie. But I am definitely not going to school right now.”
They pulled into Dave’s driveway, which was empty, Brett and his dad off at work. As soon as the car was stopped, Julia unbuckled her seat belt, leaned across the console, put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss.
His lips were not stiff or unwelcoming. There was no sign of his mind being on Gretchen. Far from it, actually. They fit as wonderfully as they had last night, and for one blissful moment she knew that there were many of these on the way.
Then Dave put a gentle stop to it with that signature smack of lips ending a kiss. His hand was on the side of her face, his eyes set on hers. She smiled at him and was about to move back in when his eyes flitted to something in the rearview mirror. “Shit,” Dave said, like the wind had just been knocked out of him. Julia looked behind and saw Gretchen’s van behind them. The door was half-open, Gretchen’s face already in tears. She was wearing her hair in this side-ponytail thing that should have looked ridiculous but some
how worked.
The sound of the van door slamming shut rang out in the stillness of the afternoon. Dave quickly pulled away from Julia, one hand already on the door handle. “I’m sorry,” he said, although Julia wasn’t sure who that was meant for. She remained frozen in the car as Dave tried to chase after Gretchen, who’d already started her car.
Julia watched it all through the tiny slit of a back windshield in her Miata. Gretchen crying, Dave looking miserable, trying to explain himself. It was only a few moments until Gretchen peeled away, but for Julia it had felt like a very long time, like some uncomfortably extensive scene from a soap opera, all close-ups and faces stretched into exaggerated misery. When Gretchen was gone, Dave lingered for a long moment at the edge of his driveway, hands dropped at his sides, his face hidden from view. It felt like a moment in limbo, like the slightest breeze would either send Dave chasing after Gretchen or pull him back to Julia. Julia held her breath, as if that was all it would take to sway him.
“Please,” she found herself whispering. “Please.”
A car drove past, the driver switching radio stations, casting furtive glances at the road ahead, oblivious of what Julia was about to lose or gain. “Please,” she said again. It took Dave a while, a hesitation she would allow him as long as he got back in the car. His arms were at his sides, his head hanging low. It felt like his decision would be based on something slight, the flapping of butterfly wings somewhere far off sending Dave away from her. When he turned around and slowly slid back in, Julia felt herself ease.
Dave smacked his head back and hit the car seat, his eyes closed, his face entirely stress again. “Fuck.”
Julia froze, not knowing what to say or do, until she remembered that this was still Dave. She was still herself. Gretchen might be heartbroken right now, and Julia wouldn’t wish that on anyone. But she’d just kissed Dave, not for the first time, and definitely not for the last. After all, he was here. He’d chosen Julia.
