He gave me with a wicked smile. One of those smiles that made a girls knees buckle and her body soar.
“I’ve been trying to get the nerve up to ask you.”
“Oh.” I fumbled with my hands. He didn’t seem like the type of guy who would be nervous about anything. His voice flowed out as smooth as butter. I’d always wanted to learn how to swim, but I never had anyone to teach me. By the time I was in middle school, taking beginners classes with the five year olds seemed embarrassing.
“Sure, I’d love to learn.”
His blue eyes lit up at my answer. “Sweet, I mean.” He coughed to hide the boyish excitement in his voice. “Sounds like a plan. Let’s get started.”
“Right now?” He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the wicker chair.
“Yes, you got your suit on under that dress?”
I glanced down at my red sundress. “Yup.”
“You guys have a pool?”
I nodded and led him to the side of the house behind the fence where the pool was.
I pulled my sundress down over my hips and stepped into the shallow end so the water hit my hips.
“Alright,” John said, slapping his hands together them rubbing them back and forth.
“You won’t let me drown?” My voice was timid, but I wasn’t scared of the water. I only wanted an excuse for him to hold me close. He reached out for me and held me close in the water.
“I’ll never let anything happen to you. I promise.” He grabbed my hands and showed me how to move my arms and legs to stay afloat. We practiced for about an hour before I finally got the hang of it and could doggy-paddle across the pool. It felt kind of silly, a boy teaching me how to swim, but it was comfortable. He was patient with me when I got frustrated and wanted to give up.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” he asked me out of the blue as we were getting out of the water.
“What? No, no I don’t.”
“Good, neither do I. No girlfriend that is.”
“Good,” I repeated.
That night was just the beginning of a string of dates. We spent every day together. During the day, we would hang out on the beach. Some days we would go back to his place and watch old movies or collect shells. He began teaching me how to swim, and even though I had dragged him under the water half a dozen times, he was patient with me and caring. I never met his parents, though he had met my mom dozens of times. From what he told me, I didn’t want to meet them either. According to him, they were shallow and judgmental. We kept to ourselves during those weeks, and spoke neither of our past or our future, only the present. He was my everything and though my body ached for something more, he never pushed himself on me. Things never got romantic. We flirted, held hands, and spent every moment together, but it never went further than that.
About halfway through the summer something changed. He was unusually quiet and sullen that morning as we lay on the beach.
“Is something wrong?” I scooted closer to him on the beach towel and took off my sunglasses.
“I just have a lot on my mind.” He refused to look at me.
“What are you thinking?”
“About us.”
I sat up. What was he talking about?
“What about us?”
“What’s gonna happen when summer ends next month and you go back home?”
I hadn’t thought about it, we were still underage; it wasn’t as if we could see each other all the time.
“What do you want to happen?”
He grabbed my hand and turned to me. “I love you, Maria. You bring out all the good things inside of me. You make me a better person….but…”
I bit my lip. There was the dreaded “but.”
“But love is not for me.”
“That’s not true!” I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re the sweetest most caring guy I know. You deserve love just as much as every other person out there.”
“No, you only see the good in me because I can only be good around you. I’m selfish, careless, and a jerk. You don’t know the real me.”
“You’re lying!”
“No, Maria. I’m not. I’ll only hurt you like I’ve hurt every other person in this world. I don’t know how to love.”
This was the unescapable crossroad. The turning point in my entire life. I had two choices. I could trust that he knew what was best and let this summer, the greatest summer of my life, be the last of us or I could fight for him. Fight for us. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted him. I brought my hands up to his cheek and forced him to look at me.
“I love you, John. Nothing can tear us apart.” I brought my lips up to his, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. I hadn’t ever kissed a boy, so I had no idea what to do with my hands or eyes, but I’d seen it in hundreds of old movies. I wanted to kiss him like that. I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my lips against his. John followed my lead and kissed me back. He gently pulled me into his lap and held me so tightly I thought our bodies would meld together. When we finally came up for air, we didn’t have to say anything. We both knew that our lives would never be the same. I could never feel this way about anyone else. Our parents, our friends, our society, they would never believe that fifteen year olds could love each other the way we did. I didn’t care because I believed in us. I believed in him and entrusted that he would never abandon me.
Chapter Six
“You did fight for him,” Jenna said. She wiped tears from her face except this time they were tears of happiness.
“I was naïve.” I told her. My eyes were dry. I’d cried myself dry many years ago.
“You really did love him.”
“Yes, I suppose I really did love him.”
“He wanted to be on Broadway. Did his wish ever come true?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t kept up with him in some years, but back then. No, no he played on a soap opera.”
Jenna gave me a sour face. “Do they still make those?”
“Yes, they do.”
“And what was his name again.”
My head shot up. “Oh no you don’t, you’re not gonna pull a fast one on me, missy.”
She made a few more notes on her paper. “Fine, whatever. You fell in love one summer, he disappeared to become an actor, and you had me and gave me up for adoption. I have everything I need to know.
One more thing, if his parents were in the movie business, why did you pick my parents, who are in the movie business as well. Weren’t you afraid I’d meet my paternal family?”
There was no reason for my actions except that I wanted her to have every opportunity I never had. It had never occurred to me that she might run into John or her parents. “No. I never thought of that. They were the best fit. Anyway, enough questions. Let me drive you home.”
She stood up at the same time I did and began to put her things in her backpack. “No need. My driver is downstairs. He’ll take me home.”
“Oh, okay.” A small part of me didn’t want her to go and had expected at least another hour in the car. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her how beautiful she was, but if I did that, it would make this parting so much harder.
“One more thing.” She threw her backpack over her shoulder and shifted the weight on her feet a few times. “Did you ever think about keeping me?”
For the first time, I reached out and allowed myself to push her blonde hair back behind her ear.
“I thought about it every day until the day you were born, but I was young and alone. Only a few years older than you.”
She smiled. “It was nice meeting you.” She didn’t seem to be scared or upset about leaving me. In fact, she had a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
I’m not sure why the next thing came out of my mouth. Maybe it was because I was scared, maybe I needed reassurance. “Don’t go looking for him.”
“For who?”
“Your father. You need to wait until I tell him, and I will tell him, I promis
e.”
She gave me a wide smile and reached out for the doorknob. At the last moment, she hesitated and turned around to look at me.
“I wish you would tell me his real name.”
She deserved answers, she deserved more than lies and excuses, but the second she learned his name, she will go to him and just as surely as he had broke my heart, he would break hers as well. So I said nothing at all. She gave me a curt nod and shut the door behind her.
As the air expelled from my lungs, I allowed myself to say his name. The man who stole my heart all those years ago. The man my heart won’t ever forget, and as his name passes through my lips, the pain returns.
“Barrett.”
The End
Read more about Barrett in The One Thing available in December 2014
Also, don’t miss the other books in the Hollywood Timelines series
The Last Thing
Bash
About The Author
Briana Gaitan grew up in the South, but calls herself a geek at heart. She is a blogger,author,and fangirl who loves Star Wars, Star Trek, and Jewelry (bet you never thought you'd hear those three things in a sentence together) For fun, she loves watching any show on the SyFy channel, relaxing with her family, reading, and listening to indie music (sometimes all at the same time). Briana loves to write stories where there are no limits to the imagination. She is the co-author of the best-selling Ethereal Underground series and author of the highly anticipated upcoming Hollywood Timelines Series. Find out more about her book at www.bookswithbree.com
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Maria (Hollywoood Timelines #3) Page 3
