10 Weeks

by Watts, Janna; Perry, Jolene

  Travis slides next to me.

  He smells like sweat and cheap beer, but it’s not his fault. I probably smell the same. We’re not the only people out back, but no one else matters right now.

  “Actually.” I rest my head on his shoulder. “It’s been a little rough.” Maybe on a guy like Travis, the sympathy thing might help me get closer to him, faster.

  He rests his arm around me and pulls me closer. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Nothing feels okay, but sitting with him is good. My chest aches a little less. I press my nose into his cheek.

  “Careful there.” He chuckles. “I’ve got a very nice buzz going, and I might think you’re coming on to me.”

  “I might be coming on to you.” I kiss under his ear. The simple kiss twists around in my insides, pressing into the guilt at leaving Nate. At sitting on a bench with Travis. At wanting to do all the things with Travis that I’m thinking about.

  His smooth hands slide across my collarbone and up the back of my neck, bringing our lips together.

  Right. Swimmer. That’s why his hands are nice. Not calloused. I deepen our kiss, but Nate’s still pressing in making it hard to breathe. I was supposed to leave all that behind.

  Travis hand slides across my chest, his thumb pausing over my nipple for a second too long.

  Fucking guilt wins.

  “I gotta go. Because of Jody.” And that’s all I manage before stumbling off the picnic table, oblivious to the other people standing outside talking, and running inside.

  Liam’s drooling over the counter as he hands Jody a drink.

  “Sorry.” I grab Jody from the side. “We gotta get out of here.”

  I mouth ‘sorry’ to Liam before dragging Jody out the door. I suck. I suck as a friend. As a hook-up. And as a girlfriend. I already knew all of these things, but as Jody stares wistfully at the front door of the Minnow just before Travis pokes his head out, staring at me with confusion, and my phone buzzes in another text, me being a huge fuck-up pretty much turned to truth.

  Jody and I have ridden in silence for too long. I haven’t looked at my phone. I’m afraid to.

  “So…” Jody starts. “Sounds like the dance thing is working out well.”

  “I have a new partner,” I blurt out before thinking.

  “Yeah?” I’m not sure if Jody’s interested or not, but talking about how I met Nate seems safe enough.

  Or really, really far from safe.

  “Mable set me up with a new partner.”

  Jody’s silent, and I feel this strange need to fill the silence after dragging her out of the bar.

  “His name is Nate. So, you know, she checks builds, and ways of moving and all that. I’m crazy pale, and he’s not just a little bit black, but really black and sort of gorgeous.” I clear my throat, and wonder if I can continue. But I remember and I want someone to know. Even if it’s only part of the picture. “I swear we were like four steps into the fox-trot, and I just knew he’d be perfect.”

  “That’s great.” Jody smiles politely.

  She doesn’t get how great it is. I’ve gone through so many dance partners, that I never understood how any one person could be perfect.

  Watching our hands come together the first time and feeling how sure of himself he was. I should have known with the way he danced against me that he wasn’t gay. I probably just wanted him to be. Spending so much time with my brother and his group of friends, as well as all my dancing friends, has warped my perception of the percentage of gay males there are. In my mind, guys are gay, or total douche-bags. Sometimes both.

  “We could probably go all the way if we kept working hard.” Which we won’t because I’m at camp instead of teaching and rehearsing.

  “I would have never put you and ballroom dancing together.” Jody smiles a little more.

  I want to be mad at her observation, but it’s true, really. I fell into it because Mom used to forget to pick me up after ballet, and they taught adult ballroom dancing right after my class.

  Austin made me stick with it when I moved in with him. Our parents are far too conservative to have a daughter dancing anything but ballet, and even then, Dad was always asking if I could add extra fabric to my costumes.

  I’m such a pathetic stereotype of the rebellious child.

  When we stop I remember my phone buzzed, and pull it out.

  I think I mumble thanks to Jody as I head toward the kitchen. I haven’t had a real meal in days and am suddenly starving.

  I hold in a breath as I check my phone, and it’s Austin, not Nate. I feel a pang of disappointment, but I need to get used to that because I can’t be running away from Nate and also be hoping he’s still writing me.

  I stopped to water your solitary plant, get your mail and check your apartment. You’re welcome. Ran into Nate. Please just call that poor man. For me. It’s just…sad.

  What Austin doesn’t know is that I literally can’t make myself do it.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  I’m once again smoking behind the shed. Sometimes I think nothing has changed since high school.

  Paloma steps around the corner and freezes.

  I’m still buzzed from the two beers I snuck out of Alex’s stash in the kitchen after dinner, so I wave her over. “You’re already here. Tell anyone, and I’ll kill you.”

  She doesn’t move for a second longer, but then takes another step, putting us on the forest side of the shed, and out of view.

  I hand her a cigarette and she lights up immediately, letting out the kind of sigh that I used to when I thought I was so fucking cool for smoking. Now I picture my lungs turning black and the shitty voice I’ll have at forty, but the need to do something is too strong for me to stop.

  I scroll through my Nate texts again. Special torture for the tortured soul. And I’m officially being ridiculous.

  “What’cha doin’?” she asks.

  “Checking texts.” I scroll down further.

  She glances over. “That’s a lot.”

  “Nate,” I say before I stop myself.

  “So.” Paloma flicks her cigarette. “What’s wrong with the guy?”

  “What?” I freeze, still holding my phone.

  “The guy you keep checking up on?”

  “I’m not…checking up.” Only that’s exactly what I’m doing.

  “Then what are you doing?”

  “Nothing.” I glance back and scroll to the end. Last one was days ago. Maybe he’s finally given up, which would be good, but still makes me feel like shit.

  “Fine. Don’t tell me.” She folds her arms.

  “Nothing’s wrong with him. Okay? He’s fucking perfect. The kind of guy I should be introducing to my brother. The kind of guy my brother would love to see me with because he’d know that if we ever split up that it would be my fault.” I choke on the last words.

  “So you fucked it up then, huh?” She takes another drag. I really should take that away.

  “Watch your mouth.” I slide off my flip flops and squeeze the grass between my toes.

  “I don’t get it, Sam.” Paloma turns to look at me as she drops her cigarette to the ground. It still looks rehearsed, strange, coming from a young, wiry thing like her.

  “What don’t you get?” Because I’d like her take on it. I only half understand the situation myself.

  “You have the perfect guy, and you did what?… Sleep with someone else? Take off? What?”

  “I gotta go.” I push off the shed and drop my cigarette.

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  This is it. I’m going to get someone to cover my shift with the girls tonight because I need out of here on a night when Kay-Kay and Jody aren’t at the Minnow to watch me be a big fuck-up.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  No one agreed to cover for me, and I wasn’t able to go be a big fuck-up with some geek looking for a good time.

  Instead I get cozy time with my girls where we basically told Kay-Kay to jump in bed with a guy o
ld enough to be her dad. Way hotter than any other guy I’ve seen his age, but still. Older.

  And then Jody… I just… Jody being a virgin is such a shocker that days later, I’m still thinking about it. What must it have been like to grow up in normal? To be so sure of how you want to do something that if the situation isn’t perfect, you don’t do it? The whole thing boggles my mind.

  And both of them are walking into hard situations.

  Kay-Kay’s in deep with Alex who is old enough that if they do end up together, it’s not going to be easy. Jody’s trying to find the guts to be in deep with Liam who doesn’t live in this country, and definitely has some history. And I’m running away from Mr. Fucking Perfect.

  I’m sure I do not want to know what this says about me. Or maybe it’s stuff I already know, and I’m at least nice enough to run before I screw him over too badly.

  Maybe.

  After getting a ride home from the Little Minnow from some counselors I don’t know, I stumble toward my cabin in the dark.

  What number am I… what number…

  Nine!

  Nine is my number… I squint as I pass the cabins, waiting for one to look familiar, which is ridiculous since they all look almost the same.

  I finally find my cabin and stumble in. Getting undressed in the dark isn’t going to be an option tonight. If it weren’t for stupid Nate and his damn need to tell me he loves me, I wouldn’t have had to drink so much.

  I flop onto my bed, feeling more torn up about Nate than I have since I left. Dammit, all the Jim Beam was supposed to make this better, not worse. My face smashes into my pillow and I beg for sleep to take over before I cry into my pillow like a lovesick teenager.

  His kiss is thorough and deep, like always. I pull him into my apartment as I back up, just like every time for the last ten or so dates. Since the first kiss that curled my toes. I haven’t done much thinking since that time, which is good, because as we keep dancing together, we keep being together. And every day I finish teaching my classes, knowing I’ll get to rehearse with Nate. And knowing that after our rehearsal he’ll ask me to dinner, or if he can walk me home. And every night I say yes.

  “Say you’ll stay the night,” I whisper.

  “I’ve stayed the night before.” He moves his hips to sway with me slowly as he holds our bodies together. So close I feel as if I’ll explode if he doesn’t stay. Doesn’t touch me. Doesn’t take me.

  “But I never got to see you. You slept in your clothes,” I tease in a whisper, because some moments are so loud that I wish I didn’t need to speak.

  “You can see me right now.” His lips caress my neck as he whispers back. Knowing that this moment is already full of us.

  Wishing that we didn’t need words.

  “Please.” I slide my fingers just under his shirt, and then up his back. And I did love him sleeping over. I haven’t loved being inside a man’s arms that way since I was fifteen and really stupid about boys. But with Nate it’s different. It’s new. It’s easy.

  The beginnings of panic set in as I realize how deep I’m in, but he slides his shirt off, and his hands slide up mine. Just far enough that his thumbs skimming across my stomach make my knees weak.

  As my shirt hits the floor, our bodies come together, skin to skin. His smile is the same as it always is, but his mouth covers mine with more urgency. I realize he is going to stay over. I am going to get to see him. And it’s going to be as good as I imagined.

  And then he’s gone, and I’m holding nothing. As if that night never happened.

  I gasp as sit up in bed, sending the room spinning. Girls are stumbling out of bunks, and my head pounds.

  Why does being separated from him have to hurt so bad? My hangover is nothing compared to the hole in my chest.

  It’ll go away…It has to…There’s no way I’ll feel this way forever…

  Paloma stops at my bed as the other girls shuffle out for breakfast. “I’m sorry. For whatever.”

  “Do I look that bad?” I tease, but it gets lost in the ache in my voice and the body that’s ready to collapse into bed and be swallowed.

  “Yeah.” She nods. “You do.”

  I rub my hands over my face a few times. Why can’t I be normal and just love a guy back? Why?

  “Is it worth it?” she asks. “Whatever you’re doing here?”

  I don’t know. I honestly don’t.

  A gangly pale guy with a sunburned face runs up to me as I head back toward camp from Jody’s car. First camp session ends in three days, and as long as it felt like it took to get to this point, I still can’t believe my summer’s already half over.

  “Boys camp is across the lake, or are you honestly lost?” I put my hands on my hips, not wanting to deal with some love-sick kid.

  “I’m eighteen, not in camp, and need to see Paloma.” Nice polo shirt, khaki shorts, white shoes…

  I’m taken aback, because this kid looks like the epitome of clean-cut, good guy, and she…doesn’t.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “I’m her boyfriend, Gabriel.”

  “Yeah.” I shift my weight. “I’ve heard about you.”

  “Look.” He sounds desperate and his brown eyes are pleading. “I just need to see her. Please?”

  “What for?”

  “Gabe?” Paloma yells. She’s moving with a group from the amphitheater.

  I sigh.

  Before I can slow anything down, she’s in his arms. I shouldn’t watch them. Really, they’re a couple of kids. I expect him to kiss her like he’s eating her face, but instead his eyes close and he holds her.

  They relax into each other, her face pressed into his chest, and I have to walk away.

  Nate held me like there was nowhere else he’d rather be. Like he had all the time in the world to stand outside my apartment door and feel me in his arms.

  The only son of a family full of dancers. He has two sisters in Cirque de Soleil, and even though his parents call him a wimp for doing ballroom instead of ballet (only a dancing family would say this) they love that he’s doing it.

  I wonder all the time if Nate knows what an amazing family he has. How incredible it must feel for your parents to give a shit about what you’re doing. Austin is amazing, but he’s not Mom and Dad.

  Okay. It’s official.

  I’m making myself crazy with my patheticness.

  When I lie in bed, shushing the whispers and giggles after a too-late night, and a new group of girls, I realize Paloma’s bed is empty. My heart starts pounding, and I jog to the shed after death threats to the rest of the girls to stay in bed.

  Where is she?

  Shit. I’m going to have to report her as missing.

  The boyfriend was here today. God. How stupid of me. Of course she’s probably having sex with him in the back of his car right now. I can’t find time to get laid, but apparently if I was sixteen, I’d be good.

  The office is closed for the night, so I head to Alex’s place. He’ll know what to do.

  I knock, sure he’s going to kill me for being so stupid, and not noticing when I was supposed to take roll before lights out.

  He opens his door, and his face falls. Wonder if he was expecting someone else.

  “What can I do for you, Sam?”

  “Paloma’s gone.”

  “I know.” He hands me a letter. “This was slid under my door sometime this evening.”

  I take the paper from him. “Where were you?”

  He immediately looks away. “Out.”

  I scan the note.

  Camp Counselors and my parents –

  I’m safe. I chose to leave. No one at camp can be held responsible, as no one knew my plans.

  Mom and Dad. Don’t try to contact me. I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.

  I choose love. Even if it breaks my heart.

  Paloma

  “She ran off with her boyfriend.” I stand stunned. After everything I said to her. She still did it.

 
; “I just got off the phone with her parents. Don’t worry, Sam. You didn’t do anything wrong.” His voice is tired, but still kind.

  “Okay. ‘Night.” Only it’s insane. Not okay.

  I turn back to the bunks, heart pounding. How could anyone just jump in like that? I don’t get it.

  She’s not terrified only because she’s young and stupid and doesn’t know better.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Weeks pass, and I keep to myself. I stop carrying my phone around, and have started answering my brother’s long voicemails with texts. Kay-Kay and Jody are up and down with their men. Right now Kay-Kay’s down and confused because of the crazy ex-wife/Alex situation, and Jody’s definitely up. She spends her days grinning like an idiot, and every spare second is with the edible Liam.

  I shouldn’t be jealous. I could be home with Nate right now, but I’m not. I could be impetuous and stupid like Paloma. But I did that once and got burned.

  Travis and I text a few times, and almost meet up, but our nights off never seem to match up. He didn’t call last winter so I’m thinking he’s pretty safe for a night out, and the distraction I’ve been wanting since I got here. At the same time, I’m so mixed up that I don’t know if I want distraction from someone like him, or if I want to run away from anyone and anything.

  I’m sort of resigned to feeling like shit all the time. It’ll pass. I got over my high school boyfriend ditching me at the worst time, and my parents not talking to my brother and I for years to keep up appearances. Seems sort of asinine that disowning your children helps appearances, but I’ve never understood my parents.

  Still. Missing Nate’s getting worse, not better.

  When Austin texts for the fifteenth time in two weeks that I need to call him instead of sending him another message, I give in.

  “How are things at camp?” he asks.