“What? Why not? This is senior prom, man, and you’re nominated.”
“So are you. Just cover for me, okay? I’m at your house today, and I’m staying there tonight.”
Tripp starts making the high-pitched sounds of a girl climaxing. I think he’s been watching too much porn, because in real life it doesn’t sound like that.
“Grow the fuck up, Tripp.”
“Don’t get testy. I’m just fucking around. I’ll cover for you, and I’ll accept your crown, too.”
“You can keep it.”
“Gee, thanks, it’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Hanging up, I continue to drive. We could banter for hours, so it’s better to cut it off now before I get to Ember’s.
When I get to her apartment complex I keep going, turn the corner, and pull into the parking lot of a Vietnamese restaurant. Ember stands up from the curb when she sees me. I lean over and open the door for her.
“Hey, you,” she says, climbing in. When she leans over to kiss me, her scent fills my nostrils.
“I like how you do that,” I say, pulling out of the parking lot.
“Do what?”
“Kiss me first. You don’t wait to be kissed.” To Ember, this probably seems ridiculous. Why wait to have something you want if it’s available and right in front of you? But that’s not the way most people work, at least not in my experience. They are shy, unconfident, want to be wanted, or afraid of rejection. Not Ember. She’s comfortable in her own skin. It’s not that she doesn’t fear rejection. It’s more that she doesn’t fear going through the experience. She embraces it all. The shine, and the sting.
“Now can you tell me where we’re going?” She looks up at me through her lashes.
Taking advantage of the red light we’re stopped at I reach for her, winding my hands into her hair and rubbing my thumbs over the silkiness.
“Shmily?” I ask. She moves her head slowly one way, then the other.
The light turns green, and I release her. I want to keep her in my hands, but soon enough we’ll have all the time in the world.
“Settle in then, because I’m not telling if you won’t,” I reply. “We’ll be there in an hour and a half.”
“Noah, what is this place?” Ember leans forward and peers through my windshield. I watch her eyes as we travel slowly down the sloping street. Her gaze swings from home to home as we pass them by, and when I slip the car into the driveway of my parents’ beach house, her eye widen. White siding and a gray-blue roof with too many black-paned windows to count stare back at us. It’s not ostentatious, but it’s impressive. Grass grows in abundance, surrounding the house except for the driveway. I roll down our windows, allowing the roaring sounds of the Pacific ocean to fill the car. The churning water is just a short walk from the back door and over the sand dune.
I pull into the garage and kill the engine. “This is my parents’ second home.”
“Umm…yeah. Okay. Totally normal.” Her laugh is a bit unsteady.
“Let’s go,” I say before I can think too much about her comment. She’s overwhelmed by the place, that’s all.
I hold the door for her as we walk into the mudroom. I’m happy the house is warm because it’s chilly and overcast outside. Northern California beaches are nothing like their Southern counterparts. They are chilly, often foggy, and never overcrowded.
After depositing our bags on the kitchen counter, I grab her by the waist and spin her to face me.
“Do you want a tour?”
“Not really,” she says. “What I really want is to get changed and go”—she points out past the windowed wall to the glittering ocean—“out there.”
“Your wish is my command, my lady.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” she smarts, giving me a playful look.
Digging through her bag, she pulls out black leggings and a sweatshirt, and does the best thing I’ve ever seen in my eighteen years. She peels off her T-shirt and pushes down her cut-offs. Her bra and underwear land on top of the heap at her feet.
She laughs at my astonished face, and all I can think is I love this girl. Not because she’s naked in front of me, though that’s nice too. Really flipping nice.
She’s bold and brave, audacious but tender. Kind.
“I love you,” I yell out. I don’t care anymore. I don’t have to wait a certain number of months. I don’t even have to worry that I’m too young to love. Ember takes all that worry away.
“Shmily,” she says. Her grin fills her face.
“What?”
It’s becoming hard to focus. She’s still naked, and even though I’ve seen parts of her naked, it was never the whole. The whole is beyond words. It’s taking every ounce of self-discipline I have not to bound over to her right now, lift her, and set her on the counter. The only thing stopping me is knowing it will be her first time.
“Shmily.” She pulls on her leggings, tugging them up over the curves of her hips and letting go with a snap. I’m sad to see her sweatshirt go on, but feel better when I realize she’s not wearing a bra anymore.
She walks to me and lifts my shirt. Her fingers butterfly over the faint outline of the word. I tried not to wash it off but it was difficult. “See How Much I Love You. Shmily.”
I say it over in my head, slowly. “It’s an acronym.”
Ember taps the tip of her nose.
So, she said it first. Weeks ago.
Of course she did. She felt it, and that was all there was to it. No worries over convention.
“You better believe I’m going to show you how much I love you. Later.” I drop my shorts too. Two can play this game. Ember’s trying to keep her mouth from dropping in her shock. I may have seen her parts, but she hasn’t seen mine. I feel a surge of pride and ownership knowing my body will be the first one she touches. Is it crazy of me to also want it to be the last?
She gulps, raising her eyes up to meet mine. I can’t help my smirk. Watching her reaction is too good.
“Beach?” she asks, the word drawn out.
“Sure.” I pull on my trunks and lead the way outside. I stop to grab two beach blankets from a plastic trunk beside the white wooden gate. Ember eyes the blankets, unsure. “It’s only April,” I remind her. “Once we get down there, you’ll want these.” Pushing on the gate, I step through the opening and lead her onto the narrow sandy walkway.
We stay on the beach for hours. Ember watches the waves for a long time, alternating between talking and growing quiet. I lie back on the blanket and tug on the other blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She let’s me pull her down into me, and we kiss until we’re out of breath. When the bright sky grows dull, and then duller still, we sit up in time to watch the sun dip below the horizon.
Ember announces her hunger the way a starving man might. “Food,” she tells me, hanging on my arm. “Need food. Now.” She pretends to swoon.
“Come on. Let’s get changed and get you fed. We’ll have to go somewhere. There isn’t any food at the house.” Taking her by the hand, we head back up with our beach blankets thrown over our shoulders.
Ember knew better than to change in front of me this time; instead, she went to the bathroom to get herself ready.
The next time I see her naked, all bets are off.
Quickly, I send a message to Tripp and thank him for covering for me tonight. Later on, I’ll text my mom and tell her I’m staying the night at Tripp’s. While Ember’s in the bathroom, I change and grab my phone to search the internet for a good place for us to go eat.
I won’t admit to rushing through my shrimp paella, but I might have rushed through the shrimp paella.
“Do you have somewhere to be?” Ember asks. She tilts her head to the side, her eyes big and wide. She’s feigning innocence.
“Yes, I do. There’s an unexplored place I need to investigate.” I wiggle my eyebrows.
She sputters on her bite of Oaxacan sea bass.
Slow isn’t the word I would use to describe how
Ember’s eating now. Let me put it this way—the tortoise could lap her.
I drum my fingers on the table and watch.
She laughs.
Finally, the server clears our plates.
“Is that our prom dinner?” she asks.
“I thought you didn’t care about prom?”
Her eyes become worried. “I don’t. I just hope you don’t either.”
“I’m where I want to be.”
She beams and I’m certain I’ll never see a sight so beautiful. We’re quiet on the short drive back to the beach house. Ember’s hands are wedged between her rigid knees.
“Nervous?” I ask, pressing the button for the garage. I look at her while it opens. The darkened car makes it hard for me to decipher her expression.
She tucks a strand behind her ear and nods.
I pull into the garage and cut the engine. She starts to climb out, but turns around when I speak. “We don’t have to do anything, okay? That’s not why I brought you here.”
“Why did you, then?”
“So I could get more time with you. We’re always running off to practice or work, and we hardly see each other at school. I want more than that.”
She smiles. “Would you like to know why I came here with you?”
“Why?” My stomach feels a little sick now. I have no idea what she’s about to say. With Ember, it could be anything.
“To have sex with you.” Her admission is simple and pierces through all the pretense. I love it. I love her.
Prayer hands lifted, I mouth thank you to the roof of the car.
She laughs and gets out.
Inside, I get to work. Fire in the fireplace. Thankfully it’s a gas fireplace and I only have to press a button. If it were wood-burning we’d be out of luck.
Chilled white wine poured. The fact that my parents keep the place stocked with Sutton wine works in my favor.
Should I turn on music? Would that be too much? Trying too hard? Maybe I should stop overthinking. No music.
“I feel so fancy,” Ember jokes in a silly voice when I hand the wine to her.
We sit on the couch and sip. Ember stares into the fire but doesn’t say anything. I’d be worried, except this is how she operates. She doesn’t need to express her every thought or concern, she trusts her feelings enough not to need input from others.
When my wine is finished and Ember’s is half-empty, she takes both glasses and sets them on the side table.
“There.” She points at the gray-and-white rug in front of the fireplace.
I get up and push the coffee table off the rug. “Anything else?” I ask. Her take-charge attitude is cute, and it’s making the front of my pants grow tighter.
She stands and steps to the center of the rug. Light from the fire dances on her hair. She looks more beautiful than any sight I’ve ever seen, and my chest swells when I think of what she’s about to give me.
“We have you, me, space, and quiet. You know what that means?” Her lips quiver with mirth.
I close the few feet separating us and reach for her, pulling her in. “What?” I ask into her hair. The fire has already warmed one side of her body.
She leans back and giggles. “Tonight, Sutton, you can press my button.”
I throw my head back and laugh, and she reaches me on tiptoe to press a kiss to my neck.
Then, I do just that.
With my hand, I lead her to the ending she was so close to a few weeks ago. When she comes back down from the high, I sit up to roll on a condom. She sits up, too, and asks me to teach her how to do it. When she rolls it up successfully, she claps for herself, and I laugh. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed during sex before.
Ember lets out a long, slow exhale when I’m finally all the way inside her. I’ve gone slowly, allowing her to adjust to each inch.
“This is my first time,” I tell her, pushing a stray hair from her face.
“No, it’s not.” Her voice is raspy. I’ve started moving above her, and she’s clinging to my shoulders.
“I’ve never been with anybody I loved.” I can’t believe how different it is.
It’s better than I’ve ever had it. Ember makes it better.
Magic makes it better.
I’ve always considered myself a straight line. Maybe a few right angles thrown in, but still, I’m two straight lines meeting at a harsh point.
Ember is all curves. Maybe it’s not even as simple as that. She’s a spirograph. Dramatic curves, convex and concave, deep dips and high heights.
Each time I kiss her, I feel her longing. My heart calls to hers. My right angles want her wavy, meandering curves.
We’re different, and that’s good.
We’re the same, and that’s good.
I want her forever, and that is unbelievably good.
12
Ember
People don’t fall in love.
Well, maybe some do, but not us. Noah and I didn’t fall. We crashed, and in the collision, the pieces of me and the fragments of him scattered.
Mixed.
Coalesced.
He’s asleep beside me, one arm tucked under his head like a child, the other across my chest. The bed we slept in is monstrous, but we stayed in the center in a tangle of limbs. My soreness didn’t stop me from waking him in the middle of the night. That time, however, when he climbed on top of me, I wrapped my legs around his backside, and it felt even better than the first time.
Last night I asked Noah to leave the drapes where they were, pulled all the way back and revealing the moonlit ocean. Endless swaths of darkness with no way to separate sea from sky, but there were stars. They looked close enough to touch. That was my last thought before I slipped into sleep. Now the sun pours in, and the ocean waves crash against the shore just as they did yesterday, and the day before that, and all the other days before that.
What’s different now is me.
Not just because of the sex. Obviously that’s huge, but it’s more than that. A silent promise, attached to the admission of love. It’s like I’m no longer only Ember. Now there is Noah, injected into my life. As if crashing together has made us responsible for one another’s hearts.
The knowledge of it makes my chest feel tight and full, like the contents are too much for me to contain, and at any moment, I could explode. My fingers trail over the dandelion on my exposed ribcage.
“I like waking up this way.” A sleepy, muffled voice comes from beside me.
Noah peeks at me with one eye open. He struggles to open the second, then blinks a few times. “Who wanted those curtains left open? Terrible idea.”
I poke his chest, and he grunts like a fighter who was just punched.
“I thought you were in soccer, not drama club.” I poke him again. This time he knows it’s coming and flexes his muscles. My stomach growls, and I drop a hand onto the bare skin. “Where should we get breakfast?”
Noah grins and pushes messy hair away from his face. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I already know what’s on the menu.” He grins and disappears under the covers.
The day has only just begun, but already I’m certain it’s going to be the best day of my life.
“Do we have to go?” I’m pretending to drag my feet. Except, I’m really not pretending. I’m actually doing it, and Noah is behind me, gently coaxing me through the mudroom and toward his car.
“We don’t have a choice. Our parents are only going to think we’re staying at our friends’ houses for so long. We have to show up sometime.”
I pout and stuff another donut in my mouth. After the most exceptional experience of my life, Noah took me to get breakfast at Bertrand’s Bakery, home of the world’s best strawberry donut. They make that claim in paint on their store window, and they aren’t lying. I took two for the road.
“Fine, fine,” I sing, my mouth full, pausing at the open garage door to watch a girl go by on a beach cruiser bike. The curves of metal and pretty white paint put my rickety t
en-speed to shame.
“Ready?” Noah comes up behind me and touches my back.
I watch the bike until it disappears. “Yeah.” I follow him to the open passenger door. How much money would it take to buy a bike like that? Way more than I have, probably.
We both get in and buckle up. Noah backs out and points the car toward home. He extends an open mouth to me, but his eyes stay on the road.
“Here.” I fill his mouth with the rest of my donut. The mouthful is too much, and crumbs tumble into his lap. He swipes them onto the floorboard and asks me a question I never saw coming.
I open my mouth, but there are no words ready. I’m silent because I’m stunned.
“Would you mind?” he repeats.
I’m grappling with the answer. He wants to know if I care that he plans to follow me to whatever college I decide on. How can I tell him that college isn’t in the cards for me? Not yet, anyway. I applied to all those places, but there’s no way I can go. How easily I can picture the stark white envelope, college written in my mother’s loopy handwriting. It’s well-intentioned, but it’s also practically empty.
I can’t take on tens of thousands of dollars in school loans, assuming I could even qualify. Scholarships don’t want a girl like me. I’m not special, not according to them anyway. I haven’t lost a limb, or developed a cutting-edge method for providing clean water to third world countries. I’m a low-income girl from Northern California without a discernible talent of any kind.
“I can’t go out-of-state, Noah,” I say, swallowing a big drink of orange juice and setting it back into the cup holder between us.
“Why? You told that horrible old lady I’m related to—”
I give him a look and interrupt him. “Your grandmother.”
He waves one hand. “Yeah, her. You told my grandmother that you could do it with scholarships and a job. Is that not true?”
“Noah,” I start, but I pause. How can I say this to him? He already knows I don’t have the means to go to any college of my choosing, but he knows it the same way we all know about the Berlin Wall. Yeah, it existed, but it doesn’t affect us personally.
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