Always Something There to Remind Me

by Beth Harbison

  She swallowed and put her hand to her chest. “It’s just me,” she insisted.

  Why had she gotten herself into this mess? It had never felt right, not once. The newness—the foreignness—of him had been interesting at first, but only because Nate had never felt new or foreign to her.

  He’d always felt like home.

  She should have realized that was good, not bad.

  But at her age, she wanted to shake it up. Or she thought she had. Now she thought she was a little old lady who didn’t want shaking at all, but who wanted the easy, comfortable boy she could see herself in her nineties with someday.

  “I’m sorry,” was all she could say. At this point, she really wanted to get out of the car. She didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. He was never going to understand. But she’d done what she’d needed to do, said what she’d dreaded saying, this should be over.

  “Fuck it.” He slammed his hands against the steering wheel.

  Okay, so … did that mean she was dismissed? “I’ll just go in now…?” she said tentatively, one hand on the door handle so she could make a run for it if necessary.

  “Fine.” He kept his gaze fastened straight ahead.

  She glanced at the clock. It was eleven thirty on a Friday night. She didn’t have to be home yet. Good. “So … I’m sorry,” she said again, opening the door. “Really.”

  He didn’t answer, just gunned the motor when she closed the door, and she stood there a moment, watching him blaze down the street.

  Then she glanced at her house—the lights were out, her parents were probably already asleep. Plus, she had till one A.M.

  So she started to run.

  She ran down the street, then stopped at the corner and took off the stupid leather shoes that had been killing her feet all night. She just left them on the neighbors’ lawn, she didn’t care if she ever saw them again. It was still warm enough, in early October, to go without them. So, bare feet pounding against the cold sidewalk, she ran almost a mile until she got to Nate’s house.

  His light was on, she saw as she stood in front of the house in the grass, trying to catch her breath. He was there.

  She looked around for something to toss at the window to get his attention, and picked up a handful of landscaping gravel. But there was a screen on the outside of the window, so even if she was foolish enough to try and throw the gravel at glass, it would bounce off and probably hit her in the forehead noiselessly.

  “Nate!” she called quietly, then waited.

  Nothing.

  Crap.

  What was she going to do?

  “Nate!” she tried again, a little louder.

  Still nothing. Not a single movement in the room.

  “Shit.” She threw the gravel back into the garden.

  “Erin?”

  She whirled around, shocked to see Nate himself where she expected no one, and no one where she expected to see Nate.

  Suddenly she was nervous. “Hey,” she said, lifting her hand weakly. “How’s it going?”

  “What are you doing?”

  There was no way to play this cool. “Yelling at your window.”

  “What did it do?”

  “It ignored me.” She smiled, but she was afraid he wasn’t going to care. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I was looking for something in my car. But I still don’t get what you’re doing here.”

  She sighed. “Well, I went out, and it ended early, and I was thinking about you, and”—tears started to burn her eyes—“miss you and stuff. And”—she swallowed—“I wanted to see you.”

  “Should I want to see you?” His voice was hard. Cold. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

  “No,” she said quickly. She swallowed, downing her pride and everything else except the lump in her throat. “I mean, I hope so, but it’s…” There was no clever way to say what she’d done. “You.”

  “You want me to be your boyfriend,” he repeated flatly, without moving toward her. She was the one spotlighted by the streetlamp, but she could see his face well enough to tell his eyes were narrowed. His mouth was a tight line, his jaw clenched. “When you’ve just spent the last month with someone else.”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice, and a sob caught in her throat. He might say no. He’d be completely within his rights to say no.

  He looked at her for a long, steely moment in silence.

  Then he just shook his head and strode over to her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her hard.

  She kissed him right back, instantly delirious in a feeling of relief and all being right with her world. It was amazing how quickly it took her over, this feeling of dizzying love and need that only he could—and would—fill. How had she ever done without it? Why had she ever thought she wanted something else?

  They moved into the shadows, away from the watchful eye of the streetlamp, fumbling at each other in the darkness, urgency replacing ego and apologies and even forgiveness. Because every action he took showed her that he loved her even though she didn’t know if he’d still talk to her tomorrow.

  That wasn’t what mattered right now.

  What mattered now was that they were together, locked in the night, soul to soul in a moment that felt like it would never end.

  A moment she hoped would never end.

  He pushed her against the brick wall of the house, in the shadows of the side yard, and yanked up her shirt. She yielded to him eagerly, moving only enough to make it easier to free her of her clothing. The brick scraped her shoulder blades but she didn’t care.

  With his mouth still hard, but warm, against hers, he reached around and unhooked her bra, his fingertips cold against her skin, and shoved the heel of his palm against her breast. His fingers played roughly against her skin. Then his movement softened, like a mood shifting from anger to love, and he trailed his hand across her chest, her collarbone, and back down to her waist and hips, where he gripped her and pulled her against his hardness.

  She gasped at the pressure and her desire skyrocketed. She reached her hand down to the snap of his jeans, flipping them open as she’d done hundreds of times before, and then used both hands to slide them, along with his underwear, down over his hips, where she knelt before him and took him into her mouth.

  His breath caught and she smiled against him for a moment before doing all the things he’d taught her, long ago, about what he liked best. She closed her eyes, putting every ounce of herself into what she was doing. It seemed like only moments until she heard him hold his breath and felt his stomach muscles tighten in a way she knew well.

  She slowed her movements, and, without looking, reached her hands up and entwined her fingers with his. He clenched his hands around hers, and exhaled, simultaneously releasing a month’s worth of heartache and uncertainty into her.

  She waited a moment, still and nurturing, not moving but not releasing him until she was sure he was through, that she’d taken in all of it for him.

  She began to leverage herself up with her hold on his hands, but instead he knelt before her and cupped her face in his hands. “I love you,” he said in a ragged voice.

  Sorrow choked her. How had she risked this? How in the world had she risked this? “I love you too,” she said, closing her eyes and burying her face in his shoulder. “So much. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t,” he said, again, as if there were just nothing else. “I love you.”

  “I hope so.” Tears burned her eyes. She kissed his neck, his ear, his shoulder. “I love you,” was all she could say. “I really really do. More than anything. I’m so stupid.”

  Then he kissed her, deeply, hot and wet, then lowered her to the cold grass beneath them. They hit the ground and lay clasped together, mouths locked, bodies entwined. They were still for a while. Wordless. But slowly touching each other, lacing and unlacing their fingers together, touching faces, hair, lips, cheeks.

  “We should get married.”

  He laughe
d quietly and traced his fingertip across her palm. “Yeah? How do you figure that?”

  “Because I know I don’t want anyone else ever, ever again. Why wait?”

  “Because you’re sixteen.” He smiled in the dark and put his finger to her lips. “Now, shhh.”

  “Okay.” She relaxed against him.

  They lay in silence for a few more minutes, but she started thinking about him, and about how stupid she’d been to leave him even for a minute, and she didn’t want to say anything about that—just in case, by some off chance, he wasn’t thinking about the same thing—so instead she just kissed him.

  Things heated up quickly.

  He worked at the button on her jeans and she raised her hips and helped him push them down.

  If anyone came around with a flashlight now it would be pretty embarrassing.

  But Erin didn’t care. She kicked the jeans away and wrapped her legs around him, warming her cold bare feet on his heat as he moved on top of her and pushed into her. He was reclaiming what was his and she was allowing it with all of her body, heart, and soul.

  She had no sense of time, no sense of the outside world at all, while he moved within her, and she clung to him, one single embodiment of love and fulfillment. There was nothing else then. No responsibility. No accountability. They were all emotion and hormones.

  And they were good at this by now. She knew from the way he kissed her when he was about to come again, and she tightened her arms around him, instinctively wanting to make him feel protected, to fully feel every sensation he was going to feel.

  His kiss deepened, in that way she recognized, and she let it, drinking him in, meeting his movements until he drew out and reached his climax.

  He stilled against her.

  “Nate,” she said, reaching up and running her hands gently through his hair.

  He drew back and looked at her for a moment, then just shushed her and lay his cheek against hers.

  She didn’t say anything else.

  Some time later—she couldn’t have said how much—they regained their composure (and their clothes) and Nate walked her home. Neither of them wanted to take the car. It would have been too fast, too soon to say good night.

  So they walked the mile to her house, hand in hand, without speaking a word. The silence was warm between them and there was understanding in their touch. But nothing they could say to each other with words would mean more than what they’d just said to each other without words.

  When they got to her front porch, she turned to him and finally asked the thing she’d been dreading. “Are we back together now?”

  What if he said no? What if he said all of that had been a good-bye? Or even a fuck-you?

  It would be a good one.

  But Nate wasn’t like that. He wasn’t cruel. “You’ll always be my little girl,” he said, running his knuckle across her cheek.

  “Does that mean okay, you’ll take me back?” she asked, afraid to assume anything.

  He smiled. Nodded. But his eyes were tired and sadder than anything she’d ever seen, including the weary-looking and creased ancient tribesmen in National Geographic magazine articles.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, feeling it wasn’t enough. But what else could she say? There was no way to fix whatever she’d broken during those weeks he’d waited for her. If she’d been in his position, what would she have done?

  Probably not forgiven so easily, that was for sure.

  He would never understand the deep feelings that had brought her here tonight. How could he, when she couldn’t possibly come up with the words to express them?

  So she shut up. Really, it was all she could do. She shut her mouth and leaned against him on her doorstep and hoped she could transfer all the feelings she had inside to him so, on some very subconscious level, he’d comprehend it.

  Even then, she knew that probably wasn’t enough.

  But it was all she had.

  Chapter 10

  Present

  It’s weird how life sometimes decides to mirror and amplify your own issues when you have made the decision not to face them. Put off doing your taxes, and suddenly tax lawyer commercials are everywhere; decide to take a little time off between jobs, and suddenly unemployment is all over the news; put off your oil change, and cars are breaking down left and right.

  The old saying is true: you just can’t run away from your problems.

  Which leads me to this question: You know what’s harder than calling your own boyfriend after he’s dumped you?

  Calling someone else’s boyfriend on her behalf, after he’s dumped her. Especially when that girl is someone you don’t really know. And don’t particularly like.

  Someone you couldn’t recommend as a girlfriend to your worst enemy.

  Like Roxanne.

  Now, this seems like a good time to point out that I’m not particularly wise. I’ve learned a few things the hard way, but I don’t actually feel very different than I did when I was fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. What I know about drugs, I learned from Go Ask Alice and Sarah T.—Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic, and those were enough to keep me clean. What I know about romance, I learned from terrible seventies sitcoms and overwrought romance novels. What I know about parenting is a combination of real-life experience and Brady Bunch or, worse, Leave It to Beaver reruns.

  In short, I’ve learned from popular culture and my own fuckups.

  So Roxanne really could have picked a better advocate. Unfortunately for her, apparently she didn’t have any choices in the matter.

  I had to be the one to approach Justin.

  Obviously I wasn’t going to plead Roxanne’s case for her; I didn’t even know what her case was, though I was fairly sure it wasn’t a really good one, based on what I knew of her.

  I dialed the number she’d given me and heard, “Yo! You got me.” I waited a minute, thinking it was a voice-mail message, but then he said, “Hello?”

  “Hello, is this Justin?”

  “Maybe.” Sullen voice. Affecting some sort of rapperish I-don’t-give-a-shit inflection. “Who wants to know?”

  Okay, yeah, I knew who this guy was already. This was going to be a blast.

  “My name is Erin Edwards, and I’m the event coordinator for Roxanne Tacelli’s sixteenth birthday party and she asked me to call and”—it wasn’t easy to make this sound like I meant it, but I gave it a shot—“make sure you had gotten the invitation and were saving the date.”

  “Hell, no! I’m not going to that!”

  “I see.” I did. Of course. This was no surprise. “So you do know about it.”

  “I’ve heard.” He was trying to play it cool like only a dippy teenager can. I’ve known a few of them in my time—mercifully few, though. When I was in high school, my friends tended to be older than this.

  And far cooler.

  “Well, listen, just keep the date in mind, okay? It’s going to be a great party. Really big.” Maybe if he thought he could get lost in the crowd he’d reconsider. “Tons of people there that you know.”

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  What else could either of us say?

  “So … okay, then. If you have any questions—”

  He hung up.

  “Thanks for your time, jackass!” I clicked off my phone and wondered how Roxanne could possibly be pining over such a dud.

  Then again, she wasn’t exactly the princess of charm herself. They were actually probably perfect for each other.

  At least I’d tried. She couldn’t ask for more than that. I mean, she probably would, but I couldn’t reasonably be expected to do more than call. I couldn’t have this punk kidnapped and brought to the party. I couldn’t have thugs show up at his house and threaten to break his kneecaps if he didn’t show up.

  Unbelievably, I had to explain all of this to Jeremy in my office the next day. Not only had he handed off this impossible task to me, but he had very distinct ideas about how it should be executed and whether or not th
ere was any wiggle room for failure.

  “It’s very important that she get everything she wants for this party,” Jeremy told me. He was sitting on the edge of my desk, tapping his Montblanc pen on the surface for emphasis. “Our reputation depends on it.”

  It was so absurd, I had to laugh. “Jeremy, come off it, our reputation does not depend on this brat’s equally bratty ex-boyfriend coming to the party!”

  But he remained serious. “This is going to be broadcast on TV…”

  “Where anyone watching will see how stupid the request was to begin with.”

  “… and if this girl isn’t completely happy with the party we throw for her, then our reputation as a special events venue will be adversely affected. Specifically”—he was being pointed now, lowering his chin and raising his eyes to mine with Heavy Significance—“our events coordination.”

  Whoa. “Are you saying my job depends on this?”

  “No.” He looked at me. “I’m afraid mine does.”

  He couldn’t have played it better. If it was my own job I’d be less worried because I knew I could get a new one easily, but Jeremy? His … quirkiness … could be a problem for him in the job marketplace.

  “What I’m saying is simply that you need to do everything you can to make Roxanne Tacelli happy,” he went on. “Whether you think she’s a brat or not.”

  It was ridiculous, of course. The entire thing was stupid. This idiotic TV show filming, the entire Tacelli family, Jeremy’s personal investment in both of the above … all of it was comical, and yet it might be swinging over his job security like one of those blades in an Indiana Jones movie. The owner of the hotel was an aggressively masculine guy who wasn’t crazy about Jeremy. If Roxanne were to go on national TV and tell the world, in a half hour’s worth of tantrums and tears, that we’d fucked up the most important day of her life so far (because that was how I was sure she’d characterize it), the weight of that would fall on Jeremy’s feeble shoulders.

  So maybe thugs threatening Justin’s kneecaps weren’t such a bad idea after all.

  Meanwhile, I’d try to talk reason into Roxanne. With great trepidation, I closed the door to my office and dialed.