A Christmas Storm

by Elle Harte

  I brushed the dirt and grass off my pink running shorts and he stood and stared. “What?” I said, self-consciously walking away from his gaze. But he just followed me as I made my way through the course. There were tons of other people there and they were watching us, not the kind of attention I was seeking. This was a small town. One mistake and my parents would know what we were up to and I had no intention of letting that happen, they were nosy enough as it is without some news of their daughter being too cozy with her boyfriend in the light of day reaching them from a near-stranger.

  “Why’re you always so afraid of what people will think?” Callum asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.

  “Have you met my parents? Don’t you know what big control freaks they are? They will probably start setting a wedding date for us.”

  Callum laughed. “And marrying me is such an ugly prospect?”

  “Well yeah,” I grinned.

  Callum placed a hand over his heart and theatrically raised his voice. “You’re going to be the death of me, Jess. And here I thought we were going to be together forever.”

  “You wish.”

  This time he looked a bit disheartened. “Hey. That’s starting to sting you know!”

  “You know what I mean!”

  “No, I don’t actually! Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  “I don’t know, Callum. I don’t think the two of us can end up together. It’s a bit odd, don’t you think? Look at you, and look at me. How many nerds do you see marrying jocks?”

  “Hey, I resent that. I’m not a jock!”

  “Oh yeah? Then what’re you?”

  “I’m one of the popular kids,” he said. “But I’m not even close to being a jock!”

  “Oh please, you’re a total jock sometimes.”

  “Sometimes, right?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I had no idea you were so obsessed with labels, Jess.”

  “Says the guy who’s never in his entire life dated anyone other than cheerleaders!”

  He stopped and jabbed a finger at me. “You do not get to judge me, okay?”

  “Why the hell not?” I said, angrily. “You popular kids label us and judge us the whole time!”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what you were implying just now,” he said, fuming. “You can’t see a future with me because you think I’m an idiot!”

  “Why does it even matter to you what I think? You never care about anyone!”

  “Because, you’re not like everyone else, Jess! I thought I made that clear when I approached you during winter formal last year,” he paused. “But to you I’m just some brainless jock to pass the time, is that it? I’m the experience you have en route to whatever life you’ve got planned for yourself!”

  The words stop me in my tracks. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Did Jock of the Century truly care what I thought about him? How’d that happen?

  “Callum, I had no idea…”

  “Save it, Jess.”

  He started to walk away. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do but I knew one thing for sure—I couldn’t let him leave without telling him the truth. “I don’t think you’re an idiot,” I said. “I think you’re actually overqualified to be a jock.”

  “Jess!”

  “Look. You spend a lifetime being defined and divided into labels, you get this stupid programming inside your brain that makes it impossible to rise above and make your own decisions. I’m still learning, Callum. Today I learned that I shouldn’t reduce people to their stereotypes. You’re right, I couldn’t see a future for us but it wasn’t because I had some plans of my own but because I didn’t think someone like you could love me that much.”

  He stopped.

  That was a good sign, so I kept going. “I admire you Callum,” I said. “You’ve come so far, Gained so many strengths. Jock or no jock, I don’t think you’re like any other guy. You’re like no one I’ve ever known and I can’t get enough of you.”

  He caved and came toward me, took my forearms in his grasp. “You know I love you, don’t you?” he said. “Nerd or not.”

  I laughed.

  We kissed.

  “Still up for coming back to my place?”

  “I don’t know, Callum. Maybe we should head back home, I need to take care of—”

  But before I could finish my thought, Callum had lifted me up in his arms, still laughing and started carrying me home…

  The Storm Outside

  I walked up the stairs to my house.

  Empty.

  Was I expecting it not to be?

  I took a deep breath and turned the key.

  “Can we talk?”

  No.

  Please tell me I was hearing things!

  My hands started to shake and by that time I could feel him walking up the stairs and standing right next to me. I concentrated on opening the lock and it finally happened but it was too late to ignore Callum.

  “What?” I breathed out, barely interested in anything he was about to say. But before he could respond, something in the air cut him off. There was a strange noise, like the patter of rain on roofs but louder, much louder.

  “Get inside!” Callum yelled, and basically hauled me in, and closed the door after us. When the door was shut, I felt a little safer. Callum still had his hand on my waist. He realized this and broke off. “What were you doing out? Didn’t you hear the warnings?”

  “What warnings?”

  “The storm,” he explained. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  “Not really,” I said, taking off my coat and placing it on the coat rack in the foyer. Callum rushed in ahead of me and went to the living room TV, turned it on. The news started blasting predictions of terrible weather.

  “Everyone’s snowed in,” he said. “You seriously knew nothing about this?”

  I shrugged.

  “What kind of adult doesn’t watch the news?”

  “The kind who wants to stay away from panic attacks.”

  He rolled his eyes and set down the remote. They were talking about how the storm was supposed to last at least twenty-four hours. Great. Twenty-four hours with this douchebag in my home? That’s not going to be awkward at all. I frowned and he noticed. “I’m not looking forward to it either. Trust me.”

  “What were you doing here anyway?”

  “I wanted to check on you idiot,” he said. “I know about your aversion to staying informed.”

  “Your house is a couple of blocks away!”

  “There’s a hailstorm outside!”

  Fine. I could suck it up for twenty-four hours, right?

  Callum took off his scarf, and tossed it aside along with his jacket. His shirt sat over that chest, sleek and muscular, it looked like he has been working out. His arms popped from underneath that shirt. That tiny bit of collarbone showing, God, why does he leave so many buttons open? Yep. Twenty-four hours. It was going to be a piece of cake. Walk in the park. I got this, okay. Twenty…four…hours. I took a lock of my hair and started fidgeting.

  “Stop that, it’s annoying,” Callum said, and started taking off his shoes. He propped his feet up on the couch, of whose end I was barely hanging on to. He found a pack of peanuts on the table and started munching on them. His jaws were going chew chew chew…his feet were on my couch, mine… and I couldn’t stand that collarbone! Or that anchorperson going on and on about hailstorms… I couldn’t take it anymore! I got up from the couch, angry beyond belief and took hurried steps to the bedroom.

  I closed the door.

  Safe.

  But not as safe as when you felt when he practically held you. What the hell was that? His instinct is to protect you, you know that. He fails frequently at the execution, but you know that’s the truth. My brain was right. It wasn’t the first time he had displayed that kind of deep-rooted affection but I knew he felt that way, regardless of what he said or what I said. The problem with people like me and Callum is that when you have that kin
d of history, it’s hard to let go of the past. It’s hard to deny every instinct in your body, it’s impossible to not feel the way you do.

  You’re safe here.

  No Callum chomping on peanuts, no Callum feet in your face. No Callum sports-and-news-only TV. No Callum collarbone.

  I dropped on the bed.

  I should just take it easy.

  I reached into my jeans pocket for my phone. Maybe going on social networking and finding other things to worry about would distract me. It helped for maybe two minutes, until I heard Callum yelling outside the door and knocking like the world was about to end. Annoyed, I lifted myself off the bed and managed to open the door and glare at him. I hoped he wouldn’t bother to speak, not with that glare but he wasn’t the least bit fazed by it.

  “I’m hungry,” he said.

  “So?”

  “There are no frozen meals in the fridge!”

  “That’s because I don’t harm my body with that sodium-laden crap!”

  “What am I supposed to do now?” he said. “You know I don’t eat much else. And I can’t cook.”

  My face probably said Die Callum Die, but he must have been truly starving not to notice.

  I got up, not because I wanted to indulge him but because I knew he was prone to getting low blood sugar, and it was the reason he always needed food urgently. There could be no planning with him. One minute, he wasn’t hungry, like, at all and the next he’d be dying to get food in him. It’s a medical condition so there’s not much he can do.

  I headed to the kitchen and he followed me there. I took out some vegetables and gave it to him to peel, but when he took the knife from my hand, I saw the blood on his hand.

  “You’re bleeding,” I said.

  He seemed to just have noticed. “Oh that,” he said. “Must have got it when I was at the door earlier. I thought I felt something when I tried to close that door and it caught on something.”

  Must be that loose nail I kept meaning to fix. I dropped the food, and got the first aid box from the bathroom cabinet. We sat quietly in the kitchen, propped against the breakfast bar. But my gaze kept wavering even as I was bandaging his finger up. “The cut looks nasty,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s too serious, the bleeding’s already stopped.”

  “Even if it is, we have no choice. Not likely some doctor is going to be weathering the storm.”

  “Even if they are, we couldn’t get there without putting our lives at risk.”

  “Yeah.” He lifted his hand when I was done. “Thanks.”

  We were sitting so close, it felt a little unnatural. I closed the box and set it aside. “I’ll make you some food,” I got up and walked over to where the vegetables were still waiting for me. I started chopping them up, but my mind was unable to focus on anything but him.

  “Can I help?” Is it possible his voice has become coarser and hotter?

  “Um, no thanks. I got it.” I don’t got it, I thought miserably, as I continued to chop and slice. He picked up a skillet and placed it on the stove. He turned up the heat way too high for anything. “Come on, I’ll make us some eggs.”

  Eggs.

  I laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing…just you and eggs.”

  He grins. “Face it. Eggs are awesome.”

  He breaks a few into a bowl and starts to fry them up with a ton of spices, including pepper that seems to be his favorite.

  “Not so much!” I said, when he spilled too much salt. But that ship’s already sailed. He looked at me, confused. “Too much?”

  I wanted to laugh again. I’m so not touching those eggs. “Nothing, it’s fine.”

  I went back to chopping and slicing and I was almost done when he brought up a plate of eggs. We sat at the bar and ate our food in silence. Suddenly, he stopped. “Wait…” he said and got up, started looking for something. He reached the top shelf on the right-hand corner of the kitchen and opened it. He chose a merlot from the cabinet and brought it over. This wasn’t right. He was too familiar with everything in this house. Too familiar with me. My brain supplied a sharp kick in the shin but I didn’t listen. When he came to sit back down he poured the wine in two glasses and for me, he filled it right up. “I hope that’s how you still like it,” he said and grinned, went right back to the food.

  I took a huge swallow of the wine, and thankfully it helped right away. I felt calmer. As I continued to sit in silence, he spoke up. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Not much.”

  “Jess, I know you. You’re not the kind to just sit at a store and do nothing. You must have something going on.”

  “You think I just sit and do nothing all day?”

  He looked confused. “Well, I went to your store a few times and there weren’t a lot of customers.”

  “You must have been there during a slow period, so you just assume the store’s not doing well?”

  “Why’re you getting so defensive?” he said. “Is the store in trouble?”

  I took the wine and downed a huge serving down my throat. I calmed myself enough to respond. “The store is fine,” I said. “Everyone needs to stop bugging me about it!”

  “Who else is bugging you about it?”

  “My Mom,” I clenched my teeth. “With whom you weirdly seem to be friends with!”

  “What purpose would it serve if I was rude to her?”

  I sighed and let it go. There was no point in trying to explain this to him. It wasn’t as if he was going to understand. If I kept drinking eventually it would stop bothering me. “What about you?” I asked, to change the subject. “How’s life treating you?”

  “Well, you know it’s New York. Tough sometimes but once you get past the mess, you find an amazing world waiting to be explored. So, that’s what I’m trying to do. I go out with friends and we prowl bars and go to restaurants that serve the most exotic food. We buy art, we socialize. We get up and go to work when the weekend’s over.”

  “It sounds like you’re doing well.”

  “I am, but there’s something missing.” He poured himself more wine. “I go to an empty apartment. No matter what I do, no matter how much fun I have, I still end up with that emptiness at the end of the day.”

  Old memories come up, some fond, others not so fond. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

  “Well, I was wrong.”

  He was staring thoughtfully at the wineglass.

  “Everybody gets lonely, Callum.”

  “It’s funny,” he said. “But I never felt that when we were together. Not once.”

  But I did, Callum. I felt it plenty of times. The storm outside seemed to have gained momentum just to piss me off. I stood, planning to go back to bed, when I tripped over something, and Callum caught me just in time to keep me from falling. His hands at my waist, holding me up and I couldn’t stop looking at him. I needed so badly to kiss him. Maybe it would be better if I did it and just got it over with.

  “Forgot what a lightweight you are,” Callum said, and hauled me up. “Come on, I’ll tuck you in.” If he came to bed with me, I’m not going to be able to stop. “That’s fine,” I said, straightening up. “I’ll go now… you can sleep on the couch, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know where the extra covers are…”

  “I know.”

  Finally, there was nothing more for me to add. “Goodnight, Callum.”

  “Goodnight, Jess.”

  As I was lying in bed, I heard the TV coming back on. Some late-night show was mocking some politician in a volume that was a little too loud for me. I tried to ignore it.

  I tried to ignore him.

  But he didn’t turn down the volume, and I couldn’t turn down my thoughts.

  This was going to be a long night.

  Give Up to the Moment

  On my eighteenth birthday, we were hanging out in Callum’s room and his parents were still away, watching music videos. We were on the floor and my he
ad was on his lap, when he started to run his fingers through my hair. That moment is still etched in my memory. I can never forget the way it felt, his passion like a drug entering my body and for the most part I didn’t have any control over my reactions. He looked hot, sitting against the bed with that shirt open and smiling down at me. He leaned in to kiss me, and when he broke off, his fingers caressed my cheek. “You look beautiful,” he said, kissing me again. I placed my hand behind his head and drew him in, and his hand came to rest on my navel, caressing under the shirt.

  My eyes were closed.

  All I could feel was him.

  His hands. His touch. His mouth.

  His tongue darting softly in and out.

  When he broke off next, I stared at his face. Those eyes, filled with desire for me. He leaned in to kiss me again, and this time his hand reached the top of my bra. We continued to kiss, searching each other out, pulling, teasing, sensual and demanding one minute, soft and tender the next. His fingers lowered the top of my bra, and teased me. That drug, whatever it was that I felt being poured into my veins every time he touched, was now giving me emotions I had never felt before. He was hard. I could feel his erection, when it touched me and I wanted more. I never had to tell him anything. He always knew. It took the pressure off having to explain things to him.

  Richard Marx was playing in the background, I still remember.

  He placed the remote on the carpet, and shifted from the floor to the edge of his bed. I used my hands to bring myself up to him and we kissed that way for a while, me on my knees and him on the bed and it started to get hotter. Every part of me was alert, wanting something I didn’t even know existed. He pulled me up and we both lowered onto the bed, and he was on top of me and we started kissing with even more passion. He lifted the shirt off my body, slowly unhooked the bra and tossed it aside. I felt self-conscious but also strangely safe. His hands were going over my body, caressing and pinching flesh, teasing and making me moan in his mouth. It felt strange, allowing myself to do all that in his presence.