Summer's End

by Sally Henson

  I fiddle with my fingernails. “Paul.” I keep my head down and look over at him. He slowly shakes his head taking in a deep breath. “I know. But that's not the worst of it. Dad invited him to dinner Friday night.”

  His shoulders drop. “Friday’s my going away party.”

  I press my palms to my head. “I know. I told him I already had plans. And I told him Paul asked me out on Sunday, and I said no.”

  “He's still having him over for dinner?” His brows are low and pulled together. A mixture of confusion and hurt in his wide eyes clamps down on my heart. I nod. “Why would he do that?”

  I turn in my seat, angling toward him. “I don't know. Something about respect, blah blah blah.” I throw my hands up.

  He runs a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, and blows out a long breath from his puffed-out cheeks.

  “Mom wasn't home last night. I tried to talk to her today when I got home from practice, but she said she didn't have time.” He’s looking straight ahead. I think he’s still in shock. “I told Dad I was going to call Paul and cancel, but he won't let me. I just don't know what's gotten into him. It seems like every other week he's trying out some new control tactic.” My head falls back against the seat. “He can’t keep making my decisions for me. I'm not a toddler.”

  Lane looks sideways at me with his nose scrunched up. “Paul is very aware of your body.”

  Heat colors my cheeks at the combination of Lane’s words and what Paul did to me Sunday. I try to blow it off. “Paul's probably just trying to get under your skin because of Sunday.”

  “Maybe, or he may see you as his next conquest. You know he does this, right?” He looks at me with brow raised.

  I tilt my head. “Does what?”

  “He finds an attractive, good girl and pursues her until she gives in.”

  I scowl. “Gives in?”

  “However far he can get with her.” He glances over at me.

  “I'm confused ... get where.”

  He sighs and shakes his head. “He takes her virginity, Regan. Do you want me to be more explicit?”

  “Oh!” I turn away and look out the passenger window. My throat feels thick, and I try to swallow to push it away. “I didn't know that about Paul. He goes to church and Sunday school. I just thought he went out with a lot of girls.”

  “Just because you go to church doesn't mean you really follow Jesus' teachings. You know that.”

  “I'm just—I …” I don’t know what to say. My body is so rigid and stiff. I feel worse than when I got home from practice this morning.

  “After he's won, he doesn't break it off, he dangles them along,” he grunts with disgust. “All who’re dumb enough to go along with it, anyway. It's like he's building a harem or something. It's sick.”

  I agree softly. “That is sick. How did I not know that?” My stomach is sour, and the acid is creeping up my throat. I try to swallow it down.

  Lane turns into the school parking lot. “I'll take care of Paul.” His expression's blank, eyes straight ahead as he stops in front of the gym doors.

  “Don't do anything stupid.” I hop out and stand there waiting for him to acknowledge me. “Lane!”

  He turns toward me; a brilliant smile lights his face. “You'll need a ride home, right?”

  “I guess. I don't have any way of calling home. If I had a cell phone and my own car, I wouldn't have to worry about all this.” I let out a big sigh. “Thank you. I should be done around eight.” I shut the door and run inside, not looking back. I’d like to get my mind off Paul and the loss of virginity.

  Lane is waiting for me in the parking lot after open gym. I'll be glad when Tobi's back. I feel like such a dependent to Lane. At least when Tobi’s home I can spread my need for transportation help around between the two of them, so I'm not such a burden. Mmm … I forgot. He won't be here much longer. My entire body sags as I make my way to his truck.

  “How was it? Did you get in trouble for being late?” Lane takes off as soon as I shut my door. His voice sounds normal.

  I put on my seat belt. “No, it was my first time being late, and I always show up.”

  “Good.”

  We drive down the road with the radio playing softly. “You can sit over here.” We’re driving down the hill past Lake Nellie. He pats the seat beside him. “Stretch your legs out. We're out of town, its dark. No one will see.” He's driving much slower on the way home.

  I'm contemplating whether this is a good idea or not. My earlier thought of him leaving pops in my mind again. And I don’t want him to think I want Paul or anyone else coming over to eat dinner at my house. “I’m warning you, I probably stink.” I unbuckle and move over, resting against his side with my back, leaning my head on his shoulder. I feel better already.

  He moves the hair hanging down from my ponytail aside, then wraps his arm around me and inhales. “You smell like caramel.” I can't see his face, but I can tell he’s smiling and picture it in my mind. My lips curl up into a small smile.

  “Right.” We’re contentedly quiet for a few miles. “So, I'm not sure how to get out of this disastrous dinner tomorrow. I'm thinking maybe you can take me to practice in the morning and then take me to Tobi's afterward, and I'll just not go home.”

  He chuckles. “How defiant of you. I'm not sure that's a good idea, though.”

  “If I call and tell Paul not to come, it’ll be just as defiant in my dad's eyes.” I think I’m too worn out for my muscles to tense up anymore. “What about you—did you handle Paul?”

  He takes a deep breath. I feel his chest rise and hold before he lets it out. “I think so.” His chest hiccups a couple times like he’s laughing, but I didn’t hear anything. “I know how to get your dad to drop this whole thing.”

  “How?” I crane my neck to look at him.

  He kisses me on the forehead. It warms my heart.

  “Tell him we want to see each other—date.”

  I was wrong about my muscles. They tense regardless of how worn out I am. “Lane …”

  “Your dad likes me. So does your mom. Your dad will probably be thrilled at the idea.” He rubs my arm. “My parents will be thrilled, too.”

  I know I’m whining, but I can’t help it. “If our parents know, then so will everyone else.”

  “It's a helluva lot better than having Paul feed your dad a line of B.S., that will ultimately leading to him taking you out.” He's a little upset at that idea. “Come on, Regan. You'd rather go on with this shenanigan just to protect our anonymity in this relationship?”

  My face falls in a frown. “You make it sound like I'd rather go out with Paul than be with you.” This makes me a little mad and a little hurt.

  “Well, that is what's happening here.” He lets go of me and runs his fingers through his hair.

  I sit up straight and look at him. “I don't see it that way.”

  He moves both hands to the steering wheel. “Tell me, how do you see it?” The fading daylight is bright enough to see the prominent knuckles under his skin.

  “Paul's playing a game with you. My dad's playing a game with me.”

  “And you’re playing a game with all of us.”

  I lean back, away from him. “I’m not playing games.”

  “You're playing a game with Paul, allowing him to go through all the motions. You could lose big time because he knows how to win that game.” He cocks his head when he looks over at me with his brows raised. He looks back to the road. I can see him chewing on the inside of his cheek. “You're playing a game with your dad, pretending I'm nothing but a friend.” He shakes his head as he speaks. “And you're playing a game with me, by being willing to bring another guy in the mix—doing the one thing I said I didn’t want.” He reaches over to touch my hand. “It’s you and me—no one else. Remember?” His voice finally softens after the tongue-lashing he gave me.

  He doesn’t understand the gravity of my dad’s final say. When Dad says that’s it, he won’t allow
one more word, no more discussion. I shake my head. “But Paul isn't in the mix. It is just you and me.”

  He pulls his hand away from mine. “Who's coming over tomorrow for a pre-date dinner? It isn't me.”

  I close my eyes and let my head fall back on the seat. “But, I don't want us to be talked about. Our relationship is private. It's no one else’s business.”

  Lane turns off the main road. About a half a mile down, he parks by an oil well, down a dirt road surrounded by trees. “We've been talked about for years. It doesn't matter that these feelings didn’t surface before—we were still talked about. If we’re not more than friends, they’ll still talk about us.” He shuts off the lights and the ignition and turns in his seat. It's dark out. “What's the point of having a private relationship that no one else knows about if you let your dad send you out with some other guy?”

  I don't know what to say. My mind races through everything. There hasn't been enough time for me to get used to the idea of having a boyfriend, or whatever Lane is now. There's still a part of me that worries this is not the right thing to do, that it’ll ruin my plans. I've been hiding some of these fears, but he's honest with me. I need to do the same. Ugh.

  I open my mouth to speak, but Lane begins before I get anything out.

  “Are you?” He looks away for a second. “Are you having second thoughts about us?” His shoulders collapse like all the air was let out of them.

  I press my fingers to my temple. This is giving me a headache. “It's just that—”

  He interrupts me again. “I mean, if you …”” He looks down at the floorboard. “If you don't want to be more than friends.” He presses his lips together. “Then you, you need to tell me.”

  My heart aches. I want to hug him so tight. “It's not that. I'm still getting used to the idea of us. I like it, but I don’t know.” I sigh. “Maybe you won't understand.”

  He grimaces and clears his throat. “Tell me.”

  “I'm afraid if I keep letting myself go in this direction with you, the future I've been wanting—planning—will end up just like Susanna's or I’ll be like my dad said—like reaching for the unattainable moon and stars. I don’t want to be a dreamer, Lane, I want to actually do it.” I pull my knee up to my chest. “I feel trapped here. I’ve got to get out and marine science is my ticket.”

  He reaches for my hand. “I'm not asking you to stay here. I know you want to get out of here.”

  I pull back and sit up straight. “But you’re staying here, right?”

  His lips spread into a tight line. “I don’t know.” He keeps his head down.

  “What’s the point of being more than friends if we know we’re not going to stay together?” I start to pull my hand away, but he holds on tighter.

  He lifts his head. “I’ve always thought we’d go to college together. I want that. You want that.” He pulls me closer and wraps his arms around me. “I want us to be together. We should be together.” He leans his forehead against mine.

  Calm washes through me, here in his arms. I close my eyes and the doubts slowly slip away. All but one. “What about sex?” I keep my eyes shut.

  He doesn’t answer right away. “Right now?”

  I pull back and stare at him, holding my breath. He’s wearing a smirk and wriggles his brows up and down. I pull back even further and twist my lips.

  He laughs. “I’m teasing.”

  “Not funny.” I sit back against the seat and cross my arms.

  Lane slides closer with his arm across the back of the seat. I slide away. He slides closer. This goes on until I have nowhere else to move but out the door. I glance sideways at him. He has a cute crooked smile on, and I can’t help but giggle.

  “All right, all right.” I smack the back of my hand across his chest. He feigns pain.

  “Look, I know you’re afraid to make the same mistake as Susanna. But you’re getting worked up over nothing. We've only kissed once.”

  I look out the window as I feel the heat flush my skin. “I know.”

  He puts my hand on his leg and traces designs with his finger. “We'll work everything out.”

  What he’s doing on the back of my hand makes me want to melt down in the seat. “Look at all the other kids our age. Even Christians.”

  “We've made it for at least ten years. What's another five?” He shakes my shoulder.

  “Yeah, we didn't have these hormones going crazy for the past ten years.” I'm trying to keep him focused, but I’m losing focus myself.

  “You'll be eighteen when you graduate high school. Legally, you’ll be an adult.”

  My lids slide shut. His touch is putting me into a trance. “I'm not getting married while I'm in college, and I'm not having sex before then, either.” My words come out in a sleepy slumber.

  “See, you're sixteen and already more mature than most twenty-year-olds.”

  “You’re not helping.”

  “I get it, Regan. But if we tell our parents, maybe a few friends—”

  My back stiffens and I come to my senses. “No, I—” He presses his finger to my lips.

  “Hear me out. If we keep us from our parents, we’ll get used to hiding everything from them, and I think it would be easier to, you know, get carried away.”

  “It’ll change everything if we tell them. It’s going to be hard enough fighting my dad on my major. By the time I graduate high school, he may not even be speaking to me. Especially when I go to Florida to college without his permission.”

  “Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I haven't thought about us being that far apart.”

  “That's what I mean by getting away from here. Eckerd's a great college, right on the beach. You’d love it. It's private but no more expensive than attending university out of state. We can go fishing in the Gulf. And it has a great marine science program.”

  “How are you going to pay for it?”

  “How am I going to pay for any college? Grants, scholarships, loans, work. We've talked about this before.” I take a big breath and sigh. “My parents don't have the money for college. They can't even buy me a car or a cell phone.”

  “Maybe I could transfer or get work there after graduation.” He squeezes my hands, optimistic.

  My chest swells. “Maybe I'll only have to fight two fronts instead of three.”

  “Fronts? Is this your war?”

  “Yeah.” I lean back against the seat, looking at the roof of the cab. “It's like, like I feel this war inside of me. Like, I'm fighting against the negative, gossip-ridden people in this town, this black hole trying to suck me in. Another front of the war is, sorry about this, our relationship—us.”

  “Why?”

  “Sometimes it feels like our relationship is trying to take my future, too. And it really isn't you. It's just the idea of a relationship. Plans change when there's a relationship in the mix. Look at Susanna.”

  A growl rumbles in his throat. “You’re not Susanna.” His head falls back against the window. “For the millionth time.”

  “The third front is my parents. My dad mostly. I can see the writing on the wall with his new talk about being realistic.” My shoulders cave. “It's so hard. You know how testy I get when people tell me I've got my head in the clouds.”

  “War.” He sighs with me. “We won’t be a battle. We just need to try and understand each other and communicate. That's what my parents say about good relationships.”

  I feel like I’ve been beat-up. Little sleep last night. Late to open gym. The roller coaster of emotions between me and Lane. I’m done. “I hope so.”

  Lane laces his fingers through mine. “So, we'll have weekends, for now.” He reaches up with his other hand to run his fingers through my ponytail. “And our summer flings.” His words bring a smile to my lips and melt my tension away.

  This time I'm the one who leans in and softly kisses him once on the mouth. A spark ignites inside me. When I pull away, his beautiful wide smile weakens my knees. Those cry
stalline eyes somehow sparkle on this moonless night, under the security light of the oil well.

  Lane groans as he slides behind the wheel. “We better go.”

  We're only a few minutes from my house. “What do we do about tomorrow night?” I don't think we solved this issue.

  He looks over at me. “I'm talking to your dad, tonight.”

  “What are you going to say?” I thought we were done hashing things out. I don't think I like where this is going.

  “I'm going to tell him we want to date.”

  “No! You can't.”

  “The alternative is Paul. Is that what you want?” He’s staying calm, but there’s an impatience in his voice.

  “No, but there has to be some other way.”

  “You asked.”

  “Let's try to talk to my parents out of Paul coming over.”

  “And if that doesn't work?”

  I sigh. “Okay. I'm agreeing to this only because I don't want Paul taking me out or coming over for dinner.”

  We pull in my drive, and my hands start to sweat. The lights are still on. Of course, they are. It's not even nine o'clock yet. I rub my hands on my shorts and swallow hard.

  “Are you freaking out?” Lane laughs.

  I nod quickly. “I think I'm going to hyperventilate and not in a good way.”

  “I'm the one who should be nervous.” He gets out and walks around the truck to open my door. I'm still trying to calm down. He takes my bag and helps me out, shutting the door behind me. “Come on.” I look up into his eyes, searching for my safety net. I find it and take a few cleansing breaths to calm down.

  “Okay.”

  Lane does all those gentlemanly things for me. I’d say it was a show for my parents, but he does this sort of thing a lot and not just for me. He opens the door to the house for me. I smell cinnamon. Mom’s in the kitchen making something delicious.

  “Hey Mom, what’re you making?”

  “Hi, there, Lane. Cinnamon rolls for breakfast.”

  “Save some for me. I can't eat that before volleyball or I'll get sick.” I put my bag down and take off my shoes. “Hey, what happened tonight? I was late to practice. Lane had to give me a ride.”