by Fiona Keane
A young woman filled our glasses with water and dropped off a basket of hot rolls before quietly returning to the kitchen.
“Great view, huh? My aunt and uncle brought me here once for my birthday. It’s sort of special to me. I thought you’d appreciate it.”
“Why did you really want to take me to dinner, Jameson?”
“I would sincerely like to know you better, Soph.” His expression was blank, but for the honesty reflected in his warm eyes.
“I…I don’t want to.”
“I can do a better job of protecting you if I know you. What makes you tick? Who is this beautiful young woman, Soph?”
Beautiful? I think my heart stopped. Literally. It fell from my ribs and crashed into my stomach. I wasn’t beautiful. The only people who ever told me were Jules and my mom. I wanted to call her, right then, and tell her about Jameson, the good and the bad.
“Hey.” Jameson reached across the table to wipe away a lone tear from my cheek. “Did I say something?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I just…I’m embarrassed, I’m sorry.”
I lifted the napkin folded above my plate and wiped my moist cheek from the few tears that followed suit.
“Please don’t be embarrassed,” he whispered, smiling at me. “Ever.”
I glanced between Jameson and the view of the beach. The waves were crashing furiously, in response or preparation for the incoming hurricane. Yet here we were, dining with people as old as our parents, pretending the world only revolved around the table at which we sat.
Jameson’s hazel eyes were sparkling, twinkling with the lines of his smile, encouraging me to divulge every detail about myself to him. The scary part was that I wanted to. God, did I want to. Jameson was my enigma. As real as discussing it would make my past, I couldn’t help the power he held over my heart…and I hardly knew him.
“Start with your mom?” he suggested, already reading my mind and understanding the warring thoughts in the battle between my heart and mind.
“My mom,” I exhaled, blowing the air through my pursed lips and looking into his hopeful and trusting eyes. “She was amazing.”
My head shook, unable to form an appropriate description of the beautiful creature my mother was.
“Her mom was French so they always spoke French to me when I was little. It’s kind of annoying, but Jules still does it. She was the strongest woman I’ve ever known. She was capable of anything.”
“She sounds like you.”
“I guess.” I smiled, thinking fondly of my mom.
I missed her so much. Thinking of her and trying to describe her to Jameson, someone whom I desperately wanted to discuss with her, was such an odd combination…I didn’t know what to say. I was shocked to not find myself in a pool of tears just at having forced myself to describe her. I felt a strange, unfamiliar sense of security sitting across from him. It was as if it truly were just Jameson, me, and the dancing curtains.
“She dated this creep.” I shuddered. “She was finally leaving him. We were celebrating. My mom cleaned out her bank account, all the money my dad left her when he passed away, everything. We were going to run away together. She would always talk about it. She was so proud of finally breaking free.”
“Where would she have taken you?”
“She had a friend from college in Canada. It was still close, but a start.”
“Wh…Soph,” Jameson leaned over the table, his brow creased with apprehension, “What were you running from?”
I had done so well up until this point—the point at which Jameson stared at me and I felt the suffocating force of my imagination clasp its malicious claws around my throat, taking my heart along with it.
My wrists were twisted, crossing over one another as I covered my face, trying to calm the oppressive sobs escaping my throat. I felt the possessively reassuring sensation of Jameson’s arm wrapping tightly around me, his cologne swirling into my mind.
“I have to go.” I stumbled from his hold, escaping from the table.
With my head down, hoping not to embarrass Jameson any further, I flew from the restaurant and found myself panting along the marble steps. No. This is not the place to have a panic attack. I need to get out of here.
I tried to climb from the top step, hoping I could still stand by the time I reached the bottom, but his hand beneath my left elbow guided me with his grace. I continued my attempt to leave Jameson and my embarrassment behind while I wiggled from his touch.
Jameson’s long fingers bound around my shoulders, pulling me against him tightly while his arms stretched along the span of my back to hold me in place. I was a prisoner against his body. It felt amazing. My heaves began to slow as he held me in silence, rubbing small circles around my lower back.
“Jameson.”
“Soph.” His hold returned to my shoulders as he knelt slightly to watch my eyes, “Don’t say anything. I don’t want an apology. You shouldn’t feel sorry for being human.”
“Then I’m sorry for embarrassing you in there.”
“You didn’t. And you never could. Do you still want that burger?” His lips lifted into a smile, melting the pools of amber that studied my own. I nodded and Jameson instinctively wrapped his arm around me, guiding me back toward the hotel.
“We’re going back?”
“No.” He laughed. “There’s a greasy, ridiculously good burger place just up the beach.”
The weather report had accurately predicted the potential for a hurricane. The winds that pounded the beach were creating cyclones of sand as we rested at the base of a dune with our carry-out burgers and milkshakes.
“I would get milkshakes all the time when I was a kid.” He beamed, the fond memory of him as a little kid exciting us both.
Jameson’s smile was contagious, spreading his warmth to my cold shell of existence. He hadn’t told me much more about his past, so my heart began to flutter, blinded by optimism that perhaps he would open up and place us on an even field of secrets.
“Where did you go? Somewhere here?”
“No.” He stiffened and crumpled the wrapper from his burger. “Are you finished?”
“Yes.” I handed him the wrapper from my burger and continued sipping on my milkshake.
I watched anxiously as Jameson stepped away to throw our trash into a garbage can. His hair was wild, animatedly flying around his head in the warring breeze as he moved. The light fabric of his white button-down shirt wrinkled, waving like a sail at sea against his lean frame. Uncomfortable tension left my body as he joined me again on the sand, nestling at my side.
I couldn’t imagine milkshakes had brought back something traumatic for him, but then again my impossible memories were the reason we were eating burgers on the beach in our nice clothes instead of sitting at a table, pretending we were adults. I glanced up at his face, the smooth skin around his eyes wrinkled as he squinted, staring at the waves.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
“I have a new phone,” I whispered, hoping to change the topic and pulled it from my purse.
Jameson’s gaze fell to my hands, taking the phone from my hold and inspecting it with a nod before swiping the screen, only to be blocked by my password access.
“Password?”
“My birthday,” I looked at him, grinning because he probably forgot it.
“Zero, eight, zero, one.” The wink his eyes passed to me caught my breath somewhere in my throat and I couldn’t breathe, but it was a happy feeling.
He remembered my birthday.
Once in my phone, Jameson opened the camera and held the phone in front of us.
“Smile,” he told me.
I looked at him like he was nuts. I didn’t smile. I hated pictures and I especially hated people taking pictures of me.
“What?” He laughed, glancing at me after seeing my refusal in the camera screen. “You have a gorgeous smile, Soph. It’s absolutely stunning.”
“Stunning.” I swallowed the
word with a sip of my chocolate chip milkshake, “Well…I think your smile is stunning too, Jameson.”
“Thank you.” He kissed my forehead and time ceased.
The incessant, powerful crash of the waves went silent. My milkshake fell from my trembling hands, slamming the remnants of chocolate against the sand dune as fine grains swirled around us.
“Soph.” I felt his lips smile against my skin. “You’re not breathing.”
“Can’t.”
“No?” His face hung so he could stare at me, smiling like a haughty boy who knew exactly what he was doing to me in that moment.
“Why did you do that?” I snapped, slowly inching my bottom away from him, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“You needed a picture of me for your phone.” Jameson giggled, returning it to my empty palm. “And my number is in there now too.”
“But you kissed me,” I continued, still paralyzed in the memory of Jameson’s lips contacting my forehead.
“That wasn’t a kiss, Soph.” His laugh was somewhere between a scoff and humor before he leaned his forehead against mine.
I swallowed my heart, hoping to keep it contained behind my ribs as Jameson’s soft lips lightly caressed my mouth.
“That,” his lips pressed a second time, “was a kiss.”
It was my first kiss. The first time a boy had held my face in his hands and exchanged such intimacy, such silent and consuming communication.
“Still can’t breathe?”
I shook my head in response, but this time it was accompanied with my smile. The smile Jameson told me was stunning. Stunning.
“What does this mean?” The words tumbled from my mouth and I regretted sounding so insecure, but that was my nature lately.
“I think it’s pretty clear what that means, Soph.” Jameson’s hands continued to hold my face. “I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission first. That would’ve been more polite.”
“Wait.” I wiggled from his hold as he chuckled, confidently eyeing my movements. “Jameson?”
“What?” He reached for my hand, intertwining our fingers as he pulled me back into him. I crashed against him with such a comfortable force that my mind spun.
“You need to elaborate, Jameson,” I demanded, “I’m so confused right now.”
He lifted our hands to his mouth and kissed my knuckles before replying, “I really like you, Soph. In fact, I’m a mess when I’m not with you. I’ve told you what you do to me…and that was all before we kissed.”
“You kissed me.”
“Do you want to kiss me?”
My cheeks were burning, pulsating along with the delightfully sickening shake of my hands. Jameson was staring down at me, smiling such an innocent grin that I almost forgot he had asked me to kiss him. He was patiently waiting, kneeling in the aggressive breeze along the Gulf while he placed some of my hair behind my ears and studied my deliberate expression.
I was terrified. I couldn’t do this. Kissing Jameson back exposed me, opening up the possibility of sharing my misery with someone. I watched his teeth bite into his bottom lip while he continued grinning at me. I nodded my response, slowly and methodically, before his lips again met mine.
“I’ll take you home,” he whispered against my mouth. “School tomorrow.”
I nodded, the feeling of rejection quickly replaced by the comfortably possessive grasp of his warm hands around mine.
***
We pulled up to my house shortly after nine. The front porch light was on, but Jules’s car wasn’t in the driveway and Simon’s wasn’t anywhere in sight either. A sigh left my lips before I began climbing from Jameson’s car.
“She’s never home,” he noted, his skills at reading me were terrifying.
I ignored his remark, already aware of the long night ahead of me without Jules at home. Initially, I was dreading it. I didn’t want to be alone, but there was often a loneliness I felt even when she and Simon were around. It was sometimes foreign, as though I still didn’t belong within their walls.
“Jameson,” I whispered as we approached the front door, his feet slightly behind mine. A low hum was his only response.
“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I turned to him, watching his eyebrows meet with worry. “Can you just…can you just be with me like the last time?”
Nodding, Jameson’s lips again found my forehead and we entered the dark, uncomfortably quiet home. His pace was quick, following behind my every step. The hall was enveloped in black and I didn’t bother to turn on any lights. My bedroom was isolated, closed, and completely dark, but for the faint moonlight seeping in through the curtains. The light was intermittent, dancing behind the fluttering palm leaves that prepared for a tropical storm.
“When you said you’re a mess without me…” I quietly probed as I lifted the white comforter over my mattress, the silly attempt to make my bed from this morning.
Jameson was standing against the window, watching me, biting his thumb while his arms were crossed against his chest.
“Does she keep it this hot in here on purpose? Like to torture you?” His hand lowered to the open collar of his shirt, lifting it from his skin repeatedly to fan himself. I’m going to die. Right now.
“I think so,” I mumbled. “I’m just…I’m going to go change and…you…I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed my pajama bottoms and the faded v neck t-shirt I often wore to bed, carrying them into the hallway and quickly changing in the dark. So…Jameson is feet away, hanging out in my bedroom, and…he kissed me. Like three times. My knees were losing balance and I knew my hands were beginning to tremble.
Shakily, my limp grasp opened the bedroom door and I entered, throwing my clothes from the evening onto a growing heap in the corner. He was sitting on my bed now, legs stretched out toward the end, eyeing my curiously. I wondered if he was anticipating a meltdown, a panic attack, something. The glow in his eyes was intimidatingly concerned.
“When I said I was a mess…” His right hand patted the mattress, encouraging me to join him. “I meant it. Come here.”
I couldn’t feel my toes. Were they there? Hello, toes. Wiggle if you can hear me. Nothing. I climbed into my bed, pulling the cover over me—boiling, but wanting to create some barrier between myself and the boy next to me.
“I meant that.” His lips kissed my hair as I snuggled against his side, his hand holding my face against his chest—he smelled so good. Breathe, Soph.
“I meant that I can’t think about you without going insane. Literally, Soph. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m this loner. This kid who lives in isolation, and here you are, with your secrets and your stunning smile, and you’re destroying that part of me. I…I really like it.”
“Oh.” I wondered if he could feel the burn along my cheeks. My eyes sealed tightly, hoping to capture this moment while my head lifted with each inhale of Jameson’s breath, serenely bobbing like a buoy. His left hand reached over to stroke my hair, tickling my scalp and almost forcing me to sleep.
“Soph,” his whisper crackled in the silence, “Before, at dinner…why did you run?”
“It’s what I do.” I laughed, trying to avoid where this conversation was going.
I felt his hand stop petting me as his silence pressed me to continue. The darkness, and the fact my face was looking at Jameson’s feet instead of his face, helped calm my nerves enough to begin. I wasn’t ready to tell anyone anything. I didn’t come here to find a confidant, and I even hated when Mr. Fitzgerald forced me to communicate about my past.
“It’s just me,” he continued, easing my nerves. “Please, Soph.”
I stared at Jameson’s feet, studying the bones that moved in each of his toes, trying to pretend I was just repeating a rehearsed version of someone else’s story. I inhaled, releasing a shaky breath that opened my gates to Jameson.
“It rained a lot in Oregon. A lot. There was one day when I was outside reading, despite the rain, because I loved listening to it
under the canopy. My mom was on the phone and laughing while she was making crepes. Have you ever had one?”
“No.”
“Hers were delicious. You can put anything in them,” I rambled. “Chocolate, strawberries, ice cream, whatever.”
“Soph…”
“It was one of the last treats we were going to have. It was a celebration. She was so excited—” I stopped, waiting for Jameson to move as my tears began soaking his shirt, but he resumed combing through my hair, so I continued. “I was so excited. I was so proud of her. We were standing in the kitchen and I was eating these crepes. She had like five of them already with chocolate drizzled all over them. She was telling me about visiting her friend before we would leave. I met him once. Lucas something. Anyway, he was supposed to watch over our house while we went away. You know, figure things out and make sure it was sound so we could sell it and use that money when we got to Canada.”
“Soph,” Jameson whispered, “I…you don’t need to go on. I don’t need to know.”
“Don’t you?” I lifted my head to look at him, his eyes full of remorse that haunted the darkening pools of hazel.
Jameson looked away momentarily and then back at me, his expression one of pity and encouragement. It almost hurt to look at the way I was changing his face, just by releasing my demons into his soul. My head fell against his chest again and he returned to my hair. Each pet through my mane was rubbing away a layer of fear, a layer of anxiety.
“I can still taste that stupid crepe.” I sniffled, knowing the details were about to nauseate me. “Our backs were to the doorway, focusing on the stupid crepes and I was listening to her talk, but I heard the back door open. It had this hinge that my mom hadn’t fixed and it sounded like a dying owl sometimes, but it was an effective alarm system most of the time. I could taste him. I just knew. My mom’s ex, the reason we were running, the reason I ran…he shot a gun at me. It was so close to my face, Jameson. If he wasn’t as incredibly drunk as he was, it would have killed me.”
