“Incredible,” I say. “It’s like it’s…untouched. That sounds stupid.”
“Not at all. It is, practically. Your dad owns this land. No one comes up here but us, and we leave it as we found it.”
“That doesn’t seem right though, does it? For this beauty to go to waste?”
His nose wrinkles. “Just because the tourists aren’t here making home movies they’re never going to watch again, doesn’t mean it’s going to waste.”
“I don’t mean tourists.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I pull my eyes from the pinks and the lavenders and look at Jake. “Who told you that, your daddy?”
“Indeed he did, and he’s not the only one.”
I wait a bit, taking it all in. The scenery, the feelings. Him. “Thanks, Jake.”
“For what?”
“For bringing me out here. You didn’t have to, did you?”
He chews his straw some more before he says, “’Spose we could’ve found someone to babysit you down there for the night.”
I elbow him in the ribs and he ducks out of the way. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
His eyes skim over me. “You certainly do not,” he says like he appreciates what he sees. Like he means it. “I’m glad we brought you up, anyhow,” he says. “It’s nice having you along.”
“It’s nice being along,” I say, because it’s true. It is. And it’s not flirting to tell the truth.
Supper is a can of beans split three ways. Jake heats them in the same pan he used for eggs this morning (there’s a little yellow scruff of residue as a reminder) over an open fire and under a gathering of stars so bright we don’t need more than a lantern propped on a log to see what we’re doing.
We eat quietly. The beans taste smoky, like this morning’s bacon.
Jake’s rock is slightly in front of mine and to the left, so while I eat, I study his profile. The way his wavy hair is bent in at the top. Hat head. Cowboy hat head. He wolfs his food down like it’s his last meal and then wipes his mouth with the bottom of his sleeve. I love how he eats. I love how he does everything. Quick. Efficient. Gets it done. Even when I was a little girl, I always stood back, watching before diving in. When the other kids would cannonball into the swimming hole, I’d hold back, contemplating what would happen if I jumped. What if it was too cold and I screamed, embarrassing myself? What if I rubbed up against a fish, or God forbid, a snake? There are river snakes out here. Everybody’d wave me in at first, but then forget about me because they’d be so busy having fun. Not thinking about having fun, just having fun.
Jake twitches a bit as if my stare sparks genuine fire into his skin, or maybe he’s just swiping at a bug? Either way, he glances at me sidelong with an amused frown as if he feels my inner commentary.
Later, I stand back and watch Jake and Anna roll out their sleeping bags. Anna finds a patch of grassy dirt under a tree and is careful about how she lays hers down. Jake is deliberate, too, about this decision, the way he is about everything. He glances up at the stars, studies the distance to the fire, and presses the heel of his boot onto the ground.
With a quick flick, he unties the rope around the bag, and with another one, flips it onto the ground. There are two blankets in there, turns out, and a sleeping bag. He smooths the blankets one on top of the other and when I think his next move is going to be kicking off his boots and lying down, he turns to me and says, “It’s not the Ritz, City Slicker, but you should be comfortable.”
“That’s for me?”
“Yep.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“You’re welcome. Come on now.” He pats the ground. “Try it out for size. I checked the dirt for rocks, but sometimes the ones you can’t see are the sharpest.”
Again with meaning more than he says. “That sounds comfy.”
“Not so sharp that you feel it. Won’t keep you up, but in the morning you’re all sore and when you look around, you find a bruise,” Jake says.
Anna is busy with her pile still, adjusting her lantern, messing with the horses. I love the space Anna gives me, gives us, to just be.
“Know what I mean?” Jake asks.
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I smile. He’s so damn cute.
“So make sure it’s all smooth before you close your eyes.”
I sit down and sort of wiggle around.
“Okay?”
“Yeah, it’s good. Thanks.”
“Sure?” He’s looking at me, and I want him to keep looking at me but I need him to go away. I need him to stop that.
“Yep. Thanks.”
“You said that already.” His eyes grin.
“What?”
“Thanks,” Jake says. “You’ve already thanked me. Couple times even.”
“I guess I’m just not that used to people doing all this stuff for me. Stuff like this, anyway.”
“All I did was roll a sleep sack on the dirt, Cowgirl.”
“If you say so,” I say.
But the way his eyes shine through the dark, he’s pleased I noticed.
We chat a little bit, then Anna says goodnight and curls into her bed under the stars. It’s only after she turns over, that Jake rolls out his bed, a precise distance from mine, maybe four feet away, close enough to be close but not close enough to be too close.
Soon Jake is lying on his back, next to me, his cowboy hat tipped over his face. His boots are lined up neatly at the foot of his sack, and it’s like I stumbled upon him on a movie set.
As if he can feel my gaze, he lifts his hat off his eyes and we exchange a smile.
“Goodnight, Cowgirl.”
“I have a name you know,” I say, propping up on my elbow.
“I know,” he says. He holds my gaze for a moment before disappearing under his hat.
“Good night, Jake.”
I want to scoot closer to him. If I stretch my arm and reach out my hand, I can touch him. But I can’t touch Jake. Touching Jake would lead to other things.
His face may be hiding under that cowboy hat, but I can feel he’s thinking about me, too. It’s that thing you only understand once you’ve experienced it—this pull. This slow, throbbing beat deep inside, like music only you and the person you’re drawn to can hear. It plays. It plays loudly, but I do my best to silence it. Cool it down. Ignore it.
A few minutes later I can hear Jake’s quiet breathing—even and methodical.
Once it’s safe, once I know he’s asleep, I watch him for a long time: the rise and fall of his beautiful chest—the simplicity of his beating heart.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Then
After Elliot, Ty never fully recovered.
Neither did the school.
Or the community. There was no more pretending this wasn’t a full-fledged epidemic.
The Coalition of the Willing was baffled. And exhausted. They couldn’t sit on the tracks 24 hours a day. When the police jumped into action and placed a new chain link fence with wrappings of barbed wire that looked like bales of hay on top, huge signs that read, “Need Help?” With an 800 number written next to it for the desperate. And for the easily scared off, another sign read: FINE up to $1,000 for playing on or around the tracks. I read them over and over again.
The taboo had been lifted. My peers were taking a permanent exit from childhood and it wasn’t into adulthood.
The whole thing was both horrifying and bewildering. I started having panic attacks. I’d have them at school. I’d have them at home. Mom took me to my pediatrician who sent me to a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. It was all too much, the therapist told me. So many kids from my school were coming, one after the other. “This time of your life is already so full of uncertainty with applying to colleges, with planning to move away from home—and then all this grief on top of it?” She looked sad for me. She prescribed me an anti-depressant and Xanax for anxiety to be used “When needed.”
I didn’t get it. I was
all set for college. I was accepted to four of my six top choices—and planned on attending Wesleyan on the East Coast. It was Mom’s alma mater, and I know this sounds lame as hell, but it reminded me of one of the small, liberal arts colleges on some of the TV dramas I liked. Where the girl crushes on her creative writing professor, and her slutty roommate with a heart-of-gold transforms into her BFF. That’s what I wanted: pea coats and steaming mugs of coffee and icy roads. I wanted something new, far away from here.
So I wasn’t worried about college per se or even leaving my mom. Since leaving the ranch as a kid, my life hadn’t felt grounded, so I didn’t have that “I never want to leave my childhood bedroom” thing because I’d already faced that pain. But I was worried about Ty. And getting out of town…well…at all. It was like our class was cursed. Game over. The End.
Our new routine at home and at school was one of polite, dispassionate existence. Scared to rattle anyone, scared to offend, scared to breathe lest they dive in front of a train or overdose on one of their newly prescribed bottles of antidepressants at a party.
It was after one of these long, May days of walking on eggshells at school and jumping at the sight of our own shadows, that we watched the stupidest movie on “family night.” After, Ty watched me brush my teeth.
He was wearing his Batman pajamas and a white t-shirt that was tight over his arms. When he lifted them up to stretch, his palms held the sides of the bathroom doorway and his shirt lifted slightly at his belly exposing his belly button. I was thinking, When did Ty get so hot?
“Want to check out this crazy Funny or Die video?” he asked.
“Where are the parents?”
“In bed.”
Their bedroom was downstairs. Ours were up.
“Are they asleep?”
“I just checked. Yeah.”
He just checked?
Why would he need to check?
Chills ran up my torso, but they weren’t the bad kind. The space between where he was standing in the doorway and where I was standing over the sink shrunk to nothing. In his eyes, in his voice, I read everything I felt.
Why would our parents need to be asleep for me to go into his room to watch a video?
Right.
“I’ll be right there.” Fuck it, I thought. I was sick of being so…careful. Just once, for one night, I’d let the eggshells crack. What’s the worst that could happen?
He nodded, and I kicked the door closed.
I splashed more water on my face. I didn’t have to pinch my cheeks to give them color. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, these bright, hot eyes. This flushed face. I was wearing a white tank top and boy boxer shorts. Why had I felt it was okay to walk in front of him in these? Because our parents got married last year after dating for 6 months?
He was still a teenage boy.
I was still a teenage girl.
I knocked lightly on his door.
“Ty.”
“Yeah?” he said, watching me. His gaze ran down my chest, my stomach, down my legs, and I felt it as if his look were his fingertips.
“Um. Your computer isn’t open.”
He sauntered across the room toward me. He ran his fingers down my naked shoulder slowly, down my forearm, my wrist, my hand. He weaved his fingers through mine and held on tight, so tight. Then, with his other arm, he pulled me into him. I tilted my head back and let my lips meet his with a fiery hunger I didn’t know I had in me. My arms flew around his neck and held on tight. His tongue was a crazy thing, digging into my mouth, tugging on my lips. If he were anyone else I would’ve backed away, but I just let him get crazy, and I shoved him back on that blue comforter and dug into him as he dug into me. With his remote control buried under his pillow he turned up his music to full blast, and we took our rage and frustration and grief and confusion out on each other.
“Do you…have a condom?” I asked.
“Seriously?”
“Well.”
I looked down at my tank top, torn, his boxers, half-off.
We were both sweaty and drunk and crazed.
Wasn’t sex the obvious next step?
“I don’t.”
I pulled my shorts back on and stumbled backwards toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To get one.”
“You have condoms in your room?” he asked, amused.
“Ty, shit, shh.”
“Sorry.” But he didn’t look sorry.
“I figured you would.”
“Why?”
“Well, you’re the one who invited me in.”
His eyes sparked. “To watch a video.”
“Oh yeah, right. I’ll be right back. Hold tight.”
I slipped through the dark hall into my room and headed to the top drawer of my nightstand where I kept a little jeweled box filled with Just In Case condoms from Mom.
I’d never done it before.
Ty had. At least once that I knew of. I paused. My head was buzzing pretty badly. Was this the best idea? No, of course not—this was the worst idea. But I saw him lying there, and I wanted to be there, too. I wanted Ty, and I was sick of being careful, sick of being numb, sick of being scared: to hell with it.
I grabbed two, sticking them in the elastic waistband of my boxer shorts.
“Got them,” I said when I got back to his room, waving them like candy.
“Two? Ambitious, aren’t we?” His voice was so sweet in the shadows, and he kissed so well and I couldn’t wait to get back to the soft of his skin and the hard of his muscles. I had no idea what this next step would be like, but I could imagine, in my slightly delirious state, that it would be something.
He moved around in the dark, awkwardly for a moment. “Let me help you.”
I did.
He was on me in seconds and I opened up my legs to him. The weight of him and everything sinking in…it didn’t hurt the way Elena said it would, it was more like an elastic rubber band snapping, and after all the hurt, it felt good. Like scratching an itch too hard, until it was raw.
He moaned. On top of me, his face and lips crushed the side of my neck.
In an instant, he was sound asleep and I was as squirrely as forever.
Where was the fire?
Was that it? Really? I was still so amped up. That couldn’t be it.
“Ty. Ty?”
“Hmm,” he mumbled, his face in my hair. That was it. He wasn’t waking up.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Now
I stay up way too late watching Jake sleep and then buried in my sleeping bag writing in my journal. When I wake up, squinty eyed and foul-mouthed, I think I’m seeing things when I catch Jake watching me.
“Well, good morning,” he says in this slow, heart-melting voice that erases everything else on my mind.
Damn.
“Hi,” I say.
“You gonna get up some time this decade or should we just let the cows meander over to the next mountain and disappoint the heck out of your daddy?”
“Oh, shoot. Sorry.” I pop up so fast, my ankles catch in my sleeping bag. Jake reaches out, and I sort of fall forward in an awkward heap, right into his arms.
He helps me out of the sack. “Make sure you aren’t available for the July 4th sack races, okay?”
“Ha. I’m a ringer, you know,” I say, an embarrassed flush crawling up my cheeks.
Jake’s gaze falls to a book on the ground. “What’s this?”
The book.
My diary.
“Nothing. Just…”
I scoop it up and tuck it quickly into my knapsack. Jesus.
“Is that a diary?”
“No.”
He grins. “Were you writing about me?”
“Uh.” I wish. I wish my diary was all about Jake. Meeting him. Re-meeting him. I could describe the mountain. The sounds. The smells. I could talk forever about the way my stomach feels when we lock eyes. Or how the sound of my name on his lips makes me feel s
afe in the way I haven’t in maybe forever.
But that isn’t this journal.
And he can’t see it.
Ever.
“It’s just…some stuff I’m working through.” There. It’s not a lie. It’s not even a half-truth. It’s the full truth. “And no you can’t read it.”
“Fair enough.” He wipes his palms on his dusty jeans and that’s it. “Saved you some grub. Anna, of course, wanted to leave without you—she’s such a workaholic—but I convinced her not to leave you behind.”
His eyes twinkle.
Smiling, I get on with the leftover beans and mush in the crisp mountain morning air.
“Cows. Everywhere,” I say in a monotonic voice.
Jake laughs. “Yep.”
White and brown, spotted and not—all lazily munching grass on the top of a hill like it’s their minimum wage job and their manager is out of town.
A couple look up, bored, when they see us before bending back to the ground. The rest don’t even bother. Like they see people all the time, when I know they haven’t for at least six months.
I say my thoughts out loud, then add, “It’s like they’re thinking, ‘Oh, it’s just you guys,’” I deadpan, and Anna and Jake laugh.
“They aren’t the most emotive creatures,” Anna says.
“But damn, do they taste good over a hot fire.” Jake makes mouth-smacking sounds.
“Jake!”
It’s been a good morning, light, easy—shocking after the unlight and unfunny entries scribbled in my journal under the stars last night. As hard as it is to conjure up the memories, it’s like the more I write, the less weight presses on my chest. The sharper the words, the more my gut knots unloosen. Well, first they pull tighter and tighter, but then after? It’s less. The beginning of that space where you finally get the knot to begin its slow untangle. If that makes sense.
Anyway, I’m getting used to the saddle. In fact, when we take breaks for lunch and to give our mounts a drink in the creek, I miss it. The feel of it, the soothing sway, the rhythm, even the irritating rub of leather against my inner thighs. My butt aches, but it feels good. Like after exercising. I used to feel that way after running on the beach. I haven’t done that for a while. Maybe after this trip, I’ll see if Jake wants to go on a hike. That might feel good. Walking straight up the mountain.
Paint My Body Red Page 12
