“Where’s he working this summer?”
“Camp Concord. He’s a counselor.”
“Why don’t you apply? You’re good at social planning and having fun; I bet you’d be great at the job.”
Elise shakes her head. “It’s two hours away.”
“That’s not so far.”
“I don’t want to leave.”
“Have you never been away from home before?”
“I have, yeah. But if Jem gets sick again…” She closes her eyes and swallows her thoughts. “I need to stay nearby. He’s still so fragile.”
I hadn’t doubted her before, but hearing Elise talk about it—about giving bits and pieces of her body to Jem—only reinforces the dedication she has to her brother. I knew Jem was a protective older brother, but I hadn’t considered Elise a protective younger sister until now. Even if she could donate nothing for him physically, she would want to be near him while he’s sick.
“What would Jem think of you working at that camp?”
Elise rolls her eyes. “He’d break my legs to keep me from going. He doesn’t like Kipp.”
“Why not?”
“Kipp’s too old for me. And too attached. Among other reasons.”
“What reasons?”
Elise shrugs. “Brother reasons.” Now I’m curious. “Jem’s probably asleep by now,” she says. “But if you’re quiet you can see him before you leave.”
*
I poke my head into Jem’s room as quietly as I can. The light is on, but Elise was right, he is asleep. He’s sprawled across the foot of his bed, out cold, with a copy of The Scarlet Letter under his limp hand. He can’t bear to stay awake through his English homework. Absolutely no appreciation for classic literature.
I take the book away gently and start to remove his watch. I don’t want to wake him up, but I can tuck him in sideways like I did the night of Elise’s birthday party. When I push back his sleeve to expose his watch I feel a faint tickle on my fingertips. The hair on his arms has really started to grow back.
I lean in to look and see the fine, red-brown hairs on his forearm. In the right light I would miss them entirely, they’re so short. I’m close enough that Jem can feel my breath on his wrist and his fingers twitch. I back off, but he groans in his sleep and rolls over to stretch, coming slowly to the surface. He turns to the side and buries his face in the coverlet—and lets out the loudest fart I have ever heard I my entire life.
I don’t know if it’s the shock of it, or perhaps a childish urge to giggle at bodily functions, but I collapse into hysterical laughter on his floor. I laugh so hard that I can’t breathe and my eyes start to water, ‘cause it’s just so damn funny. I hope none of the other Harpers hear me, because I don’t know how I would explain what has me in stitches. How can someone so thin contain so much hot air?
My laughter makes Jem look up with surprise, and his expression quickly shifts from disorientation to a look of horror. That fart was deliberate—he thought he was alone.
And that just makes it that much funnier. I’m going to suffocate from laughing and it’s all his fault.
Jem mumbles ‘excuse me’ as his face turns bright red. I don’t think common courtesy can cover this one. I vainly try to wipe my streaming eyes as laughter bubbles up through my throat in short pants.
“Christ, boy, did you shit yourself?”
I don’t think it’s possible for his face to get any redder. He offers me a tissue to wipe my eyes and says, “Please don’t die laughing.”
“If I do make sure my tombstone blames you.” He lets me giggle for a few more minutes before telling me to knock it off. There’s a time limit on laughter, apparently. I flop down on his bed in a breathless heap and try to keep a straight face when I ask him how his night went.
“Fine.” Embarrassment has made him terse. I poke the corner of his mouth and tell him to cheer up.
“Do you need to wipe?”
“Shut up.”
“Nah.”
“Don’t tell Eric about this. I’ll never hear the end of it.”
“Sure.” I lean in to kiss his frowning lips. I skipped that step in the wake of my hysterical giggle fit. Jem doesn’t have much enthusiasm for it, and I can tell by the way he wraps his arms around me that he’s gearing up to sulk.
“Thanks. I needed a good laugh.”
“Because I’m a joke.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
He nestles his face in my neck and inhales. “You know,” he says to my collarbone, “just when I didn’t think I could be more repulsive to a girl…”
I smack him lightly on the ribs. “You’re not repulsive.” Jem’s ego is a fragile one. I gentle him with soft touches and whispers in his ears—that I love his hands, and his eyes, and the way he holds me. Let him feel valued. He accepts little kisses on his jaw with closed eyes. When he sighs his breath smells like red Jell-O, and when I use my hands on his shoulders to gently push him back down to the bed, he pulls me with him. Jem can’t stand much distance—but distance is relative.
I’m still not used to the way he doesn’t immediately reach for my ass as I straddle his hips. His hands manage to move from my thighs to my waist without touching the stuff in between—I’d study physics just to find out how the hell he does it—and once there his hands stick to my sides and back. This gentleman thing is nice, but I can see myself getting bored of it.
Jem wants slow kisses tonight, long and deep and tender. I oblige, taking my time over his mouth. Sucking his lower lip, stroking his tongue…
The hand that rests high on my ribs inches its way to my side, like he’s thinking about copping a feel but hesitant to do it. I spare him the internal debate and move his hand myself.
“You’re okay with this?” he murmurs against my lips. I don’t roll my eyes, but it’s a near thing.
“No, I made you grab my tit by accident.”
“Cheek.” He leans up to meet my lips and gives my chest a gentle palm massage. His hand is shaking.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He smiles against my lips. “It’s been awhile. I want to treat you right.”
“Likewise.” Jem’s other hand moves under the back of my shirt, along my skin. “Feeling deprived?”
“Happy,” he murmurs. I kiss his neck, which he really seems to like, and he even lets me nibble his earlobes. It’s my hands he has a hard time with. While his continue their languid circuit between my chest and back, tracing bare pieces of skin and circling my nipples with his thumbs, mine keep getting bumped away. At first it’s casual—his hand slowly moves mine away from his ribs to rest on his shoulder. Then his elbow keeps me from getting too friendly with his waist, and when I move to touch the skin above his collar he shifts his shoulders away from me.
“Jem.” I grab both his wrists and hold them together between us. “This isn’t going to work.”
His face slips into such a wounded, frightened expression. I guess I should have phrased that better.
“I’m not just going to sit here like a blow up doll and let you grope me. You have to let me touch you too.”
“Oh. Um.” He swallows so nervously you’d think I’d just asked him to nail his own ear to the wall. “I’m sorry. Maybe we should stop for awhile.” He slips his wrists out of my hands and rolls away, ready to leave the bed. I wrap an arm around his waist before he can stand up and pull him back against me.
“I’m not saying right this minute, but at some point you will have to let me touch you.” I plant a kiss on the back of his neck.
“I know, but…not now.”
“Soon?”
“When I’m well again.”
“That long?”
Jem blows out a deep breath through his nose. “I’m sorry.”
“Does it factor in that I think you’re sexy, even when you’re like this?”
“I’m not.”
“Well who the hell gave you a vote?”
Jem snorts softly. He�
��s not ready to smile, but he’s more willing to listen. He folds his arms over the one I have wrapped around his waist. “Can we just…?”
“Mmh?”
“Can we just cuddle for awhile? No more…stuff.” He turns to look at me over his shoulder and I kiss his cheek.
“Okay.”
He comes back to bed, but I can see that he’s miles away. Jem lies on his back and holds me close against his shoulder with our legs overlapping. He stares at the ceiling.
“What are you thinking about?”
“How much longer.” He sounds like he’s regretting his self-imposed rule to wait already. That’s the problem with abstinence: it has the lifespan of a housefly.
I move my hand up from his waist to touch his cheek, but he catches me halfway and puts my hand back where it was. I made the same mistake I did that time on Frank’s porch—I brushed my hand along his chest instead of lifting my arm up. My hand was too close to his central line for comfort.
I take Jem’s hand and lay it on top of mine.
“Give me a tour.”
“What?”
I move us so our hands are hovering just over his chest. “Show me where it is. Show me how not to hurt you.”
Jem moves our hands away. “It’ll be gone soon.”
“How soon?” We don’t talk about his treatment or prognosis. I don’t know if he’s close to completing treatment, or if he will ever be without need of it. He seems to be optimistic, but he could just be saying that as a way to forestall teaching me about his body. Or maybe it’s denial.
Jem tips his chin to whisper in my ear. “Please,” he says earnestly. “Just be patient with me.” His hand fists the front of my shirt. I hate it when he begs. It’s so hard not to give in.
I have to sit up on my elbow to reach his ear and whisper back. “Please trust me to love you enough.”
Jem buries his face in my neck. We don’t say anything, but I can feel the tension in his shoulders and in the hand that grips my side. I try to be soothing, rubbing his back and humming to ease the silence. By the time we say goodbye for the evening he seems much more at peace, but I know it’s only a temporary truce.
Elise won’t let me leave without a hug and promise to visit again soon. Jem follows me out onto the porch to say goodbye in privacy, without his sister bouncing in the background.
“Soon,” he promises.
“Sure.” I give him a kiss and turn to go, but he grabs me back.
“It’s not trust,” he says in my ear. “I trust you…” He kisses my temple. “Do you love me enough to wait?” If I thought he needed it I’d give him forever. But I don’t think anything of the sort.
“Give me an inch.”
“Don’t take ten.”
“I thought you trusted me?”
Jem folds me into a hug. “I do.” He doesn’t bother to hide it when he smells my hair and sighs on the scent. “I love you.”
I like it that there’s nothing left to say. No plans to make, no assurances required by jealousy, no soppy goodbye. Just a kiss and a ‘sleep well,’ and I’m off into the night.
Jem texts me tonight’s playlist: “Awake My Soul,” Mumford & Sons.
Wednesday
Hollywood is full of it. In movies, things are magically supposed to change after people say ‘I love you,’ but in reality nothing really does. Thank God, because I’m not sure I’m qualified to deal with happiness. Jem doesn’t seem to feel weird about it, either. There’s no need to say it at every opportunity or write each other mushy love notes. We’re just coasting.
I’m fairly certain that I like it.
The girls are discussing summer fashions over lunch. Apparently pastel blue is popular at the moment. I can’t believe anybody actually cares about this crap.
“So what’s with the gloves, anyway?”
I look up from my lunch to find Diane giving me a probing look across the table. She glances from my sea foam green gloves to my face and back again.
“I like them.”
“No, really. Your wardrobe is so emo. You never wear any color.”
Today’s outfit is pretty standard: gunmetal grey tee, black jeans, and a black hoodie. Everything I own is black and grey, except for my gloves and socks.
“You’re supposed to wear black when someone close to you dies.” I get falsely sympathetic eyes from Paige. I’m pretty sure Jem just rolled his.
“Oh, right, your sister was sick,” Diane says. “That’s why you moved to New Brunswick.”
“Newfoundland.”
“Whatever, same difference.”
Jem is shaking his head at Diane like he thinks she’s an idiot. She is, but it’s rude to say so. I nudge his foot under the table.
“So what happened to her?”
“She died, obviously.”
“What did she have?”
“Cancer.”
Diane wrinkles her nose in an affected wince of sadness. “That’s what happens to smokers.”
“Want to know what happens to people who don’t know when to shut up?”
The feet of Jem’s chair scrape against the floor as he leans away from the table, holding his stomach. He makes a sound of discomfort and everyone looks at him like he’s a bomb without a timer. Christ, what now?
Jem claims to be feeling unwell. “Walk with me to the nurse?”
I take what’s left of my lunch out of the cafeteria and dutifully walk with him. It means I’ll have to put off teaching Diane a lesson in manners, but she’ll be rude again in the future. I can be patient.
As soon as we’re beyond the cafeteria doors, Jem straightens up and walks like everything is just fine.
“You shouldn’t have to listen to that shit,” he says. “Who cares what Diane thinks of anything?” He faked a stomachache to give me an excuse to leave.
“Were you trying to protect me there?” That is both bizarre and completely unnecessary.
Jem smirks and takes my carton of milk out of my hand. “You looked like you were about to punch Diane in the face.” He’s not far off the mark; I was considering stabbing her hand with my fork.
“You don’t need to do that.”
Jem shrugs. “I’d do it again. Your mourning is none of her business.”
I take my milk back. The bastard drank the last of it. “Dude.”
“Want to go throw rocks at seagulls?”
Jem: June 1 to 4
Thursday
Willa and I play checkers in the clinic. She’s really horrible at games of strategy, but I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve seen her fail hard at tic-tac-toe.
“Will you stop being so damn smug?” she snaps when she’s down to three pieces.
“This is smug?”
Willa gives me the finger and makes her move. Now she’s down to two pieces.
“You ass.”
I could be nice to her, but… “We should talk about plans for Sunday.”
Willa narrows her eyes at me. She knows I’m trying to annoy her. “What about it?” she says through her teeth.
“We’re doing lunch at The Circle?”
Willa stares at me like she can’t wait to get to the point. “Anything else, Captain of the Bloody Obvious?” I don’t think it fazes Willa that the only thing separating us from the other people in the Dialysis Clinic is a thin curtain. They can totally hear her filthy mouth.
“What would you like to do after? We could see a movie.”
“I want to hike the creek again,” she says. I wasn’t expecting that. She’s fought the whole notion of arbitrary anniversaries until this point; I didn’t expect her to suggest plans.
“The same one as last time?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“It’s our place.” I can sort of see her perspective, wanting to return to the place where we first shared our secrets…where I said horrible things about her and she slapped me. Or maybe not.
“Are you sure?”
“We’ll bring enough water this
time,” she promises.
“Alright.” I reach for her hand. “Thank you. It’s a date.”
“One other thing.”
“What?”
“My brother wants you to come over for dinner tomorrow night.”
“Are you serious?”
“I promise he won’t do any permanent damage. He might harass you a little, but he respects people who hold their ground.”
“Gee, thanks for that pearl of wisdom.”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“I know you are but what am I?”
Willa huffs and rolls her eyes. “I’m dating a third grader.”
I love pissing her off.
Friday
My day has not officially begun until I get a hug from Willa. I find her in the parking lot—not so difficult, since I’m pretty sure her rattling muffler can be heard in Winnipeg—and get my morning hug. Willa has been surprisingly amenable to affection since we started dating, holding my hand and reciprocating hugs and kisses, but sometimes I wonder if she really wants to or if she does it to appease me. She doesn’t seem any happier or angrier than normal, just more demonstrative.
I mention that she’s been more open and affectionate lately as I kiss her good morning—a knot of freshman are openly staring. To hell with them. Willa shrugs and pinches my earlobe.
“You’re not something I need to hide from anymore.” The way her tone pitches up at the end makes it almost a question. I grin from ear to ear. She considers my arms a safe place. No more hiding her true self, no more defensive anger over shit that doesn’t matter. We’re finally on the same team. I have her trust and honesty, and those are a rare gift from Willa.
“Don’t let it go to your head.” She pokes the corner of my grinning mouth.
“Too late.”
I know there is plenty that she still hides from, but I still feel good about this small change in her. She hasn’t been open with anyone else since Thomasina. It’s progress.
*
Wake Page 60
