Creeping Beautiful

by JA Huss

  I think… I might even have fallen a little in love with him.

  Because that was a new side to Adam that I had not seen before. I had never once imagined Adam as a boy growing up here at Old Home the way I did. I had no idea he was a swamp kid, like me.

  But how could he not be?

  He has no brothers and sisters. There was probably no one here but him when he was small. No mother. None of us had mothers. And the more I thought about it, the more I could picture Adam being Nate when he was small. Just a boy, all alone in the woods next to the duck lake and the river. Fishing from a little boat. Making fires on the beach and catching fireflies in jars to light up forts in the night.

  I started wondering if he had a girl like me when he was young.

  I even asked him once, late that summer when McKay was gone and we were taking advantage of the pavilion without him. Adam was watching college football on the TV over the fireplace and I was lazing around on my bed swing. And I said, “Did you have a best friend when you were a kid, Adam?”

  He didn’t look at me right away, just kept watching the football game. We had barbecued that afternoon. Hot dogs. I was still full from eating three.

  But eventually his eyes found mine. “What do you mean? Like… McKay?”

  “No. Did you have a girl like me when you were growing up here at Old Home? Or were you all alone?”

  It came out sadder than I meant it to. Because I didn’t want to imagine Adam all alone. It made my heart hurt.

  “I didn’t have a girl like you. Not until you came along. You’re one of a kind, Indie.”

  I chuckled. Because I knew he was saying it to make me chuckle. But there was a stab of pain in my chest when he said that.

  “I’m sorry, you know. For hitting you that day. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

  His eyes went sad then. And I wanted to take it back. But I didn’t take it back. I couldn’t take it back. I had been wanting to tell him that since he woke up on Nate’s living room floor covered in blood.

  Finally, he sighed. “It’s just who you are, Indie.”

  His reply hurt me more than it soothed me. Because… was that girl who hit him in the head with a candlestick who I was?

  I gave him a brain injury. He almost died. And sure, by this time I had killed my share of people on different jobs. I had hurt more than that too. But I never wanted to hurt Adam. If McKay had not insisted on taking him to the emergency room, he would’ve died, or at the very least gone unconscious and never woken up again. His brain was swelling up and cutting off his oxygen flow. And even though he recovered, and by this time he was mostly back to normal physically, he had to have therapy for months afterward. And learn to say a few words all over again because his mouth didn’t quite work right.

  I did that to him. And I was very, very sorry.

  But the truth was… I didn’t actually remember doing it. I didn’t know how that candlestick got in my hand. I didn’t know how it struck Adam on the side of the head. I didn’t remember any of it. And that scared me. Really bad. And I wanted to tell this to Adam but I didn’t want him to worry about me or think I was losing it. Because I had heard Donovan talking to McKay and Adam over the years. He was always worried that one day I would ‘lose it’ and that’s why he’d been coming to talk to me since I was a little girl. So I didn’t lose it. So I could hold everything together in a tight, tight ball and never go insane.

  But I didn’t know how to say that. I should’ve started with this train of thought instead of ‘I’m sorry’. Because now it felt like the conversation was over.

  So I got up from my swing, walked over to Adam, and sat in his lap. And I hugged him. And then I was just… more sad than afraid. Because I had hugged McKay millions of times by this point in my life. And Donovan, a couple dozen, at least.

  But I had never, ever, not once, hugged Adam. Or thanked him for saving me from that snake. Or giving me this home. Or making sure I was taken care of by McKay. For saving my life in the early days of those jobs. Or anything else that he’d done for me since I first became his more than seven years ago.

  It took him almost a full minute to relax and put his arms around me, and hug me back. But when he did, something changed between us.

  We both felt it.

  And then his head turned and he kissed me on the cheek and pulled my face into his neck and whispered so softly, I could barely hear his words, “I love you, Indie. No matter what you do, I’m on your side, kid. Always and forever.”

  I stayed in his lap. Enjoying this new closeness between us. But then he slapped my leg and said, “Get up. I gotta go inside. Got some work to do before I go to sleep.”

  And I got up, and sat back down on my swing, and watched him walk away.

  But that’s how I came to be the one to plant an entire circle of daphne shrubs around the central garden that had the biggest fountain in the middle.

  It’s one of my fondest memories growing up.

  Nate spoiled it a little the next day when he was over and we were walking through the garden. He was scowling at them as I pointed them out and told him how much I had enjoyed working with Adam in the gardens that summer. And this made me mad because I loved those shrubs. Everything about them reminded me of Adam.

  They didn’t have berries this year because we planted them when they were dormant. So I had to tell Nate about the berries and how this time next year they would be beautiful shrubs. But Nate told me they were poisonous and even though some birds, like thrushes, could eat them, nothing else would. Because they would die. And he said I should rip them all up and plant something else.

  Of course, I was not going to rip up these shrubs. These shrubs belonged to Adam and me. They brought us closer together and I liked Adam when he was working in the garden.

  I liked him a lot.

  Everything between us had changed that summer after I turned seventeen. I finally felt like all four of us—me, McKay, Donovan, and Adam—we were all really together for the first time since I came to live with them.

  And some of what Nate said came off as jealousy because Adam and I spent every day planting things, and watering things, and pruning and picking things. We talked about birds, and life in the swampy forest, and how different our garden would look in just a year or two.

  We spent a lot of time together while McKay was off running jobs and Donovan was learning plastic surgery.

  And if I was with Adam, I could not be with Nate.

  Those two were never going to see eye to eye.

  Two days after Nate told me to rip up that garden Adam told me he was sending me to another boarding school. I would start the fall semester at an elite school three hours away by plane and I was leaving the next morning.

  This was the third time I was being sent to interfere with some important person’s daughter.

  At least… that was what I thought at the time.

  Later I would learn the real reason.

  I left my bedroom in the middle of the night by way of the window, and the roof, and the tree, and walked down the path Nate and I had created between our two houses six years ago. Lots of things had grown back by this time, and the boughs of the trees that lined the path made a canopy of leaves in the summer. So it was almost like a tunnel.

  Nate was outside waiting for me. I had not been to his house for over a year now. I had played by the rules and kept my word. But when I called Nate and told him that I was leaving the next day and I would be gone all semester, he begged me to come over.

  He was very sad that night. His grandfather had been bedridden for years by this time. And no one had expected him to even live this long. But now he was truly not doing well and we all knew that death was knocking on his door with intent. It’s a sad thing to wait for someone to die. And Nate was the kind of boy who felt things deeply.

  So I decided to disobey and sneak out.

  We walked out into the woods to that old treehouse where he first kissed me when I was fourteen. Three yea
rs we’d been dating. Three whole years and we’d not done anything other than kiss and that one time he tried to feel me up.

  But that night before I left for school, Nate had the treehouse all rigged up like that night he first kissed me. With fresh mosquito netting and jars filled with fireflies.

  I knew what he wanted. And I wanted it too. I was ready. Seventeen and ready. Nate was going to turn eighteen in just a couple months and while on the one hand I felt like our childhood was slipping away from us, I just couldn’t wait to see what the rest of my life had in store for me.

  Because I pictured myself with Nathan St. James forever. I could not imagine a time when he was not there for me. I wanted him to be my first. He was my first. In almost every way.

  He held my hand as we walked through the woods towards our treehouse. And we kept trading shy looks at each other. I was smiling wide and feeling jittery in my stomach. He didn’t say much and neither did I.

  But by this time in our friendship, we didn’t need words.

  I climbed up the ladder to the treehouse this night the same way I did that other night. With him right behind me. I wasn’t wearing a dress. I had grown out of those a while back. So I couldn’t feel his chest bumping up the back of my bare knees like the time when he first kissed me. But I could feel his heat. And our shared desire too.

  I crawled across the platform and turned over to watch him do the same. And he crawled right up my body with no hesitation at all, his hands planted on either side of my head as he leaned down and kissed me on the mouth.

  I was hungry for him. And when he pressed his hard, muscled body down on top of mine, I could feel his hunger for me against my stomach.

  I reached for him. Unsure, really, what to do next. Of course, I knew how to do it theoretically. But not precisely. So I was out of my element and for the first time in many years I needed his guidance.

  He went slow. First, he lifted my t-shirt up and cupped my breast with the palm of his hand, kissing me the whole time so I didn’t feel obligated to say anything. Then he took my hand and placed it over the hard bump in his pants. My fingertips squeezed a little and the length of it made me think of the snakes of long ago. Both the one that wanted to eat me that night and the ones I made that deal with in the swamp when I came live here.

  It took a while to get all our clothes off, but there was no real hurry. We had all night in the woods to figure it out. But soon enough we were both naked. He had brought up a comforter from his bedroom and that was what we were lying on. It was soft and old and smelled like Nathan.

  Then he turned me over and straddled me, his cock sliding between my legs like a tease. He kissed the back of my neck and nipped my earlobe, and then, without saying another word, he reached down, took a hold of his cock, and pressed it between my legs until it bumped up against that tender spot that my fingers had been drawn to in the middle of the night for several years now.

  I gasped when he penetrated me. I hadn’t imagined sex happening like this, with me on my stomach and him on top of my back, but that made everything better, I thought. I couldn’t see him. But I knew it was him.

  He started whispering things to me that made me breathe heavy and fast. Things I’d never been told before. Things like, “I want to be inside you, Indie,” and, “I want to fuck you hard.”

  I don’t know where he found these words, but they were doing strange things to my body. I wanted him inside me. I wanted him to fuck me, hard or otherwise.

  It was painful. I’m not gonna lie. But it felt good too. All of it felt good. The weight of his body on top of me. The way he sat up once he was in, and lifted my hips up and grabbed them. Hard. Gripped them tight as he thrust into me.

  And then he grabbed my arms and lifted me up so we were both on our knees and he was fucking me from behind.

  It wasn’t what I thought it would be.

  It was better. So much better.

  And then he pushed me down onto the blanket and pulled out. A few seconds later something hot streamed across my back. And he asked me, “Did you get off, Indie?”

  I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I had an idea. I said, “I don’t know.”

  And he laughed. “You’d know, if you did. Turn over. I’ll show you.”

  So I turned over and he lifted my legs up and put his mouth on that sweet spot and licked me until I knew for sure.

  We stayed up in the treehouse until dawn. Then we put our clothes back on and he walked me back to the edge of the gardens and kissed me goodbye.

  “I’ll see you at winter break,” I told him.

  And he said, “I’ll be here.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - DONOVAN

  SESSION #WHO-GIVES-A-FUCK-I-LOST-COUNT-A-LONG-TIME-AGO

  INDIE: I am not having this conversation with you!

  DONOVAN: Sit your fucking ass down and shut your mouth.

  Fine. I’ll shut my mouth. That’s exactly what I want to do.

  What the hell was that all about?

  Ask Adam. He’s the one who just freaked out and almost killed Nate! Again! He’s lucky I didn’t—

  You didn’t what?

  I didn’t mean it like that.

  Then what did you mean?

  I’m just saying! Adam can’t just fly off the handle every time Nate pisses him off! He’s my boyfriend, Donovan! And you guys don’t get any say in that!

  OK. Let’s take a breath and start over. You came home from break and then what happened?

  You know—

  I just walked in the fucking door, Indie. It was a long flight, OK? Help me out here. I have no fucking clue what’s happening.

  OK. Fine. There was no job.

  What do you mean?

  The school? It wasn’t a job, Donovan. He actually sent me away to fucking school!

  OK.

  You knew, didn’t you?

  I didn’t. I swear. I thought it was a job.

  So did I. But he never sent me details. Just told me to lie low, pay attention in class, and join at least two clubs.

  Hmm. Did you join clubs?

  What does that have to do with anything?

  I’m just curious. Which clubs did you join?

  Fuckin’… debate and the school newspaper.

  Good choices.

  That’s not why we’re here. Who cares about the stupid clubs?

  I’m just catching up, OK. So how was school?

  How was school? How the fuck do you think school was?

  Did you like it?

  I was pretending to be someone I wasn’t. So no. I didn’t like it. And now I learn that it was all fake. Adam sent me to boarding school to keep me away from Nathan.

  Did you ask him why he did that?

  I don’t care why! It’s not his decision to make!

  Well, it kinda is. He’s your—

  He’s my… what? He’s nothing. He’s not even my legal guardian!

  Jesus, Indie. You are fuckin’ moody today. Do you want to go to your room and think about things and I’ll come back later?

  Ha! Oh, that’s almost funny. Newsflash, Donovan. The days of sending me to my room are over. I’m seventeen—

  Exactly. You’re seventeen.

  —and I’m not a kid anymore. You guys aren’t in charge of me! I’m in charge of me. And I don’t want to go to school!

  You do realize that sounds pretty childish, right? I mean, every kid goes through a phase where they don’t want to go to school.

  I’m going to choke you if you keep patronizing me like that.

  Good word, by the way. I like that one. Patronize. I’ve never heard you say that one before. Is it new?

  Fuck you.

  Look—

  No. You look! It’s not funny. Stop laughing at me.

  I’m not. I’m just kinda enjoying this a little.

  Asshole.

  I mean… I’ve missed you, Indie. I’ve missed this. Adam called me last summer and he was talking about you.

  What about me?
/>   Just… you know. How you were growing up and what comes next.

  It’s not his decision. It’s my decision.

  I know. He knows. But he wanted to talk about it with me so we could be ready. You know? For that day when you walked out and never came back.

  What? Wait… What? I’m not walking out. And even if I did leave, I would come back, Donovan. I’m not walking out. I just want a boyfriend.

  And that boyfriend has to be Nate?

  Who else would it be?

  Well, that’s kind of my point. You don’t know anyone else your own age except Nate. And now, those girls you just spent a semester with. Did you like any of them?

  I guess. They were OK. But I wasn’t Indie with them. I was this girl named Jane. I mean… Jane? Come on. I’m not a Jane! I’m an Indie!

  Did you lose your accent?

  What accent?

  Your Louisiana accent.

  I never had an accent.

  You so did.

  Did not.

  OK. But… do you think you’re talking differently?

  Can we get back to the point?

  Yes. Good idea. OK. So what are your plans?

  For what?

  The future, Indie. Do you see yourself going to college?