Swear on This Life

by Renee Carlino

  “I know, but I like it and it suits him.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, it does. Come on, let’s get some books.”

  WHEN I REALIZED that no one had noticed I was missing from sixth period, I was relieved but I knew I couldn’t let it become a habit. Later in the week, at the breakfast table, I mentioned to Mrs. Keller that the library was open until five thirty on Mondays.

  She didn’t hesitate. “That’s fine. You girls can stay there until closing time.”

  Sophia looked up from her oatmeal and smiled. I looked away. Before we left for school, Sophia went up to Mrs. Keller as she was doing the dishes. She hugged her from behind like she was thanking her for me, but Mrs. Keller remained rigid and didn’t return the gesture; she simply waited for Sophia to let go and then she went back to doing the dishes. When Sophia turned back to face me, she looked as happy as a clam.

  I called Jax that night and confirmed that he would borrow Junior’s truck the following Monday to come and see me.

  I counted down the minutes until then. I couldn’t sleep at night, I couldn’t focus at school, and at church I fell asleep from exhaustion. Mrs. Keller elbowed me. “Emerson, sit up, girl. What is with you?”

  I yawned. “This is boring.”

  “You might want to strengthen your connection to Jesus. You certainly could use a little divine intervention.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  She put her finger to her mouth. “Shhh. I’ll pray for you.”

  I shrugged it off.

  ON MONDAY, JACKSON picked me up after school and we went to the fishing pond. He seemed distant as he drove. When we pulled into the parking lot, he rested his forehead on the steering wheel and took a deep breath. I scooted across the truck bench and put my hand on his thigh.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I let my hand roam up his leg until he jerked his head up. “I don’t want to touch you in here,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “I just don’t. I brought a blanket. We can go sit by the shore.”

  “Are you okay, Jax?”

  “Yeah, I will be.”

  We got out of the truck and walked close to the water’s edge and laid the blanket out. We flopped down and lay on our backs, my head resting on his shoulder. “It’s nice today.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, why do you seem so faraway?”

  “I’m here,” he said.

  I turned and propped my head on my elbow. I used my free hand to caress his face. “In here, you seem distant.”

  He cupped my neck and drew my face toward his until our mouths met. We kissed and kissed. His hands went everywhere. I kept looking up to make sure there was no one around.

  “It’s just us. Let me feel you,” he said.

  Touching me through my clothes, he gripped my bottom and ran his other hand up and down my waist, lifting my shirt in the process. He kissed and sucked at my neck until he was trailing a path down to my chest. He pulled the top of my T-shirt down and kissed the swells of my breasts. I arched my back. “Ah, Jackson, don’t,” I said, but I wanted nothing more than for him to keep going.

  Through my T-shirt, he circled my nipple with his thumb. “Let me kiss you here.” His eyes had that dreamy, lazy look of desire.

  “Okay,” I said breathlessly.

  He undid my bra through my T-shirt and rolled me over onto my back, covering part of my body with his. His hand traveled over my bare skin from the bottom of my shirt, up to my neck, until my breast was in his hand and he was touching me gently. I closed my eyes and whimpered. His hand slipped away, and I sucked in a quick breath when I felt him take my nipple into his mouth. I held his head to my chest as he kissed and sucked and teased me. His hand roamed down the outside of my jeans between my legs. I pulled his head up to kiss my lips again. I could feel him hard on my hip.

  His fingers continued stroking and rubbing until I was writhing under his touch. He moved his hand up to the button of my jeans. “No. I’m on my period.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, his voice strained.

  “I do, Jackson. Stop. Not now, not like this, please.”

  “Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.” He pulled my shirt down but continued kissing me, only his kisses were lighter, just gentle little pecks up my neck.

  I pressed my hand to the outside of his jeans, and his eyes shot open. “Don’t! I’ll either die or totally embarrass myself.”

  We laughed. He lay back on the blanket.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Just let me catch my breath.”

  I snuggled up into his body. The wind picked up, giving us some reprieve from the humidity. With my head resting on his chest, listening to his heartbeats even out, I watched the breeze ripple the water’s surface. Jackson’s breaths lulled me to sleep.

  Around four thirty, I startled awake.

  “Welcome back,” Jax said with a wink.

  “I can’t believe I fell asleep.”

  “I can’t believe what you were saying in your sleep, Em.” His smile was teasing.

  “Oh my god, what did I say?”

  “Just incoherent babbling at first and lots of drooling. Then you went on and on about how much you wanted me.”

  I sat up and socked him in the chest. “Well, that’s no secret, doofus.”

  He grabbed my hand and pulled me back down on top of him. “Soon,” was all he said, and then he kissed me, slowly, sweetly.

  “We better go. I need to make sure I get to the library before Mrs. Keller.”

  We drove toward the library, and even though the day had gone perfectly, I had an unsettled feeling. As we approached the tall brick building, two figures waiting on the steps came into my view. It was Mrs. Keller, standing with her arms crossed over her plump belly, watching us drive past. Our eyes met, and she followed my gaze as we passed, but there was nothing in her expression that I could read. Not anger, not disappointment, and certainly not sadness. And then there was poor, sweet Sophia staring down at her shoes, her shoulders sagging, her body listless.

  “Oh shit,” I said, and then laughed hysterically. “That was Mrs. Keller.”

  As Jax pulled into the parking lot of the library, he kept glancing over at me in disbelief. “What are you laughing about?”

  “Oh, just how fucked up this is going to get.”

  “What will she do?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  He parked the car. We both looked out the back window to where Sophia and a glaring Mrs. Keller stood.

  “Em, if it’s gonna get ugly, just come with me. I’ll take you back to my house.”

  “Leila would never go for it.”

  “You can stay in the fort until we figure things out. Leila is hardly there; it won’t be that bad.”

  Scooting across the truck bench, I took his face in my hands and kissed him. “I have to do this. I can’t run. I need a place to live.”

  “You wouldn’t be running. You’d be with me, and I could stop borrowing this stupid truck.”

  “Oh Jesus, what would I do, Jax? Drop out of school and live in your backyard?”

  He squinted and then dropped his head onto the steering wheel. “Should I at least go meet her? Maybe she’ll like me.”

  “I guess it can’t hurt.” I scanned his attire. He was wearing a blue Radiohead T-shirt, dark jeans, and Vans. His brown eyes were as light as they could be without being green or yellow, making him look like a celestial being in the sunlight. But it was his long hair that worried me. His hair had grown out to his shoulders, but he wore it tucked behind his ears. I stared at him, thinking idly that he would fit in perfectly in California once we got there. But I was also wondering if it was a good idea to introduce him to Mrs. Keller.

  While I was looking at him and wishing we could both disappear, he lifted his head, looked me in the eye, and smiled. Fucking adorable. What woman wouldn’t think so?

  “Whatcha lookin’ at?
”

  “You. Now . . . give her a big smile, just like that. Really lay on the charm, okay? I know you can do it—I’ve seen you in action.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  As we made our way to the library steps, Mrs. Keller grabbed Sophia’s hand and pulled her along. She didn’t stop or make eye contact with me.

  “Come along, Emerson. We have some work to do.”

  “Wait a second. I want you to meet Jackson.”

  She passed us and didn’t look back. “Come along, I said.”

  Sophia glanced back over her shoulder and jerked her head at me, urging me to follow. I leaned up on my toes and gave Jax a peck on the lips. “I’ll call you and let you know what happens.”

  “Okay.” He was staring at Mrs. Keller and Sophia in disbelief. “Are you sure you’re gonna be okay? She seems weirded out.”

  “I think I’ll be fine. I mean, what did I really do wrong?”

  In the van, on the way home, neither Mrs. Keller nor Sophia spoke. Sophia stared out the passenger window while the boys pinched each other in the second row. As for me, I just waited with bated breath for someone to say something.

  It wasn’t until after dinner that Mrs. Keller came up to my room, along with Sophia. I was standing near the dresser brushing out my hair. “You girls will need to pack up tonight. Your social workers will be here in the morning.”

  My stomach dropped. “Wait, what? What are you talking about?”

  Sophia looked up at me with wide eyes. “We broke the rules, Emmy. Remember, zero tolerance?”

  “No, you’re kidding. Wait . . .” Mrs. Keller wouldn’t look at me. She turned on her heel and left the room.

  “What the fuck?” I yelled.

  “Shhh!” Sophia said.

  “Who cares about being quiet if we’re out of here?! This is insane. What the hell did you do to deserve this?”

  “I lied.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Sophia sat on my purple bedspread looking down at her fidgeting hands clasped in her lap. “She asked me where you were, and I said you were studying at school.”

  “What if I was? I’ll tell her Jax gave me a ride so I wouldn’t be late. What the hell? Why are you getting sent away?”

  “That’s the thing. She saw you at the fishing pond, kissing him by his truck.” She looked up finally with tears in her eyes and a sad smile on her lips.

  “Oh my god, Sophia, I’m so sorry.” I started to cry. “But what will they do? Where will you go?”

  “Another foster home, I guess.”

  I sat down and took her in my arms as we both sobbed. “But you’ve been here practically your whole life. This is insane!”

  “It’s okay, Emmy. I’ll be okay.”

  “No, I won’t have it. I’ll do whatever. I’ll say whatever, I don’t care. They’re sending you away for this? I can’t believe it.”

  “You know why, though, right?” She sniffled.

  “Why?”

  “They don’t actually love us. I don’t even think they really like us. Trust me, I didn’t just discover this information today. I’ve had seven years to work all this out in my head.”

  “But you said you wanted to be here!” My mind was racing. Where would I go? Where would Sophia go? Would I ever see Jackson again?

  Sophia pulled out of my embrace and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her flannel pajamas. “I do want to stay here. Status quo and all that, you know?” I nodded. “It’s comfortable for me, but I can be a big girl about it. They would have found a reason to get rid of me eventually.”

  People like Sophia and I had to grow up fast. We knew things about people that most adults hadn’t even figured out. The thing was that I knew Mrs. Keller was closer to Sophia than either one of them realized. I stood from the bed, wiped my eyes, and squared my shoulders. “Stay here, Soph. I’m gonna go downstairs for a bit.”

  I found Mr. Keller sitting on the sofa in the living room, reading a book. “Hello, Mr. Keller.”

  “Hello.” He looked up over his bifocals.

  “I need to use the phone to call my social worker and my family friend Jackson Fisher, who I’ve known my whole life.” My voice was unemotional, pragmatic.

  “Go ahead,” he said, and went right back to reading his book.

  I walked into the kitchen and dialed Paula first. As the phone rang, I watched the boys as they ate pie and shoved each other. Mrs. Keller was nowhere to be seen or heard. I wondered if she was hiding from me and Sophia. The coward.

  “Hello?”

  “Paula, I need to talk to you.”

  “Listen, before you say anything, I actually have some good news. I know things went terribly wrong today, but I have some information that I think will change everything.

  For a minute, I forgot about the awful predicament I was in. “What? Tell me.”

  “Do you know of your aunt Becky?”

  “I don’t have an aunt Becky. I don’t have an aunt anyone.”

  “Actually, you do have an aunt Becky. Everything has been checked out. She’s your father’s half sister, ten years his junior.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” To my knowledge, no one from CPS could find my mother, and I had no other living relatives, as far as I knew.

  “It’s true.”

  “Did my father know about her?”

  “He’s the one who gave us her information. We contacted her in San Francisco, where she lives, and asked her if she would take over guardianship.”

  “What?!” I shouted. The boys went silent, all three of them staring at me as I leaned against the counter. “I’ll have to move to San Francisco?”

  “Yes.”

  “No, I can’t. I can’t leave Jackson. What’s going to happen to Sophia? Why didn’t my father tell me I had an aunt? I don’t even know her. I’ll never fit in there. This is going to ruin my life!”

  “Slow down.”

  I started feeling woozy. Mr. Keller came into the kitchen and braced me by the elbow. I swayed. Quietly, he said, “Come on, sit on the couch.”

  When I sat, he left the room. “They’re kicking me out because I spent a few hours with Jackson?”

  Paula’s voice became low and soothing. “I know you’ve been through a lot. Please hear me out. Sophia is going to a new foster home nearby. It’s a decent place, but they don’t take teenagers, and anyway, believe it or not, your aunt Becky sounds like a very intelligent and warm person. She has no children of her own, and get this . . . She’s a creative writing professor at Berkeley.”

  “None of this information is helping. Why didn’t my father ever tell me about my aunt?”

  “Well, because your aunt is . . . how do I put this? Well, she’s the product of an affair that your grandfather had, and they had to keep it all hush-hush to avoid a scandal. But apparently your father knew about her. I don’t know if they were ever truly in contact, but he wrote to her from prison, and being a very kind and generous person, she’s agreed to let you come and live with her and her partner, Trina.”

  My mouth was open in disbelief. I couldn’t even process what she was telling me. I was going to live with my lesbian aunt in California? No fucking way. I wasn’t going to leave Ohio—I didn’t care if the president himself gave me a room at the White House.

  “How much time do I have to disappear?”

  She chuckled. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling you’ll be very happy in this new arrangement. I’ll be there tomorrow at ten a.m. to pick you up.”

  We said our good-byes, and then I stormed up the stairs to the second floor and barged through the door of Mrs. Keller’s bedroom, where I found her sitting on the edge of the bed, crying.

  “How could you do this? I don’t care anymore about me, but how could you do this to Sophia? She’s been here for seven years. My god, you’re like parents to her. What is wrong with you?” She hung her head silently as I continued. “Listen, please. She did nothing wrong. For all she knew, Ja
x and I were studying. And who cares if she told a little white lie anyway? Please, you’ll fuck up that little girl if you send her away. She’s so good. She’s so innocent.”

  Mrs. Keller looked up, her eyes swollen and bloodshot. “I have to. She has to learn that her behavior has consequences.”

  “But your consequences are too extreme. I know you love her. Please don’t send her away.”

  Mr. Keller walked in behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “Just hear me out. You’re all that little girl has. I just discovered I have an aunt, and I’m almost sixteen. I’ll figure things out. But Sophia is eight and doesn’t have another person in this world she can rely on. She loves you and you love her. You’re good people. You have crazy-ass rules, but you’re good people. Don’t do this to her.” I urged, my eyes pleading.

  Mr. Keller sat next to Mrs. Keller on the bed. “Emerson, you’re excused. Mrs. Keller and I need to discuss some things. Please go up to your room and gather your things. Your social worker will be here in the morning.”

  Before I went to my room, I ran back downstairs, grabbed the phone, and took two stairs at a time until I was in my bedroom. I dialed Jax.

  “Hey.”

  “They’re sending me to San Francisco to live with my aunt.”

  “What? Really?”

  “Yeah, really.”

  “You’re gonna leave?” His voice was empty, shocked. It wasn’t a question. He was trying to process what I had just said.

  “You have to come get me. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Where do the Kellers live?” He sounded preoccupied, like he was trying to figure everything out.

  “Two thirty South Primrose.”

  “I’ll be there, Em, I promise. But it probably won’t be until around one a.m.”

  “I’ll meet you on the road at one.”

  I packed up my clothes, left everything the Kellers had given to me in a neat pile on the bed, and waited. Before lights-out, I walked down to Sophia’s room. She was reading in a wicker chair near the window. I leaned against the doorjamb.

  She looked up and smiled. “Whatever you said worked.”

  I was stunned. “Really?” I walked toward her.

  She stood up and hugged me. “It’s true. They’re letting me stay. They said I would only get this one chance, though.”