I'll Be Here Read online

Tonight, I still blush remembering the look on Alex’s face. I wonder if he can tell in the muted light thrown by the downturned flashlight. There’s silence and the shuffle of our feet scraping the hardened earth. “It looks like more people have been here,” he says pointing the beam of the flashlight at a small collection of candy wrappers.

  “Yeah, last winter I showed it to some seventh graders that live at the end of Canary Landing.”

  I almost fall over a raised rock and I have to catch myself against the wall. Dirt falls through the spaces between my fingers. Here the walls narrow. I don’t like this part but I remind myself that I’m almost to the open air of the beach. “It was probably a mistake but I was feeling generous that day.”

  Alex glances back over his shoulder as we emerge on the other side. The stars shift and then come into focus. “Seventh graders, huh? So you ruined a perfectly good hiding space. I’m sure that Dustin loved that.”

  I speak before I can think too hard. “I told you that I haven’t been here. I never brought him here.”

  Alex turns and looks at me.

  I shiver.

  The wind blows in over the sea grapes and the maze of snarled branches and ruffles my hair in my face. I taste the salt on my tongue. The sound of the waves beyond the rocks is a whisper.

  We are quiet for two beats. Two minutes. Two hours. Two years.

  “Did you want to make him jealous tonight? Is that why you asked me to go to that party with you?” His jaw is clenched tight like he’s waiting for me to say something that he doesn’t want to hear.

  I nod. I don’t want to admit it out loud.

  Alex looks up at the sky and the crowded stars. I try to think about how this would go if I were better at this sort of thing. I try to think of the perfect line that a cool and clever girl would think of, but if that girl exists she is not me.

  As usual Alex surprises me. The words that come out of his mouth aren’t the ones that I am expecting. “Do you love him?”

  I look up and straight into his blue ocean eyes. They are alive with the nighttime lights, almost glowing with their own bright intensity. I don’t think that eyes like those should even exist in the real world.

  Do I love Dustin?

  That’s a very good question. I’d told my mom that I did. I’d been sure of it myself. But, now when the words should come smoothly, I can’t find them.

  “I don’t know,” I croak. I clear my throat and cough. “Maybe I loved him once and maybe I still do. I don’t know anymore.”

  Alex takes a step closer and the breeze doesn’t cut against me so hard. “But you want him back?”

  “I’m not sure,” I say quietly pushing loose strands of hair away from my face.

  I know once I’ve said the words that it is the truth. Maybe yesterday I thought I wanted Dustin back but suddenly I’m not so sure what I want. Everything is swirling and I feel like I’m a kite being held by a taut string and at any moment a large gust of wind could come along and snap it.

  My heart is beating furiously. Love, college, family, art... the future. These things dance along with my pulse and threaten to spill from my eyes.

  Alex steps in front of me, his wide shoulders angled against the wind and his long-fingered hands braced in his pockets. He’s a good five inches taller than me and I have to look up at him. He’s shaved and I want to touch the smooth skin around his mouth. I take a deep breath. “I’m not sure what the right answer is.”

  “The right answer,” he says considering me with lidded eyes, “is no. But I am decidedly biased so you probably shouldn’t trust me.”

  In response I smile and give into temptation. My hand comes up and I run my fingers along the side of Alex’s face. His eyes close and his mouth parts on a sigh. When he tilts his head into my cupped hand I stand up on my tiptoes and place a feather light kiss on his warm lips. At the feel of my mouth his blue eyes flare open and I can see the desire there. And I know that is exactly what he must see reflected in my own gaze.

  Strong hands find my waist and pull me in. No longer hesitating, his mouth crashes into mine and the sensation of our lips moving together is so overwhelming that I release a moan into his mouth.

  I wind my arms up around his neck and press my body against the length of his. I can feel that he wants me as much as I want him, and all I want is him. His tongue slides along the inside of my upper lip and I open my mouth further to take him in fully. Alex draws his hands across the curved lines of my body stopping when he reaches my face. His palms are flat against my cheeks so that the tips of his fingers rest behind my ears where they graze the soft hairs at the base of my neck. When he pulls back and looks at me, his bright eyes are smoldering.

  “Actually,” he whispers, his mouth snaking forward to sweep his hot tongue in a trail from my neck to my collarbone. “That answer was even better.”

  ***

  “Oh my God!” She squeals into the phone. I actually have to pull it away from my ear.

  “Seriously Laney, will you chill?” I’m laughing.

  “Give me every detail,” she insists.

  I start to talk but there’s a muffled noise and Laney cuts me off.

  “Wait,” she commands. “Colleen wants to hear the story too so come down to the record store and tell us everything.”

  Why not? It’s Sunday and Mom, Jake and Aaron are out. I don’t have any homework except for a couple chapters of reading and I can do that later. Plus, there’s no chance of seeing Alex. When he dropped me off last night, he told me that “unfortunately” he had to head back to school early and wouldn’t be able to see me today. I liked that he thought that not seeing me was unfortunate.

  As I fell asleep last night with Ferdinand tucked into my side and the grey-blue starlight pressing against my windows, I let myself think about that night two years ago when things went so topsy-turvy. For the last two years I’d been telling myself—no, making myself believe that all those feelings I’d had for Alex weren’t real—that it was just a magnified crush and I’d only imagined that it could ever be anything more.

  But after our incredible kissing session, my mind began to catalog all of the things that had drawn me to Alex in the first place. And I can’t say that the memory of all the places that his hands had been and what they had made me feel didn’t make me want to scream into my pillow in delight.

  I practically skip out of my room. I decide not to change out of my pajama pants because:

  a) If it weren’t for the small yellow ducks embroidered along the leg cuffs, they could pass for pink workout pants.

  b) I’m too hyped up to bother.

  c) I kind of like the ducks.

  Grabbing my car keys, I just slip on a pair of flip flops near the front door and pull my hair into a loose and messy ponytail.

  The record store is just around the corner from my favorite coffee shop. I park my Honda in an angled spot and pick up a mocha cappuccino before heading to the record store. I step off the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a grumpy looking elderly man in a ratty jacket and I think that I hear my name being called.

  “Willow!” Louder this time and in a recognizable voice. My heart squeezes.

  I look down, second-guessing the decision to keep these pants on. Yellow ducks glare back at me. I run my hands back over my hair but decide that it’s a lost cause.

  Dustin’s smiling as he jogs to catch up in a pair of loose-fitting gym shorts. He’s not wearing a shirt.

  “Nice ducks.” Dustin pants as he leans forward with his hands braced on his knees. I forgot that he runs this route sometimes. A single dark blonde curl falls forward on his forehead.

  I pull myself straight and try not to stare at the small bead of sweat that’s making its way down his neck to a secret place beneath his collarbone. “Thanks.”

  Two girls, who look to be in middle school, pass by us brazenly staring at Dustin in all his shirtless and sweaty glory. They giggle.

  Dustin and I stare at each other with our mouths held in
tight lines to suppress our smiles.

  When the girls are out of hearing distance I let go of the chuckle I’ve been holding in. “It seems you have some new admirers.”

  Dustin cocks his head and grins mischievously. “Hmmm.”

  His response is a challenge I can’t pass up. “What?”

  Dustin’s dimple is showing itself. “I’d prefer to know if you’re still one of my admirers.”

  I don’t want to admit this but I stagger a little. Is Dustin Rant flirting with me?

  I swallow in an attempt to normalize my voice. “Well, I guess that’s up for debate.”

  He turns on his mega-watt smile. “Fair enough,” he says. “So Willow Josephina, what are you and your ducks doing downtown? Getting coffee?” He nods to the shop window just beyond my shoulder.

  “Yeah, and actually I’m going to see… uh—” At the last moment I remember Dustin’s face last night when he saw me with Alex and decide that a little jealousy never hurt anyone. “I’m meeting up with a friend.”

  A friend. I’ll let him think what he wants to think about that. Hopefully it will fester beneath his skin. That’s what I wanted, right?

  Dustin’s forehead creases. He links his thumbs together and glances down the road still puzzling through what I’d said. “I better keep going before my heart rate gets too low.”

  “Sure,” I say taking a step to the side.

  As Dustin passes me he spins and jogs backward for a few feet. “Willow?”

  “Yah?”

  “I’ll see you at school, okay?”

  I smile. “Of course you will.”

  Dustin tips his chin in a confirmation. As I walk down the block to the record store I wonder if Dustin is watching. I imagine that I can feel his eyes on me but I don’t look to make sure.

  ***

  Taylor stops texting and looks up. She’s waiting in front of my locker. The first bell just sounded so that means we have five minutes before we have to be in class. It’s Monday morning.

  Hi,” she says slipping her cell phone into the front pocket of her green leather bag.

  I nod because I feel uncomfortable and I don’t know how to talk to her now that we’re not friends. Not anymore. Maybe we never were.

  “I saw you at the Hooch Saturday,” she starts out casually like it’s up for debate whether we saw each other or not.

  She’s leaning into the locker, her thin shoulders popped forward and her honey-colored head cocked to the side as she looks at me. “You’re boyfriend is cute.”

  I know that she’s digging. I can tell that she’s dying to know the who, what, where, and why of Alex and me. There’s no way I’m going to grant her the satisfaction so I simply nod again because it’s the simplest thing to do. Under the best circumstances I’m not a great liar and these are not the best circumstances.

  Taylor’s body weight shifts to her other foot. Strangely enough she seems almost as uncomfortable as me. “I want to apologize about the way I was to you after the…” She takes a visible breath. “You know.”

  Well, that’s one way to phrase it.

  “Okay,” I mutter, continuing to shuffle my things around my locker. “Apology accepted.”

  She twists a strand of long hair around her index finger. “So, was that guy someone you’re seeing?”

  I pause and give her a look that I hope chills her. “That’s really none of your business Taylor.”

  Taylor half-smiles—impish and girly. I’m not sure what she means by it but somehow that is the end of our conversation. She moves towards her first class, her blonde hair waltzing around her shoulders as she walks away.

  I chide myself because I didn’t have the guts to ask her the right questions in the beginning and I don’t have the guts now. There are still things I want to know—to work out.

  Momentous things.

  My eyes swing down the hall to Taylor’s disappearing back. Our classes are in the same direction. I have to go that way anyway…

  And just like that I am running to catch up to her.

  “How long?” My voice is high and breaks her stride. She turns to me.

  There is silence even though the hallway is clogged with students chatting, humming, stomping. The silence exists in the four feet between Taylor and me.

  Taylor cringes as if this scene is actually bothering her.

  “Since that party at Finn Perry’s house. I think that you were with your dad,” she says finally.

  “Huh.” I do some quick calculations. That party was just before Valentine’s Day so that means that Dustin and Taylor were going behind my back for over two months. And Dustin got me flowers on Valentine’s Day. Red roses. A whole dozen in a crystal vase spliced with Baby’s Breath and green ferns.

  “What can I say Willow? I’m sorry.” Taylor is looking at me closely. Probably she’s working out if I’m going to freak out or cry or something.

  “Whatever” I mumble.

  And as I walk to my first period class hoping that I make it through the door before the bell rings, I realize that all the feeling that I can muster up really does amount to that one word. Whatever.

  Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.

  ~Jerry Spinelli

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The sex question comes up a lot lately.

  Laney asks. Nate asks. Colleen asks.

  Like all of a sudden it matters.

  Had we done it?

  Well, yeah.

  We had.

  Dustin and I dated for almost two years.

  We were prone to teenage hormones.

  Neither of us was from an uber-religious family.

  Yes, we’d done it.

  It happened last summer in the spare bedroom at Adam’s house while a party raged outside the locked door. I know that’s cliché and I wish the story was better—more romantic—but in light of current events maybe it’s fitting.

  We’d talked about it before—for months actually. Dustin was ready, eager. Maybe even a little desperate. I was a virgin. He was not. He’d lost his virginity at the beginning of sophomore year when he was fifteen to Melanie Kwarcinski who was a senior at the time. To say this intimidated me would be a gross understatement.

  Melanie Kwarcinski had been Homecoming Queen and captain of the pep squad and was considered by nearly everyone to be the most popular girl at Northridge. Melanie was Taylor before Taylor was Taylor if that makes any sense.

  I assumed that she was also experienced sexually and considering the fact that I had seen her body flex and flip in a tight top and short skirt at many sporting events, I think that my nervousness was warranted.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to have sex with Dustin. I did. It had almost happened over Christmas break. And then again that June when my mom and Jake had taken Aaron on a weekend trip to visit Jake’s parents in Miami.

  I always stopped it. Dustin would tell me that it was okay, but I kind of felt like it wasn’t. He’d lean back and sigh through his nose and we wouldn’t touch again after that. At all.

  I hated that I was making such a big deal out of the whole thing. Sex was just sex. Everyone did it. Every living being on the planet. I understood the basic mechanics. How hard could it be?

  Mom had always made a point that she was liberal on the matter. She’d been talking to me about sex since before I’d had my first kiss, and her openness embarrassed me. I didn’t want to “communicate” my feelings with her. I didn’t want to ask questions and I especially didn’t want to hear her answers. It mortified me that my mother could use words like “condom” and “oral sex” in my presence without her skin blistering with red splotches.

  When mom got diagnosed with cancer and her hair fell out and she started to worry about dying, she pushed me even more. It was like she was afraid that we were running out of time for all the hard stuff.

  “Tell me about it,” she’d say when I came home from a date with Dustin.

  Are you being careful?

  You
know that you can come to me.

  I won’t judge.

  But by that point in her treatment I’d stopped talking to her about my life or boys or about anything that mattered. I knew that she felt it—the distance that lay there like a wet towel on the floor between us.

  She would come into my room at night and perch at the end of my bed and watch me read and I would play a game in my head to see how long she could wait for me to break the silence. I’d continue to read and she’d watch me and sometimes she’d say something mundane just so that she could hear words fill the thinness of the air. Sometimes she would walk out of my room without saying a thing and I would hear her gasp in the hallway outside of my room. And I would want to go to her, but I never did.

  Then her cancer was cured and life moved forward and nothing was the same but we were both too busy to dwell. Or maybe I’d made things too difficult and my mom had given up on me. Whatever the reasons, by the time Adam’s party came along, she’d quit asking me so many questions.

  I hadn’t planned on that being the big night but then Melanie Kwarcinski had shown up to the party. She was home for break and she was still the same as she’d been in high school only better. Melanie was social chairman of her sorority. She was majoring in Biomedical Engineering. She’d spent a semester abroad in Paris and a few weeks in Madrid. She wore an expensive scarf loosely tied around her neck.

  Dustin hadn’t done anything wrong. Not exactly.

  He had talked to her. He listened to her story about going to the Eifel Tower when the elevators were down and hiking all the way to the top. He offered to fill up her beer when he went to get more for himself.

  And when I saw Melanie smile her perfect smile all I could think about was that this girl had gone out with my boyfriend for about five minutes but she’d been the one to have sex with him. She could say things like: “Oh, do you see that guy over there? Yeah, Dustin. We had sex.”

  And I couldn’t.

  It killed me.

  After a few cups full of liquid courage I’d asked Taylor of all people for a condom because I knew that she carried them in her purse “just in case.”