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I press my hand to the back of his neck, drawing him down to me again. He settles beside me, and I roll onto my side, hooking my leg over his, letting the sweetness of his kiss slowly build excitement inside me again. His mouth tastes smoky like whiskey, and his body feels strong like protection, like safety and home and a dad who patches knees and a cousin who buries tea sets in the backyard with you. I hold onto him tighter, pulling him closer, shivering with memory and the sound of the rain beating on the roof overhead. His warm, solid body against mine soothes away the shivers, the memories, and pulls them all under, not burying them with dirt that lets them still haunt me when I try to close my eyes, but washing them away in the warm blue-purple tide of the ocean after sunset.
I lose myself in him, kissing him for so long I think I could go on forever and never need anything else except to kiss him. There is nothing else. Everything else melts away like seafoam—Dad and his stupid smiling yearbook photos; Mom and her ridiculous strictness; Meghan and her complete personality change around other people; Lindsey seeming to forget I exist when she’s off with her rich friends; Todd cheating; Chase never breaking up with Lindsey. It’s all gone.
When it threatens to come back, I pull up Oliver’s shirt and run my hand over his summer-hot skin and grip his hipbone, which makes my head spin for reasons beyond my comprehension. He answers by sliding his hand under the back of my shirt in the same place it was on top of my clothes and kissing me dizzy some more. When life threatens to creep in again, I start to undo the button on his jeans.
This time, he pulls my hand away. “Slow, love. There’s no hurry.”
His lips are red and swollen from how long we’ve been kissing. We are definitely not hurrying. But before I can argue, he links his fingers through mine and presses his lips to mine again, deep and slow, a current stealing me away from shore when I tried to escape. We kiss, holding hands, and I forget about wanting more. My body is all warm and sweet and melty like ice cream, and I’ll never get tired of it no matter how long it lasts. We’re not just making out, but lying together, our whole bodies kissing instead of just our mouths.
When my impatience gets the better of me again, I pull my hand from his, running it over his strong arm, his shoulder, down the flat planes of his back. I grip his hip again, pulling him against me, and he sighs with pleasure. Taking that as a good sign, I dip my hand between us and undo the button of his jeans. Before I can go further, he captures my hand and brings it up around his neck again. God, I’m about to explode.
Why isn’t he?
Why hasn’t he tried to put his hands under my clothes yet? In my limited experience with guys, that’s what they do when we kiss. Chase kissed me for about two minutes before he stuck his hand down my pants. Todd’s hand would try to creep up my shirt, I’d pull it back down, and then the same thing would repeat over and over the whole time we were kissing.
I’m getting impatient now that a guyisn’ttrying to get in my pants. My body is ready and expectant, and time is passing, and the parents won’t be gone forever. I decide to take things into my own hands—literally.
I slide my hand down Oliver’s toned chest, his taut abs, and straight into his jeans. He grabs my wrist, but my fingers clench reflexively around him, my mind glitching with shock.I’ve never actually touched a guy before. It’s inconceivable that something so big is supposed to fit inside me.
Oliver pushes me backwards on the bed and jumps up, breathing hard. “What is wrong with you?” he whisper-shouts. “Your sister isright there.”
It all comes to a screeching halt like a record scratch, the dreamy translucent color of dusk after sunset replaced by the artificial blue light from the TV, the bundle of memories rudely dumped at my feet like a fishing net full of trash. My eyes well up with tears before I’ve fully comprehended what just happened. I was so absorbed in kissing him that I forgot all about Lily. I forgot everything.
I thought we were both there, both being swept away, but it was just me. That’s the worst part. Here this whole time I thought that guys always wanted to have sex, and it was my job to say no, and whenever I was ready, all I had to do was stop saying no. Here I am throwing myself at a guy, and it turns out he doesn’t even want me.
“Oh, don’t cry now,” he says, his face immediately softening with regret. He sinks back onto the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
I turn my face away but it’s too late. As if I’m not humiliated enough, now I’m crying.
I’m never drinking again.
I hide my face in my arm. I can’t bear to look at him, and I don’t want him to look at me, either. He must think I’m a total freak.
“It’s not you,” he says, stroking my shoulder. “You’re lovely.”
Not lovely enough for him to sleep with, but I’m not quite petty enough to say that aloud.
“Really, you’re breathtaking,” he coaxes, clearly trying to console me.
I hiccup into my arm in response. He’s clearly just realized he got stuck with the psycho while his brother got the fun one, but he’s too nice to leave when I’m crying.
“I promise you, it’s me,” he assures me.
Even a weirdo who’s never had a boyfriend knows when a guy says, “It’s not you, it’s me,” it’salwaysyou.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, drying my tears in an attempt to salvage whatever microscopic speck of dignity that remains in my possession. Then again, I literally cried like a baby who got her favorite toy taken away from her when he wouldn’t let me play with his dick, so forget a microscope. It would take a magician to find my dignity at this point. Or maybe a time-traveler who could go back to a few hours ago, before we downed a fifth of whiskey.
nine
Now Playing:
“The Impression That I Get”—The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
When I get up from the bed and go to get a tissue from the bureau, I glimpse Oliver in the mirror buttoning his jeans, and I want to die.
“I’m really not like this, I promise,” I say, blotting the tears off my face and grabbing more tissues. I’m glad the only light is from the TV and an occasional flash of lightning, so at least he won’t see how blotchy I get when I cry. I finally return to the edge of the bed and sink down on it, not sure where to go from here.
Oliver scoots over to me and puts his arm around my back. “It’s alright,” he assures me. “You don’t have to apologize. I’m sorry I didn’t meet your expectations.”
