“Promise me you two will be safe.”
“We’ll be safe,” I assure my mom from the back seat as she drives Kason and me to the Tampa airport.
“And make sure you call me every day.”
“I will.”
“And night.”
“Oh my god.”
“Don’t worry,” Kason tells her. “We’ll check in twice a day.”
I lean forward between the front seats and ask, “If you’re so worried, why did you buy us this trip?”
“You’re my only child. I’m always going to worry.”
“I’m eighteen now, remember?”
Kason tilts his head toward me. “I don’t think that’s helping, babe.”
“Seriously, Mom. Everything will be fine.”
For my birthday last month, my mother surprised me with two tickets to go on the senior trip—one for me and one for Kason. It wasn’t an easy gesture for Kason to accept, but she insisted, knowing I wouldn’t have gone without him anyway. I was shocked that she was okay sending the two of us away together for spring break, but with graduation only a month away and the two of us being eighteen, she figured she’d let us go. Plus, she trusts Kason more than anyone else alive with my safety. There is no way she’d be okay sending me off to stay with someone she barely knows, or even by myself. And she isn’t living under a rock. With the amount of alone time we have here at home, there isn’t much we could do in the Bahamas that we aren’t already doing now.
Which still isn’t much.
After Kason told me about what happened to him as a kid, I haven’t pushed the sex issue. We’ve tried only a couple more times, but he’s quick to shut down and push me away. Yes, it upsets me, but I try my best to hide it from him. I know he loves me, and I know this hurts him as much as it does me.
Kason has opened himself up to me more these past few weeks, and I now have a deeper understanding as to why he has a difficult time with intimacy. The other girls had nothing to do with closeness or emotions. They were merely objects he used to feed his craving. With the sexual abuse he suffered through as a child and the absence of his mother, he never learned what it was to love and be loved. Not that he doesn’t love his mom, he does, but it seems to be a love conceived out of obligation and respect instead of a true emotional bond of security, trust, and affection. He told me he never had anyone to turn to and that he was forced to deal with everything alone, which is what made it so hard for him to share his burden with me. I still don’t think he realizes how much I want to be that person for him. A person he never has to fear will turn their back on him or judge him. A person who can be his safety net so he doesn’t have to always be so strong, that he can have his moments to unload his pain and know that, with me by his side, it doesn’t mean he has to fall.
We pull along the curb in the departures lane and unload our suitcases. My mother’s nerves crease her forehead, and I give her a reassuring hug.
“Nothing bad is going to happen. Promise.”
“You be safe and have fun, okay?” she says before turning to Kason and giving him a hug. “Please take care of her. She’s my favorite.”
“Always.”
He thanks her for the hundredth time for giving him this trip, and she shrugs it off as if it’s no big deal before we say goodbye and wheel our luggage in. With excitement in the air, I’m nothing but giggles and smiles on the plane, which is filled with other seniors from our school, except for Micah and Trent, who are on another flight. Seeing how happy Kason is, knowing this is the first trip he’s ever taken, makes this whole experience that much better.
When we land, the charter bus is already waiting to take all of us to the hotel. We sit in the back with a bunch of our friends that are more Kason’s than mine. I look across the aisle to see Katy finally has a distraction as she cozies up to Garrett, who’s on the lacrosse team with Rhett, one of Kason’s good friends. It doesn’t matter though, because I only have to deal with looking at her for a few more weeks and then we’re officially done with high school.
Once at the hotel, we check in, thankful for the co-ed room my mother signed off on and even more thankful that the room has a king size bed instead of two doubles.
As soon as the door closes behind us, Kason lifts me off my feet, and I’m quick to kiss him as he walks me across the room to the double doors leading to a small balcony.
The moment our lips part and I open my eyes, I’m amazed by the view. “Kason, look.”
He sets me down, and we step outside to take in the full oceanfront view. The turquoise water glistens brilliantly against the white sand as waves roll in.
“It’s incredible,” he remarks, and I turn my attention to him, saying, “You’re incredible.”
“Dudes!” a couple guys shout at us from below, intruding in on our moment. “Get your asses down here!” they holler as they raise their beers in the air, already taking advantage of the eighteen-year-old drinking age.
I shake my head at them as Kason pulls me back inside and closes the drapes so we can change into our swimsuits. But not a few minutes later, we are interrupted by a loud banging on our door.
“Open up, fuckers,” Trent’s loud voice booms, and when Kason opens the door, Micah and Trent come walking in with high fives for Kason and hugs for me.
It’s still a little tense between Micah and Kason, but nothing really ever affects Trent, so he’s been able to serve as the glue that still holds us all together.
Trent walks over to the window and rips the curtains open. “Killer view. They stuck us over on the opposite side of the building.” He then steps out onto the balcony with a laughable, “What’s up, peasants?” shouted to everyone below at the pool.
“Eat dick,” some guy hollers in response.
I bust out laughing as he walks back in with a cocky, “Already making friends.”
“You’re insane.”
“Let’s go have some fun and loosen you up,” he says as he drapes his arm around my shoulders.
The four of us head to the pool bar. The guys all grab a beer while I get something fruity and alcohol free before we find our spots on the beach. We hang out, and when Kason and Trent finish their drinks, they head out on a couple of jet skis while Micah and I stay behind.
“So, when do you leave?”
“The end of July. My parents signed a lease for a condo yesterday,” he tells me.
“So, it’ll be you and Trent?”
He leans back on his elbows and nods.
I look over at Micah, who’s become a really good friend of mine this past year, and wish I could ignore the sadness that creeps in when I think about not having him around anymore. It’s weird to think that in a few months, we will all be going in different directions: me in Tampa with Kason, and Micah and Trent over in Miami.
“I can’t believe you’re leaving,” I tell him somberly.
“I can’t believe you’re staying.”
“You know why I’m staying.”
He sits up and rests his elbows on bent knees. “What is it about him that makes you willing to stay behind?”
“I love him, Micah. I know it sounds trite, but I really do love him.”
“I worry about you, you know?”
“You don’t need to,” I tell him. “But it means a lot that you do.”
He looks out over the water, and I don’t doubt his sincerity when he says he worries. He’s made it known many times since Kason and I got back together how much it bothers him that I would forgive so easily. But Micah doesn’t know Kason the way I do. He doesn’t know the inner battles Kason fights every single day. The shame that plagues him because of the addiction he denies so fervently out of fear and confusion. Kason didn’t cheat on me to hurt me or betray me, he did it because he was powerless and starved. I don’t excuse what he did, but when I look at it as if he were an alcoholic who fell off the wagon, I can make sense out of it. And essentially, that’s what happened with Kason.
But we’ve been back together for two months now, and in those two months, he’s assured me he hasn’t gone outside of our relationship for sex, and there’s no part of me that doesn’t believe him. Even though I’ve never asked, I know he turns to porn a lot, but I don’t consider that the same thing. I’ve seen the websites on his phone and in the history on his computer. The last thing I want to do is make him feel bad for not being able to control himself, so I don’t say anything. I only want to support him and love him until he can get to a point where he can see this for what I see it as—a legitimate addiction.
“You deserve more, Ady.”
“He is that more. You can’t see it, but I promise you . . . he’s more.”
Micah drops the subject, and when Kason and Trent return, the four of us catch up with a group of friends and take out a catamaran for the rest of the day. The guys continue to drink and enjoy themselves, becoming a bit too loud and obnoxious, so I join a couple girls who are lying out on the trampoline tethers at the bow of the boat.
With my sunglasses dropped over my eyes, I eavesdrop in on their mindless chatter as I bask in the sun, and occasionally, sea spray cools my heated skin. It’s only when I hear a commotion toward the back of the boat that I sit up to find Trent . . . naked and completely wasted.
“Suck on this, bitches,” he shouts to the guys before taking a running leap off the boat and into the water as everyone laughs and cheers him on.
“Don’t look at that shit, babe,” Kason hollers my way through his own laughter from the middle of the craziness, and all I can do is giggle and then lean over the edge.
“You better hope nothing nips at your little thingy,” I tease as Trent wades in the water.
“Who’re you calling little? Woman, I’m a beast!” he proclaims before someone throws him his board shorts. He’s too drunk to catch them, and they end up slapping him across the face. “Dude! Respect.”
When the ruckus dies down, Kason breaks out of the crowd and comes in my direction. He’s only wearing a pair of board shorts and a backward facing baseball hat, and the sight makes my heart flutter as I gawk at him from behind the privacy of my shades. I’m forced to bite my cheek to hide the giddy smile that tugs on my lips. Inside and out, there’s nothing about Kason that’s unattractive.
I catch glances from the two girls when Kason joins me on the tether. He lies on his back, twisting his hat forward, and I sidle myself next to him, draping my leg over his. With beer on his breath, he kisses my hair before whispering honestly into my ear, “I need to get out of here.”
My heart sinks because I know the reason behind his words and there’s nothing I can do. We’re out here with a large group, and I don’t see us heading back any time soon.
“Is that why you’re drinking?”
Pulling the bill of his hat over his eyes, he nods as he tugs me in closer.
It’s near sundown by the time we return the boat. Hand in hand, Kason and I head to our room after making plans to meet everyone in the lobby in an hour to go to dinner. I can feel Kason’s anxiousness in his hand that’s clenched around mine. Today is the first time I’ve been hyperaware of the fact that Kason isn’t able to simply go out for the day without his cravings gnawing at him.
There’s a neediness inside me that pangs to take care of him, so I don’t even think twice when the door closes behind us and I pull his lips to mine. He’s electric against me, moving with purpose as we stumble across the room and fall onto the plush bed. I crawl on top of him and drop kisses down his neck and along his chest, tasting the salt from the sea as I trail lower.
Peeking up, he watches me intently as I unlace the tie to his board shorts and tug them off. He’s already hard, and the moment my lips are around him, his eyes close, and he drops his head back onto the pillow as he lets out a loud exhale. It’s times like this, where we can be together without complications, that I savor the most, wishing it could always be this easy. It isn’t until he knows sex is on the table that he shuts down. He can be hard one second, and in the next, he’s not.
But right now, he is. He’s content and free as I take my time with him. His hands lose themselves in my beach-tangled hair. With his touch on me, I relax and sink onto the bed between his legs. I love being able to give him this, even more so now that I know how badly he needs it, as if his survival depended on it. Maybe to him, that’s exactly how it feels, and that thought alone makes me want to give him more.
I debate saying anything for fear I’ll ruin this moment when he needs it so badly after abstaining all day. We’ve tried so many times in the past, only to exhume the bitter emotions of disappointment and sadness we both feel every time we fall short of what we both want so much. I want to feel his love. I wish for it—dream about it. We try so hard to have that level of intimacy in our relationship, only to be denied it time and time again. But I love him, so when I slip my lips off him and he looks at me, it’s all I can do to murmur my request in desperate timidity.
“Please?” A single word, barely even a breath.
He pulls me to him and peers into me with eyes that hold a slight buzz from the alcohol he slowly consumed throughout the day. Our hearts beat against each other, both yearning for the same thing, except mine falters off tempo when his hand grazes the side of my hip as he slowly pulls the string to my bikini bottoms.
The bow falls open along with every rib guarding my heart. He kicks off his trunks and rolls me onto my back, still hard between my thighs. The part of me that’s scared he will lose it if we wait too long wants to force him to hurry. But there’s a look in his eyes, a look I haven’t ever seen before, that stops me from rushing him. It’s a look of conviction. His usual hesitation seems to have dissolved within the chemicals of intoxication. He isn’t drunk by any means; he’s only fueled with enough to relax him.
Soft lips fall onto mine.
He kisses me slowly, but so very deeply that I no longer know whose breath I’m breathing. Our tongues caress, tasting love in its purest form, and I sway into him as we move in this new way together.
His fingers undo the ties to my top, and he drops it to the floor before tossing my bottoms there, too. With the two of us bared to each other, and for the first time, knowing this is about to finally happen, it’s my apprehension that breaks through the surface.
“Are you okay?”
My heart kicks a hard beat out into the open, no longer protected in its cage, and I shake my head ever so slightly but enough for him to see.
“You’re trembling.”
“I’m scared,” I quietly admit.
His breath catches, and his forehead drops to mine. “I am, too.”
“But you’ve done this before.”
“No,” he confesses thickly. “I’ve never done what we’re about to do.”
I run my hand along his jaw, and when his eyes open, I see the sincerity in them.
“I love you, Adaline.”
The space separating his words matches the rest and rhythm of my heartbeats. He says it again as his lips spill over my breasts, and each silence between his I love yous is a breath he breathes inside my veins.
I open my legs, feeling every bit of him pressed against every bit of me, and I become overwhelmed by my unyielding adoration for this man I’ve completely and wholeheartedly fallen for.
My thighs begin to shake nervously against his hips when he reaches between our bodies and grabs himself in his hand. He runs the heated tip of himself along my softest everything, and I swear I feel my bones melting from inside my skin.
With my hands wrapped firmly around his shoulders, he hesitates. “Shit.” His eyes dart to mine. “I don’t have a condom.”
“I don’t care.” My response comes instantly because we’ve worked so hard and for so long to get to this point, and we’re finally here. There’s nothing I’m going to let stand in the way of us making love.
“Adaline—”
“I don’t care. I’m not waiting any longer,” I insist. “Just don’t come inside me.”
There’s worry etched in the lines between his brows, but he wants this as much as I do. He begins to move again, closer and closer, putting an uncomfortable pressure against me, and I coil back slightly.
“What’s wrong?”
“I want this . . . I’m just . . . I’m scared it’s going to hurt.”
He runs his one hand down my cheek and between my breasts, holding my heart as best as he can. “Do you trust me?”
“With everything.”
He bends down, and we kiss as he slowly pushes his way inside me. I gasp loudly against a silent cry and dig my fingers into the roped muscles of his arms. My legs quiver, and my belly tightens against the burn of him opening me in this foreign way. The intense pressure has me rendered still, fearing that any movement will only bring more pain.
I feel myself tensing even more, and he stops.
“Am I hurting you?”
I give him my complete honesty when I nod.
“Just try to relax,” he breathes, his eyes swimming in his own pleasure.
He doesn’t push any deeper as he drops his lips back to mine and lavishes me in slow, deep kisses. His mouth moving gently over mine as he palms my breast in his hand. My fingers get lost in his unruly hair, and eventually my body softens and my legs fall open. When this happens, my entire body, my every nerve, stops what it’s doing for a split second as he sinks all the way inside me.
And this is the moment.
This right here.
Feeling, for the first time, love touching my body from the inside.
I hold him tighter than ever before as my body adjusts to having him inside me, and he holds me just as tightly. The both of us are entirely consumed by the weight of this moment that it becomes hard to breathe.
Kason draws back, and as I look up at him, tears flood my eyes. When they begin to bead down my temples and into my hair, he leans in and lays a kiss along my brow as he cautiously begins to move his hips.
Unsure of what to do, I let him take the lead, biting back the ache that comes with each new movement. Soon, my body responds to him, growing more aroused and making it easier for him as he slowly makes love to me.
“God, baby,” he whispers hard against my skin, “you’re everything.”
Flesh on flesh, with nothing in this world separating us anymore, I wrap my legs around his waist and pull his chest to mine. And all the butterflies he’s ever given me return, migrating from my stomach up to my heart. They find their way down my arms and into my hands, which tremble as I touch him. The sensation moves into my hips as they sway gracefully and then it reaches my thighs and wobbly knees that hug against him.
My body radiates in anxious energy.
Every flutter speaks of him.
He gazes at me, and lips that have touched nearly every part of my body lift into a tender smile as they proclaim, “I love you so much.”
“I love you, too.” And I do. Kason’s the most beautiful human I’ve ever known, and our love is one that doesn’t need convincing.
It never has.
It’s a truth felt deeper than our bones.