Emerson
All evening I’ve been feeling jittery—as if the blood in my body has been replaced with strong black coffee. My body is buzzing. The bachelors have gone back to their cabin for the night and now it’s just Jake and me left. We circle each other inside the tent like two chess players—every move seeming calculated and self-conscious. I’m still not sure what he wants or how he feels about me, but then again I’m not sure what I want or how I feel, and it’s all confusing the hell out of me. When I try to process my thoughts by writing, I come up blank too.
Defeated and anxious, I go to the shower block to brush my teeth and put on my pajamas. When I get back to the tent, I can see that the flaps are down and there’s a warm orange glow coming from inside. Jake must have lit the fire. I stop where I am, a hundred feet from the tent, and take a few deep breaths. I’m nervous, and I hate myself for it.
When I finally summon the courage to walk inside, I find Jake crouched down by the fire making s’mores—sandwiching chocolate and melting marshmallows between two graham crackers. He looks up and grins at me, that one-sided smile that makes my insides feel exactly like the marshmallow he’s holding. “Dessert?” he asks.
“I just brushed my teeth.”
His smile fades.
“But hell yeah,” I say, dropping my wash bag and reaching for the s’more he’s offering.
We sit down in front of the fire to eat—though I’m careful to leave a good foot of space between us, a space that feels as wide as the universe and as tiny as a molecule all at the same time.
“How’s your shoulder?” he asks when we’ve eaten the entire pack of crackers and licked the chocolate, the foil, and our fingers clean.
“Hurts,” I say.
Jake glances at me. “You want another massage?”
“Um,” I say. Suddenly, the heat from the fire seems to increase by a thousand degrees. I hear Shay in my head yelling that the correct answer is YES.
“No,” I say. “It’s okay.”
Jake nods and stares into the fire, his elbows resting on his knees. “Okay,” he says. “I guess maybe it’s time to turn in.” He looks over his shoulder at the bed. “Which side do you want?”
Awkward. “I don’t mind,” I mumble.
Jake gets up. “I’m going to go brush my teeth,” he says quickly, and exits the tent.
I brush my teeth again too, not bothering to go to the bathrooms but spitting into a mug. Then before he can get back, I crawl beneath the blankets.
When he does return, slipping into the tent quietly, head down, I close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. I hear him banking up the fire, wood crackling and hissing, ash settling, and then after a few more seconds I register his weight as he sits down on the mattress. He slides beneath the blanket and suddenly my breathing is so rapid that my arms start to tingle from lack of oxygen. I can smell him—the citrus smell of soap and shampoo masking the warm, woodsier scent of his skin. I draw in a deep breath and then another.
“Em?” I hear him say after a minute.
“Mmmm,” I murmur, my back to him.
“I need to tell you something.”
He doesn’t say anything more, so I roll slowly over, my heart pounding, and find myself face-to-face with him. He’s tanned, but I can still see the smattering of freckles across his nose. His expression is serious, anxious almost, and I feel my throat constrict.
“You remember you said you didn’t want to be friends?” he says.
I nod, unable to find my voice.
He licks his lips and swallows. “Well, I don’t want to be friends with you either. I want more.” He’s looking directly in my eyes as he speaks.
Slowly, I let out the breath I’m holding. Everything inside me is vibrating as if my body is a note on a piano that’s just been struck.
“And I think you do too,” he says next.
My breath becomes jagged and uneven.
“Tell me if I’m wrong.”
I still can’t speak. I wasn’t expecting this at all. I didn’t want this. Or . . . who am I kidding? Of course I wanted this. I want this. I want him. I can’t tell him he’s wrong, even though part of me knows that it would be the sensible thing to do. The right thing to do.
His hand finds my cheek. His palm is warm, his fingers strong, soft, gentle, just as I imagined they would be. The buzzing feeling kicks up a gear and now I’m tingling all over, almost shaking.
Jake waits a beat, as if checking my reaction, before he draws me gently toward him. I don’t fight it. Can’t fight it. I need this.
“I’m going to kiss you if that’s okay?”
Why is he even asking? Just kiss me! I want to yell.
“Is that okay?”
I haven’t breathed in at least thirty seconds. My lungs are paralyzed. Jake’s studying me intently, and I notice the flicker of doubt pass across his face when I don’t answer him. His hand drops from my cheek. He’s starting to pull back. Do something! I nod frantically.
He stops. His lips twitch into a relieved half smile. He takes my face in his hands again, slowly, carefully, and draws me toward him. And I still haven’t taken a breath yet. My nervous system has gone into meltdown; current surges through me, electrifying my nerve endings.
This. This. This moment. Isn’t it what I’ve been waiting for all along? Was it that simple all along? I let out the breath I’m holding, and as I do, years and years of unhappiness dissolve in the space of a heartbeat so that when I finally draw in a new breath, it’s as if I’m filling my lungs for the very first time.
I close my eyes. . . . There’s a pause that seems to last a lifetime, and then, finally, I feel his lips on mine, soft and warm. And his kiss is hard and gentle at the same time and has the exquisite promise of something more—something much more—behind it.
It’s a kiss that could go either way—a tentative beginning. We’re resting on the edge of something—a line that’s bigger than the Grand Canyon—and I can feel my willpower slipping away, my body catching fire as his thumb slowly caresses along my jaw. I hear the groan building at the back of my throat, feel his hands tightening on my shoulder blades. God, it would be so easy to fall into him, to let myself go, to lose myself in this feeling and his arms and this hunger I can feel growing inside me.
I want nothing more than to pull him on top of me, feel his weight pushing me down. My hands itch to press themselves against his stomach, trace the taut lines of muscle I’ve so far only looked at from a distance. I long to taste him and get to know him, really know him, in ways I’ve only imagined in my dreams . . . but with a monumental surge of willpower I pull away from him, struggling out of his arms.
My eyes flash open in time to see the frown cross Jake’s face.
“I’m sorry,” he says, rolling onto his back, running a hand through his hair. “I thought—” He breaks off abruptly.
“No,” I say quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. “It’s okay.” I want to reach for his hand and pull him back toward me. I want to kiss him again. I want to show him just how much I want him. It would be so easy. But I can’t.
Jake rolls away from me, swinging his legs off the bed. His voice is husky, filled with emotion. “I’ll go sleep somewhere else. I didn’t mean to—”
I sit up and grab for his hand. I can’t bear it that he thinks he did something wrong. “Jake,” I say. “It’s not what you think.”
The muscles across his shoulders and back are tense. I want to rest my cheek against them, wrap my arms around his waist and anchor him beside me, but it’s too late. He’s on his feet, moving toward the door.
“I liked it,” I murmur. I liked it too much.
He turns to look over his shoulder, uncertain, as though he isn’t sure whether to believe me or not. I swallow hard, the butterflies in my stomach flitting lower. Jake’s framed by the firelight, but I can see the confusion on his face and the faint flicker of hope in his eyes. I look away, down at the ground. Why is it so goddamn difficult to speak to him and tell him how I feel and what I’m thinking?
Suddenly, I feel Jake’s hand against my cheek. I look up, drawing in a breath that catches between my ribs like a fishing hook. He strokes my hair gently behind my ear. “Then what is it?” he asks.
“I . . .”
“Is it Rob?” His jaw tenses as he says Rob’s name.
“No,” I say, shaking my head and laughing. He has no idea. That kiss . . . that five-second kiss Jake and I just shared was more perfect, more incredible, than anything I ever shared with Rob in four whole years. And that’s part of the problem.
“You’re going to leave, Jake,” I say, the words finally tumbling out of me. “Again.”
He frowns. He doesn’t get it. How can I trust him? He left me before; what’s to stop him from leaving again? I can’t handle any more hurt or betrayal.
“I can’t do this,” I say, smarting at my choice of words. I’m assuming that this is even something. What if it’s nothing for him? Just something to do to fill the time while we’re stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.
I twist away from him, but he takes my face in both his hands, forcing me around to look at him. His expression is fierce, and when he speaks, his voice is even fiercer. “Em,” he whispers. “You’re the reason I came back. Yes, I’m going to leave the island again. But I swear to you, I’m never going to leave you again.”
How can he mean that? How can he even know that? That’s an impossible promise—one he can’t keep. His words are a magic spell I want to believe in—but I know better by now than to believe in fairy tales. Real life isn’t like that. The princess doesn’t get rescued from the tower. She has to stay there forever. Sometimes she gets eaten by the ogre. And why should she expect a prince to rescue her anyway—when she can’t even rescue herself?
“Jake—” I start to say, pulling away again. I can’t do this when he’s so close. I can’t think straight. I can’t find the words. I stand up, my legs filled with pins and needles, and head to the fire, needing to put space between us. I crouch down beside it, keeping my back to Jake because I can’t look at him anymore. It’s too hard. I hear him, though, as he gets up and walks toward me, sense him come to a stop just behind me.
“Em, I mean it,” he says. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you for all these years. About us. About what might have been.”
I laugh through my nose. “We were thirteen, fourteen—nothing would have been, Jake.”
“You don’t know that,” he says, his voice a whisper in my ear that sends a long shiver down my spine.
I stand up. He’s an inch from me and the pull is so great it takes everything I’ve got to not press myself up against him. I try not to, but my attention falls straightaway to his lips. My stomach muscles tighten at the memory of them on mine. Goddamn it. Why did I give in and let him kiss me?
And why must there always be this contradiction when it comes to Jake? This constant urge I have to run from him conflicting with an intense yearning to give in and draw close to him?
“Em,” he says, shaking his head, “if all that’s holding you back is the thought of me leaving, then that’s not a good enough reason.”
I take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go except into the fire, so I just cross my arms in front of my chest instead in an effort to keep him at bay. He stays where he is, and I realize he’s challenging me. He knows exactly what his proximity is doing to me. The heat from the flames behind me is nothing compared to the heat building between the two of us. I can feel my defenses melting, and he can feel it too. I know from the victorious, challenging look in his eye. He’d look like that as a kid when daring me to do something he knew he’d win at—like hundred-meter sprints.
He always did know how to play me, and the thought drives me insane. I don’t want to let him win. But it’s not a game, I remind myself. It’s not a dare. It’s my life, and Jake winning doesn’t mean that I have to lose. We can both win.
“I can’t get you out of my head,” he continues.
I am this close to caving in, but I dig in my heels.
Jake is waiting, watching me, but he finally seems to realize I’m not going to back down, that I’m resolute on this. He nods, almost to himself, his shoulders slumping, and then he takes a step backward. I take a deep breath in, feeling the distance between us as a physical ache. Another step and the ache becomes a stab to the gut—a ripping feeling in my chest as though someone has my heart in their hands and is tearing it into pieces.
“I guess then,” he says, smiling sadly at me as he reaches the door, “I’ll just have to settle for being friends.” He runs his hand through his hair. “It’s more than I hoped for.” A pause. “But it’s less than I want.”
His words knock something loose in me, jolt me into realizing that it’s less than I want too. The voice in my head screams that I can’t let him go, that I need to trust him not to hurt me again.
He’s over by the door to the tent, lifting the flap, when I grab his hand. I’m almost as stunned as him, as I don’t remember having moved across the tent.
Jake turns, surprised, but in the next second I’m in his arms and we’re kissing, not tentatively this time but as if time is running out on us, as if those lost years need to be caught up on in the next five minutes.
It’s so strange after Rob to kiss someone else, to be held by someone else, and I wonder now in total bewilderment how I ever thought Rob and I had any kind of connection or chemistry. I never even knew that a kiss could feel like that, and it’s frankly blowing my mind.
We sink to our knees together, Jake’s arms around my waist holding me close, my hands in his hair. He pulls me onto his lap in one swift move, and we’re still kissing, any lingering thoughts and doubts blasted away by the heat of his lips on mine, feverish and frantic. After a few minutes, though, he stops and rests his forehead against mine and takes a deep, shaky breath in. I’m still pressed against him, can feel his heart hammering beneath my palms. His own hands are gripping my hips and my whole body is trembling. It’s as if we’re standing, teetering, on the very edge of a precipice after almost running headlong into an abyss. I can sense him trying to inch back from it, and I’m poised, every nerve ending humming, as I wait to see what will happen next. And then I realize that I’m in control of what happens next. I don’t have to wait and see.
I run my hands around his neck and pull him closer and keep kissing him.
Jake sighs, his hands stroking up my spine, pulling me closer against his body. “I really want to take you to bed,” Jake murmurs in my ear. He pauses and I wait for the “but” . . . and then it comes. “But I don’t think we should, you know, have sex or anything.”
I pull back, giving him an archly amused look. That’s not what his body is telling me. Far from it.
“I mean, I do,” he says. “Absolutely, I do want to have sex.” He gives me a winsome shrug, a blush spreading over his face. “I just . . . I want us to take it slowly. Do it right.”
“Me too,” I say, feeling both frustrated and, I must admit, a little relieved at the same time. I want him, but I don’t want to rush things either. I’ve only ever been with Rob up until now. What if I’m not good enough?
“Besides,” he adds, “I don’t have any protection with me.”
I smile. He didn’t plan to get me into bed, then. I’m glad about that. I rest my head on his shoulder and he strokes his hands gently down my back and kisses my shoulder.
“We’ve waited so long I think we can wait a little longer,” I tell him, kissing him back. “And I think you can still take me to bed.”
“Really?” he asks, his voice strained.
I nod, stroking my fingertips along his jaw, feeling the stubble and marveling at how much more there is to get to know about this new Jake. “I mean,” I say, “we don’t have to have sex.”
He interrupts me. “I don’t intend to have sex with you, Emerson Lowe, ever. I intend to make love to you.”
And with that, he picks me up and stands. I wrap my legs around his waist and let him carry me over to the bed.