I must have lost my mind. I couldn’t stop laughing. But it felt so good, and every time I tried to stop, I started back up again, harder. It didn’t help that Paul was laughing too. When I finally regained my composure, I sat back and smiled at him. “Well, it’s too late to worry about it now.”
He dipped his fingers into the water, daring to flick some on my legs. I ignored it because it didn’t mean anything—he didn’t even say hello when he saw me in town today. I took a deep breath and tilted my head up to look at the moon. “This is just what I needed.”
“You’ve had a hard week.”
It wasn’t a question. “What do you know about my week?” I asked lightly. I hadn’t talked to him much, which had been the plan going forward, seeing as how I had decided not to allow myself to get attached to him—attached to anything or anyone in Juniper. I’d already learned that spending time with Paul meant getting attached. Then he had to go and knock on my door and look at me with those blue eyes of his.
“I know it was terrible because you didn’t spend it with me. That must have really sucked.”
A surprised laugh burst out of my mouth.
“But it’s okay, I understand. I’m pretty intimidating. You’re afraid I’ll make a move and you won’t be able to resist.”
I propped my arms on my knees, and raised my eyebrows, refusing to let him make me smile again. “Oh, really?”
“Really. And also? I’m grateful for the miniature size of this boat.” He waggled his eyebrows and stretched his legs. His right foot brushed against the outside of my thigh.
I allowed a smile to break free. “You must have amnesia. You make moves all the time, and I’ve never had any trouble saying no to you.”
He leaned back and rested his arms on the sides of the boat. “You haven’t seen the real thing yet. Anyway, you’re not ready for me, Celia. You can’t handle all this.” He gestured to his body, and smiled when it made me laugh.
He joked about his body a lot, but the truth was, while he was tall and slender, he was a far cry from the beanpole he’d been a couple years ago. I forced my gaze to the trees. I rested my hands on the edge of the boat, realizing a second too late that our hands were now only an inch apart. A wild feeling sat under the surface of my skin, pushing to get out. I let it lead me.
One look at the mischief written on his face told me he was only playing. So I played back. “Give it a try, ask me on a real date,” I said, serious as could be.
The boat rocked as he readjusted his legs and leaned toward me. “Celia, will you go to dinner with me tomorrow night?”
“No.”
The grin dropped from his face, then found its way back, along with some laughter, which mixed with mine. He stood up, bracing his sock feet against the sides of the boat. “It was you who mentioned this boat might capsize, wasn’t it?”
I stood up, too. “First one to fall out loses.” I spread my arms wide for balance and shifted my weight to one side, tilting the boat the tiniest bit.
He shook his head and laughed at my pathetic efforts. It wasn’t my fault I was so much smaller than he was, and at least a foot shorter. He had quite a large advantage.
Paul gently pushed on the other side of the boat with his foot.
I gave him a fierce look, annoyed that he was going easy on me, and then lifted both feet in the air in a high jump, and threw all my weight into the landing. The boat shuddered and he did sway a little, but the sound of wood groaning and cracking under my feet made me straighten cautiously.
We both held perfectly still, and our eyes met—full of the thrill of having borrowed a boat that might break at any moment, of knowing we were about to get drenched, of being here under the moon together. It was that last one I didn’t want to think too much about. “Okay, this boat is made of toothpicks.”
Paul shifted his weight from foot to foot, rocking the boat in an increasing rhythm. It was hard not to grab onto him for balance. I watched his feet, getting an idea of his plan. Just when he pressed down on one side of the boat, I reached out and gave him a gentle shove, using his size against him.
He pinwheeled his arms, trying to stay upright, but he went over the side, splashing into the warm water. Victory was short-lived as I bent over and held on to the edge of the boat to catch my balance. But it was no use, and I toppled over the side, head first.
Paul was laughing deeply when I surfaced. “Is your leg okay?” I asked, feeling guilty. I saw it scrape against the side of the boat when he went overboard.
He gave me a soft look. “It’s fine. My jeans protected me, I guess.” He tilted his head, assessing me.
I wiped the water off my face and swam away from him, trying to exhaust my limbs and work out some of the energy zapping through me. I swam in large circles, but I could feel him rotating around so his eyes were always on me. I was only getting more keyed up, so I stopped and faced him, hoping he was done trying to figure me out. “How will I sneak into my house all wet like this?”
“Don’t go back. Just stay here with me all night.”
We watched each other, heads bobbing as we treaded water, me breathing heavily from exertion, water dripping down both our faces. I’d known his face from the moment my memories began. He was so familiar in many ways, but so new in others. His hand brushed against mine under the blanket of the pond. For one tiny moment, his fingers curled around the tips of mine, then let go to keep himself afloat. In the space of that moment, I let myself pretend he meant the things he said, and that I could have those things with him.
He looked at my face, level with his for once, and I didn’t move my eyes away. Surrounded by water, I dangled over the edge of a cliff. I wanted to fall.
“Go on a date with me tomorrow night,” Paul said.
I lowered my eyes. Maybe he wanted to fall, too. Maybe he was serious, and maybe I wanted him to be, and suddenly everything was entirely terrifying and full of impossible possibilities. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
I swallowed and looked away from him.
“Is it that you don’t want to?” he whispered.
“It’s that I can’t.”
“So that means one day you might say yes.”
“I might not.”
“You’re here tonight.”
“I needed a distraction.”
“You needed a friend.”
“Can you ask me on a date in one breath, and say you’re my friend in the next?”
“Sure, I can. I’ll always be your friend, Celia, no matter what. It’s no secret I want to take you out, and maybe I will someday. But even if you never say yes, I’m your friend. And if you do say yes, I’ll always be your friend first.”
I couldn’t respond. Could that be true? Could a guy like him really want me in that way? Would he really stay my friend no matter what?
The silence grew heavy between us. It was an almost physical thing, settling between us and pushing us apart. As usual, he forced his way back into it—pushed his way through the water until we were close enough to touch. “Celia, I want to know you better.”
I watched as his fingers swirled through the water, searching for mine, but I hid them behind my back. “You’ve probably said that to lots of girls.” I couldn’t meet his eyes. I didn’t recognize myself when I was with him. I was not a girl who blatantly fished for what I wanted to hear, not someone who let my fears be known so easily. Yet I squeezed my hands into fists, hoping he’d say the right thing.
“I’ve never said that to any girls. Only you.”
It was the right thing. I treaded water silently while my mind raced. He waited for my response, and I could hear him breathing softly, the water rippling around us. I was so restless and skittish and he seemed so relaxed and breezy. He made no sense to me.
I wanted to say yes to him. I wanted to go out to dinner, and kiss him on my front porch at the end of the night, and be a normal girl with a normal life. But I didn’t have a normal life, and it didn’t matter what I wanted.
I had to think about my family, take care of them. And when I could finally stop taking care of them, I would need to take care of myself. I couldn’t do that here. I reached up and grabbed the boat, pulling it with me as I swam closer to the edge of the pond. I needed to sit down and get my wits about me, to come back into myself and stop thinking I could have things that I couldn’t have. “I can’t say yes because I can’t get stuck here. In Juniper. I want a different kind of life.”
Paul moved beside me and held the boat too, helping move it. “Going out to dinner with me means getting stuck here?”
“Dating in high school is just like practice anyway. It’s not like it lasts. And if it does last? Well that’s worse, because that would mean getting stuck here.” My parents had dated in high school, and they sure seemed stuck here to me.
“Not if the guy wanted to leave, too.”
I shook my head. “In Juniper, everyone either wants to stay, needs to stay, or never even thought about leaving.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Which one am I?”
“You’re firmly in the needs-to-stay category, Paul. If anyone needs someone, it’s your mother.”
We had reached the edge of the pond, and were about waist deep in the water. Paul stopped walking, and I glanced back at him. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It wasn’t one I’d seen before. I shouldn’t have said that about his mom. I sighed at my lack of grace. “Don’t worry about it, Paulie. For the record, I’m in the needs-to-stay category, too. At least for a while.”
“You say my name a lot when you’re upset.”
“I do?” We nudged the boat up onto a low slope of grass, and sat down beside it.
“I like hearing you say my name.” He smiled at me. I took a deep breath. I didn’t know why I was trying to pick a fight. He just sat there, as relaxed as ever. I tried to find the Celia I was when I was out with friends, the Celia I’d been with other boys. That Celia would have said something quick and biting, keeping him at a distance. That Celia seemed to have abandoned me.
“I’ve known you ever since I can remember, Celia. I watched you ride on your daddy’s shoulders once when you were about five years old. It was at the Fourth of July parade in Bakerstown. I remember it because it hit me that I’d never done that with my dad. He wasn’t around by then, and I knew I was probably already too big for that, even if he did come back.”
I ducked my head, embarrassed at the good fortune of having a daddy to ride on.
“And I remember once when you must have gotten in trouble at school, because I passed by as you stood in the hallway, serving your time. I was late getting there, because I’d forgotten to set my alarm clock, and starving because I didn’t have time to eat breakfast. Anyway, I walked past you, careful not to look at you because I didn’t want you to feel embarrassed about getting in trouble. You looked at me though, and I could see your glare out of the corner of my eye. You stared so hard at the side of my head I might still have a burn mark there. You must have only been about nine years old, because I was in sixth grade so you would have been in fourth.”
The corners of my mouth crept up. “I was ten.”
“You remember it, too?”
“I was definitely ten.”
Paul stretched his legs out and swirled them in the water. His socks had slid down and now they drooped off the ends of his feet. He looked over at me, but I didn’t look up. The side of his foot brushed against mine. He moved his foot again, sliding it against the top of mine. My stomach tripped over itself, and I released an embarrassing whispery gasp. I willed myself to be still, to not betray my feelings any further. I scooted away from him a little bit, out of reach of his feet, hands, and anything else he might like to send over my way.
“Why are you telling me these things?” I asked.
“Because sometimes it seems like I know everything about you, right down to the fact that you were twelve when you cut off your long hair.”
“It was down to my waist.”
He nodded. “I know you cut two feet off your hair when you were twelve, but I don’t know why you did it. I still wonder why you got in trouble that day, why your teacher sent you to the hall. I wonder what it was like for you, watching the world from on top of your dad’s shoulders, and if you also saw that saxophone player fall off the float. We share tiny slivers of the same history, but every time I talk to you, I learn something new. You don’t know everything about me, either, even if it might seem that way.”
Thoughts tumbled in my brain. “That was a long and winding way of telling me I’m wrong to assume you’ll stay in Juniper forever.”
“It can be hard to convince you of things.”
I smiled at that, because he was right. “You want to move away, too?”
“I think about it a lot.”
I clasped my arms around my knees, and sat for a while, giving that some thought. “It’s bigger than not wanting to get stuck here. I’m trying to change things, and not just for myself. It’s about Abe, and my parents, and…never mind. It doesn’t matter. Just believe me when I say I’m not at a place in my life where I should be dating. I don’t have time for it, and I’m not good at it, anyway. I make terrible decisions and mess things up.”
“Perfect! Let’s make bad decisions and mess things up together.”
I bit my lip and tried not to smile.
“And look, we’ve already started. Tonight we snuck out, stole a boat, and fell out of it. That’s one bad decision down. What’s next?”
“We only borrowed the boat.”
“Semantics.”
I squeezed my knees tighter to my chest. I knew what I wanted; I just didn’t have the luxury to choose it. “When I broke up with Ronan, I told myself I was done with all that. I had good reasons, too. But Paul…” I knew that was the moment I was supposed to tell him that I liked him, and that being his friend would not be a terrible decision, and I could be a good friend. Maybe I wouldn’t mess that up. The words wouldn’t come, because that wasn’t what I wanted. But fear tied my tongue in knots. If we did go out, he’d probably tire of me after a few weeks, and then he wouldn’t be my friend either. I wrestled with how to say it, but something held me back from saying anything at all.
It was then that laughter rolled over the hill and somebody shouted joyfully. Paul looked at me, his eyes wide, and we both jumped up and scrambled to find our shoes.
“Where’s my other flip flop?” I whispered. Paul darted this way and that, looking for my shoe, his boots tucked under one arm.
“Here it is!” I said, and leaned over to pick it up. It fell to the ground again, in that way things do when you’re trying to pick them up in a hurry. I grabbed it and we took off over the hill.
“Hey! Who’s there?” some kid shouted.
I snorted with laughter. Paul slipped on the grass, and without thinking, I reached out and grabbed his arm. He squeezed my hand between his elbow and his ribs.
“Why are we even running?” he said, laughing.
Our feet thumped the grass as we hit the edge of the park, my arm still firmly attached to his. “When you’re out late and you’re soaking wet, you can’t let anyone find you. Those are the rules, I don’t make them up. Listen to your pants! They’re squeaking.” Hilarity spiraled up from my toes, and neither of us could stop laughing. There was always something funny about almost getting caught.
When we were a few streets away from the park, we slowed to a walk and I let go of his arm. “Paul?”
“Yeah?”
“I got sent to the hall for rolling my eyes at the teacher.”
He grinned.
“And I cut my hair off because my dad liked it long.”
He face grew serious.
“Good-night, Paul,” I said. “You’re a good distraction. And, anyway, maybe I’m wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Everything. I wouldn’t be surprised. My life seems to go like that.” I was willing to consider the possibility.
“Celia?”
“Yeah?”
He looked down at me, his eyes glowing so bright it lit a fire in my belly. “You say things like that, and I start to get hopeful. A little hope in my hands is a dangerous thing.”
“You keep trying to convince me you’re dangerous. A puppy dog, remember? You’re a puppy dog.” I took off down my street before the flames spread.