Rhode Island
Senior Year
Being locked in a torture chamber would’ve felt like a trip to the Bahamas compared to the last days of school.
Ryan barely looked at me, and David went overboard trying to be the friend I didn’t want. Even though Violet knew her theory about David’s choice of college was ridiculous and claimed to be over it, things were strained between us, too. It felt like sophomore year all over again. Everything had fallen apart overnight. Eyes and whispers followed me wherever I went. Once again, I couldn’t wait for a new start.
Graduation finally came and went on a warm, sunny afternoon, and then it was all over. I felt sad and relieved all at once. It was time to focus on things to come instead of the past, and planning for college seemed like the best distraction. So a few days into summer, Candy and I sat in my bedroom making a list of the things we would need for our dorm room.
“How about a TV?” I asked. “Do you want to bring yours or should I bring mine?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Candy replied. “What about a futon? Do you think we can fit a futon? Matt’s going to need somewhere to sleep when he comes to visit.”
“Ew!” I wrinkled my nose. “When that happens, let me know so I can go home. I’m not sleeping in the same room with you and Crowley getting it on.”
“We haven’t gotten anything on.” She flashed a wicked grin. “Yet.”
“It’s on the agenda, then?”
Her grin grew even wider. “Tonight’s agenda, actually. He has no idea I’ll be making a man out of him later.”
“No offense, but gross.”
She picked up a pillow and chucked it at my head. “Consider it payback for all the times you burned my retinas making out with Smurfy. Oh!” She sat straighter, like she’d remembered something important. “Can I borrow your strawberry lip gloss? Matt likes the way it tastes.”
“If I can find it, you can keep it.”
I fished through my drawers and my purse, but the lip gloss was nowhere to be found. “Are you sure you don’t still have it?” I asked.
“No. You let me borrow it at Ryan’s party and I gave it right back.”
“Oh, right. Then I think I know where to find it.”
I dug around in my closet, searching for the purse I’d had with me on Saint Patrick’s Day. I hadn’t used it in a while, and sure enough, the lip gloss turned up at the bottom of it. Right next to the Saint Christopher medal I’d almost thrown into the woods that night.
“Stupid thing,” I muttered, plucking it from my bag. “It keeps turning up like a bad penny.”
“What is that? A medal?”
“David’s medal, actually. The one Ryan took from his car the night he busted his chin.” I cringed, thinking about it.
Candy stuck her lower lip out. “I still can’t believe he told you no.” She was the only person who knew about the night David sent me packing.
“I can. I deserved it.”
“No, you didn’t. He’s been in love with you forever, and you finally tell him you love him back and he says no? Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit on that.”
Something inside me fluttered. “Oh my God,” I murmured.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t actually tell him. I told him I wanted him with me and I wanted to make things work, but I never came out and said I loved him.” I’d had two chances to say it, and I’d blown them both. I stared forlornly at the medal. “Now I won’t get to.”
“Yes, you will. Tell him right now.” Candy grabbed my cell phone off my vanity and held it in my face. I swatted her arm away.
“He wants Violet. He told me so.”
“No, he doesn’t. Listen, you know I love Vi, but boys are toys to her. So David kept her occupied a little longer than most. It still won’t last. He means more to you than he ever will to her.” She held out the phone again. “And I know that because I saw the look on your face the first time she kissed him. Remember?”
“It’s too late. He said so himself. Besides, it’s not the kind of conversation you have over the phone, and I’m out of excuses to run over there.”
“Um, dumb ass?” Candy took my hand, the one that held the medal, and brought it up to my face. “You’re holding your excuse in your hand.” She batted her eyes and raised the pitch of her voice. “ ‘David, honey, I have something that belongs to you and I want to give it back. And by the way I love you and I want to have your babies.’ ”
I couldn’t help but giggle. “Hey, Can, you know who else I love?”
“Moi?”
“Damn right.”
I circled the block three times before I had the courage to finally stop my car in front of David’s-grandfather’s-
house-turned-David’s-house.
Not that it would be his much longer. Mr. Kerrigan had told my parents at graduation that they already had an offer, and would probably be out by the end of July. Gone from my life for good.
I couldn’t bring myself to get out of the car right away. I draped my arms over the steering wheel, resting my head against them and trying not to hyperventilate until it occurred to me that David might look out the window. For whatever reason, the embarrassment of being seen staked out in front of his house like a stalker felt worse than any embarrassment that might come from what I was about to do.
After all, he’d already turned me down once.
I fingered the Saint Christopher medal in the pocket of my jean shorts as I made my way down the driveway. My toenails were painted fuchsia, and I stared at them as they passed over the gravel, letting the splash of color against the muted stones act as a temporary distraction. If I thought of anything else, the odds that I’d vomit would be exponentially worse. Or better, depending on how you looked at it.
My stomach contracted when I glanced up and saw David on the back porch, already watching me from the swing. Looking at him felt like taking one of his fastballs to the gut. I had no idea how I’d ever managed to convince myself I wasn’t in love with him. I loved him so much it hurt.
“Hey,” he said, standing up. “What brings you here?”
“Um, hey.” I climbed the steps, realizing the minimal exertion it required couldn’t be the reason for my heart pounding. I’d never been afraid to talk to David in my life, and yet there I was, at serious risk of passing out at his feet. “I didn’t come to bother you. And I won’t stay long because I know you’re—” I meant to say “leaving,” but the word refused to come to out. “Packing. I just wanted to give you something.”
“You don’t have to give me anything.” He leaned against the railing and shuffled his feet against the floorboards.
“It’s yours, anyway.”
I produced the medal from my pocket and placed it in his outstretched palm, but at the moment when I should have pulled back, something happened. I couldn’t do it. Instead I folded his fingers over the medal and held his hand in both of mine.
“Remember the first time I saw this?” The breathless words tumbled out on top of each other, and that was it. After all the time they’d been bottled up, there was no stopping them now. “It was next to the card that Amy Heffernan made you, and I think—I think even then, though maybe I didn’t know it, or I guess didn’t want to know it—I was jealous. I hated that you were interested in girls like her. I couldn’t stand having to share you. Not that I blame them. Not that I blame you.” I shook my head, wishing I could at least filter the things spilling out of me, even as the relief of saying them propelled still more from my mouth. “I hated that you could have anyone you wanted, and most of all, I hate myself for not figuring out sooner that all I wanted was you.”
I pulled his arm around me, flinging my own arms around his neck and burying my face in his shoulder.
“David,” I whimpered as he put his hand on my back in an infuriatingly benign way. “I’m sorry.” I buried my face in his shirt. “I know you don’t want me, and I know I ruined everything. But I love you. And I can’t take this anymore.”
David’s hand stilled against my back. He stayed quiet and motionless long enough to make me wish I could hurdle the railing and pretend I’d never been there.
“Say something.” I sighed.
A pause. “Your timing sucks.”
“It’s no worse than yours.”
“Guess I’ll give you that.”
We both laughed awkwardly and I pulled myself away from him. “Listen. I know we’ve been through this already, but I had to say it. You know how that goes.” I managed a half smile, but David dropped his eyes to the medal rotating between his fingers.
Defeat. Again.
My stomach twisted and I knew I had to take the high road while I still could. “I get that you want to treat Violet better than I treated you. So as long as you’re happy—”
“I’m not with Violet.”
I must’ve misheard him. “You—what?”
“I’m not with Violet,” he repeated. “We broke up. No drama or anything; we just didn’t see it working long distance.”
I tugged at the frayed edge of my shorts, swallowing hard. “Oh. I, um, didn’t know.” So he wasn’t with Violet anymore, but he still didn’t want me. Talk about hitting rock bottom.
David placed the medal on top of the porch railing and pushed it away with one finger before flattening his palms against the wood on either side of him. He didn’t look at me.
“I should go,” I said. “Moving sucks and you probably have a ton to do.”
I started toward the steps, a lump already burgeoning in my throat. I looked up when David blocked my path.
“You know that saying, ‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with’?”
“That’s a stupid saying. The one you love and the one you’re with should be the same person.”
“So you still think you can’t be with someone if you’re not together physically? Because I think you’re wrong.”
He wasn’t making sense. He’d just told me he and Violet ended things to avoid long distance, and now he was contradicting himself.
I drew back, the lump in my throat ready to burst. “I don’t know what you’re saying, but—” I tried again to get around him, but he stepped in front of me again and cut me off before I could finish my sentence.
“I’m saying the only person I’d have a long-distance relationship with is you.”
I must’ve looked like an owl, staring at him with big, blinking eyes. One second I stood glued to the spot, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to say to that. In the next I barely registered that I’d been gathered up in his arms. My back collided with the outer wall of the house, but I hardly noticed that either. All I felt were David’s lips pressed against mine, his arms wrapped around me, my body molded against his.
I didn’t care why he’d done it. I just knew I wanted it.
I kissed him with everything I had in me, trying to memorize every second of his lips and his scent, in case it never happened again. I had no idea how much time had passed once our kisses became softer, slower, and we finally had to stop to catch our breath.
The moment my lips were unoccupied, the babbling started again.
“We can do this, can’t we? Long distance isn’t so bad, right? And we can see each other on the weekends and maybe one of us can transfer later on—”
David shut me up with another kiss. “I told you your timing sucked.”
“I know. But we’ve already tried forgetting each other, and it didn’t work. Don’t you at least want to try?”
The tip of his nose brushed mine and he leaned in to within a hair’s breadth of my lips. “Why didn’t it work?” he said softly.
“Because I can’t forget you.” I moved in to kiss him, but he didn’t let me.
“You know why.”
A smirk spread across his completely edible lips. “Tell me again.”
“Because I love you.” I moved in, but he dodged me, and this time his expression turned serious.
“You mean it, Kelse?”
Now it was my turn to smile. I took his face in my hands and said the words I should have said a long time ago, the words he hadn’t hesitated to say to me.
“I always have.”