by L. D. Davis
“Who was that?” he asked, looking in the direction Max had walked.
“Modeling scout,” Emmy said.
Emmet looked doubtful. I only shrugged.
Emmy announced her need to pee and walked off towards the public bathrooms.
“You’re wearing more than you’re eating,” Emmet said. His eyes were hidden behind sunglasses, but I knew he was looking at the ice-cream dripping down my arm.
“It’s melting faster than I can eat it,” I giggled and took a lick.
“You got too much. You always get too much.” He closed a hand over my sticky wrist. I watched without breathing as he slowly sucked some of the vanilla goodness into his mouth. He licked his lips as he moved my hand so that the dessert was pressed against my lips. I parted my lips and sucked-slurped. He brought it back to his lips and ate some exactly where my mouth had been. I shivered in the ninety plus degree heat.
“Thank you,” he murmured and released my hand. He sucked a few drops of ice-cream off of his fingers. “I’ll see you later.”
I watched him walk away, pulling on my tether, as the ice-cream melted in my hand.
*~*~*
Wildwood was the go-to beach location for most teens and families in the South Jersey and Philadelphia area. During the summer, no matter what day you are there, you are guaranteed to run into no less than five people that you know. They may be a neighbor, a teacher, the clerk at the grocery store, or just people you recognize but don’t know by name.
By nightfall, there was a huge group of us from our town and nearby towns strolling down the boardwalk. We started out small, just me and Emmy, but then her cousins Mayson and Tabitha arrived. A little while later Tabitha’s best friend Leslie and her boyfriend Leo joined us. A few kids a year ahead of us at our school adhered to the group and soon after that Emmet and his friends were there. The group grew and grew, even kids we only knew from the shore joined in until we were at least twenty-five strong. Laughter and constant talking and shouts to one another filled the air. Whenever anyone bought any food, it was instantly shared with the people around them. It wasn’t unusual to see someone’s hand in my bucket of fries or to share a soda with three other people. Many years later I would look back on times like this and wonder how I made it through my teenage years without getting mono or some other highly communicable sickness from all of the sharing we did.
I had so much fun. I felt so alive. I felt happy. It was one of few times in my life where I can say I was one hundred percent happy. One of the other times was sleeping in the arms of a certain guy.
The crowd started to disperse a little after midnight. Many kids had a two-hour drive ahead of them and even more had curfews. The few kids that were staying at the shore headed back towards their respective shore houses, hotels and motels, including us. Sam was up waiting for us when we got in, but she went to bed soon after that. Emmy managed to make it another hour, before she dragged herself into our shared bedroom, leaving me alone in the living room with Emmet.
All night, I was always aware that he was near, even if he wasn’t in my immediate vicinity, but I was distracted enough to not let my thoughts stray to the ice-cream incident from earlier in the day. Later, sitting only a foot away from him on the couch, it was all I could think about. I considered going to bed so that I could stop feeling awkward about it.
Emmet hadn’t tried to kiss me again since that February morning. He had seemingly moved on. He started dating Stella “The Mistake” Cramer and I had done my best to pretend like I didn’t care. I was nice to her and even helped her pick out Emmet’s birthday present. He treated me like he used to, like an annoying kid sister and he stopped showing up at the empty lot to board with me. He was never cruel to me, but sometimes there was a coolness between us that stung.
That tether, however, was very much intact. I could feel him wherever I went. I knew when he was close, and I knew when he wasn’t. I didn’t know if he still felt it, too. I wasn’t going to ask.
As his presence on the couch became enormous and seemed to surround me, I got up. I wasn’t tired, but I sure couldn’t sit there with Emmet as if everything was normal. I almost laughed. There wasn’t anything normal between us. I started towards the bedroom I shared with Emmy but then abruptly I took a detour. I grabbed a room key off of the counter and started for the door.
“Where are you going?” Emmet asked. It was an accusation.
“For a walk,” I said over my shoulder without looking at him. “I’m not tired.”
“You shouldn’t go out there by yourself,” he warned, and I felt him closer than before. I looked back, and he was walking toward me.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said it with irritation and with a note of finality.
I went out the door and hurried down the hall to the bank of elevators. When I felt the tether contracting, I got irritated. I crossed my arms as I waited for the elevator to arrive.
“I don’t need you to take me for a walk,” I said dryly. I knew he was standing behind me.
“Maybe I want to go for a walk too.”
“Isn’t it almost time for you to call your girlfriend?” I asked, referring to his nightly phone calls to Stella.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said as the elevator doors slid open. He waited for me to step on before him.
I gave him a disbelieving look. It was only a few days before that I last saw his tongue massaging her tonsils.
“We broke up on last night’s phone call,” Emmet said as he punched the button for the lobby.
Baffled, I asked, “Why?” I was genuinely curious.
“She’s going to Oklahoma. I’m going to Harvard. Long distance relationships aren’t my thing.”
“How did she take it?”
“She thinks we can make it work.” He shrugged. “I don’t.”
“You won’t even try. That’s stupid.”
“Donya, don’t preach to me about trying,” he snapped.
The doors slid open, and I stormed out.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked though I knew what it meant.
“You didn’t try either,” he said sourly as he held the door open for me.
We stepped outside and started to walk the few yards to the boardwalk.
“The difference is that I wasn’t ready. She clearly is.”
“Why are you so concerned about my relationship with Stella?” Emmet asked angrily.
I looked over at him. “Why are you so mad? I’m just saying that you could be throwing something good away because you won’t try.”
“Maybe you threw something good away because you didn’t try.”
I sighed in exasperation. We stepped onto the boardwalk, and I immediately felt the chill from the water. Emmet looked at me with fury, but he pulled his jacket off and handed it to me. I took it and slipped my arms inside.
“I thought we were passed that,” I said to him when we started walking again.
“I’m not past it, Donya. I just put it aside.”
“Well put it aside again!”
He stopped walking and got so close to me I felt the need to take a step back, but he didn’t let me. He grabbed my arms and kept me there.
“Did you kiss Andrew?” he demanded.
My mouth dropped open. Sam, Fred, and even my mom were still strict about Emmy and me dating, but they finally broke down and said that if we double dated somewhere public, we were allowed to date. I was in no hurry to date anyone, but after listening to Emmy beg me for a week I agreed to go on a double date with her and Corey Newland. She set me up with Corey’s twin brother Andrew. The brothers were fun, hilarious and kind of sweet. Most importantly, they were our age. So when more double dates were proposed, I went. Andrew was a good guy, and I had fun with him. When he kissed me, I kissed him back. It was nice, but it wasn’t great. It wasn’t like Emmet’s kisses, and he wasn’t Emmet. The bar was set high and poor Andrew didn’t make it. I didn’t go on any more double dates and Andrew moved on.
“That’s none of your business,” I whispered.
“You dated him. You kissed him!” Emmet yelled, drawing a few looks from the few people left on the boardwalk. “But you won’t date me and you won’t kiss me anymore. Was it good, Donya? Did he get to touch you? Maybe make it to third base? Were you ready for a homerun?”
I slapped him. Hard. My hand stung, but I wanted to slap him again, so I did.
“Fuck you, Emmet Grayne.” I took off his jacket and threw it in his arms. “Stay away from me.”
His face changed immediately, and I knew that he regretted his words, but it was too late.
“I’m sorry,” he said and reached for me, but I backed away from him.
“Stay away,” I said once more and then I turned away from him and ran.
Chapter Nine
At the last minute, Emmet pulled out of the annual family trek to Louisiana. He told Sam and Fred that he wanted to spend his last few weeks before college with his friends. Fred asked him to reconsider but didn’t push. Sam, on the other hand, put up a huge fight.
“What about spending time with your family?” she had demanded over dinner two nights before our departure.
“I’ve spent the last eighteen years with my family,” Emmet snapped. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life with my family.”
“I ain’t gonna let ya stay up here,” Sam said in a tone that implied that she didn’t care what he wanted.
“It’s his decision, Sam,” Fred said patiently. “He’s not a little boy anymore.”
“He’s my little boy, Frederick Grayne!”
Emmy snickered beside me. I elbowed her. She wouldn’t be laughing in a few years when she was put in a similar position.
“I’ll join you guys during the last week,” Emmet said, trying to sound reassuring.
“That’s not good enough. You have cousins and aunts and uncles and friends down there that are looking forward to seeing you before you go away to school.”
“It’s not like he’s going to school on the moon,” I muttered.
“I heard that Donya Elisabeth Stewart,” Sam snapped.
“Whoa,” Emmy said with amusement. “Full name.”
“Ya’ll think this is funny and it’s not,” Sam whined.
Emmet put his pizza down and rested his chin on his folded hands and listened as Sam continued to rant. I felt sorry for him. It was his last summer before he was forced to behave somewhat like an adult, and Harvard was no joke. There wouldn’t be too much time for fooling around.
Part of me felt he wasn’t going with the family because I would be there, but I told myself how conceited that sounded and shut the thought down.
I cleared my throat and cut Sam off.
“He should stay,” I said. I felt Emmet’s eyes fall on me. “If you force him to go, he’ll be miserable the entire time. Do you really want his last summer as a kid to be miserable?”
Sam sputtered for a moment. “But what about Lucy’s wedding?”
“I won’t miss the wedding,” Emmet promised.
“You’re not going to get your way on this one,” Fred told his wife gently. “Let it go.”
“Can I stay home, too?” Emmy asked with hope.
“No,” Sam, Fred, and Emmet said at the same time.
Sam stopped bugging, but she frowned her way through dinner and barely spoke, which appeased all.
After dinner, I left to spend the rest of my time with my mom. I made it around the block before I felt the familiar tug and Emmet pulled to the curb. I stopped walking and hesitated before approaching the car. We had barely spoken more than a handful of words since that night on the boardwalk. He had written me a simple apologetic note that said, “I’m sorry.” I didn’t acknowledge it and he didn’t push.
I stopped a foot away from the car.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“Speaking up for me at dinner.”
I gave a half shrug. “I would have done the same for anyone. No big deal.”
He flinched a little. He thought I had done it because I cared. I did, but he didn’t need to know that.
“You haven’t forgiven me,” he said, frowning.
I shrugged again. “I forgive you. You won’t be the last guy to call me a slut.”
His eyes darkened. “I didn’t call you a slut, Donya.”
“You implied it. Same difference.”
“I would never call you that.”
“Maybe not directly, but accusing me of getting felt up by Andrew isn’t any better.”
“I was jealous,” he grudgingly admitted.
“Well, I get jealous, too,” I snapped. “But you don’t see me making remarks about Stella.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve made a couple of references to couches.”
I bit my lip and crossed my arms defensively. Emmet sighed.
“I didn’t come here to fight with you. I just wanted to thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said curtly.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He gave me a final look of regret and drove off.
*~*~*
The tether was stretched to the point of pain. I thought it would get better with each passing day, but it didn’t. It got worse. I tried to keep myself busy while I was in Louisiana, even going as far as spending a day cooking and baking with Sam and arguing with her, but the ache was still there. I wondered if he ached, too. Or if he was just having so much fun with his friends and various girls that he didn’t notice?
“What’s on your mind, Kiddo?” Fred asked me one morning at our fishing spot.
I looked over at him. “Who said there’s anything on my mind?”
“A father knows these things,” he grinned. His words warmed me and I smiled. “Now tell me what’s going on in that teenage head of yours.’
I couldn’t tell him the truth, that I was in way over my head, meaning that I was in love, with his youngest son who is supposed to be like a brother to me.
That was the first time I really admitted it to myself. I was pretty sure I was in love with Emmet. I couldn’t feed myself any BS about my tender age. Absence really did make the heart grow fond.
“I like a guy,” I said slowly, deciding to give Fred some of the truth.
He groaned. “Go on.”
“You have to promise not to hold anything I say against me. It wouldn’t be fair.”
He looked at me with amused suspicion. “Am I going to have to crack some guy’s skull?”
The image of him cracking Emmet’s skull made me shudder. “No skull cracking,” I said, shaking a finger at him.
“I will not make that promise, Kiddo. Continue.”
I inhaled slowly and let it out in a rush. “He’s…incredible,” I said softly with a faint smile. “He makes me feel incredible. I have this really strong connection with him. I can feel him when he’s near and when he’s not, I feel…like a part of me isn’t with me at all, but gone with him.”
Fred looked grim. It must have been hard for him to sit there and listen to this from a kid who wasn’t even supposed to be dating seriously.
“I keep pushing him away,” I admitted. “I told him I’m not ready for all of the things I’m feeling. I don’t want to be like so many girls my age. Their worlds revolve around these guys, and when it falls apart it gets gruesome and they lose all focus on the things that matter. I lost enough of my childhood to my parents’ issues. I don’t want to lose any more of it to all of the drama that comes with relationships. I want to be a teenage, carefree kid as long as I can, because once these years are gone, they’re gone.”
Fred looked at me with a sympathetic smile. “For someone who wants to be young forever, you sure have a grown up way of thinking.”
“I just think it’s a responsible way of thinking.”
“Since when are teenage, carefree kids responsible?” He chuckled.
“You know what I mean,” I smiled. �
�Besides, I’m not even supposed to be dating.”
Fred straightened up in his chair. I could tell that he was thinking before speaking, something Sam never learned to do.
“How old is this kid?” Fred asked casually.
“A couple of years older than me,” I said carefully.
He looked at me thoughtfully for a long time. I felt like he saw right through me, that he knew I was talking about Emmet.
“Donya,” he said and then his shoulders dropped a little. “I’m not condoning a serious relationship at your age, but…” He looked like he may not finish, but took a breath and went forward. “You are a sensible kid. You are older than your years because of the things you have gone through. You can’t compare yourself to people in your age group because you’ve already lived a little longer than they have, at least mentally and emotionally. I don’t think that what you’re experiencing is trivial or something that will just pass as things do with kids your age. Because it’s you we’re talking about, and not say, Emmy or Lucy, I know this guy is probably as incredible as you say. You are young, and you should enjoy these years, but…” he struggled for words and I hung onto every one. “Maybe this guy is supposed to be a part of these years. Maybe you will only experience happiness and not all of the…drama as you kids say.”
He leaned toward me, and it looked like he was going to confess something to me. I leaned forward too, completely caught up in everything he had to say.
“I married Sam when she was only nineteen, but I fell in love with her when she was only fifteen. She was your age, Donya, and I was a little bit older than Emmet. Things were different back then. Kids were raised differently. Society as a whole was different. If I were raising you girls in those times, you would be free to date—under my watchful eye, of course. Things were different, and it was a long time ago, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t experience what Sam and I experienced. Maybe this guy is your forever, Donya, and maybe he came at an unexpected time, but maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to push him away.”
He got to his feet, as his line had a bite. He looked back at me and said all parental-like “But I’m not condoning a serious relationship.”