by Mila Gray
“What are you talking about?” Shay demands of her before I can.
“Oh, come on, as if Coach Lee would do something like that.” Tanya says it with an air of absolute authority, tossing her ponytail over one shoulder like a whip. “I heard it’s revenge because Coach benched her for tackling Reid.”
She tries to walk by, but I move to block her path. Her lunch tray bumps my chest and a milk carton falls off, spilling milk all over the floor and our shoes. I ignore it, as well as her squeal of indignation. “What did you say?” I ask.
Tanya raises her overplucked eyebrows at me and shoots me a look of pure scorn. “What’s your problem, McCallister?” she asks. “If she’s not lying, then your uncle’s a pervert. Which version do you prefer?”
I glare at her, words jumbling in my head, trying to come up with a response, and all the while I can feel the entire cafeteria staring at me . . . waiting for my comeback.
“Jake?”
It’s Denton. He’s pulling on my arm. “Come on,” he murmurs. “Let’s get out of here.”
I let him tug me away, out of the cafeteria, out across the playing field. Shay is on my other side. The three of us keep going until we’re at the far end of the field.
“Shit,” Denton says, running his hands through his hair.
“I have to call her,” Shay says. “We have to find out what happened.”
I nod, but there’s a part of me that hesitates. Because what if it’s true? Em would never lie about something like this. But my uncle? He wouldn’t do anything like that. Not Uncle Ben.
There’s an angry buzzing in my head as though a swarm of hornets is hovering around me. I can’t hear what Shay and Denton are saying through the deafening hum. It must all be lies. A mistake. A stupid rumor someone’s started. And when I find out who . . .
“Whoa!” Denton and Shay both grab for my arms.
“Where are you going?” Shay asks.
I realize that I’ve started marching back across the playing field. “To find Reid and figure out who started the rumor. Because it’s bullshit.”
“Hold up,” Denton, ever the calm pragmatist, says. “Let’s just calm down.”
“What if it’s true?” Shay whispers.
“It’s not true!” I shout, turning on Shay in a fury.
Her eyes go wide. “Okay,” she says, glancing at Denton, who gives her a small shake of the head that he doesn’t think I notice.
“He’s my uncle. He wouldn’t do that.”
“So you think Em would make this up?” Shay spits back.
I glare at her, blood smashing into my temples with the force of a hammer. No. She wouldn’t. But I don’t think my uncle could ever do something so horrible either.
Denton gets between us. “Guys, guys, come on . . . Until we know the facts, let’s not argue, okay?”
The bell pulls us back to school.
I sit through afternoon classes, unable to concentrate, trying to block out the whispers whipping around me, gathering speed and volume.
As soon as the final bell rings, I grab my bag and sprint for the door. In the hallway I pass a group of juniors and hear something that sends me into a skid.
I turn around and march up to them. “What did you say?”
The junior looks me up and down scornfully. I’m a foot shorter than him. “I said Emerson Lowe’s a slut.”
Before he even finishes the sentence, my fist is slamming into his jaw. He doubles over with a grunt, groaning. His friends freeze in shock and disbelief, and then in the next second they’re leaping into action, coming at me.
I spin on my heel and tear off down the hallway, dodging around people hovering by the exit, bashing my way through the doors, and leaping down the steps.
I can hear them hot on my heels, yelling about what they’re going to do when they catch me, but I’m faster than all of them. I’ve got reason to be.
Jake
I can sense her looking at me. Although I fell asleep the moment I hit the pillow, my sleep was restless, filled with dreams, mainly about Em, the past blending into the present in a disorienting blur. We were riding bikes together up Toe Jam Hill. Em was pushing on ahead of me, and I was trying to catch up to her, but she always stayed frustratingly just out of reach. I woke at the point she looked at me over her shoulder and smiled and I swerved into a ditch.
Through half-closed lids I watch her now. She’s sitting on a rug just outside the tent, in a patch of late-afternoon sunlight. She’s writing in a journal or something, though the pen stays poised above the page as though she’s lost for words. She tucks her hair behind one ear and then turns to look over her shoulder.
She startles when she sees I’m awake.
“Hey,” I say, my voice hoarse with sleep.
“Hi,” she whispers back, gently closing her book and resting it on her knees.
“How long have I been asleep?” I ask.
“A couple of hours.”
I watch as she puts the book down and slowly rises to her feet. She seems uncertain for a moment, unbalanced, but then she walks inside the tent, bringing all the warmth and the sunlight with her.
I sit up and reach for a T-shirt. Em drops her book on top of her bag and rummages through it for something, biting her lip, and that’s all I can focus on: her lips, the bottom one fuller than the top, and how badly I want to kiss her.
Suddenly, the tent feels too small, too hot—not a fire teepee but a sauna—and I need to get outside and away from her. Grabbing my wash bag, I hustle my way toward the exit. “I’m going to take a shower.”
* * *
I make it a cold shower, but even so, when I head back toward the tent and see Em standing outside among the bachelor boys, who have just returned from their wilderness course jubilant and keen to display their newfound hunter-gatherer skills, I almost have to turn around and take another one. But then I get this overwhelming feeling of protectiveness at the sight of all those guys surrounding her. I want to march over there and put myself between them and her. I never knew I had so much caveman in me. Shit. I have to get a handle on it. Learning not to be impulsive is one of the things on my to-do list.
The men cook their own food over an open fire—using sharpened sticks to impale the store-bought burgers. As we’re sitting around the fire eating dinner, Thor sidles up and offers me a beer.
“No thanks.”
“How old are you?” he asks.
“Twenty-one.”
“Wow,” he says in an appraising kind of way, looking me up and down. “I thought you were older.”
I shake my head at him, my gaze falling on Em, who’s sitting on the opposite side of the fire, laughing at Clark Kent as he shows her how to tie a rabbit snare with a piece of wire and manages to catch his own thumb in it.
“You need to tell her.”
“What?” I say, turning back to Thor.
“You’re mooning over her like some lovesick teenager. No offense intended.”
“I’m not mooning.”
“You’re not eating,” the guy says, pointing at the uneaten burger in my hand.
“That’s because I don’t want to die of E. coli poisoning.”
“Dude, it’s not the burger. It’s love. I know. I’ve been there. Several times. I’m on my third marriage.”
“So obviously I should be taking advice on love and relationships from you.”
He slaps me on the shoulder. “Take the bull by the horns, my friend, tell her the truth, tell her how you feel. From where I’m standing, it’s pretty obvious she feels the same way.”
That gets my attention. She does? I study Em, remembering how she stormed off this morning when the guys laughed suggestively after they heard her groaning in the tent. It reminds me of the time she rushed off the ice after Reid teased her for having the hots for me.
A light bulb goes on. I start grinning. How did I miss the signs?
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Thor whispers in my ear.
; I chew my lip while looking into the flames and pondering that question. No one’s ever had to tell me to take the bull by the horns before. Usually, they’re yelling at me to let the damn bull go. Why am I so hesitant to take a risk now? I never usually am. If I could manage it when I was fourteen, what’s stopping me now?
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.