by Mila Gray
We wave off the guys after they tip us a huge amount of cash, which I insist Em takes. While Toby cleans up the kayaks, Em and I grab our bags and head toward the parking lot. I take her bag from her and throw it over my shoulder, then put my arm around her waist, drawing her near.
“So, can I see you later?” I ask.
She glances up at me, a small, sneaky smile pulling at the edge of her lips. “Yes.”
I drop the bag and pull her against me. She fits perfectly, her arms looping around my waist. I slide my hands up her arms and take her sun-kissed face between them. She rises up on her tiptoes so she reaches my chin.
Electric current flows between us. This evening feels like a lifetime away. Her eyes close. Her lips part. I lean down to kiss her.
“Jake?”
My eyes snap open. I turn my head a fraction and freeze. What the . . . ?
“Lauren?” I say, as though I might be hallucinating the girl who’s standing beside my rental car, arms crossed over her chest, lips pursed tight with outrage. She stares between Em and me, her eyes flashing furiously.
My arm drops to my side, and I feel Em pulling away to look between us.
What the hell is Lauren doing here?
Emerson
Who the hell is she?” the girl yells, looking right at me.
Jake’s arm falls from my waist. I glance between him—standing there ashen-faced, lips half-parted—and the girl. Who is she? She’s blond, pretty in a sorority way rather than a surfer chick kind of way, wearing spray-on jeans and a cashmere cardigan. Her hair is soft and silky and perfectly styled in a way mine will never be, and she’s wearing immaculately applied makeup.
“What are you doing here?” Jake asks the girl.
“Who are you?” the girl asks, turning to me. I feel her eyes scour me from head to foot.
“Who are you?” I fire back.
She puts her hands on her hips. She nods at Jake. “I’m his girlfriend.”
Jake glances at me—a desperate, apologetic glance. I can’t compute. He has a girlfriend? My blood pounds in my ears. I snatch my bag from out of Jake’s hand and in a blurry daze start walking fast toward my bike, past the girl, who refuses to move aside to let me pass, forcing me to walk around her.
“Em!” Jake shouts after me. He tries to follow, but the girl blocks his path. I hear him remonstrate with her, but an angry buzzing fills my ears and I can’t make out the words. I don’t want to make out the words. He lied to me. He has a girlfriend. I throw my bag on my back and climb onto my bike, blinking through a haze of tears I’m determined Jake won’t see.
“Em!” Jake yells as I start to pedal off, but I’m deaf to it.
* * *
“I’m such an idiot,” I tell Shay over the phone twenty minutes later.
“No, you’re not,” she argues.
But I am. How could he have lied to me like that? The way he looked at me, the things he said—all lies. And I fell for it. I’m never trusting anyone ever again. The thought of what we did together and the way Jake touched me makes me cringe. How could he? My body burns with shame.
He’s the first person and only person who I have ever been that open with, who I’ve ever fully dropped my defenses with. He’s the only guy I’ve ever even had an orgasm with, for God’s sake. Rob never gave a crap about anyone’s pleasure but his own. The first time he tried to touch me intimately, I froze—it threw up too many memories of what had happened. I wanted to make him stop, but then I forced myself to carry on, scared that if I stopped him he’d break up with me. I wanted to be normal, so I pretended for years that I was okay with sex, but I wasn’t. Every time we slept together, I switched off. I went through the motions but never engaged. And Rob never made an effort to even ask me if I enjoyed it. It was only ever about him.
Frankly, I think he felt relieved that he never had to make an effort—or maybe that’s being too kind. It probably never crossed his mind that he needed to.
Jake made me realize that it doesn’t have to be that way, that there are some guys who will put you first. For the first time ever when kissing someone, my brain wasn’t swamped by images of Coach Lee. I was fully there in the moment, with Jake, thinking only about him. He made me forget everything else. A surge of fury wells up. I hate him even more for that—for making me feel that way, for making me think it was something special.
Well, at least I didn’t sleep with him. I suppose there is that. It’s small consolation, however.
“What did she look like?” Shay asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“Pretty,” I admit. “Really pretty.”
Shay doesn’t say anything, and I picture her pushing her glasses up her nose and pursing her lips. “At least let him explain,” she says. “I mean, you guys didn’t talk for seven years—do you really want to go back to that? Maybe hear him out.”
I huff into the phone.
“You know I’m right,” she answers in a cajoling tone.
Shay is always right, though I don’t want to admit it. She was one of the smartest kids in school: has a full scholarship to NYU to study political theory and already has an internship lined up with a feminist think tank.
“Get all the facts before you make a decision,” she tells me.
“You would say that,” I mumble.
“I will see you tomorrow,” Shay says. “Until then, don’t do anything stupid.”
“Stupid like what?”
“Like get-back-together-with-Rob kind of stupid.”
“That’s never going to happen. I swear it.” Not after last night, I want to tell her. There is no way I’d ever go back to Rob now. It’s not even within the realm of conceivable.
I hang up and my phone beeps with a voice mail. I’m holding my breath, hoping that it’s Jake, but instead Rob’s grunting tones greet me. It’s an old message from two days ago, when we were on Vashon and had no phone signal.
“Emerson,” he says sullenly. “It’s me. Listen, you like left some stuff here. I don’t know . . . books . . . like a journal or something, and, yeah, some underwear. Let me know what you want to do with it all or I’ll just go ahead and toss it.”
Shit. I left one of my journals at his house. Oh my God. What if he’s read it? It’s not exactly a flattering read. I scrunch my eyes shut. No, I tell myself. What are the odds of Rob reading it? The only thing he ever reads is the sports section of the paper. I have to hold on to that hope . . . and get around there as soon as possible just in case he makes an exception to the rule. I’m already moving, pulling on my jeans, the phone still propped against my ear.
My voice mail beeps again. Another message from Rob. This time from this morning. “Okay, so I guess you’re giving me the silent treatment,” he grumbles. “Real grown-up, Emerson.” I shake my head in disbelief. I’m the immature one? “So I’m sitting here and I’ve got your journal in my hand . . .” My heart thumps loudly, and I freeze, one arm through my T-shirt, one out. Nausea boils in my stomach and starts to rise up my throat. “Kind of an interesting read, Emerson,” he says. And then he hangs up.
With my hair still wet, I fly down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” my mom calls after me as I rush out the door.
“To Rob’s,” I call. I catch her startled look, but I don’t have time to explain.
I screech to a halt outside Rob’s house ten minutes later, out of breath and in a blind panic. I throw my bike down on the lawn and race up to the front door.
Reid answers it.
“Is Rob in?” I ask.
His brow furrows. “What do you want with him? I thought you guys broke up.”
“I just need to speak to him is all.”
“How’s things?” Reid asks.
I glower at him. “Is Rob in?” I press.
Reid glowers back, but then he turns and stumps off, yelling for Rob, who appears after a good long minute. One look at his face as he stalks toward the door tells me everything I need to know. I take a step backward. My
stomach curdles. He’s read it. The whole way around here, I was frantically wracking my brain to remember the details of what I’d written in that journal. I’m so stupid. Why on earth did I leave it here? I know that most of the entries are about Rob and me, about how unhappy I am—or was, about how angry I am about my dad’s illness and my financial worries about the business. It’s a journal. It’s where I vent and rant and empty out all the raging emotions inside me that I can’t ever vocalize, but I know Rob and I know that all he will have focused on are the bits about him.
“I’m shit in bed?” he hisses.
I cringe. Oh God. Why did I think committing to paper all the unsatisfying details of my sex life would ever be a good idea? “You read my journal?” I stammer in a whisper. But now that I’m facing him, anger starts to obliterate the embarrassment. “It was private. You shouldn’t have read it.”
“Well, if you hadn’t left it lying around . . . ,” he splutters, his face going red.
“No!” I shout back at him. “You still shouldn’t have read it, so don’t blame me if you read something you didn’t like.”
He snorts, his eyes narrowing to slits. “You know, Em, maybe if you weren’t so frigid . . .”
It’s my turn to snort. Lava-hot fury rushes through my veins. My hand curls into a fist. Normally at this stage in an argument I’d clam up tight—words would get twisted and tangled in my head—but not now. “Right!” I yell. “So it’s my fault that you’re a selfish lover who wouldn’t know what to do with a woman even if she came with an instruction manual?”
Rob frowns. I shake my head at him in disgust. Three days ago, maybe I would have fallen apart at hearing him call me that. I would probably have believed him—believed that it was my fault he couldn’t turn me on, that there was something wrong with me—but not now. I smile—I can’t help myself; I’m remembering my night with Jake. “Just give me my stuff back, Rob,” I say wearily.
“Can’t,” he answers, crossing his arms in defiance. “I threw it all away.” He jerks his head toward the trash cans beside the house. And he slams the door in my face.
Asshole. I walk over to the trash cans and lift the lid, but one eye-watering whiff makes me drop it. I’m not wading through bags of trash to recover a journal. That chapter of my life is now officially over. And best left in the trash.
Jake
(Then)
I run all the way home from school. I don’t even slow my pace after the junior that I punched and his friends give up chasing me.
When I finally make it, breathless and panting, through the front door, I find my mom ransacking the hall closet, suitcases piled up by the stairs.
“What are you doing?” I ask, wiping the sweat pouring down my face.
She barely glances at me. “We’re leaving.”
“What?”
“We’re leaving.”
“What do you mean we’re leaving?”
“Your grandmother’s had a stroke. She’s in the ICU. We’re flying to Toronto. Grandpa needs us.” Her eyes are red-rimmed. It looks like she’s been crying.
Shaken by the news, it takes me a few seconds to notice the number of suitcases. “Why have we got so much stuff? How long are we going for?”
My mom walks toward the kitchen, shrugging off my question. “I don’t know.”
I follow her. “Did you hear? About Uncle Ben?”
She pauses with her back to me.
“They’re saying he attacked Em.”
My mom’s spine stiffens. She doesn’t turn around.
“Have you spoken to him?” I ask.
“Yes.” She turns to look at me. She looks like she wants to say more. Her lip trembles.
“Mom! What did he say?” I press her.
She shakes her head. “Just pack your things. And hurry your sister up. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
She walks off and I stare at her departing back, my mind reeling. What? What the hell is happening? First Em and now my grandmother. It’s like an earthquake has rocked through my world and now a series of aftershocks is destroying everything left standing.
“I’m not going!” I yell after my mom.
She doesn’t answer.
My dad’s on a business trip, so I can’t talk to him about it, and my sister is only ten. I head upstairs to my room, grabbing the phone as I go. I need to talk to Em, find out what happened. But when I call her, there’s no answer.
I throw my bag on the floor of my room and flop onto the bed, covering my head with my arms. The room is spinning. I don’t know what to do to make it stop. He did something to her. My uncle did something to Em. I want to kill him.
I sit bolt upright. I’m going to go to his house. I’m going to confront him. And I’m going to . . . My door flies open. My sister, Beth, stands in the doorway. Her face is flushed.
“Did you hear?” she asks breathlessly.
“Hear what?”
“What they’re saying about Uncle Ben?”
Damn, I think to myself. The gossip has already reached the elementary school playground, which means it must be all over the island.
“Get out!” I shout, all my frustration bursting out of me. I march to the door and slam it in Beth’s face. Then I turn around and look around my room as though it’s a prison cell I’m trapped inside of.
I kick the bed, swearing loudly. What do I do? I think about going over to my uncle’s house to confront him and maybe punch him in the face. But that can wait. I need to see Em first. I need to know if she’s okay. I pause, though. If I saw her, what would I even say?
“Five minutes, Jake!” my mom yells from downstairs.
Dropping to my knees, I empty my schoolbag onto the floor and grab my notebook and a pen. I’ll write Em a note.
I scribble it fast. There’s no time for a long letter.
I hesitate for a second, reading the letter back before scribbling one more line, and then I fold up the piece of paper and race down the stairs.
I’m halfway out the front door, letter in hand, when my mom appears, carrying my sister’s suitcase.
“Where are you going?” she asks.
I skid around to face her. “To Em’s.”
“There’s no time. And besides, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“But . . .”
“No buts, Jake. Where’s your bag? I need it in the car now. We’re leaving!”
Jake
I race around to Em’s and pound on the front door. Her mother answers.
“Is Em here? Can I see her?” I ask, peering over her shoulder and up the stairs. I’m so impatient to see her that I almost barge my way inside the house and take the stairs three at a time.
“She’s not here, Jake,” her mom tells me.
“Where is she? Do you know?”
Em’s mom hesitates a beat, and I look at her suspiciously. “She’s gone to see Rob,” she admits.
“Rob?” I exclaim. What?
Em’s mom sighs loudly and shakes her head. “I don’t know why. She rushed out of here like she had the devil on her tail.”
I frown. Why would she go to Rob’s? What’s going on? The only thing I can come up with is that seeing Lauren and me has propelled her straight back into his arms. But no, that can’t be right—can it? She wouldn’t be so impulsive, would she? She hasn’t even given me a chance to explain. But maybe she drew a conclusion, and it would be just like Em to want to hit back. Oh shit. I stagger backward off the veranda.
“I’ll tell her you stopped by,” Em’s mom calls to me as I climb in my car.
I tear out of the drive, intending to go straight to Rob’s, but I stop myself. Instead, I pull over on the side of the road and try calling Em again. Still no answer. I hang up without leaving a message. I need to speak to her face-to-face. Fuck it. I put the car into drive and head over to Rob’s house.
There’s no sign of Em or her bike, which is a relief, but I decide to knock anyway just to be sure she isn’t there. Rob answers. He’s w
earing blue sweats and a T-shirt with the police academy logo on it. He takes one look at me and says: “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Is Em here?” I ask.
“No.” He grimaces like he’s chewing on something rancid and foul-tasting. “Emerson is not here.”
“Was she here?” I ask, trying to keep my tone even.
He narrows his eyes at me. “What’s it to you?”
I stare at him. God, there’s so much I want to say to him. Instead, I press my lips together and force it all to stay inside. I hate this guy. How could he be with a girl like Em and treat her the way he did? How could he let a girl like that slip through his fingers? The guy is the biggest jerk on the planet—after his brother, that is. But on the upside, I guess if he weren’t such a jerk, I’d have more of a challenge on my hands winning her back, so thank God for small mercies.
I turn and walk away.
“Hey, McCallister?”
I glance over my shoulder.
“Good luck,” Rob calls to me. “She’s as frigid as an iceberg. You’ll get more action from a corpse.”
I come to a standstill, my heart pounding in my temples. My brain warns me to hold fire, but I can’t. I’m already striding back up the drive. I’m so fast that Rob startles backward, but he isn’t fast enough. I grab him by the neck of his T-shirt and twist it hard. His hands scramble for purchase on mine, but I’m stronger and I’ve got a tight hold on him. “You say another word about her,” I hiss, “and it will be the last word out of your mouth with those teeth still in your head.”
I’m so close to him, I can see the filigree of red veins road-mapping his eyes, can smell his sour breath. I let him go, shoving him backward, already furious at myself for letting him get to me, for not keeping on walking. He’s not worth it. I know that. But I really want to tell him how wrong he is. I want him to know that it was not her. It was him.
“You know,” I say, the words rushing out before I can stop them, “that wasn’t my experience of Em at all. In fact, it was completely the opposite.”
I let him go and he stumbles back against the door frame, glaring at me.