Jeremy sat beside me and leaned close with his arm slung over the back of my chair. He asked me to dance every time a popular song came on.
Glenn didn’t dance much. He stayed at the table, slouched low in his chair. I found myself talking to him a lot, however.
I liked Jeremy. He was a nice guy and incredibly good-looking, but I felt most comfortable around Glenn. I enjoyed our conversations. We seemed to share the same opinions about everything.
When a particular R.E.M. song came on, I saw Glenn sit up in his chair. I turned to Jeremy.
“Mind if I dance with him? Poor guy’s depressed about my sister. He hasn’t moved from his chair all night.”
“Sure, go ahead,” Jeremy replied. He seemed genuinely indifferent.
I tapped Glenn on the arm. “Want to dance?”
“Yeah,” he replied, and we stood up.
The song was “Can’t Get There From Here,” and we danced with a circle of friends. As soon as it ended, a waltz started. It was “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton.
I was about to return to the table, but Glenn clasped my arm. “Dance with me,” he said.
Butterflies swarmed thrillingly in my belly, but I fought to keep my emotions hidden as I moved toward him.
His hands slid around my waist and he pulled me close. My heart beat so fast I could barely breathe. All I wanted to do was hold onto him forever. I don’t know why I was still so in love with him, considering the fact that he had been dating my sister for the past two weeks.
“How’s it going with Jeremy?” he asked, leaning back slightly to look into my eyes.
“Okay, I guess.”
Glenn glanced back at the table where Jeremy sat forward in his chair, elbows on knees. He was engaged in a conversation with one of his buddies and hadn’t seemed to notice that Glenn and I were still dancing. Or if he had noticed, he chose not to acknowledge it.
“He’s a good guy,” Glenn said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
We said nothing more about Jeremy. We simply danced, but I was intensely aware of the feel of Glenn’s shoulders beneath my fingertips. I slid one hand down, like a caress, to rest on his bicep.
His hand moved a little lower to the small of my back. He pulled me closer and I wrapped my arms around his neck.
Pulse racing, I daringly asked, “And how’s it going with Mia?”
He didn’t answer for a long time. When at last he spoke, his lips touched my ear and the sound of his voice sent a tidal wave of gooseflesh down the entire left side of my body. “I don’t know, Kate,” he said, “but I’m pretty sure I asked the wrong girl to the dance.”
My heart turned over and my eyes fell closed, because he was telling me the one thing I had wanted to hear most – that he had feelings for me, and that he regretted ever becoming involved with Mia. In a way, I wasn’t surprised. I had known she wasn’t right for him. I just wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to figure that out.
The song came to an end. Slowly, we backed away from each other, but he kept me there, locked in his gaze until the DJ played an upbeat song.
“We should go back to the table,” I suggested, feeling shaken. He nodded.
We were both quiet for the rest of the night. Neither of us talked much to the others, but we made eye contact several times.
Jeremy hardly seemed to notice. He was a chatterbox, talking to the other guys, and when they played the last waltz he asked me to dance. Naturally. I said yes because I was his date. But each time I glanced back at the table, Glenn was slouched low in his chair, watching us with a furrowed brow.
Chapter Twelve
I WAS CONFUSED that night as I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Mia didn’t speak to me when I arrived home from the dance. She kept to her room, and I knew she was sulking over the fact that I had gone to the dance with Jeremy. I’m not sure what she expected. Did she want me to say, “No problem, I’ll step aside?”
For all I knew, she had been flirting with Jeremy for days behind Glenn’s back. Maybe Jeremy hadn’t even wanted to take me to the dance. Maybe he was just fulfilling an obligation because he had already asked me, and it was too late to get out of it. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t seemed concerned when I danced with Glenn.
Mia could be talking to him on the phone at that very moment, I thought. Maybe they were plotting how he would let me down gently, so that he and Mia could be together.
Jeremy was a nice guy, but honestly, I didn’t really care if he wanted to be with Mia. Not one small iota.
I was sound asleep the next morning when a knock sounded at my door.
“Kate, phone’s for you!” Dad said from the hall.
“Got it.” I sat up groggily and squinted through the beam of sunlight shining in through the white curtains. I rubbed my eyes and reached for the phone on my bedside table.
“Hello?”
“Hi Kate. It’s Glenn.”
The sound of his voice first thing in the morning was more potent than ten shots of espresso. I sat straight up.
“You’re up early,” I said.
He chuckled. “It’s 11:00. Geez, did I wake you?”
“No, I was up, just lying here.” I blinked a few times. “Actually, that’s a lie. I was asleep, but I should be up now anyway. Thanks for waking me.”
“You’re welcome.” I could hear a smile in his voice.
“Did you have a good time last night?”
“Yeah, how about you?” I adjusted the pillows behind me so I could sit up.
“It had its ups and downs,” he replied.
I paused, wondering what he was referring to, exactly – the fact that he was dateless without Mia? Or the fact that I was with Jeremy?
“It was kind of that way for me, too,” I replied, not giving away too much.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I said, thinking this was a very strange conversation. “So why are you calling me?” I boldly asked. “Shouldn’t you be calling Mia on a Saturday morning?”
Obviously I was confident that something was happening between us, or I never would have asked such a question.
“I’m calling because...” He paused. “I was wondering if you wanted to go for a drive.”
“I think my sister might have something to say about that.”
There was another long pause. “We’re not together anymore,” he explained.
I threw off the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed. “Since when?”
“Last night. I called her when I got home, and I don’t think she was sick. Do you?”
I shut my eyes and cupped my forehead in a hand, because I was filled with elation, yet I felt slightly guilty about that. I wanted to jump up and down and dance around my bedroom, but I had to keep it together and tread carefully. Respectfully. Even though Mia hadn’t hesitated about stabbing me in the back, it just wasn’t in me to be disloyal to her. Maybe that was naïve.
“I don’t know,” I said. “She looked kind of green at supper.”
“Mm,” he said. “Well, we both knew it wasn’t going to work out. I’m sure she considers the past few weeks a big waste of time.”
And do you consider it a waste of time? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t put him in that position. Not now. He was behaving like a gentleman, implying that it was Mia’s wish to break up. Maybe it was. The fact that she went after Glenn at all still baffled me, because he was never her type and she told me point blank that she liked Jeremy.
It occurred to me in that moment that I hadn’t given a single thought to how Jeremy might feel about this, but I wasn’t even sure Jeremy and I were a couple. Sure, he asked me to the dance, but he hadn’t even tried to kiss me. And he wasn’t the one calling me this morning.
“Yeah,” I said to Glenn. “Let’s go for a drive.”
Chapter Thirteen
WHEN GLENN PICKED me up at noon, I still hadn’t set eyes on Mia. She never emerged from her room. I figured she was still sulking about the two guys who weren’t
coiled around her pretty little finger, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if she dashed out the door and hopped into Jeremy’s car at any given moment, without any thought to me.
Not that it mattered. All I cared about was spending the day with Glenn.
We drove to the beach and walked along the rocky shoreline. Though it was late October and the temperature was crisp, the sun was warm on our backs as we picked our way over the smooth round stones.
Later we sat on two giant boulders and watched the gulls float on the breeze, high above us against the clear blue sky. The tide was out and the water was calm. It was a perfect October day, one of the most memorable days of my life.
Glenn and I talked for seven hours straight. We talked about music, school, people, and life. He told me about his family – his older brother who was working as a clerk in the accounting department of a pulp and paper mill up north, and his older sister who had gotten married last year. Glenn was the youngest, like me, and he was close to his mother who was a nurse and a saint. His father, however, was an alcoholic and couldn’t hold down a job.
We talked about our futures and what we wanted to do after high school. Glenn was interested in teaching because he liked the idea of lengthy summer vacations for the rest of his life.
I told him I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and he said I’d figure it out eventually. Something would happen to me, and a light bulb would go off. I just hadn’t found my calling yet. That was all.
He was so right about that because something did happen. It’s why I became a paramedic.
After that first day together, Glenn and I were inseparable. I never imagined I could feel so close to another human being. I wanted to be with him every minute of the day. When I was with Glenn, I felt like I was my true self. No one understood me like he did.
We knew each other’s schedules at school and walked together between classes, and sometimes wrote long letters to each other when we were bored during lectures and the teacher’s back was turned. We held hands after school until the very last minute when it was time to part ways and board different buses. Then we would talk on the phone each night for at least an hour.
He was my best friend and I trusted him completely. He loved me with his whole heart and I loved him in return with equal measure. Though we were only fifteen and seventeen, ours was a passionate and mature love. I had never experienced such happiness and intimacy with anyone.
But you’re probably wondering about Mia, and how we continued as sisters. Frankly, after everything that happened, I’m surprised we didn’t scratch each other’s eyes out, but our quarrel remained low-key. First, there was a mutual silent treatment for about three weeks, until Mia, true to form, took an interest in a waiter who worked at a local restaurant. He was impossibly gorgeous with wavy, jet-black hair and blue eyes. His name was Mark, and he was in an engineering program in university. As soon as she fell for him, all was forgotten, and our relationship returned to normal.
I never knew what happened between Mia and Jeremy. She never mentioned him again. He simply faded out of my life. He and Glenn remained civil, but Glenn spent most of his time with me anyway, and we preferred to be alone, just the two of us, at my place or his, so the popular crowd simply went on without us.
Mia dated Mark for six months, then they broke up and she made plans to move to New York and pursue a career in fashion. Sadly, that didn’t work out for her, but I’ll explain why later. All you need to know for now is that she played an important role in my life when I desperately needed my big sister.
Let me tell you about that.
Chapter Fourteen
GLENN AND I had been together for just over a year when everything spun out of control.
I should begin by confessing that I was no longer a virgin at that point, though we certainly didn’t rush into anything. For five long months we did what all teenagers do. We fooled around in the backseat of Glenn’s car or in my basement when no one was home. But I wanted it to be special, and though it might seem strange to younger readers in this day and age, I wanted to wait until we were married. That’s how things were back then.
It’s not as if Glenn and I didn’t talk about it. The first time it came up, I was only sixteen.
“I love you,” he whispered in my ear one night as we lay on a blanket in the field behind his house, gazing up at the stars.
I wrapped my legs around his until I was entwined with him like ivy on a trellis. I kissed his cheek.
“I love you, too. More than anything. I don’t want this to ever end.”
“It won’t,” he said, “because I’m going to marry you.”
I drew back slightly. “What did you say?”
There was no laughter in his eyes, only love and desire. I was overcome by a rush of joy.
“You heard me.”
“I want to marry you, too,” I replied, because I couldn’t imagine my life without him. To exist without Glenn would be to exist without the sunrise each day. Without oxygen in the air.
It sounds corny, I know, but they were the romantic beliefs of a young girl swept away by the passion of first love. It was shimmering and wonderful, yet agonizingly painful at the same time because we had to wait so long to truly be together. An eternity, it seemed. Why couldn’t we just be free to lie together, to share a bed, and wake up in each other’s arms?
The idea of such a thing stirred my teenage heart’s desires and frustrated me immensely, for I was sixteen and living under my father’s roof. He had strict rules. Glenn wasn’t even permitted to enter my bedroom.
The first time my parents came home and found us alone together in the house we were sitting on the living room sofa listening to records. Dad went ballistic. He sent Glenn home and grounded me for a week.
“Teenage boys only want one thing,” he told me. “You can’t invite that boy – or any boy – over unless someone is home.”
“There won’t be any other boys,” I argued in my defense, but my father looked at me as if I were a fool.
Two months later, Mom and Dad surprised Glenn and me by going out one afternoon and leaving us completely alone. They even asked us to lock the door behind them.
I suppose, by then, they had grown to trust Glenn. I could see it in their eyes when they talked to him, and in the way my mother smiled at me at the dinner table whenever his name came up.
“That Glenn is a very good catch,” she said to me, leaning close to speak privately.
“I know, Mom,” I replied with a sense of pride and relief. I was pleased they finally saw what I saw.
The next day, my mother nudged me in the ribs at the front picture window and said, “Didn’t I say he was a good catch?”
My dreamy boyfriend had offered to mow the lawn one weekend when Dad was away at a professional conference.
“You don’t need to convince me,” I replied with a laugh, “but I’m glad you think so.”
We watched him for a few minutes, then I laid my head on my mom’s shoulder. She raised my hand to her lips and kissed the back of it.
It was one of those special moments I will never forget. I loved my mother with every piece of my soul.
Now, I only wish that perfect feeling of bliss had lasted a little longer.
Chapter Fifteen
AS I MENTIONED before, Glenn and I were together for five months before I gave him my virginity. I say ‘gave’ because I can’t bring myself to use the word ‘lost.’ It’s simply not accurate. There was no feeling of loss on my part, only a deep and meaningful satisfaction, without regret.
Glenn waited a long time for me to be ready, and he would have waited forever if I’d asked him to. I knew how much he loved me.
As it turned out, we didn’t actually plan for my deflowering. There were no candles, or rose petals placed between the sheets in anticipation of such a momentous event. It was just like every other time we fooled around in his bed when his parents weren’t home. The only difference was that I didn’t tell him to s
top when our clothes came off.
It all happened very naturally.
I won’t try to paint it with a soft brush, however. It was excruciatingly painful, but I didn’t mind because I loved him.
We were lucky that day. We were lucky for most of that year, in fact, because we took a few chances, and I wasn’t on the pill.
I know now that I should have gone to the doctor and gotten a prescription for birth control, but the world was different back then. If you were a sixteen-year-old girl, you made sure no one knew you were having sex.
It wasn’t unusual for my periods to be late, even as much as two weeks. My monthly cycle had always been unpredictable, so I barely noticed the following spring when I skipped a period – until I woke one morning, sat straight up in bed and struggled to remember when I’d last menstruated.
I should have been keeping better track of those things under the circumstances, but what can I say? I didn’t think anything like that would ever happen to me.
When I arrived at school and stepped off the bus, Glenn was waiting for me at the curb. “You’re late,” he said with a smile.
My stomach turned over. “What did you say?”
“I’ve been waiting here for ten minutes,” he explained. “What happened? Did your driver fall asleep at the wheel?”
I numbly placed my hand in his and allowed him to lead me along the paved sidewalk. “No, but I need to talk to you.”
We had at least fifteen minutes before the first bell, and I had to get this off my chest. The stress was killing me and Glenn was the only person I trusted with this secret.
We headed toward a picnic table around the back of the school. We dropped our book bags and sat down. There was a chill in the air; I could see my breath, but the early morning sun was blinding. I had to squint. Glenn frowned at me.
The Color of Heaven Series [02] The Color of Destiny Page 3