by S. M. Parker
“You’re not going with Dad?” The question is not one I wanted to ask, and the very question I’ve wanted to ask for weeks now. How much is Dad back in her life? What’s the new protocol? The new boundaries?
Her eyebrows raise. “No. I’d never put you in a situation like that, Zephyr.”
“Well, I don’t have to go.”
Mom looks startled. “That’s unthinkable. You adore Anna.”
“I know. I do. But I want you to be happy too, Mom.” I shrug. “So if you want to take Dad I’ll stay home.”
“I wouldn’t hear of it. And it would break Anna’s heart.”
“Okay then, but no dancing.” I want to be a part of Anna’s big day, see all her little sisters dressed like princesses. Her day isn’t about Gregg or me or Alec or rogue kisses.
“Deal.”
“The no dancing clause is non-negotiable.”
“You’ve made your terms clear.” Mom laughs. If I played the One Thing game with Mom, I’d tell her that her laughter is the one sound I’ve missed the most these past months.
When she closes my bedroom door, I kick off my boots and curl into my covers just as my phone plays.
I kissed a girl and I liked it—
I grab for it. “Hey.”
“Favorite time of the year?” Alec says.
“Spring. Renewal and all . . .”
“Worst memory?”
The question startles me and I hesitate for a beat, which is against the rules of the game. Dad’s leaving sucked, but it wasn’t the worst thing.
“My dog dying. The one I had when I was a kid. She was hit by a car and I was the one who found her.”
“God, that’s awful.”
“What’s your worst memory?” I ask.
“How about something lighter? Favorite letter in the alphabet?”
“S. It has the potential to go on forever.”
“I hope we have that too.” Alec’s words draw around me, hold me with their promise.
I dream on the possibility of forever with Alec on my drive to school on Monday. Maybe this thing between us can be sacred and lasting. Maybe nothing can break it. The thought absorbs me until I meet up with Lizzie at lunch, her stare already boring a hole in my skull as I approach our table. “So you’re blowing me off?”
“It’s good to see you too.” I grab an apple from my bag, shine it against my jeans. “Lizzie, you hate Alumni Weekend.” I bite into my apple, regretting sending her that text last period.
“That’s not really the point. We made plans, Zee.” She slumps back in her chair, aimlessly rearranges the tater tots on her plate.
“You know I love hanging with you, but Alec has something special planned and I don’t want to bail on that for some lame school tradition. He’s my boyfriend. I want to spend time with him.”
“I get it, Zee. I have a boyfriend too, remember? And I manage to still hang out with my friends and keep my commitments.” She abandons her fork and the metal thunks against the plastic cafeteria tray before she crosses her arms over her chest.
“Don’t be mad, Lizzie. It’s just different for me.”
She narrows her eyes. “Careful, Zee.”
“No. I just mean . . . well, it’s all new with Alec, and you and Jason have been together for years.”
She leans forward, aims her words. “Jason and I have managed to stay together because we have our own lives outside of our relationship.”
She doesn’t understand. I don’t want a life separate from Alec. I don’t even want time separate from Alec. But I don’t say that. “I know. I’m still figuring all this out.”
My words seems to release some of her steam and she unbinds her fierce posture. “You do realize it’s our last Alumni Weekend before we’re alumni. And that I’m going to visit Jason and his family in New York for Turkey Day. I won’t see you all break.”
“We’ll catch up when you get home. I promise.”
“Sounds like a consolation prize. Besides, aren’t you supposed to represent the field hockey team during the awards ceremony on Wednesday?”
“Shit. I forgot all about that.”
“You forgot?”
Completely. Coach will be furious if I miss it. I can’t miss it. So when I meet up with Alec in French class and mention this small but somewhat important commitment I’m locked in to, it kills me to see the color fade from his face.
Alec sighs. “Yeah, okay. If you can’t get out of it. It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“I made plans when you said you’d be free.”
Ugh. “I’m so sorry. I seriously forgot all about it.”
“Could you make an excuse? I promise it will be worth it.”
I cringe, already hearing Coach’s screams. “I can’t. I’m the captain.”
“Cocaptain. And you were the cocaptain, past tense. Field hockey’s over now.”
He’s right of course. Still, his words kick up a flutter of fear in me. How can such a huge part of my life be over with unrelenting finality? And am I ready to move on?
Mrs. Sarter claps her hands and bellows out a too-cheerful French greeting. Alec leans over and whispers, “Our date’s important to me.”
I stare at the board and try to listen to the French babble Mrs. Sarter is laying on us, but I cut my eyes to Alec. His black Converse with the scuffs on the toe. The fray of his jeans where they rub at his sneakers. My mind bends to the class when I daydreamed over his citrus smell and the secrets he’d tell only me. And now that I know him I want even more. His secrets. His touch. My curiosity leaps thinking about what he could have planned just for me.
And that’s all I can think about, even as Wednesday morning arrives and I ready for my mystery date with Alec. Drying my hair, I remind myself that accepting a trophy in front of a random crowd is meaningless. What matters is winning State, and we did that. Karen or Coach can trot out the trophy for the citizens of Sudbury to clap over. Still, there’s a rumbling in the pit of my stomach telling me I’m missing out on something. Something I wouldn’t have missed for all the world before Alec.
But that was before Alec. A lifetime ago.
Then, as if he senses my doubts, he texts: On ur way?
I check the clock. Eleven thirty. Out the door now.
Hurry. It’s torture waiting.
I laugh. My stomach flitters with a lightness. Extreme much?
Stop texting and get over here!
Yes, sir.
Me likes it when u call me sir.
I grab my keys.
• • •
When I arrive at Whites Pond, the horizon is a blanket of ivory. We only got a dusting of snow last night but the sky is bland and crisp, stretching like a sea until it reaches the stand of lodge pole pines framing its northerly side. I see Alec skating on the edge of the ice, over the shallow end where little kids swim in the summer. I walk to the lip of frozen water and Alec skates to a stop in front of me, his sharp blades spraying a crest of shaved ice between us.
“Good morning, Zephyr actually. Wanna join me?”
“I didn’t bring my skates.”
“No need.” He coasts to the bank and pulls a white box from the snow. He removes a pair of figure skates, holds them up for me to see. “I come prepared.”
I giggle my disbelief. “Are they my size?”
“Yep. Custom purchased.” He places them in my hands.
“How do you know what size shoe I wear?”
“Ah, Zephyr. When are you going to realize that nothing about you goes unnoticed?” He pulls off his fleece and sets it on the snow. “Go ahead and sit. Put them on.”
I slip my foot into the hard leather of the skate and Alec kneels before me. He positions my blade between his knees and pulls on the laces, starting from the bottom and tightening his way to the top of my ankle.
“How do they feel?”
“A perfect fit.” But it’s the tender way he’s dressing me that feels too good.
He laces my other
skate before pulling me upright. I lean into him and put my lips to his. It is a shock to feel the warmth of his mouth in the thick winter air.
His skates start their metered slide and I follow next to him, possibly overaware of how sexy his legs are as they pump into each glide. But I really am powerless over the staring, which is exactly how I manage to practically skate on top of the two hay bales. I swerve wide to avoid them at the last possible minute, but then I notice the third one, the one draped with a white tablecloth. Alec guides me onto one of the bales, as elegantly as if he’s pulling out a chair at a restaurant. He takes a seat across from the makeshift table and produces a basket from under the cloth.
“Another picnic?”
He sets out a thermos and two mugs. “Too predictable?”
“Predictable can be good.” The deepest part of me needs predictable. Needs to know that the things I rely on—the people I rely on—will be here tomorrow and then some.
“Consider this my small thanks for believing in me. No one’s ever done that before.” He pours two mugs of hot chocolate and I take a sip. Alec sets two croissants onto plastic plates. “One’s chocolate and one’s almond.”
“Chocolate, please.”
He grins, slides that plate in front of me. “I know it’s not a Thanksgiving feast on top of a mountain the way you’re used to.”
Tears creep up behind my eyes for his remembering the details of my holiday tradition with my father. “It’s perfect. No, it’s beyond perfect.”
“I wish it could be more. Next year will be even better. We’ll plan it together.”
“Next year?” I round my hands along the outside of the mug, my palms warming.
“I hope so.” His eyes send me a pleading gaze. “Is that too much pressure?”
“No.” The word, a whisper.
“So it’s cool to tell you that nothing really mattered BZ?” He winks. “Before Zephyr.”
“Catchy. And totally cool.” I bite on my growing smile, one which Alec returns. It’s the same for me. Alec stops me craning my neck to stare at the past. And he’s made me feel worthy of Boston College. The campus is no longer some shadowy nirvana that only people with perfect families can access. He makes me feel like I belong. Here. There. Wherever I journey in between.
The minutes slip away as we skate together across the lake. The sun sits low on the horizon by the time I notice how cold I am. We duck into his car and my fingers crave the heat blowing from the dash. Alec pulls me close, lays me on his lap. I stare up at him as he strokes my hair. The windows fog instantly and I catch Alec’s hand as he reaches for the defroster.
“Don’t. It’s like being in a cloud.”
Alec’s fingers fall back into my curls. “How do you always know the perfect thing to say?”
“Hah! I think the same thing about you.”
He laughs. “So we should just hang out in our cloud and say perfect things to each other?”
“That would be heaven.”
“Favorite day of the week?” he prompts.
“Sunday. It even sounds lazy.” I cherish this familiar game that has become so much more than a game. The words seem simple, but they build a trust that feels deeper and stronger than anything I’ve ever known. “Favorite flower?”
“Tulip. It’s kind of the only one I know.” He laughs. “Favorite indulgence.”
You. “My handmade back scratcher. For all those hard to reach places. Favorite time of day?”
“Midnight. The bridge between one day and the next. Favorite spice?”
“Pepper.” I bite my lip and smirk. “It’s kind of the only one I know.”
He bends to kiss my forehead. “Well, we’ll have to change that.”
He asks me for my keys then and jumps into the cold. I watch him in the rearview mirror as he starts my car. My stomach drops. Is the day over? Something like regret washes through me, but why? And then as Alec ducks his body back into his seat, I know. He raises his hands to the vent, rubs them together furiously. I study his hands and know I want them on me in all the unexpected ways he’s explored me before. I feel robbed of his touch and the loss makes me shudder.
“Cold?”
“I’m fine,” I say, because how can I tell him that I crave his physical attention, that I feel lost without it?
“Follow me to my place?”
Favorite question? That one.
• • •
On Alec’s couch, I stress about trying to appear casual as he cooks dinner, but when he returns to his living room, he looks dejected.
“It’s ruined.”
“What?”
“I made eggplant parmesan but . . .” He sits, hangs his head in his hands. “I swear I turned the oven off. I just left it in there, you know, until we got back. I was going to heat it up.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I promised you dinner out, but then I wanted you to taste one of my dishes, show you I’m not crap at cooking. Turns out, I am.”
I rub at his back. “You can’t stress over one burned dinner.”
“It’s not just one dinner. It’s your dinner.” He pulls away quickly. “And please don’t tell me what I can stress over.”
I raise my hands in surrender.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean that.” His tone is softer, but a vein at his temple throbs.
“I don’t need a big meal. I’m kind of craving popcorn.”
He lights. “Yeah?”
I nod.
He leads me to the kitchen where we microwave popcorn together. When the smell of the hot kernels permeates the kitchen I realize I’m starving.
With a huge bowl in hand, Alec and I return to the living room and I pop a kernel into my mouth. I resist scarfing the entire bowl.
He picks up the remote, navigates to Netflix. “At least I can’t screw this up.”
“You didn’t screw anything up.”
“Says you.” He selects a movie called Love Actually. “I saw this title and thought of you.”
“What’s it about?”
“Um, if I had to guess?” He throws me a delicious smile. “Love.”
“You make that leap all by yourself?”
Alec laughs and grabs for my free hand. He turns it palm up and traces the lines there. Slowly, tenderly. I watch Alec as he studies me, learns me. He concentrates his stare, clears his throat. “I don’t really know what love is, but I think it might mean being happier than you’ve ever been in your life. I could probably Google a more articulate definition.” His one finger follows the long line spanning my palm before looking up at me, his eyes darkly fevered. He spiders his fingers into mine, brings our clasped hands to his chest and rests them, together, over his heart.
“I’m so happy when I’m with you too.”
Alec breathes a heavy sigh. “You’re not just saying that because I’ve made it all awkward?”
“No. Of course not.”
“And you’re not just pitying me because I’m a shitty cook who can’t even do something nice for his girlfriend?”
“Stop.”
“Seriously, Zephyr. What do you even see in me? I’m some pathetic jock loser who got kicked out of school and will probably be blacklisted from any decent college. I have zero choice for my own future and I’m completely incapable of showing you what you mean to me.”
“I love you, Alec.” The words are out before I can stop them. Still, they feel right. Hanging in the quiet space between us. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”
He presses his temple against mine, his face so close. “For real?”
“Nothing’s ever felt so real.” My love for him is a deep blue love. So blue it is black. Like an ocean under the ocean. The beginning and the end.
He purrs his cheeks against mine until his lips find my mouth. “I love you too. So much.” He kisses me and it is somehow new, weighted with this bold promise between us. When we pull away, my head is light. Alec nudges me closer and I want him to lay me on the
couch. I want to feel his weight on top of me. I want to hear him say those three words a million times while the sun rises and sets around us. He slowly removes the bowl from my lap and my skin readies to be touched, explored. It is the height of anticipation how much I want to melt into him in this moment, so when he reaches for the remote I feel cheated.
“Let’s see if anyone in the movie has it as good as us.” He cuddles me closer, pulls a blanket over us.
This should be all I want. A movie with an amazing boy. A boy who loves me. Loves. Me. So why do I want so much more than a movie? How is it that I ache for his kiss, his breath against my skin? I want his fingers to bump over the small cut his watch made. I want the surge of heat he brings when we’re alone.
I try to push away the tick of resentment as the movie’s opening music starts.
Chapter 16
Thanksgiving is impossibly weird. Mom feels it too, like the pulses of all of our movements are different, hurried and slowed all at once. Mom overcompensates by talking too much and too fast. I want to tell her it’s okay. That silence is okay. That I feel Dad’s absence the way she does. That I miss him. But I don’t say anything because my brain is a record scratching over the sounds of yesterday. The music of Alec saying I love you.
My phone vibrates and I pull it from the pocket of my hoodie just enough to read Alec’s text. Happy T-Day.
Happy T-Day to you, I respond.
It’s just u and ur mom today?
Yup. In this unexpected way, I feel closer to Alec knowing his father won’t be at the Thanksgiving table either.
Try 2 have fun.
Before I can respond his next message pops up, one that seizes my breath. I want u all 2 myself this weekend.
Oh. I swallow hard as Mom bumps my hip to persuade me away from the swing of the stove door. She opens it, bends to baste the bird that looks way too big for just the two of us. The rush of oven heat campfire-warms the back of my legs. I pull out my phone while she’s not looking.
Done.
Mom wipes her hands on the dish towel, surveys the overflow of food. “Set the table, Sunshine?”
I fetch the linen napkins and the plates from the sideboard, one less setting than our usual holiday table.
Mom finished her traditional bittersweet centerpiece with its twisting vines and tiny orange berries and it sits in the middle of our table now. I’m surprised by how this preserved tradition comforts me. She brings over the turkey, nods toward the carving blade.