“He knows?”
“Yeah.” I knew it upset him, but I couldn’t be blamed for not being able to keep it all inside. “He caught me crying, and … ”
He put his hand up to silence me. “No, baby, that’s fine. It doesn’t look like he’s told anyone. So it’s fine. I can’t expect you to go through it by yourself and I know your brother isn’t around enough to help you with it.”
I sniffled and wiped a tear from my cheek. Laughing, I said, “He’s been following me like a puppy on those trails too. He knows I’m mad at him for what happened with Tiffany, so he’s just followed behind without saying anything. He was just trying to be there for me when I was ready to talk to him again.”
Dad chuckled. “The boy’s got it bad apparently. But that doesn’t mean you can trust him, Ellie. He’s got a ways to go before he’s worth a shit and you don’t need to carry his problems while at the same time carrying yours.”
“I know.”
His arm tightened around me. “Well, okay, El. I trust you to make the right decision. You always have. Now go ahead and get wherever it is you were going. I’m going to sit around here and relax for a little while then I’ll put on a pot of stew for dinner.”
I nodded my head and stood up. “I’ll see you in a bit.”
When I walked towards the door, Sasha and Bear followed behind me. I opened the door and stepped out to find Lily coming up the steps of the porch.
“Ellison James. I’ve allowed you to be a stubborn bitch for far too long. I wouldn’t be a good friend to ya if I didn’t kick your ass for being stupid, so I’m here to kick your ass — ‘cause you’re being stupid.”
I stopped dead in my tracks , but made sure to close the door so my dad couldn’t hear us.
“That boy spent a week — A FULL WEEK — preparing all those cutouts and surprises for you and if you haven’t seen that he’s trying, you’re fucking blind. You don’t need to go and run off to have sex with Hunter, but you could at least be his friend. He’s trying to be yours and you’re too damn caught up in your anger to see it. It’s about time you take the blinders off for once and see that’s he trying to change.”
I held my hand up to show her the ring. “I know, Lil. I was actually on my way to find him.”
Her eyes widened and she stepped back. “Well, I’ll be damned. Ellison James has finally learned to pull her head out of her ass. I never thought I’d see the day.”
I lifted my middle finger while smiling sweetly.
“Fuck you, Lily. Really. I mean it.”
She was a bitch. But I loved her anyway.
Chapter Nineteen
Hunter
I walked those seven fucking miles to pick up the remnants of my plan to talk to Ellison. And for those seven fucking miles, I chastised myself for not having placed all the little surprises within the first fucking mile so it would be easier to clean up. Of course, that wouldn’t have worked because the spring was seven fucking miles away and I was pissed off at the spring for not being closer.
Fucking stupid spring …
My legs stopped working at mile six. For the rest of the hike to the spring, I had to pick up my legs with my hands just to put one foot in front of the other. By the time I finally reached the spring, I collapsed on top of the table.
I’m not sure how long I lay on that table. I’m sure my back would protest when I got up, but at that moment, it was the most comfortable place I’d ever been. My entire body felt like it weighed a ton and I needed to catch my breath before dragging all the shit back the seven fucking miles it would take to get home.
And I hoped the forty-eight miles of walking it’d taken me to execute this plan were worth it. Ellison may have thrown the notes away when she returned home. I had no way of knowing one-way or the other. I realized that Ellison was teaching me more than to care about other people and myself, she was teaching me patience. Sure — her way of teaching me patience was really fucking annoying — but she was teaching it to me nonetheless.
I fell asleep on the table and I was surprised to wake up to water falling on my face. Great. The last seven fucking miles would end up being seven fucking WET miles. It couldn’t get any better than this. I pushed myself up into a seated position and looked out over the water. I imagined Ellison’s fish swimming beneath the surface and I remember the look of her swimming among them. I smiled to think about it and realized that, whether she talked to me again or not, those forty-eight miles had been worth it. I’d made her smile and that was more important than anything else.
“I’ve created an addict.”
My body spun around at the sound of El’s voice. She stood at the end of the path leading to the spring. “I’da figured the twenty miles you’ve already walked today would have been enough. But, look at you. Out here walking twenty more. Whatever are you going to do when you go back home?”
I laughed. “Guess I’ll be spending a lot of time walking around Central Park.”
Her laugh was melodic and my heartbeat sped up from hearing it. She walked to me slowly and I couldn’t help but search for her hands. She had them folded behind her back. That little bitch. She knew I’d look for the ring as soon as I saw her. She crawled up on top of the table with me and we sat facing each other in the rain, neither of us caring. She brought her hand from behind her back and grabbed my hand and put her ring next to mine.
“You read them.”
“I did.”
“And?”
She breathed out a resigned sigh. “And — I realize that I’ve been unfair. I should have been there for you rather than getting pissed off and ignoring you. I was disappointed, but that didn’t mean it was okay for me to turn my back on you … ”
“El — just stop.” I put a finger against her mouth. And I may have held it there for a few seconds too long because I really loved her mouth. “This isn’t about anything you’ve done to me. I completely understand. I just want things to go back to the way they were, okay? You know, to before Tiffany, to before next time, to before everything that went wrong between us.”
“Next time?”
My cheeks may have reddened. “Never mind.” Her eyebrow arched over her eye, but I chose not to explain. “I want to be friends, El. I want to go back home and be able to feel like I can call you, or text you, or whatever the hell it is I need to do to get in touch with you. I want to know you. That’s really all it comes down to. I just want you to let me know you.”
She got a funny look on her face. It was a mixture of happiness, and sadness — and something that I didn’t recognize.
“Can we talk about what happened that night in my room?”
My spine straightened to a point of being painful and every muscle tensed when I waited for her to continue. I was afraid she was mad — and I knew that I had this coming. I’d hoped she would tell me it was the best sex of her life and that she couldn’t live without more of it, but more likely, she thought I’d taken advantage of her.
“Because I have to admit … I …. ”
It was obvious she couldn’t say whatever it was she was thinking, and the blush on the skin of her cheeks was all I needed to see. I leaned over the table and I kissed her. It wasn’t a soft kiss and it wasn’t a small kiss. It was a real kiss — the kind of kiss that love stories are built around. It was a kiss that said hello and it said goodbye. It was the beginning and the end of a summer that made me want to grow up.
Pulling back, I looked in her glistening blue eyes. “I’m sorry. I had to do that.”
“I’m not entirely upset that you did.”
We sat there; our hands tangled together and stared at each other for the longest time. The sun started to set behind her and I groaned to realize it was time to head back.
I stood up from the table first and reached up to help her crawl down. We were standing toe to toe and I lifted her chin up to look down into her eyes. “So, is this fixed?”
Smiling brightly, she answered, “It is.”
�
�Good.” I grabbed the box and blanket from the grassy path and then reached over to grab the trash bag that carried the crumpled cardboard Hunters. “Is there any way I can convince you to help me carry this stuff back?”
She laughed as she walked ahead of me and shook her head. “Not a chance.”
~ ~ ~
The next three weeks were a blur. Ellison and I still hiked daily and I finally finished the porch. Bill was on his way home and I was slapping on a big red bow after slaving my ass off fixing the screens as a surprise.
“Damn, Hunter. It looks good. Maybe you should skip Harvard and work with a handy man until you can start your own business or something.” Lily stood with Ellison behind me surveying the finished job.
“Don’t think so, Lil. But if one of you could help me with this stupid fucking bow, I’d appreciate it.”
Ellison laughed and stepped up to hold the ends of the bow so I could secure them. I was leaving that night and the tension between us for the day had been tough to deal with. It wasn’t an angry tension, but one filled with sadness and loss. My insides were breaking apart, but I tried to keep anyone from noticing how hard I was taking my impending return home.
“It’s perfect. Dad is going to be so damn surprised. He’s been trying to fix this place up for years.”
We stood staring up at the porch for a few minutes. Nobody spoke and the significance of that porch meant more to me than just being a simple porch. It was something that had been forgotten, something that had been neglected and misused and I’d fixed it. Hours of labor had gone into the porch and, to me at least, it sparkled. It was brand new once again and would have many years ahead of it as long as it didn’t get weighted down in trash and debris — as long as it was loved and cared for, it could last forever.
“I’m going to go inside and start dinner. We should celebrate your last day here, Hunter, and if I start cooking now, there’ll be just enough time to eat before El and I have to drive you to the plane.” Lily bounced her way up the porch steps and the screen door slammed behind her when she disappeared inside the house.
I sat down on the steps and stared up at a girl I didn’t want to let go. “I can’t believe the summer’s already over.”
Sitting down beside me, Ellison reached out to put her arm around my waist. “Me neither. Seems like the days just flew past. Makes me sad to think I won’t have my hiking partner. I’ll have no one to laugh at anymore for tripping over a root or a rock, or even getting slapped in the face by a branch.” She winked at me and I laughed.
“I fucking hate nature.”
Chuckling, she commented, “Yeah, well, you and nature seemed to hug and make up over the past couple of weeks. Maybe when you get back home, you can spend some more time with it and get to know it better.” She reached over and took my hand before quietly adding, “Might keep you away from all those parties you couldn’t avoid before you came down here.”
I squeezed her hand and let out a loud sigh. “No worries, El. I won’t be attending any of those parties. I’ll be at my parents’ house long enough to pack up and then I’ll be moving to Massachusetts for school. I plan to actually attend class this time, so I’m sure I’ll be busy.” I nudged her with my shoulder to get her to look over at me. “You need to be getting ready for school yourself. It starts up soon and you’ll be out there doing your thing and showing those other students how awesome you are in your element.”
“I’ll be in a classroom for the first semester, at least. It’s not exactly ‘my element’.”
“You’ll be perfect, El. Just like you always are. Seriously, I feel bad for Finn. Competing against you would suck.”
She smiled a sad smile. “Yeah, well, if I start school. I’m thinking about holding off until next year — especially with everything going on with my dad.”
My shoulders dropped and a little painful lightning bolt shot through my body. I wanted to demand she start school on time, but I also knew her dad was more important and couldn’t be put off until some other time. “If you need anything, El. All you have to do is call me. As soon as I get back home, I’m setting you up some social networking accounts and texting you the user names and passwords. We’ll be connected in a hundred different ways. You’ll never be able to get rid of me.”
Her brilliant blue eyes sparkled up at me. “I could just refuse to turn on the computer.”
“Then I’ll send smoke signals and carrier pigeons will be pecking at your window. I live in New York. There’s an endless supply of pigeons. They’ll be pecking day in and day out.”
“But you’ll be in Massachusetts”
“I’m sure there’s pigeons there as well.”
She laughed but things got quiet and it felt like a blanket of misery had settled on top of us. “I’ll miss you, Ellison. You know, if things had been different — if we didn’t live a thousand miles away from each other and if we’d had more time — I wouldn’t have let you just make me a friend.”
She looked up at me and opened that lovely little mouth of hers to argue. Placing my hand over her mouth, I silenced her. “Nope. I’m not letting you argue. I know you can’t help it, so I’m not holding it against you. But you need to accept that, if circumstances had been different … ” I motioned between us. “ … This would have happened. It would have happened on those trails, it would have happened in these houses and it would have happened at the bonfires. I don’t care if Mr. Sensitive-Guitar-Guy was watching. I would have called you ‘my girl’ and there would have been nothing you could say or do to stop me.”
“You’re full of yourself, Hunter. In fact, I think you’re so full of shit, your eyes are turning brown as we speak.”
“You think so?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
Well, damn, if I didn’t have to show her how much she was wrong. Leaning over, I said “You should take another look. My eyes couldn’t get any bluer.” When I was close enough to her, my mouth latched to hers. She jumped in surprise, but I wrapped my arms around her to keep her from making a break for it. Her hands came up to my face and I flinched in anticipation of her pulling my hair out or smacking me upside the back of the head, but when her fingers curled into my hair, pulling me against her, and as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss, my heart beat faster and blood rushed through my head making it close to impossible to hear anything else. With every movement of her lips against mine, my heart broke a little more. I loved this moment; I loved the girl that I was holding. I wanted nothing more than to lay her out right there and show her how much I loved her, but I knew I couldn’t — I knew it wouldn’t be fair to either of us in the long run. Breaking apart from that kiss was like stabbing myself in the gut — but I did it and I smiled when I looked into her beautiful face and noticed how her eyes were still closed and how her lips were swollen from the intensity of the kiss.
Slowly, she opened her crystal blues and a smile peeked out on the corner of those swollen lips.
But then she pinched my nipple.
Hard.
“Ow, Sonofabitch!”
She laughed. “I told you what would happen if you tried that again.”
When she let go, I put my arm around her shoulder and pulled her against me. “Yeah, well, at least this time you didn’t bite me. That makes me think we’re making progress.”
“Nah — I’m just leading you on.”
I chuckled. “You’re a cruel woman, Ellison James. Very cruel, indeed.”
Chapter Twenty
We arrived to the plane with about a half hour to spare until the time I was scheduled to leave. Mr. Klimpt opened the gates to the private airstrip, but rather than driving me back in his golf cart, he allowed Ellison and Lily to escort me back to the plane in Ellison’s Jeep. I still hung on for dear life as she drove, but it broke my heart to realize it would be the last time I rode in the death trap she referred to as a ‘car.’
Reaching the plane, Ellison skidded to a stop and Lily jumped out to immediately cross the tarma
c and up the stairs into the plane. The entire ride over, all she had asked was if there would be time for her to tour the interior before I left. I was happy to give her as much time as she wanted. The last thing I wanted to do was board that plane.
I stumbled out of the back seat and resisted the urge to fall to the ground. My equilibrium took a second to stabilize and once I could walk again, I turned back to grab my bags.
“Now that is some fancy transportation, Hunter. I know I’ll never see the inside of one of those in my lifetime. It’s hard to imagine your parents own it.” Ellison laughed nervously to my side. Placing the bags on the ground, I turned to her and pulled her against my chest.
I looked up at the plane. Sunlight reflected off of the silver exterior, almost blinding in its intensity. “Yeah, mom and dad are what you would call the ultimate consumers. If it’s new and it’s something the neighbors haven’t already acquired, they have to have it — to set the trend, I guess. You should see my dad’s garage. He’s an avid collector of cars.”
“Well, he is Bill’s brother. Why do you think Bill has a shop? He just can’t afford the collection, so he tinkers on other people’s vehicles. Guess both of them worked around cars a lot growing up. It’s hard not to love something that spent your life around.”
It was a new perspective into my father that I hadn’t considered before and I was somewhat stunned by what Ellison had said. “And here I thought he was just trying to show off.” I squeezed her body to mine when she laughed. That was one of the things I was going to miss about her the most. She always had a different way of looking at things. It wasn’t that Ellison could see the good or bad in people, it was that she saw the real in people. She didn’t excuse and she didn’t place blame on people either, she simply pointed out the most rational explanation for their actions.
I didn’t know what to say to her and the tension was killing me. We both were trying hard not to be upset, or at least not to admit that we were upset about my leaving. Even though I’d told myself all summer that this moment would come, that I would have to say goodbye to her, I could never have prepared for the absolute desolation I felt. It was like a void expanding in the center of my body, slowly growing and hallowing out the places that it reached.
Because of Ellison Page 18