Summer's Desire

by Olivia Lynde

  And it is on that particular thought that my frenzied mental tirade screeches to a halt, leaving me ashamed of myself.

  Why do I even care what kind of panties I have on? Seth certainly doesn't; he wouldn't look at me that way. It's only I who has this huge new awareness of him, I alone who's overwhelmed by all these jumbled thoughts and uncertainties.

  But they're inconsequential right now.

  What is not inconsequential is Seth believing that I could ever fear him because of the scumbag wannabe-rapist. And that is what I have to put to rights.

  All this flashes through my head in less than a couple of seconds. So in real-time, it's after no more than an infinitesimal pause that my right hand starts to unfasten the rest of the buttons. The whole time, I'm looking solemnly at Seth, filling my eyes with my utter trust in him, and he looks back at me fiercely. Soon the storm in his gaze quiets, and that awful rigidity leaves his face.

  When I'm finished with the buttons, I raise my hips a tiny bit; and his hands, frozen until now, start moving again: pulling my pants below my bottom, then down my legs and finally off, leaving me in my panties.

  Next, he straightens up and casually grabs the bottom of his snug jersey. He begins to draw it up... on which image I squeeze my eyes tightly shut.

  Yes, I'm awfully tempted to raise my eyelids and peek at his fabulous body. But I've already been through so much today I really think my poor enervated heart can't handle much more. So I keep my eyes closed while the sounds of him undressing just a couple of feet away from me torture my imagination.

  Through my eyelids, I feel when Seth turns the light off. A second later, he joins me on the bed and draws me to him with sure hands. Just like when I was a child, my response is to burrow deeper into him. But then I realize that I'm touching bare skin and, very much unlike when I was a child, a delicious trembling invades my limbs.

  To distract myself from the wonderful feel of his naked skin, I ask drowsily, "You're sleepy too?"

  "Something like that," he says obscurely, and his arms squeeze me a bit tighter—almost as if trying to make sure that I'm really there, or something. I'm too bushed to analyze it, though.

  "G'night, Seth."

  "Goodnight, Sunny." His voice sounds slightly hoarse.

  With my next breath, it's lights out for me.

  Chapter 11

  I wake to the sound of a husky voice. "Rise and shine, Sunny! Come on, sleepyhead, we have to get ready for school."

  Without moving and without opening my eyes, I take a few seconds to assess everything.

  I'm lying on Seth, plastered to him from head to toe, and I'm feeling hot all over. My face is resting on his hard chest, my left arm is at his waist, my right to his side, and both his arms are curled around me. Our legs are entangled.

  I remember that I'm wearing a T-shirt and plain cotton panties, whereas—considering all the warm, chiseled areas I'm touching—it's safe to say that he's only wearing his boxer shorts. It's also safe to say, judging by the impressive erection digging into my belly, that Seth is built to size all over.

  Intellectually, I know that his arousal has nothing to do with me personally, that it's just an instinctive morning reaction... but my traitorous body is impervious to the voice of reason. Instead, it is melting, burning, wanting. I barely stop myself from grinding against Seth.

  Placing both my hands on his chest for support, I raise myself and meet his fathomless blue eyes. My mouth curves into its brightest smile.

  "Good morning!" I almost chirp, I'm so happy.

  What a view to which to wake up in the morning! I could almost believe he's an angel and I've died and gone to heaven—if it weren't for the fire blazing in his gaze. There's nothing angelic about his eyes; they're wicked, hot, and completely focused on me.

  My breath catches in my throat. Could it be possible... that he wants me too? For an electrifying second, I let myself consider it... before reality comes crashing in and douses me with cold practicality. Really, how deluded can I get? Seth can never want someone like me; I'm so far below his league it's not even funny.

  Yeah, I'm pretty enough, I guess, and as long as I don't lose any more weight (and thus turn into a total bag of bones), I have an okay body. But I'm no great beauty by any means, plus I'm a total geek. Whereas the girls he's reputed to go for are like Jessica—confident and sophisticated, with the look of a model: expensive haircut, perfect makeup, sexy clothes that showcase all their assets, high-heeled hundred-dollars shoes. Not a (currently) borderline scrawny girl who wears no makeup and puts her hair up in ugly buns. Who goes around wearing threadbare, overlarge clothes and cheap sneakers. A girl who's wearing granny panties in his bed, for crying out loud!

  Fortunately, Seth chooses that moment to break into my increasingly hysterical musings. "You slept well, didn't you? You didn't wake up during the night." His voice is deep, and soothing to me in ways I could never even begin to describe.

  My sleep last night wasn't just good, it was fabulous. The last time I slept so well was the last time I slept in Seth's arms, more than five years ago. Still, I tease him, "How do you know I didn't wake up?"

  "I would've known if you had," he states confidently, and I believe him. He would have known if I'd had trouble sleeping. But that's a moot point since I always enjoy undisturbed sleep when I'm in his arms. He chases all my nightmares away—always has.

  Overcome with gratitude, I need to share at least this much with him. "Last night was the first time since coming back to Rockford that I've slept through the night. Thank you." I raise myself on my arms and kiss him softly on the cheek. My lips tingle where they touch his skin.

  I draw back and make to get off of him, but his arms tighten around me. I look at him and am surprised at the emotions flashing in his eyes. Anger, regret, pain. A need so deep it shakes me for I don't understand it, even as my entire body pulses in instinctive response.

  Finally his arms release their hold on me, and like the biggest coward, I jump out of bed and race to the bathroom.

  * * *

  I'm dressed and sitting with Seth at his small kitchen table, eating toast and scrambled eggs, which he's prepared. He's already finished with his food and is nursing a cup of coffee.

  I'm wearing my pants and T-shirt from yesterday. My hoodie was too torn to be salvageable, so Seth's given me one of his own to wear for the day. It's black, and on the back it has the number 15 stitched with silver threads. On the front, also in silver, it says, "Those who can, do". It's huge on me but I'm used to wearing too-big clothes. Besides, this hoodie smells divine: it smells like Seth, and wearing it, if I close my eyes I can almost imagine that I'm in his arms.

  He's been watching me throughout the morning with an almost unnerving intensity. I don't know for certain what he's thinking about, but I sense that it relates to me. Obviously.

  And that it doesn't bode well.

  I gulp down the last of my food, then gather the dishes and put them in the sink. When I start to wash them, his voice stops me.

  "Leave the dishes and come back here, please. We need to talk."

  I swallow the sudden knot in my throat and hesitatingly retake my seat at the table. His eyes are intent, his face doesn't betray any of his thoughts. I wait for him to start talking.

  "Five years ago, when you left Rockford, we promised that we'd keep in touch. But then we didn't." His quiet words hit me with the strength of a freight train.

  Oh God, he wants to talk about the past! I look away, at battle with myself.

  Just yesterday, I wanted this too. I wanted to rail against Seth, yell at him, reprove him for abandoning me. I wanted to cry in his arms until my heart stopped hurting. What I wanted most was for him to somehow explain the unexplainable—his broken promises to me—and magically erase the sorrow of the last five years.

  But he can't give me that.

  I close my eyes for a second only, and in the space of that second, time expands and I revisit all my memories of him. The first tim
e I saw Seth as a seven-year-old boy, and his calm blue gaze soothed my uncertainty and fear. The way he raised his blanket, inviting me in his bed for the first time, and offered me the sleep of angels nestled into his warm body. The way he fiercely fought all my bullies—and there were many of them throughout my childhood, for I was an awkward, unsociable child. The way he smiled at me, open and happy, when he gave me my heart necklace.

  I also remember how I waited and waited for a letter from him, for a call. How I cried inconsolably when I didn't receive it. How in my later letters I begged and pleaded with him to forgive me if I had done anything to upset him, and to be my friend again. How the loss of hope that I would ever hear from him again, how the loss of him, broke my heart into a million pieces.

  But, I realize with sudden insight, my heart has already started to meld back together ever since Seth came back into my life. With each time I felt his gaze on me, each time I drank him in from a distance, my heart has grown a little stronger.

  Then yesterday, he saved me from Josh (twice!), beat him up for me, shook with fury against him on my behalf. He brought me to his home and took care of me. Touched me with gentleness and let me rest in his arms. The past 24 hours have given me hope that maybe, just maybe, I can have my best friend back.

  If I play my cards right.

  The truth is this: the past cannot be undone and Seth's promises to me cannot be unbroken, no matter what he wishes to tell me now. But if all that ugliness is brought into the open, if I release all my grief and bitterness, I'll only be tearing the scabs of old wounds. I'll only be driving Seth away.

  My heart contracts painfully at the thought. No, I can't let that happen! Which means that, for the sake of my future, I have to let go of the past.

  So I do.

  Only one second has passed. I open my eyes, meet his gaze and state firmly, "We were children only. Children say a lot of things that they don't mean, or which they maybe mean at the time but later forget." I'm trying to make it clear that I can understand him. Yes, he hurt me deeply with his thoughtless desertion, but I can chalk it up to youth instead of mean-spiritedness and thus I can try to forgive him.

  He stands up abruptly, as if unable to sit still anymore, and a tiny muscle starts ticking above his jaw. "We weren't children five years ago. In fact, with the lives we've lead, the things we've lived through, we were hardly ever children."

  There's nothing I can say to this—it's all too true. We'd stopped being children a long time before our separation. So he should have known better. Why did he point this out? Why didn't he take the easy out I gave him?

  I try to give him another one. "Still, things happen. Life gets in between, I know that, and sometimes promises fall victim to it." I gulp, rise to my feet so that I can more easily connect with his eyes, and force myself to continue: "It doesn't matter." I want to forgive you.

  He's staring at me with a disbelieving expression. "Things happen? Life gets in between? Promises don't matter? That's the best you can do?! What the hell, Sunny?! Of course that shit happens! In fact, far as I can see, life is mostly shit. But there are some things that life should not be let in between. And promises always matter!"

  Why, why is he doing this?! Why is he playing devil's advocate?! Of course that promises are important! But if he knows that, how could he break those he made to me? The bastard! I'm suddenly just an enraged as he is.

  "Yeah, sure..." I drawl sarcastically. "Promises matter. Until they don't, right? Until they're not convenient anymore, right? Or how else do you explain them getting broken?!"

  His face drains of color and he looks at me, shattered. "You broke your promise because it wasn't convenient anymore?"

  I broke my promise? What the hell?!

  "You flaming hypocrite! You're talking to me about the importance of keeping one's promises?" I'm so furious that I can barely see straight. "Are you actually claiming that you never broke yours?"

  "Yes." And he looks me in the eye without flinching as he utters that awful lie.

  I have to look away for a moment and try to control my suddenly overwhelming urge to cry. I succeed, barely, and ignore the throbbing headache I get for my efforts.

  Meeting Seth's gaze again, I tell him quietly, "Well, good for you that you always get to keep your promises. Too bad that not all people can say the same." I'm so incredibly disappointed in him making false claims. When it came to important things, we used to never, ever lie to each other.

  My illusions are shattered. Somewhere deep inside, I had still hoped against all hope that he could tell me something that would right the past. But he can't. He won't even acknowledge that he's done me wrong.

  He's not the perfect god of my childhood, after all.

  I inhale deeply.

  But that's okay; he doesn't have to be perfect. He's still my Seth. I still need and want him in my life. In profound gratitude for him having saved me, for having saved my sanity after my parents' death, for the beautiful childhood years he's given me and for all our shared memories—I'll somehow work through my disenchantment and overcome it. I'll stay his friend.

  If he wants me to.

  "Let's forget about the past," I suggest softly. It's the only way that the two of us can go on.

  His face closes off. "The past can't be just swept aside. Who we are today is because of the past. And we're not who we used to be, are we?" These last words emerge as a husky whisper.

  "That's true. But Seth, we can still try to be friends again, right?" As I'm asking him this, I'm putting it all on the line. I feel so fragile as if he could break me with a single word.

  Which he does.

  "I don't know you anymore," he tells me hoarsely, and for a moment I think that I see his remoteness fall away, revealing a terrible, soul-deep agony. But I blink and his expression is shuttered again. "You're not who I thought you were," he rasps out.

  On the inside, I crumble against the brutality of his blow. He doesn't want to be friends with me.

  You're not who I thought you were. Oh God, he thought I was different! He thought I was better than I am—that's why he was so kind to me. But now he's seen how I really am, how simple and ordinary. I always feared this would happen someday, ever since we became friends. And just like I've always feared, once he's seen the true me he doesn't want to have anything to do with me anymore.

  The pain is all-encompassing. I honestly feel like I'm dying inside. I bite my inner cheek raw in an effort to keep my expression blank and my burning eyes dry. Now is not the time to release my grief. Still, I'm afraid he'll take a look at my eyes and know that I'm mortally wounded.

  But my fears are in vain, for he's not even looking at me anymore.

  He glances at his phone. "It's time to head to school. We don't want to be late." His tone is distant.

  We head out of the apartment and he has some trouble securing the door. He seems almost clumsy.

  But Seth is never clumsy.

  "That lock didn't look very sturdy," I observe conversationally as we're going down the stairs. Every word coming out of my mouth costs me, but I have to keep the pretense of normality. As if he hasn't just torn my bloody, still beating heart right out of my chest. I have to cling to what remains of my pride at least; it's the only thing I have left.

  "The lock is worthless. A child could pick it." His voice is still inflectionless.

  "So why don't you change it? What if you are robbed?"

  "First, a thief would just bash that poor excuse of a door in, with or without the lock. Second, you've seen my place—there isn't anything there worth stealing. Third and most importantly, the thieves here know not to mess with me." A note of menace has entered his voice, and looking at him, I think that petty criminals would indeed be smart to be afraid.

  I keep silent.

  We've reached the car, so he opens the passenger door for me and I take my seat. He closes the door and I fasten my seatbelt. A blink later, the driver's door opens and Seth enters the car. He immediately puts o
n music, cranking it loud, and then we're on our way to school.

  Very soon after, he's parking the car in the school's parking lot. He stops the car and swiftly opens his door.

  "Seth!" His feet are already outside, and though my voice arrests his movement of rising out of his seat, he keeps his back turned to me. His entire body seems impossibly strung with tension.

  "What is it?" Harsh with impatience. Sweet lady of mercy, does he want to get out of the car so badly? To get away from me?

  I can't stop a shudder of anguish. How did it come to this? One hour ago I woke up in heaven, and now I may as well be roasting in the pits of hell. He hasn't looked at me once since the apartment.

  "Thank you," I whisper. "For everything." And I really am thanking him for everything. For the six beautiful years he's given me when we were children. For yesterday. For sharing his bright light with me, even for a little while.

  "It's fine," he grits out.

  And that's it. The next moment he's out of the car, and slowly, feeling extremely old, I alight as well. The moment I close the passenger door, he engages the locking mechanism and strides away. All without glancing at me even once.

  My eyes follow him helplessly. Impossible to miss, then, the two jeunes femmes fatales—one tall, with mile-long legs; the other shorter, with generous curves—that were obviously waiting for his arrival near the parking lot. They immediately sidle up and fall into step with him, smiling and trying to chat him up. The three of them enter the school building as a group, leaving my sight. Seth never once looked back.

  He's really done with me.

  Chapter 12

  Looking at Seth's back as he's walking away from me, I have to lean against his car because I have no strength left in my legs to sustain me.

  I don't know how long I stand like that, slumped against the black BMW. But eventually, the feeling of a hundred eyes trained on me breaks me out of my stupor. I right myself and look around.