by J. Sterling
We were just kids that summer, but looking at him now, I felt so stupid. I wanted to smack myself for not seeing it before. It seemed so blatantly obvious that the man across from me was Scotty, my summer crush from when I was only fourteen.
Old friends of my family had plans to tour Europe that summer, so they had asked my parents if we would watch the house and take care of their dogs. My parents, both teachers, jumped at the idea of spending the summer in Malibu, and I was overjoyed. Just the thought of spending the whole summer in the Johnsons’s huge beach house steps from the ocean thrilled me. I had no idea I’d leave my heart there in the sand when the summer ended.
“I–I can’t believe it,” I stuttered as I tried to form rational thoughts. “How long have you known? You’ve always known it was me, haven’t you? That was why you were trying to find me.” I spoke rapidly, the pieces of the puzzle finally clicking together.
“You look exactly the same, Madison,” he said as his fingers twirled my hair. “I mean, you’ve definitely changed,” his gaze roamed along the curves of my body, “but you still look the same.”
“Why didn’t you say anything at dinner? Or at my condo?” The wind picked up, blowing my hair into my eyes, and I brushed it back, not wanting to miss any expression on his face while my mind still struggled to put all the pieces together. Not that I was confused any longer, but I did feel overwhelmed.
Walker shrugged, suddenly looking unsure of himself. “I needed the right time. And part of me kept hoping something I would say would trigger a memory and you’d remember on your own.”
“I’m really bad with placing faces, and you’ve changed so much.” I shook my head wildly. “Plus I blocked it all out. I’d been too hurt after we lost touch. I forced myself to forget about you, pretend there was no you.”
He winced as his breath whooshed out of him. “That’s harsh.”
“It’s reality.”
“For you maybe.”
I looked up at him. “What does that mean?”
“That means that I never fucking forgot about you.” He lifted my chin with his fingers, forcing me to lock eyes with him. “Ever. And the fact that you could erase me from your memory makes me absolutely insane when I could never shake you from mine.”
I sucked in an unsure breath, my entire body overloaded with emotion. “I’m not saying that I ever really succeeded. I’m just saying that I tried.”
“Stop trying,” he said softly, just before his lips pressed against mine.
We had been relaxing on the beach, the sand cool and damp against my bare skin as we’d sat cross-legged next to each other, watching the sun drop through a fiery sky into the ocean.
“I wrote a song about you last night,” Scotty said as he wrapped his arm around my waist and attempted to pull me closer.
“About me?” My young heart leaped at the idea of a boy writing a single sentence about me, let alone an entire song.
“Yeah. But it’s not finished yet.” He planted a damp kiss on my cheek and my face warmed.
“Is it romantic? What’s it about?”
Scotty laughed and then shook his head. “Not telling you anything until it’s finished.”
“Not even a hint? The chorus? A lyric?” I looked at him, my best puppy-dog eyes on display.
He turned his head to face me and kissed me with all the skill and passion a fifteen-year-old boy could muster. “It’s about the first girl I’ve ever loved. And how I hate the idea of another summer without her.”
My eyes instantly filled with tears as the rest of my body went numb. “You love me?”
We hadn’t said those words to each other, although God knew I’d loved him for half the summer already. As a young teenage girl, my heart was open and willing for him. It waited to be taken, to be claimed.
His fingers splayed across my hip, digging into my skin as he prepared to say the words I so nervously wanted him to. I knew I loved him, but I never wanted to say it first. What if he hadn’t loved me back? I couldn’t stand the humiliation. It would take everything in me to not pack my bags and beg my parents to take me back to the valley.
“I think I do,” he said. “You’ve made this summer perfect. You’re perfect.”
In that moment I had known I’d never find another boy quite like Scotty. His mom being sick had made him more vulnerable and sensitive. I had felt that every moment I spent with him, I was seeing a side of Scotty that no one else got to see.
“I think I love you too,” I said breathlessly.
But I didn’t “think” I loved him. I knew.
• • •
Interrupting my thoughts, Walker leaned his forehead against mine, dragging me back to the present. “I almost had a heart attack on that platform when I first saw you at the concert. I kept trying to convince myself that it wasn’t you. That it couldn’t be you. But deep down, I knew. And that headband, the way it sparkled above your head, drew my eyes to you. You looked so beautiful, like you stepped out of a fairy tale.”
I plopped down on the ground, feeling light-headed from squatting so long, and scooted closer to him. My eyes wanted to drown in him as my brain struggled to memorize every feature so that I’d never forget again. How could I have ever forgotten in the first place?
“Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to keep singing after I saw you?” He barked out a laugh and shook his head. “Holy shit, babe, I wanted to jump off that platform, take you in my arms, and run away. You know, give the tabloids something to really talk about!”
I laughed for the first time that day. It felt good to smile, even if my thoughts were racing at a breakneck pace.
“And after the show. When I realized you didn’t leave your number like I’d asked, I fucking lost it.”
“Lost it how?”
He shrugged and rolled his eyes. “I might have broken some things. No big deal.”
I looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “I thought you asked for every girl’s number. I mean, I just assumed you wanted to add me to your never-ending list of conquests. It pissed me off when you asked.”
Walker leaned forward and wiped the tears from my cheek, then cupped my face with his hand. “Only my girl would get pissed off when a celebrity asks for her number.”
My girl?
Lord, have mercy. I promise to hang on to this boy and never let him go if you let me have him. I don’t even need him wrapped up with a bow. I’ll take him just the way he is. Please.
“No number,” he went on. “And still no last name. But I was older this time and had more resources. There was no way I was letting you slip out of my life twice.” He leaned toward me, his lips meeting mine, and I melted into him, wanting to forget everything that ever existed before he sang his way back into my life.
Walker’s words and actions caused more tears to fall. I’d been so heartbroken after the summer ended and we eventually lost touch. No one had ever warned me that first loves could have such an impact on you. I wasn’t sure I’d ever fully recovered, although I’d definitely tried.
Sitting here now in the parking lot of this café, pain shot through my chest with each breath I took, a clear reminder that the scars left by those lost first loves never truly heal. At least, not without permanent damage.
His warm breath rustled my hair. “I’m sorry about losing touch.”
“I was just thinking about that. What happened? I tried your cell, but it was disconnected or no longer in service.” I remembered the robotic female voice on that recording as clear as day, taunting me as if she knew something I didn’t.
He picked up one of my hands and pressed it to his lips, then looked into my eyes. “I took my cell phone with me everywhere. I never wanted to miss a call from you because I never knew when one was coming. I even brought it to the beach when I surfed.” He glanced up at the sky, as if pulling memories from the clouds. “It got wet one day after I’d been in the water. Completely fried the thing. It wouldn’t even turn on.”
“And yo
u never got a new one? You couldn’t call me from your house phone?” I asked, suddenly feeling fourteen again, recalling pacing the floor in front of our home phone while I willed it to ring.
“I didn’t have your phone number written down anywhere. It was only in my cell phone. And yes, I got a new one. Eventually. But my parents made me work around the house to earn the money to pay for it, so I didn’t get another phone for almost three months. But your number was gone forever by that time.”
“I left you voice mails,” I said softly. “So many voice mails. Until your phone stopped taking them.” The memories still felt fresh, my teenage self crying into the phone and asking him why he wasn’t calling me back. Thinking back, it seemed like I was nothing if not overdramatic. But I remembered being so truly heartbroken at the time, I’d convinced myself that I would never get over him. Eventually I had, but not before crying until the tears would no longer fall. Every emotion, especially love, was so amplified when you were a kid. Hell, I didn’t even know what love truly was at that age, but I thought I felt it for him.
“Those messages broke my damn heart, Madison. Especially when you never left your phone number in any of them. I heard them all back-to-back when I got my new phone turned on. It took everything in me to not smash the damn thing to pieces.”
“That would have been counterproductive,” I teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“When I got to the last voice mail you left me, I knew in my heart that you’d given up.” He squeezed my hand.
I sighed. “I think I actually said that in my message, if I remember right.”
“You did. But I didn’t want it to be true. And you never called again.”
“Well, you stopped calling back. I just assumed the worst. You know, that you were sick of me calling you and that’s why you changed your number. Or that you found someone new. But it all went back to you being over me.”
His face pinched with pain. “I hate hearing that. You have no idea how much I hate hearing that right now. I tried to find you. I looked everywhere I could but there was no Facebook then. No social media like there is now to stalk people effectively.”
“There was MySpace,” I reminded him.
“But you didn’t have one.”
“You didn’t either.” I recalled a conversation we’d had on the beach one afternoon where we confessed that we weren’t obsessed with computers like our friends were.
He laughed and my face flushed. “Not that I would have had much luck trying to find Madison from the valley.”
I listened to the surf breaking nearby and felt numb, as if everything inside me had disappeared. I was certain my heart wasn’t beating, my lungs weren’t working, and whatever else in there was either broken or gone. This was all so surreal, I still couldn’t believe it was happening.
“I can’t believe it’s you. I can’t believe you’re here.” I turned my head to look out at the ocean across the sand. “We made so many memories together at this beach.”
He nodded. “It’s why I brought you here. To this day, I can’t come here and not think of you.”
“It’s why I didn’t want to come,” I said softly, still struggling to regain some sense of composure.
His eyebrows lifted and his expression brightened. “Was that why? I wondered, but of course I couldn’t ask.”
“I never come here. The last time I was here was with you. That day we said good-bye.”
“Don’t remind me. That was one of the hardest days of my life. Even now, when I add up the days in my life that have royally sucked, like this morning, it still ranks up there at the top.”
• • •
“You’re leaving?” Scotty had asked, his hazel eyes etched with pain that even as a teenager I could recognize.
My heart had constricted so tightly I could barely speak, so I had nodded instead as tears flowed freely down my sun-kissed cheeks. The breeze whipped my hair, causing strands to stick to the wet tracks on my face.
“Don’t cry, Madison. We’ll still talk. I’ll call you every day. And we’ll figure out a way to see each other again. I promise.” His words were insistent and determined, as though he believed them.
“I don’t want to go,” I choked out through my sobs. My hands reached out to stroke back the wavy sun-streaked strands that the breeze stirred in front of his eyes.
Scotty wiped at my tears, plucking my own stuck strands free and tucking them behind my ear before pulling me into a hard hug. “I don’t want you to go either. I’m not ready to say good-bye.”
“I’ll never be ready,” I said solemnly.
“This has been the best summer of my life. You hear me? The best.”
Reluctant to leave, I pulled away from his embrace. “I have to go. My parents are waiting for me.”
“I–I,” he stuttered before looking down at the sand. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” The words slid effortlessly from my teenage lips.
“This isn’t done between us. You and me,” he said, his breathing ragged. “We’re not over. You believe me, don’t you?”
I had nodded, wanting with all my heart to believe his words. Then he had kissed me. His tongue had stroked desperately in and out of my mouth, his awkward and rushed movements proof of his inexperience.
• • •
The memory faded as Walker’s voice filled my ears and his face came into view. “God, Madison. I looked for you. The following summer.” His eyes glistened, and I knew I’d lose it even more if he cried.
I willed him not to. Not here. Not in this moment when I so desperately needed to pull it together and not fall apart.
“You never went back to the beach, did you?” he asked.
I thought back, recalling how distraught I’d been when I lost contact with him. How desperately I wanted to be in touch with him and how hopeless I’d felt. My mom and best friend both told me to forget him. They insisted that he’d long since forgotten about me and I needed to do the same. I didn’t want to believe them, but I eventually stopped ignoring the obvious message his silence contained.
By the time the following summer came around and we ended up on the beaches of Malibu, I made sure to never go near our beach again.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t. I didn’t want to go back there. Too many memories. Plus, my best friend had me convinced that you had moved on. She asked me how I’d feel if I saw you with someone else. I knew it would kill me, so I never risked it.”
“Actually, I did the exact opposite.”
I leaned toward him, looking up into his eyes. “What do you mean?” As his thumb idly circled the skin on my hand, I thought about how I never wanted it to stop. I never wanted him to stop touching me. Ever.
“Almost every day the next summer, I went to that particular spot at the beach looking for you. I was obsessed, wanting so badly to see you again, that I convinced myself you’d know I was waiting. That you’d be able to sense me there.” He paused. “I needed to find you, but you never came. And eventually I stopped going.”
Shocked, I leaned away from him, my back pressing into the hard steel of my car as I allowed the realization of his words to sink in. He’d gone back to the beach to look for me? He had wanted to see me again?
“I figured you were done with me,” I whispered. “Forgotten all about me. We were just kids.”
Walker tipped my face up and snared my gaze with his. “I could never forget you. You’ve always held a piece of my heart, Madison.”
More tears fell and I quickly brushed them away with the back of my hand.
“Let’s go inside and eat,” he suggested. “Think you can handle being back in our café?” He pushed himself from off the ground and extended a hand to me.
“As long as I’m with you, I think I can handle anything.” I reached for his hand and he pulled me up effortlessly before yanking me against him.
“Looks like you’ll be unstoppable because I’m never leaving your side again.” His hands splayed across
my back as he dipped his head so his lips could meet mine.
My body leaned into his as my mouth opened, accepting him, wanting him. I reached around his neck and lightly raked my fingernails down the length of it before stopping at his shoulders. Our tongues took turns moving from one mouth to the other, every stroke, every touch making our hearts beat faster.
Walker pulled back. “We need to stop or I’m going to end up throwing you down right here in the parking lot and having my way with you,” he said with a teasing tone.
I burst out laughing. “The press would have a field day! Could you imagine? Let’s go eat. Suddenly I’m starving.”
“Me too.” He licked his lips. “But not for food.”
The café’s teenage hostess had a mini breakdown before seating us, fanning her face with her hand and shakily asking Walker for his autograph. My heart, which had miraculously found its way back into my chest, swelled with appreciation. I’d been absent for so many years from Walker’s life, but I suddenly felt like I hadn’t missed a day.
Once we were seated in our booth, I looked over at him, so proud of the man he had become. And I knew his mother would be too. Now it made sense why he had asked me last night if I remembered her being sick. Of course I had. His mom had been diagnosed the summer we met. I’d always thought that going through that together had bonded us in a deeper way. I never truly imagined how right I was.
• • •
I had been sitting in the sand playing fetch with one of the Johnsons’s dogs when I’d found myself mesmerized by the surfers in the water. The way they paddled out on their boards, moving in a particular direction before I even noticed any inkling of a wave forming, was beautiful to watch. When they would rise to their feet and maneuver the board like it was attached to them, cutting through waves doing tricks I couldn’t even imagine doing, I wanted to stand up and applaud.