by Marie Landry
Lost in the past, my hand clutching Nicholas’s as though it were a lifeline, I went on to tell him how even after my dad had turned into my mother’s puppet he still showed me in small, odd ways that he was proud of me. He would give me money or gifts whenever I excelled in school, but it felt so distant. What I really wanted was for him to take an active interest by coming to the award ceremonies or teacher reviews and expressing support. I never expected that of my mother, but up until a certain point, I held out hope for my dad. I knew he loved me, he just had trouble showing it; he wasn’t comfortable with it, but he cared in his own way. My mother didn’t even try.
I looked up to meet Nicholas’s eyes. He was watching me, his face serious, and he nodded for me to continue. “I wanted to prove that I could make it on my own and be my own person without conforming to what they thought I should be, whatever that happened to be. But I had never really defined what being my own person meant, and that’s where I ran into trouble after graduation. ‘Being my own person’ had led me as far as top marks in all my classes, a diploma, and an identity crisis.” I shrugged helplessly. “I suppose now I’m hoping to make up for the past few years and have a fresh start. Make a decision about what being my own person really means to me.”
I let out a long sigh and leaned back against the trunk of the oak. Like the night before at the diner, I felt exhausted after revealing these things to Nicholas. They had always been such private thoughts, ones I never spoke aloud to anyone, but it felt good to talk to Nicholas. Or rather, at Nicholas, I realized. “Now it’s my turn to apologize,” I said, heat rising to my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to go on and on.”
“Hey, you don’t need to be sorry,” Nicholas said, shaking his head and leaning back against the tree, his shoulder brushing mine. “That’s what friends are for.”
Friends. A slow smile spread across my face. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders and carried away on the soft spring breeze. “Thank you,” I said, shifting to face Nicholas.
“For what?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.
“For listening to me ramble on about my life, even if that is what friends are for. And for letting me release a lot of pent-up emotions. I think it’s helped me figure some things out about who I want to be now.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Emma, but if my listening helped then I’m glad I could be here for you.” He smiled almost shyly, his gaze lingering on mine. There was a momentary pause where we just sat and stared into each other’s eyes, smiling. Everything around us faded into the background—the bright sunlight, the chirping birds, the giggling children on the playground below. I took a deep breath, and as I slowly let it out I looked away, feeling the blood rising in my cheeks again.
Nicholas let out a soft sigh as he looked away too, and began packing up the picnic basket. I helped him, and when we were done he looked at me again and said, “Do you like strawberries?”
I laughed at the sudden, off-hand question and replied, “Yes.”
“Great!” He stood up, holding out a hand to pull me to my feet. “Have you ever been berry picking?”
“No…” I said slowly.
“Great!” he said again, flashing me a dimpled smile. “Come on, then.” He hauled me to my feet, gathered up the picnic basket and blanket in his free hand, and we headed down the hill at full speed. The wind whistled in my ears as the now-familiar scene of the park blurred around me while we ran. Slowing to a walk when we reached the bottom of the hill, we wound our way to the far end of the park, down a path through a small but dense forest, and came to an old wooden fence that separated the forest from a large field.
Nicholas climbed to the top and straddled the highest plank of the fence, which came to my shoulder. Reaching down for my hand, he helped me up, and when I got to the top, he hopped down on the other side before gripping my waist so I could jump down. It all happened so fast, I didn’t have time to worry about being clumsy or awkward, and I actually managed a semi-graceful landing thanks to Nicholas.
“This is Farmer Milligan’s property,” Nicholas told me, sweeping his arm in a wide gesture that encompassed the seemingly endless field around us. “He’s a good friend of my family, and he lets me come whenever I want to pick fresh fruits and vegetables. Strawberry season’s early this year, so I’ve been coming almost every day. He doesn’t even like strawberries; I think he plants them just for me,” he said with a laugh.
As Nicholas set the picnic basket down and took out the plastic container that had held the cookies, I chuckled to myself at his enthusiasm. He practically sparkled with it, his eyes always bright and a smile never far from his lips. He was almost childlike in a way, brimming with excitement and happiness. I had been such a serious person for so long I didn’t even know how to have fun, but his eagerness was like a magnet, not only drawing me in, but also drawing something from me that I didn’t recognize. I had a vague recollection of being a happy, carefree child for the short time Daisy had been in my life before her move to Riverview. Being with Nicholas felt the same, like I could easily be swept up and carried away by all the happiness surrounding me, and I wouldn’t mind in the least.
I watched as Nicholas squatted down and began picking berries off the vine. His fingers were slow and patient, and he would occasionally bring a perfectly ripe, bold red berry to his nose to sniff appreciatively before putting it in the container.
After a minute, I crouched a few feet away from him and began picking, glancing at him every few seconds. I liked watching him. He was so agile, his actions relaxed and uncomplicated, and I loved the way he took things in with all his senses.
I didn’t realize I had stopped picking to stare at him until he looked at me and smirked. “What?”
My face burned as I turned back to the vines and laughed nervously. “Nothing.” Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him watching me with a mischievous grin on his face before turning back to pick more berries.
There was a delightful breeze moving across the field, unhindered by buildings or trees. It rippled across the low-lying greenery surrounding the strawberries, sending the mouthwatering scent of ripe berries into the air. The wind moved around us, teasing the hem of my shirt and ruffling Nicholas’s hair so that it fell forward across his forehead, giving him a slightly roguish look that had my fingers itching, as they had before, to touch his hair. To touch him.
We worked away in silence until the container between us was full. Nicholas plucked one more strawberry from the vine and held it out to me. When I reached for it, he shook his head and held it to my lips. My stomach tensed as I leaned forward to take a tentative bite, careful not to graze his fingers with my teeth. I laughed when juice spurted from the ripe berry and rolled down my chin. When my eyes met Nicholas’s, expecting him to be laughing too, his face was serious, his eyes intent on my mouth.
I licked my lips self-consciously and wiped the juice from my face with the back of my hand. Nicholas’s gaze lingered on my lips a minute more before meeting my eyes as he popped the rest of the berry in his mouth and smiled slightly. “Sweet,” was all he said as he stood.
He moved around, working the kinks out of his legs before stretching, arms reaching up toward the sky. “Where’d those clouds come from?” he asked.
The note of surprise in his voice had my head snapping up to see a dark, foreboding mass crawling across the sky that had been a beautiful forget-me-not blue only moments before. “I didn’t hear anything about rain in the forecast.”
“Sure looks like a storm.” Nicholas stood there, his face upturned, and watched the clouds pick up their pace across the sky. He wiped away a fat raindrop that fell on his arm, and had just opened his mouth to say something when the sky seemed to burst open and pour sheets of rain down on us.
I let out a startled shriek as the cold raindrops hit my face. My first instinct was to run for shelter, and I turned in the direction of Farmer Milligan’s old red barn to do just that when Nicholas grabb
ed my hand and held me where I was.
“Stay!” he yelled over the noise of the heavy rain pounding on the ground. “Feel it. Enjoy it.” He took both my hands and turned them over, holding onto my wrists so I could feel the rain slip through my fingers and see it puddle in my palms before it overflowed and slid down to drip onto the earth.
As it washed over my face and hair, drenching my clothes so they clung to my body, I turned my face toward the sky again and closed my eyes. When the rain started falling harder than I thought it possibly could, I began to laugh. I had never seen it rain so hard in my life. It was coming down so thickly that when I opened my eyes to look at Nicholas, who was no more than two feet away from me, even he was blurred.
When he saw that I was laughing, a quick grin spread over his face. I couldn’t stop, and he started to chuckle, too. He let go of my hands and put his arms around my waist to pick me up and spin me around. I giggled harder as the rain flew from his hair. Closing my eyes, I buried my face in his neck, feeling dizzy but not from being spun.
When my feet hit the ground again, Nicholas kept his arms around my waist. The rain let up slightly, but was still coming down in buckets with the sound of it drowning out all the previous springtime noises—the birds chirping, the insects buzzing, the occasional far-off sound from the park. It was like we were in our own little rain-soaked world, the downpour creating a curtain of water around us that blocked out everything else.
Nicholas pushed a few strands of wet hair away from my face. Droplets of rain clung to his eyelashes and dripped from his hair. His mouth was curved into a hint of a smile, his eyes locked on mine. When his body shifted to lean toward me, my knees began to shake and I worried that I would melt into a puddle and wash away with the rain. He paused, his lips lingering close to mine, barely touching, but just enough to have my lips tingling in anticipation. This was it; I was about to have my first kiss, and it just happened to be with the most beautiful boy in the world.
Nicholas laughed under his breath as I sighed, and when he finally brought his mouth to mine, I was glad he still had his arms around me so my quivering knees didn’t land me in a heap right there in the middle of the field.
The kiss was slow and soft, mingled with the barest hint of strawberry sweetness as our lips parted and our tongues met. I knew I would never forget this moment—the feel of the rain as it slid over my skin; the way Nicholas’s hands moved to cup my face; the pungent smell of soaked strawberries and earth.
As I clung to Nicholas and the rain washed over us, I knew that everything would be different from that moment on. I may have been nineteen years old, but my life was really just starting in many ways. This was another new beginning: right there in Nicholas’s arms, in the middle of Farmer Milligan’s strawberry patch.
CHAPTER 5
Life in Riverview was beautiful in its simplicity. It was like living in a completely different world from the one in which I had spent the first nineteen years of my life. There were no worries, no deadlines, no pressing engagements, just endless free time and an excitement for life I had never felt before.
The day Nicholas and I spent together had given me a preview of how life could be, and now I wanted it to be like that always. A part of me knew it wasn’t entirely realistic, and things couldn’t always be that simple, but I decided to live in the moment and savour it while I could.
As spring blossomed into summer, I imagined I could feel myself blossoming with it—growing, changing, evolving, and slowly leaving behind the insecure, guarded, unsure girl I was. It was definitely a process for me, having spent so long making plans and worrying about every little thing, but Nicholas and Daisy were there to pull me out of my thoughts when I got buried too deep.
Nicholas and I became nearly inseparable. Just before I arrived in Riverview, his dad asked him to take time off from the construction site to help with some long-distance paperwork for the company, so for the most part, we were free to do whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted.
We spent much of our time in the park, or on Daisy’s front porch, or at the diner, talking and just enjoying being together. When we were outdoors, Nicholas taught me to appreciate the beauty of nature—the feel of the wind in my hair; the sound of a chorus of birds singing us our own personal symphony; the smell of the sweet summer air that was a mixture of clover and grass and flowers.
We took pleasure in things that were simple yet complex—a spider as she spun and wove her silken web; the flowers in bloom; a sky full of distant, diamond-bright stars—things I had been too busy to appreciate before. The world was full of mystery and wonder, and I soon realized that I wanted to experience it all. I also knew that I wanted to experience it with Nicholas.
I always had butterflies when he called or when I knew I would be seeing him soon. Daisy told me I had a ‘perma-grin’, and I liked the sound of that.
“I haven’t seen you without a smile on your face in the last week,” she said to me one day, a grin on her own face. “I like what Nicholas has done to you. Tell him to keep it up. I like the change.”
*****
A month or so after my arrival in Riverview, there was an entire week where it rained non-stop. Nicholas and I would sit on Daisy’s front porch to watch the rain fall over the yard, soaking the grass and flowers. Every so often we would head down into the yard to dance in the rain and kiss each other before one of us would kick water at the other, splashing in the puddles like children and drenching each other in the process.
I had always hated rainy days prior to the one in Farmer Milligan’s field; they usually made me sleepy and grouchy and unmotivated. Now I looked forward to those days when we would act like kids, laughing the whole time. I hadn’t acted like that even when I was a kid, so it was like having a sudden unexpected chance at childhood before having to grow up and make big decisions about my future that I wasn’t quite ready to make.
When we got tired from playing in the rain, we’d head back to the porch and I would sit in Nicholas’s lap. As I sat curled against him, he would wrap his arms around me or gently stroke my back or hair. I would lean into him and breathe in the smell of rain on his damp skin and in his hair. I found those moments oddly sweet and almost sensual, as they always gave me a wonderful tingling sensation in my belly.
In all the time we spent together, the subject of sex never came up. We kissed and held hands, but it was all very innocent. Nicholas knew I’d never had a boyfriend, so it didn’t take a genius to figure out I was still a virgin. I wasn’t sure if he was nervous about bringing up the subject, or if he didn’t want it to seem like he was pressuring me, but I knew it was on both our minds. It was the only thing we didn’t talk about, but the more time we spent together, the more I thought about it and what it would be like.
There were moments when I got lost in fantasies, imagining what it would feel like to have Nicholas’s strong, slightly calloused hands moving skillfully over my body while he kissed my neck and shoulders and breasts. I wondered what it would be like to have the weight of his body on mine as we made love for the first time.
As much as those thoughts took my breath away, I was scared, too—petrified, really. I was completely inexperienced and afraid I would do things wrong, or that it would be awkward because I had no idea what to do. The reasonable part of me knew those things wouldn’t matter with Nicholas, and that he would be understanding and patient, because that’s just who he was.
I wasn’t naive enough to believe the reason Nicholas hadn’t raised the subject of sex was because the thought hadn’t occurred to him—he was a twenty-two-year-old male, after all. And sometimes when we were alone, sitting quietly, he would look at me with an unspoken longing that had my heart tripping in my chest.
After a certain point, even though the words were never said, it felt like we had an agreement that we didn’t want to rush the physical part of our relationship. Everything was already happening so fast; I knew I was already falling in love with Nicholas, which scared me sin
ce we had only known each other a few weeks. I tried to rationalize that a month wasn’t a long time to know someone, but when you’re nineteen, a month can seem like a lifetime, and it felt like I had known Nicholas forever.
I knew in my heart that after saving myself for someone special, lovemaking would be more meaningful; it would cement a bond and express the love we had for one another. Even though I was sure of my own growing feelings, and I was certain that Nicholas felt the same way, we had never shared those feelings out loud. And because relationships and love were still so new to me, I didn’t want to assume that Nicholas was falling in love with me.
But sometimes you just know, and I was becoming more and more certain that my ‘someone special’ was Nicholas.
*****
One afternoon, once the rain had finally stopped and the weather had returned to perfect summer sunshine, Daisy went to a modern art exhibit with a friend, and Nicholas and I stayed home. We decided to cook dinner and surprise Daisy when she returned that evening.
At first, we were very serious about it: we found a recipe that sounded delicious, went grocery shopping for ingredients, then came back and set up the kitchen. But when Nicholas turned on the radio, all semblance of seriousness was lost.
We loved to dance. I had never danced a day in my life before I met Nicholas. When I told him so shortly after we started spending time together, he said in that way of his that made everything seem so easy, “I’ll teach you.” So we danced.
I felt awkward at first, all stiff-legged and self-conscious, but Nicholas’s enthusiasm, as always, was infectious. “You’re doing great!” he said as he guided me in a simple box step, one hand gripping mine, the other holding my waist. “People think the box step is a no-brainer, but when they actually try it, it’s suddenly hard to remember right from left, especially if you’re concentrating on what your partner’s doing.”