Chapter 10 #2
“Shhhh.” Seth held his finger in front of his lips, and we scurried around the boathouse and into the woods along the shoreline.
As I navigated the uneven forest floor in my sandals, I felt a fiery pressure within—excitement and fear comingling.
Was this really happening? And if so, what was it, exactly, that was happening?
Seth seemed to have a destination in mind, and he led me with confidence past the darkening trees.
We could still hear the whoops and splashes from the dock, and I was elated to have broken from the group, to be on a stealth adventure with Seth.
We passed first one, then another of the guest cabins, and finally wended our way through the woods to an enormous boulder that sat on the shoreline, partially submerged in the pond. It was twice my height and big as a whale.
“Are you okay to climb this?” Seth asked.
“Of course,” I said, as I looked for a foothold.
“I’ll give you a boost.” Seth knit his fingers together, and I stepped into them. He lifted me high enough to start my ascent. It only took a few seconds for me to summit the boulder, but when I reached the top, my heart was pounding.
“Have you ever been up here?” Seth asked.
I shook my head, and we made our way to the edge, where the rock sloped sharply down to the water below.
Seth sat and let his calves hang down, and I followed suit.
He pulled a beer out of his pocket, cracked the tab, and offered me the first sip.
From our perch, we could see our friends cavorting on the far dock, their restless shapes backlit by the fire.
“Do you have FOMO?” Seth asked.
“Not at all.” I had been to a version of this party dozens of times, and I knew that the most exciting things happened around the edges of the action.
We passed the beer back and forth in what felt like an unrushed rhythm, and I was relieved to have something between us to absorb the pleasant tension that was growing.
“Why haven’t you spent the summer here before?” I asked.
Seth shrugged. “I usually work at one of the tennis clubs near Saranac. But my mom thought I should take a job here this year.”
“And she didn’t want to come with you?”
“She has to work. She can’t really take much vacation. But she thought I should spend some time with this part of the family. Maybe so she doesn’t have to.”
“You’re her proxy?”
“Something like that.”
It made me wonder if my parents did the same—used my sister and me as a shield, a means of avoiding their own marital stagnation.
To me, that strategy seemed more complicated than it was worth, but I knew adults had the capacity to twist themselves into knots rather than face the hard truths of their lives.
I hoped that would never happen to me, that my loyalty would always be to reality, no matter how painful it might be.
“My mom is cool, though. You would like each other,” said Seth. I appreciated this vote of confidence, which had a forward-looking quality to it.
“What about Greg?” I asked, feeling bold. We both knew it was a leading question. “I know he’s your cousin, but do you actually like him?”
Seth smiled. “He’s my cousin.”
“Such diplomacy.” I grinned in the darkness.
“If you’re asking whether I would be his friend if he weren’t my cousin, well, probably not. But we get along. I understand him, even when I don’t agree with him.”
“That’s fair.”
A familiar song carried over the water from the dock.
I looked down into the black expanse and heard the lazy lap of water against the boulder beneath us.
This time, when Seth took the beer from me, he set it down and looked into my eyes.
On fire but paralyzed, I had to summon all my courage to hold his gaze.
He leaned in and kissed me, confidently but quickly, then pulled away to gauge my reaction.
I must have smiled or blushed or seemed otherwise receptive, because when he leaned in again, it was more purposeful.
More artful. I felt my body melt into the rock beneath us, everything blurring as my world shifted on its axis.
This was hardly my first kiss; that had happened a few years prior, when I was thirteen, with none other than Greg Seavey.
But all I remember from that experience was too much saliva—his or mine, I still don’t know—and Greg telling me a few days later that I wasn’t his type.
No, this was something altogether different.
This was my first kiss that felt like something more than an experiment; my first kiss that made me think I was finally doing it right; my first kiss that I could actually envision leading to sex in a canoe (or perhaps somewhere more hospitable).
Until this moment, I had never even considered sleeping with a real-life teenage boy.
With a movie star? Yes. A rock star? Of course.
But those people were conveniently out of reach, so I could cultivate the fantasy from a safe distance.
The thought of sex with an actual peer horrified me—until now.
Now it started to seem possible, and maybe even desirable.
Still, it was terrifying: to be aware that you’re living the most exciting moment of your life as it happens.
To be fully present but also out-of-body, overcome by a pleasant quaking.
I feel alive, I thought. And even more astonishing: I felt deserving.
Eventually, having exhausted the ways we could make out on a boulder without injuring ourselves, we climbed down and headed back to the party.
But we took our time, stopping along the way to kiss against the odd tree.
By the time we got back to the dock around midnight, most everyone had dispersed.
Chloe and Greg were nowhere to be found, and none of my remaining friends were in any condition to drive me home, even by boat.
I was already late for my 11:30 P.M. curfew, which left me with only one option.
Nina was twenty-two and had just graduated from college with the highest of honors.
She would head to her Peace Corps post that fall, but for the summer, she was here. And she had a car.
When my sister arrived twenty minutes later, I left Seth by the dock and scampered up the lawn, propelled by giddiness and beer. As I dove into the passenger seat, she raised her eyebrows, intrigued.
“What?” I asked defensively, though I knew I was radiating excitement.
Nina reached over and lifted a lock of my hair that was matted with balsam sap. “Fun night?”
I touched the snarl proudly. She grinned but didn’t pry as she backed the car up and performed a perfect K-turn.
The whole way home, I let my right hand fly out the window, watching it rise and fall in the clean night air.
In that moment, I felt absolutely certain that everything in my life was going to work out just fine.