Day 6 #4
He shifts a little, onto his side, and I think maybe he’s finally going to get up, but instead he reaches one hand toward my face.
And I realize—for the first time since I thought he was dying here on the grass—how close we are.
There are only inches between our faces, and I can feel every one of them sliding away as his hand meets my cheek.
He brushes a piece of hair behind my ear, letting his palm brush my cheek, before stroking two soft fingers lazily down to my chin, like he’s in no hurry.
Like we lie on the grass touching each other all the time.
Voice whisper soft, Asher says, “How much do you hate me right now?” His eyes close.
He’s going to pass out again, and it’s hard to decipher whether I’m hopeful or worried.
I don’t know if I’ve been holding my breath, but my chest feels like it’s going to explode in the two seconds it takes his eyes to open again.
And when they do, he leans forward, and with no hesitation, presses his lips to mine.
I’m not sure if it’s seconds or minutes that the heat of his lips caresses the chill of mine, but when he pulls away, it’s with what sounds like a little sigh.
Then he rests his palm on top of mine between us, closes his eyes, and like nothing absolutely ridiculous just happened here, he falls back asleep.
I don’t.
THE FIRST SUMMER
Sidney
Being here with the Marins is so much different than last year, when it was just the three of us.
I spent a lot of time by myself—mostly because otherwise it meant spending a lot of time with my parents.
And they’re not bad, but I’m going to be fourteen next month; space is my middle name.
I had Kara once in a while, when she’d come over to swim, or lounge on the dock in the chairs we’d drag down the hill from the deck.
But mostly it was just me, hanging out during the day, swimming and lying in the sun, and just being.
Things were chill. Quiet. Like me and my parents.
This year, the whole atmosphere at Five Pines is different.
There are tiki torches running along one side of the sidewalk that leads to the water.
A string of twinkly lights haphazardly strung in a tree near the Marins’ deck.
Music plays from a speaker propped up on the wooden railing, pouring music out over the yard.
The adults spend most of the day bouncing from drinks on their deck, to card games on ours, to lying on the lounge chairs.
And it’s not that I feel unwelcome, it’s just …
too much. Too many parents, too much giggling.
Too many recounted college stories I just don’t need to hear.
We’re almost a week into vacation, and Asher and I aren’t strangers anymore, but we’re not friends yet.
I think that’s my fault. Because Asher is probably the cutest guy I’ve ever met.
He’s funny, and nice, and the kind of guy that wouldn’t give me two minutes at my school.
He’s even a swimmer. On paper, Asher Marin is pretty much my dream guy.
Which means that when he comes within five feet of me alone, I forget what words are.
A few days into vacation I bought a paint set at the dollar store in town, and I’ve started painting rocks. At least if we talk, I have something to do with my hands now. Something to fill the nervous quiet spots. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’d rather be prepared.
I’m painting a rock on the deck when Mom sits down in the chair across from me. She tilts her head to the side, and I know we’re about to have a Kris Walters heart-to-heart. Mom picks up a rock and toys with it in her fingers. “This is cute, Sid.”
“Thanks.”
“So, listen…” Mom rubs her thumb over the smooth surface of the gray rock. “Is everything okay with you and Asher?”
My hands still. “How could they not be okay, we haven’t really even hung out.”
“I know. And I just thought … well, it’s just that Sylvie was thinking … do you not like him? Did something happen?”
Other than me being a class-A jerk, no. Nothing has happened. “No, nothing happened. I’m just being my hermity self.”
Mom smiles and rubs her hand over my shoulder. “Hermits are awesome. People wouldn’t keep them as pets if they weren’t.”
I smile. “Those are crabs, Mom.”
“Either way.” Mom tucks a piece of my hair behind my ear. “Asher’s nice. You’re nice. I just don’t want you to be bored this summer. Maybe … make a little effort? If you hate him, you can paint rocks twenty-four/seven, okay?”
“Okay.” I put my hand out and my mom deposits the rock into my palm. “I think I can do that.”
As Mom walks back across the lawn toward the deck and the other parents, she throws back a “Love you, Sid” over her shoulder.
I haven’t really spent time with Asher since our parents had a mini-reunion at an alumni night swim meet three years ago, when we were ten.
We shared his tablet and played games, and we haven’t been in a confined space together since.
Until tonight. Because I can do this. After dinner, I see Asher from my kitchen window, making his way down to the hill at the edge of the yard, where the fire pit is situated just beyond a row of tall bushes covered in big red berries that look like miniature apples.
I wash the last dish, setting it on a towel on the counter to dry.
The sink is still full of silverware, but Mom will do those, because yuck.
Last summer I helped Dad make fires every night, but this summer Asher has unofficially claimed the job.
I grab a stack of newspapers from the little screened-in porch, take a deep breath, and head toward my demise.
I mean, the fire pit. Hopefully the only thing to crash and burn tonight will be some logs.
Fingers crossed. Asher is throwing logs into a haphazard pile within the metal ring when I set the papers down on one of the three wooden benches.
“Hey.” Asher smiles at me, and I smile back without thinking, because lips … teeth … blue eyes.
“Hey,” I finally squeak out. “Do you want some help?”
Asher puts his hands on his hips and looks from the sandy circle to me. “Yeah. I suck at this.” I laugh and he looks at me. “What?”
I don’t say anything, because the fact that he admitted that means we are so different. I’m afraid to talk to him, and he’s confident enough to admit he sucks at something; he doesn’t care if I know.
“I’m actually awesome at this,” I say, picking the papers up and handing them to Asher. “I’ll fix the wood. You start twisting these.” I take a piece of paper in my hands and twist it.
Asher sits on the bench across from me and works on the paper, making a little pile on the ground in front of him while I pull all of the wood out of the circle.
“You don’t like my stack?”
“It’s more like a pile.” I find a thick, straight log and stand it on its end in the middle of the ashy circle.
“Fires need air, you can’t just dump the wood in there.
” That’s what my dad always said. I stack another piece of wood at an angle against my first. “I mean, unless you want to douse it with lighter fluid, but I consider that cheating.”
“I didn’t realize there were rules.” He’s smiling at me like he thinks I’m funny.
I shrug. “There aren’t, sometimes I just make them up.”
Asher watches me as I stack pieces against my first, creating a cone.
Before I put on the last piece, I wave at Asher.
“Stick a handful of paper here.” I use my log to point to the gap and Asher squats down, shoving paper into the open space there.
“Do the same thing on the other side,” I say, and he does, carefully removing a log before shoving in more paper.
Asher is standing next to the fire pit, hands on his hips, looking pleased. “Nice.”
“We’re not done yet.” I pick up another handful of twisted papers and start sticking them into the cracks between the logs, leaving short pieces exposed. Asher grabs paper and does the same on the other side. “These are like a bunch of tiny fuses.”
Asher nods but doesn’t say anything. I pick up the long lighter on the bench next to me and hold it out to him. He shakes his head. “You should probably do the honors.”
I circle around our creation, lighting all of the little paper tails on fire.
The center begins to glow, growing brighter and brighter, until the flames break through the cone of wood.
I sit down on the bench behind me, right next to Asher.
I didn’t even think about it, but now that I’m here, it would be weird to move.
“Where’d you learn that?” he asks.
“Lots of trial and error last year. But mostly my dad taught me.”
“That’s cool.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes before Asher finally breaks it. “My mom said you swim a four-hundred-yard IM. That’s one of my favorites.”
“Yeah?” I love individual medleys because unlike the team events, you don’t have to worry about whether you’re screwing something up for someone else.
It’s just you, good or bad. IMs are a love-them-or-hate-them kind of thing, and something about knowing Asher and I are in the same camp relaxes something inside of me.
It’s a very tiny, very specific thing we have in common.
Our parents join us at the fire, and while they talk, Asher and I roast marshmallows, make double-decker s’mores (his idea) and throw the tiny little apples into the fire to see if they’ll explode (also his idea).
Eventually the adults announce that they’re going back to the Marins’ cabin to play cards, and tell us to douse the embers when we leave.
Once we’re alone, we get quiet. We sit for a few minutes, staring at the fire and poking at glowing logs with our metal roasting sticks, before Asher breaks the silence.
“There’s a meteor shower this week. It doesn’t peak for a few days, but we can probably see some tonight.
” Asher stands up and walks behind his bench, sitting down on the grass.
He lies back on the ground, and I stay on my bench, watching him.
Asher looks prettier in the dark somehow.
Maybe it’s the last of the fire, casting his skin in a soft warm glow.
Maybe it’s the way he smiles while he’s talking to me, and light glistens off of his white teeth.
Everything in my chest tightens as I look at the empty space next to him on the grass and force myself to stand up and walk over.
Only a few inches separate us. We’re wedged between the bench and the cement walkway that leads down to the dock.
Maybe I should have moved the bench over so we weren’t so close, but now I’m here, and it would be weird to get up and move it just so I don’t have to be so close to him. Don’t be a nervous jerk, Sidney.
I’m prepared for how awkward it’s going to be to lie in the silence together, but Asher doesn’t let it last more than a few seconds.
As soon as my head hits the grass he’s pointing toward the sky.
“Meteor showers usually originate around a certain constellation, so if we find it, then it’ll be easier to see the meteors.
Especially this early in the shower. And into the night. ”
“It’s close to midnight.”
“Most meteor showers actually peak closer to four or five a.m.” He points up into the sky. “We’re looking for Perseus.”
“Which one is that?”
“He’s a god.” Asher’s fingers trace across the sky like he’s mapping it out with his fingertip. “But honestly, he looks more like a one-legged stick figure. Like something my three-year-old cousin would draw.”
I laugh. “They all look weird to me.”
Asher taps at the sky. “There.” He traces his finger in a pattern I can’t follow. “Do you see it?”
“Mhm.” I stare in the general direction of Asher’s hand, hoping it will magically come into focus for me.
“Really?”
“No.”
Asher pulls his phone out of his pocket and his fingers fly across the screen.
He holds it out to me. “They’re pretty hard to find if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
” The screen is filled with stars and lines, and he’s right, this hardly looks like a person, let alone a god.
Someone had a very vivid imagination back in the day.
I turn my eyes back to the sky and keep searching.
“Anything?” he says.
I don’t say anything, just shake my head. But as I’m staring up into the sky, wondering if my brain just isn’t wired to see constellations, I see the tiniest little spray of light. “There!” I thrust my finger at the sky and Asher laughs. “I saw one!”
“Is it your first?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, there should probably be eight or ten an hour right now. Not that we’ll catch them all, but…” His voice trails off into silence.
We lie on our backs and stare up at the sky until I’m woken up by Asher patting my hand with his. “Sid, it’s really late. I didn’t know you fell asleep.”
We make our way back to our houses, but the next night we’re in the same spot. “How do you know so much about constellations?”
I can feel Asher’s shoulders shrug next to me, ruffling the grass. “We learned about them in fourth grade, and I just always thought they were cool. I guess I was kind of a nerd about it afterward.”
I nod. “Can you show me Cancer?”
“Is that your sign?”
“Yeah.”
“So you have a birthday soon.” It’s not a question, just a statement.
“You know all of the zodiacs, too?”
“I know generally when they are.” Asher points a finger at the sky. “Cancer is one of the faintest.” He traces his finger along the sky like he always does when he’s trying to find something. Then he taps at the night sky, like it’s a framed map overhead. “Okay, there.”
I stare and stare as Asher traces a shape across the sky, but honestly, I don’t see anything but a mass of tiny lights.
“I’m a lost cause for constellations,” I say.
Asher laughs, and we go back to looking for meteors, counting twenty that night.
We lie on our backs every night that week watching for meteors, tallying them up like stones dropped in our beach buckets.
Even after the shower ends, we spend most nights on the grass, staring up at the sky, our fingertips so close we could touch.
And the next month, when it’s my birthday, I find a surprise on my bedroom ceiling. A constellation of my very own, mapped out with glow-in-the-dark stars. Cancer—my very own crab—one I love enough to keep as a pet all summer long.