Chapter 5
five
. . .
As I lay in bed next to Jason, so many thoughts swam through my head..
I was now a woman.
Or was I?
Despite the pain between my legs, a burning, throbbing sensation, I felt something akin to…
happy. A lightheartedness, a swelling joy in my heart.
But it was more than that. There were so many emotions running through me, so many I couldn’t identify.
One thing I knew for sure, though, was that they were because of this boy—this man —lying beside me, holding me close.
The sensations blooming in my chest were feelings I’d never experienced before, and I wondered if I could hold onto them.
If I did, would people know what we’d done?
Would my parents and teachers understand that I’d taken a huge step toward adulthood tonight?
For now, it seemed as if my face was aglow with everything in my heart, and I suspected it was an expression I wouldn’t be able to hide.
As Jason’s blue eyes assessed mine, his face looked so soft, so warm…sweeter than ever. “Do you feel okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling because it had only been a couple of minutes since he’d last asked. “I’m just sore.”
Kissing my forehead, he said, “I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I know. But now the hard part’s over with.” Next time would be better.
“Yeah,” he began, his voice even softer than before, “but why the hell does it have to hurt you so bad? Why don’t guys have to go through all that?”
I had no answer for his questions—nor did I suspect he was waiting for answers.
He took my slight frown and half shrug to mean I had no idea.
And we grew so quiet that, after a while, I was simply focused on the rise and fall of his chest. I really did love this boy with every cell in my body.
I remembered what my mom had said last week, her admonition to not get too serious with him…
and I doubted things could get any more serious with him than they were right at this moment.
His voice finally broke the silence. “I wanted to tell you what the band is planning for after school.”
“After school? Next week, or?—”
“No, after graduation.”
“Oh.” This I wanted to hear. After graduation was a topic we’d tiptoed around a lot. It wasn’t just me; it was both of us. So I propped my head up on my arm to see his face better .
“It’s not a big deal,” he said—but his tone of voice completely belied that statement.
“But me and the guys were brainstorming about how to actually make a go of the band. I mean…now that we’ve had a live performance and know people like us, we want to make money doing it.
So…we’re thinking about figuring out how to tour next summer. ”
Tour? What did that even mean for a small band with no recorded music? Still, it made me wonder enough to repeat the one word echoing in my head. “Tour?” I tried to force a smile, but it likely came up short.
“Yeah. There’s a ton of shit we need to figure out, but we know we need a following. I mean, Pueblo’s cool and all, but we can’t just stay here.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. I didn’t want to say anything discouraging. “I guess so.”
“I just wanted to tell you. Maybe you could come with us—if you’re not working at the shelter next summer.”
Oh, but I would be. My volunteer work would continue until I went to college. And there was no way I was going to tell him my parents’ number one dream for me was Harvard. I wanted to ask if the band was planning to tour in New England.
But I wasn’t going to say any of that. It was all these things, these uncertainties, that kept me from speaking.
Actually, it was the certainties that kept me silent.
Because I knew for certain that I would be going to college and I wouldn’t be doing it in Pueblo.
And based on everything Jason had said, I was fairly positive he was not planning to pursue a higher education.
If he were going to try to make something of his band, he wouldn’t stay here.
But that didn’t mean we would wind up in the same place.
In fact, if the band planned to make their mark by leading a nomadic existence, we—my relationship with Jason—would have even less a chance of surviving.
Because if I planned to be home during the summer and chunks of time like Christmas and spring break, there would be no guarantee Jason would be here.
I didn’t see a way to reconcile our two worlds.
I could hear my mother’s voice in my head again: You might not want to get too serious about Jason. At the time, I thought she’d said it because she feared that my boyfriend might be a distraction…but now I wondered if she’d known all along that it would lead to inevitable heartbreak.
Because even if I wound up going to school in Boulder instead of Massachusetts, what difference would it make if Jason were in Texas or California or somewhere else with his band?
So I said the same thing either he or I had always said when faced with the uncertainty of the future: “We’ll figure it out when the time comes.”
But now, more than ever before, I could hear the hollowness of those words—and I rested my head back on Jason’s chest so he couldn’t see the sadness that I knew had to be filling my eyes.
Although the dull ache from losing my virginity might have kept me awake, it was the thoughts swirling in my brain that kept sleep from me well into the early morning, long past Jason’s rolling over, unaware that I was still lying beside him.
But I couldn’t find any acceptable answer.
On Sunday afternoon, I’d finished almost all my homework in addition to the tasks that my college consultant had given me for the week. By the end of September, I would have submitted my application to Harvard—and my future would be all but set in stone.
I couldn’t talk to my parents about the turmoil I faced—because they would both say things they hadn’t expressed before.
I knew they thought that Jason was out of my league and not the kind of boy they wanted me dating.
If they’d had their choice, I’d remain unattached until long after I’d obtained all my degrees.
But they’d settle for if I dated someone like Walker Adams—a boy from a wealthy, well-established family who’d have aspirations much like mine.
But my heart didn’t want any of that.
I picked up the red spiral notebook on the corner of my desk.
This year in AP English, in addition to all the other work we had to do, Mr. Crawford had us writing a journal.
At least four days a week for ten minutes a day, we were to write in these journals—which, for me, was a three-subject spiral notebook.
He’d given us a dozen reasons why it would be good for us, but even I, one of the star pupils in line for valedictorian, found the exercise to be tedious.
More than that, I’d been writing about superficial topics, ones he’d given us if we felt stuck, because I didn’t want to share what I was truly feeling.
But Mr. Crawford had said what we wrote would remain private.
At first, I wondered if he was lying, because if a student talked about killing someone, wouldn’t he be obliged to report it?
But, as I looked at how my writing had already filled up ten pages, I realized this notebook would probably be full at the end of the year—and even though he said he’d review our journals once a month, I thought about that on a grand scale.
All those students, some of whom had illegible handwriting—would Mr. Crawford really read all of their words?
Or was he simply perusing each journal to make sure we were writing?
That was my guess, and I was going to take that chance…
and, for the first time since Jason and I had grown serious, I wrote down all my feelings, all my thoughts and fears about our futures into that journal.
I didn’t even worry about my parents reading it because I always had lots of papers, lots of notebooks, and this one would almost always be in my backpack.
The words flowed as if I were an inspired author writing her life story. Although I didn’t mention that I’d lost my virginity on Friday night, it could perhaps be inferred. But I didn’t care. It was as if I were dropping a heavy load as I let it all out.
I’d spoken to Emma about my dilemma more than once, but she’d always told me to just have fun, to “enjoy the present.” How many times had she said, “We can’t predict the future”?
I’d often thought that was her way of shutting me up, but I saw now that that was the way she was living her life.
Although Cameron looked and acted like a bad boy, he was nothing of the sort.
He was planning to attend Stanford, his father’s alma mater, and Emma was looking at schools in California as well.
But she’d told me several times that she didn’t know if she and Cameron would last once they went to college—and she really didn’t care.
After pouring out my whole heart, I looked out the window of my second-story bedroom.
Although the leaves on the trees in the front yard were still green, I knew they’d soon be turning yellow before dropping to the ground.
Then, soon after that, my mom would put pumpkins all over the porch…
and then we’d get our first snow. When my mind went over all that would happen during my last year at home, I realized just how fleeting my time left here was.
Still, I was torn. Just as I’d felt over the summer, I was almost an adult, and I was eager to claim that title, to graduate high school with a strong finish. How would Jason fit into my life after we threw our mortarboards into the air?
I looked back down at the lined page, half filled with all my hopes and fears, and I poised the black ballpoint pen on the next line.
Pressing firmly, I wrote, I have no idea what the future looks like, and I have no clue how to keep what Jason and I have alive, but I have to try.
Then, as an afterthought, I wrote, I have just one wish: that both my worlds would align so I can have everything I want.
When the leaves fell from our trees, would we wind up on the ground together or separated by wind and weather? Would our love die naturally or could we keep it alive?
That continued to be my dilemma long after I closed the notebook and placed it in my backpack. But, as I’d written, I resolved to do my best to try to hang onto what we had for as long as I possibly could.
Because, in my heart, I knew I would always love Jason Marconi, regardless of what happened in my future.
Always.
THE END
Allie and Jason will return in a second-chance romance in the upcoming Wishes Rock Star Romance series!