Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Jae
The night is black and calm. A sailboat cuts through still water, spreading ripples like silver hairs through the darkness. There’s movement in the grass at the edge of the sand, but my eyes can’t make anything out. I take a final breath of the crisp air and close the window.
Downstairs, Ms. Rosette is singing “Toboli,” a beautiful E?e lullaby, in her yearning, warbling voice.
On nights like this, when Uncle Rowan’s out having dinner with colleagues, she moves around the house like air, unfettered.
I sit at the edge of my bed and listen to her song and imagine Anne singing to June Baby.
I suddenly miss Mom. I miss the voice that comforted me during my six-hour delivery. I miss her chicken noodle soup and her You’ll be all right. It doesn’t hurt forever. The cream she rubbed into my skin to help me heal when I didn’t want to lift a finger to help myself. I miss that Mom.
But there’s the other Mom that intrudes on my thoughts. The one who only saw my mistakes.
Something like sand trickles against the window. There’s not enough wind to whip up sand tonight, so I walk over and look out across the coastline, then at the place where the grass waved, and then at the dark figure standing beneath the window.
I scream, then quickly clasp my mouth when Derek steps into a stream of light by the pool.
“What is happening?” Ms. Rosette calls from downstairs.
“Nothing!” I call back.
I open the window and stick my head outside. “What are you doing here?” I half whisper, half yell. “How did you know this was my room?”
“I didn’t,” he says. “But no one came to the other window, so I figured I’d try this one.”
My mouth falls open. “You’re lucky my uncle’s not here to kill both of us. What are you doing? Where have you been? What happened at the Sundy House?”
Even from far away, I can see the hesitation in his eyes. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. That’s when I notice the gash in his lip, the dried blood on the corner of his mouth.
I gasp and lean a little farther out the window. “What happened?”
When he doesn’t answer, I feel something horrible sink deep into my stomach. I hold up my hand for him to wait there and run downstairs to the main floor, where Ms. Rosette is organizing a pile of magazines in a rack.
“What is going on?” she asks with a slight glance my way. “I know something is happening. I have three daughters. Remember that.”
“I have a guest,” I say quickly. “He’s going to come upstairs for a while—”
“He? Wooo, Yesu!” Ms. Rosette shakes her head and walks away from me, her hand waving frantically over her ears. “I don’t hear a-ny-thing! I am playing my music, okay? I don’t hear anything-o.”
I let out a long sigh. “Thank you.”
“For what? What are you talking about?” She busies herself with rearranging the pillows, avoiding my eyes.
I fly through the back door, run around the side of the house, and smack right into him.
“Whoa,” he says.
My eyes sweep up from his thick sweatshirt to his face, the red gash through his bottom lip. “What happened to you?”
“I’m fine,” he says.
But he’s not. Just like the first day I met him, I can see it written all over his face.
I grab his hand and lead him toward the back door, away from the driveway, where Uncle Rowan could pull up any second. I scrunch my nose. “I hate to say this, but you smell like smoke. Uncle Rowan will smell it a mile away.”
He groans. “Shit. Sorry. Look … I can …” He stops walking, ready to leave. I pull him back.
We pass under the lamps and light splashes across his face.
I’m almost breathless at how real he looks.
I’ve missed him, I realize. I’ve missed seeing him so close.
Your mind can never re-create the flesh and the colors of a person.
His eyes are more piercing, speckled with yellow, his skin is more textured, his eyebrows are darker. And his full lips are red, red, red.
Inside, Ms. Rosette has disappeared somewhere and we make our way upstairs. In my room, he lets out a heavy sigh and swings his backpack off his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he says again, washing his hands over his face. “I—I don’t wanna get you in trouble.”
“Then you’re gonna have to change,” I say.
“What?”
“I’m serious.” I run to my garbage bin and pull out a few fresh plastic bags and hand them to him. “Your clothes. In there.” Then I run to my dresser and pull out the biggest shirt I have, Mom’s Bernie Mac tee. “And put this on.”
Then I grab my favorite body spritz from my table and spray like I’m attacking the plague. Derek coughs into his sleeve.
“It’s better than smoke, believe me,” I say. He looks at the T-shirt warily.
“Does this outfit come with pants or do I walk around swinging?” he asks.
“You’re not walking around and you’re not swingin’ nothin’, okay?” I hear the sound of a car engine approaching and freeze. Then it passes and I snap my fingers at Derek. “Seriously, Derek. Like yesterday. Change. Now.”
Both hands, he lifts his hoodie and shirt and hat off with one swoop, and I swear I could have—would have—melted in place if the fear of Uncle Rowan showing up weren’t so strong.
But dear God, it isn’t fair. He looks good.
And he knows it. He chuckles and unbuttons his jeans, lets them fall off his hips.
Green boxers. Green boxers against a tanned torso.
He steps out of his jeans, and shrugs as if to say, Good now?
We are so good.
I’m not supposed to feel this way. Not now. Not my insides all tight and wound up. So I clear my throat. Hurry and pick up his clothes and hat from the floor, my head inches away from his carved muscles.
“Let me do that,” he says.
“Just put the shirt on. Please,” I say, nodding at Bernie Mac. I bag his clothes myself, just to give my hands something to do. I hurry to the closet, stuff his clothes into the corner, and shut the door.
I turn around and plant my hands on my hips. “We’ll have to be quieter when Uncle Rowan comes home.”
“I’m sorry,” he says again, softly. He’s wearing that same expression I saw when I first met him, when I saw his wet eyes looking at me in the bathroom mirror. He looks embarrassed. Alone.
“Stop saying sorry,” I say. “Seriously. It’s fine. You’re staying, right? For the night? We’ll figure it out.”
He nods. “Thanks.”
I make my way toward the bed and sit down. But he moves slowly around the room, stopping to look at the books lining the shelf. Then he moves to the desk against the wall and settles into my chair.
“You can sit with me,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I’ll stay here. It’s safer.
” He chuckles. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and stares down at the floor.
A wisp of wavy black hair falls over his forehead.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here with your uncle and all that.
I just didn’t feel like seeing anyone else. ”
Thump. My heartbeat is loud. Heavy. Did he hear it?
“It’s fine,” I say again.
His eyes rove the room, avoiding my gaze.
“Can you come here? Please?” I say. “So it’s not so awkward? Just talk to me. Like we’re … we’re at the fish pond. Just a hundred tiny kisses, right?”
One corner of his mouth tips up. Then he walks toward the bed and the closer he gets, the closer I want to get, like he has his own gravitational pull. He sits on the edge and I swing my legs up and lean against the pillow, giving us both more space.
“So, are you finally going to tell me how you got that split lip?” I nudge. “It’s not from soccer.”
He grimaces. Looks toward the door like he’s thinking of leaving.
Finally, he says, “My mom doesn’t … she …
she has this boyfriend.” He stops. Looks down at the floor and sighs heavily like he’s a hundred years old and so tired.
“I shouldn’t even be here. I shouldn’t be telling you all this.
Look at this room,” he says, pointing to the walls, the curtains. “It’s pink.”
“So?”
He looks at me and smiles. “You’re like a sweet princess and I’m a frog.”
“Hey, I’ve never met a frog I didn’t like,” I say. “And you’re sincere. If you’re a frog, you’re a sincere frog.”
A half smile. “A sincere frog, huh?” He lets out a short laugh and looks down at his bare feet.
I lean forward and poke his shoulder and he looks at me sideways, his eyes big, making him look years younger.
“So? Tell me?”
I can hear him swallow. He licks his lips. The red crater.
“Mom dates this guy. Peter. Parasitic alien life-form. He has a temper, but he’s never put his hands on her before.
Well … he got mad at her for … well, that doesn’t matter.
He was grabbing her face. Hard. So I was gonna call the police.
Then he decided to leave and Mom tried to stop him, grabs his hand, he pulls his arm free, and …
well. Crack. My lip.” He points to it. “It wasn’t on purpose, but it hurts.
Or maybe it hurts ’cause … Mom didn’t really care?
” His voice is taut. His Adam’s apple bobs.
He’s trying to keep himself from breaking.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Jae. I’m trying not to scare you off. I’ve been trying this whole time. But I’m doing a really shitty job of it. I kinda like you.”
For a second, I lose my breath. I smile. “Kinda?”
“God. See? You’re just so f—” He censors his words. “So cute. I really like you.” He looks at the window, shakes his head, and clicks his tongue.
“Wait, are you annoyed?” I laugh, holding the pillow against my chest.
“Yeah. Yeah. I am. ’Cause you’re sitting there all … you know … and I’m sitting here in my freaking boxers and … dammit … Hey. Pass me a pillow, ’kay?”
I bury my face in it so he can’t see me laugh. Then I throw it to him and try my darnedest not to look. He places it on his lap and takes a deep breath and stares at the books on my bookshelf.
“One. Two. Three. Four. Five.”
“Are you counting my books?” I ask.
“Shhhh.”
“Derek. Let’s just talk.”
“Don’t say my name.” He mutters on and on to himself, and I sit there like I’m watching the unraveling of a sane mind.
“Okaaay. Patel? Can I say Patel? Or does that make you hot too?”
He huffs. “Does that make me …” He sucks in air through his teeth, looks up at the ceiling and laughs. “Does that make me hot. She asked if that makes me hot.”
“Derek! Come on! I just wanna—”
And he’s up. The pillow falls to the floor and before I can blink, he’s hovering over me, so close I can feel his breath, so close I see faint freckles on his nose.
When he speaks, it’s rough like gravel. “It’s your fucking voice, do you know that?
It’s … Jesus. What, Jae? You want what? What do you want? ”
Nothing, I try to say, but it’s barely a whisper I can even hear.
His eyes are a dark whirlpool. I could get lost in them.
I could disappear in them. I want to disappear in them.
My breaths are shallow and he sees it, looks down at the small rise and fall of my chest, and his eyes spark like flint.
His head drops closer, his nose brushing my collarbone, his warm breath on my skin, and then he lets out a groan and pushes away, collapsing onto the bed with his eyes on the ceiling.
“I …” He sucks in a breath and breathes out slowly.
I sit up, make my way toward him, savoring the question, the glint, the fire in his eyes. I brush thick waves of hair from his forehead. Rake my hands through it. It slips through my fingers, falls back over his eyes, a dark curtain covering darkness.
“God, Jae. What do you want?” he asks, his voice strained. I bring my head close enough to feel his breath whispering against my cheek. My neck. My ear. “You’re killing me.”
“Shhh,” I say, and he sinks into the bed, eyes swimming.
It’s like magic, the way his body responds to mine.
I touch his sharp jaw, and it clenches. I brush his chin, and his mouth falls open, waiting.
I take my time, letting my hands feel how real he is.
The grooves around his abdominals, the indentations on his pelvis that lead down.
He groans at my touch, sits up on his elbows to watch my hands, and I’m drunk off the feeling that someone so beautiful is melting beneath me.
I straddle him, right at the base of his abs, plant my hands on his rising chest. He shifts against my thighs and everything is electric. He’s watching me through narrow eyes, through eyes like a night sky, teasing me with how they dance, how they scan me from my lips to my chest.
I wonder how his lips would feel everywhere.
I wonder how long my breath would catch and how good it would feel for the world to end at the tip of our tongues.
I lean in to his mouth, waiting for him to flinch, but he doesn’t.
My mouth meets the corner of his, and I let it rest there, so light it feels like air.
Feeling his chest rise against mine, hearing his breath come faster, I press my lips harder.
My heart races as my lips explore the shadows of his face, gently seeking the places that are red and swollen and hurt, trying to tell him with my skin on his that he is so good.
That no matter how bruised he is, he is beautiful to me.