Chapter 10 Young Love
YOUNG LOVE
“You’d think with the dump we got last night, it would be finished,” Mom says, mostly to herself. “But nope.”
“Only a couple more months.” Dad soothes as he pulls another plastic wrapped jacket from the box.
“I hate this snow, Douglas.”
I wince, because if Mom is calling Dad Douglas, she’s feeling especially prickly.
“I know, honey.” Dad makes big eyes at me, where I sit at the register counter on a stool with my biology textbook and notes spread out. I have an exam at the end of the week, and I’m stressing about it.
Still, I’ve been at this for the last couple hours. I’m officially bio-ed out, so I slide off the stool. Dad raises bushy brows at me when I reach into the box for a jacket. I start stripping the plastic, snuffing a giggle at Mom when she curses at the thickening flakes outside the shop window.
Dad leans in close. “Your mom doesn’t do well without the sun, kiddo. Best steer clear of her.”
Mom pulls a strip of tape from a box, the sound loud and a little menacing, what with the angry way she does it.
Leaning closer to Dad, I say under my breath, “Holt is coming to pick me up soon.”
His eyes focus on the jacket, but he points out. “You sure have been spending a lot of time with that boy.”
Not as much as I’d like. “He is my boyfriend.”
It still feels weird saying this to Dad. I think it feels weird to him, too, if the way he shifts is anything to go by.
Clearing his throat, he puffs his chest and asks, “Is it serious?”
Now my cheeks are beginning to redden. “I like him.”
His eyes lift from the plastic wrapped jacket he’s fumbling with. Then the Dad I know comes out as he asks conspiratorially, “But do you love him?”
“Dad.” I toss an unwrapped jacket at him. He catches it with a barked laugh.
Mom huffs something about the weather, and then stomps into the back room. Dad lets his laugh linger just a moment before he asks seriously, “Do you, though? Love him, I mean.” When I say nothing, Dad presses. “Young love can be a beautiful and dangerous thing, Faye.”
“Dangerous?” I’m frowning now, because my rarely serious dad is being really serious right now. There isn’t even a hint of play glittering in his eyes. Nothing in his tone suggests he’s teasing.
“Young love is new and exciting. It feels—” He pauses, shakes his head and mutters, “Hell, kiddo.” Dad lowers the jacket he’s holding. “Young love is addictive.” His eyes come to mine. “Young love is a physical thing. It’s a time when a young girl and a young boy come together and—”
“And what?” I ask when Dad pauses, looking a little nervous.
“Well, Faye, take a seat, will you?”
Nerves titter under my skin as I slide onto the stool behind the counter, dad on the other.
He hooks his thermos of coffee, takes a swig for courage, and meeting my eyes once again, says, “When boys and girls begin dating, it’s a little different from when two older adults begin dating.
There is a rush of feeling, a desire to be with that other person completely, that drives a young love to—to situations that can be dangerous. ”
“Are you talking about sex?”
Dad reddens curiously. Although sex isn’t comfortable for me to discuss with my parents, it’s not entirely out of the norm. Mom and Dad have tried their best to prepare me for the realities of life, and sex is one of those realities.
“I am.”
“Okay?”
“What I’m saying is that when you’re young, the relationship is more physically driven than it is mentally and even emotionally driven, as it often is when you’ve reached a higher maturity that comes only with age.
The love you are feeling isn’t any less real, kiddo, that’s not what I’m saying.
But you will be driven more by your physical feelings for Holt, as you continue to—well, as you continue to explore each other. ”
“We’re not doing that yet.”
“Thank God.” Dad rushes, then clears his throat again. “What I mean is, I’m happy you’re not rushing into sex. There is plenty of time for that as you age.”
“And get more mature.” I grin at Dad.
He looks momentarily bashful. “You are a very mature young lady, but keep in mind, I was young once, too. I recall very clearly what it felt like to be driven by my desires to explore the opposite sex.”
I pat the counter. “I’m sure you do.”
He pins me with a pointed look. “Don’t be a brat.”
I laugh. I can’t help myself. “Sorry.”
“Forgiven.” I think we’re done, but Dad soldiers forth. “I just don’t want your eagerness to explore now to be the thing to hold you back later. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I’m pretty sure I understand exactly what he’s saying. Under my breath, I mutter, “Don’t get pregnant.”
Dad releases a gust of breath. “That. Exactly that. Don’t get pregnant. At least not until you are ready.” Dad’s face pinches. “Closer to twenty-eight.” He reconsiders. “Thirty-five.”
“You want me to have a geriatric pregnancy?” My tone is dry.
Dad rears back, face slack with horror. “A what, now?”
“Geriatric means—”
“I know what geriatric means. How is thirty-five considered geriatric?”
I tap my biology text. “It’s all right here. There’s a higher risk to pregnancy as a whole after thirty-five.”
“That’s rubbish.”
“Tell that to the scientists.”
Dad huffs. “Them scientists change theories more than you change your outfits.”
“Hey!”
He gives me a dry look. “Try telling me it’s not true.”
I giggle, because I really can’t do that.
My laugh stops as the bells on the door chime, and Holt appears.
My throat feels suddenly tight, my skin hyper-aware, my heart racing fast. I don’t know how one person’s presence can make me feel like this.
Can affect me like this. It’s like all the air in the room shrinks down to him.
He becomes my only source of breath, drawing me closer and closer.
He’s a magnet, and the attraction is a force I’m unable to deny.
I don’t want to deny it. Don’t want to reject it—whatever this thing is that lives between us.
“Hey.” His voice is so deep, and a little rough. It ignites all those tiny sparks of awareness beneath my skin until I’m a flushed beacon of teenage hormones that has Dad muttering, “This is what I’m talking about, kiddo. The physical draw.”
I’m relieved that Dad has spoken low enough that Holt doesn’t hear. Still, the red flush darkens another notch and Holt’s eyes light with curiosity as he moves deeper into the store.
Dipping his hands into the pockets of his jacket, he rocks a little on his heel. “The store is really coming together, Doug.”
Dad absolutely won’t be called Mr. Foster.
He takes more offense than Mom when she’s called Ma’am, exclaiming that such a formal title not only makes him feel old, but places barriers he doesn’t want between himself and the important people in his life.
Because Holt is important to me, he’s important to Dad, too. I love Dad for that.
Holt has become so much of a fixture in our lives, that Dad has even begun to watch hockey.
The last game the Vancouver Vikings played, Mom made a big spread of goodies, and the whole Wilder family joined us to watch the game on Dad’s new projector TV.
Mom said it was his mid-life splurge, because with the opening of the store, no bank would have approved him for a sports car.
“It is, eh?” Dad’s eyes do a sweep of the space which, honestly, looks a lot like chaos to me. “Our doors should be open by the first week of March.” Dad’s eyes do another sweep, landing on the boxes that haven’t even been stripped of tape yet. He sighs. “God willing.”
Holt chuckles under his breath, his eyes glittering as they drift to me. Then he says to Dad, “If you need an extra hand, just let me know.”
“With your hockey schedule and the shifts you’ve been picking up with your dad and Tate, you don’t have time for this mess.” Dad’s hand lands on my shoulder. “Faye tells me you’re quite the busy man.”
Holt shrugs. “I can always make time.”
“How is hockey going?”
“Good.” Holt lights up, like he always does when he talks about hockey. “Coach says I play forward best he’s ever seen.”
There’s something in the smile Dad gives Holt. Something there and then gone. Something Holt misses.
But I don’t miss it.
It’s a sharp spade, the blade of it digging into the earth of all that is me and Holt.
It cuts into the twisted roots of us, severing a dream or two and planting an insecurity in its place.
Because Dad loves me more than anything—and that something in his smile—I think it might just be devastation. Heartbreak. Sorrow.
For me.