Chapter 20 11 Years Ago
CHAPTER 20
11 YEARS AGO
September
Sneaking around became second nature to me. I didn’t want to let my family down, but at the same time I couldn’t imagine giving up Wes. I became good at keeping secrets.
But then, on our second-to-last day in Pike Bay, my father pulled me aside. “Lia,” he said, concerned. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with that boy next door, and since you’re reaching a certain age, I wanted to speak with you about him. Your mother doesn’t want me to even mention this and put ideas in your head, but I need to make sure we’re on the same page about this being a friendship and nothing more.”
My heart churned, but I forced myself to meet my father’s stare. “Dad, we’re just friends.” I managed to sound aghast at his questioning. “We’re trying to figure out scholarship stuff together. I owe him, anyway, after he helped me with debate a couple years back.”
“That’s a good girl, yes, pay your debts,” my father said. “But be careful with your friendships. People like our neighbours are not like us. They will not be there when things become difficult. Only your family will stand by your side unconditionally.”
“I know,” I said, crossing my fingers tightly behind my back. Wes would always be there for me.
My father’s heavy eyebrows furrowed. Maybe I wasn’t as opaque as I thought. “You should go to McGill like your sister,” he decided. “Make some new friends, get away from the same people you cling to.”
My biggest dream was for Wes and me to go to the same university, but finances were strained for both of us. Wes’s father was only offering tuition coverage if Wes attended his alma mater, Western. If he did, we wouldn’t even be in the same province. Scholarships and student loans would dictate our futures.
“I’m not like you,” Wes told me the next day. We were sitting barefoot on the dock together in the early morning before he went to work. The air was chilly, the end of the summer escorted by the birds singing mournfully. “Your transcripts, your resumé, all of it’s flawless. But mine, well, three years as a checkout cashier and a failed math grade at the start of high school doesn’t exactly scream high achiever.”
“It does,” I said. “It shows dedication and commitment to keep your grades up.” Wes wouldn’t meet my eyes, so I nudged his ankle with my big toe, letting our knees knock against each other until he couldn’t help but glance up at me.
“There’s no guarantee I’ll get a scholarship either,” I murmured. “Let’s just give it our best shot and we’ll find a way together. No matter what.”
He tilted his head up towards the straining sun. “At least once I finish a business program, I’ll make good money like my dad. I’ll be able to look after myself, Mom and you.”
“You won’t have to look after me,” I said. “You should do what you want to do. If anything, once I’m done with law school, I can help you too.”
This was a fear of mine. I didn’t want to be a burden on Wes. I was supposed to help carry the load, but instead he was factoring me into the heavy rucksack he hauled with him. It was why I didn’t share exactly how worried I was about my own family’s finances. Whatever struggles we were facing, he was experiencing tenfold.
He kicked his feet out over the water. “I don’t know what I want to do. Only that I want my life to be completely different than now.” I must have looked shaken because he continued in a rush. “Except I always want to have you.”
Almost all of me believed him. What we had now would be enough to carry us through the school year. It had to be.
We spent the fall in a blur of university applications and extracurriculars, our book club falling to the side. Wes was working every other evening, pulling shifts at the grocery store so he wouldn’t have to worry as much about his mother when he left. Our long late-night phone calls, his voice lulling me to sleep, diminished in duration and instead became brief check-ins. I missed that time together but knew I couldn’t ask more of him. Maybe Andrea was right. He needed someone light. My family’s own worries, the struggle of our university choices, my parents’ disapproval of our friendship—all of that would only amplify his stress. Instead of sharing my anxieties with Wes, instead of giving him part of my load to carry, I wished him goodnight long before I fell asleep. The stucco on the ceiling became wishing stars when racing thoughts pushed sleep away. One day, being together would be simple. Until then, I just had to be strong.
We still spent Friday nights together when my parents went to mosque. I was excused, as long as I pretended to study. As soon as they left, though, I would video call Wes. These pixelated minutes were water in a desert. We’d stare at each other on the camera, wide-eyed and hungry, updating each other on our weeks while simultaneously wishing we could be next to each other, nothing but skin separating us.
On one call at the end of September, I told him as much.
“You’re danger,” Wes replied.
I leaned in close towards the screen. “Come here and I’ll show you how dangerous I can be.”
He bit his lower lip. “I want to be there with you, so badly,” he said. “I promise, it won’t be like this forever.”
But I was starting to question it as winter crept into spring. We’d applied to the same schools, but things were still not working out in our favour. Wes had qualified for a business scholarship at Western, but they’d offered me hardly any money. McGill was my parents’ choice, but they rarely gave scholarships for commerce. Wes took it hard when I received a merit-based scholarship at McGill and he didn’t. I smiled weakly as I tried to reassure him. At the same time, even with the scholarship, finances at home had been stressful. At the last family dinner, my dad had reviewed school tuition. “There isn’t enough for both you girls to attend McGill unless we rent out the cottage for extra income.”
While I would miss the summers up north sorely, I told myself it would be okay. Wes could still come to McGill with me and we’d have the school year together.
But then, in March, Wes broke the news that Western made the most sense for him.
“Listen, I was talking with my dad and I realized that I can’t go to McGill,” Wes said. “It doesn’t make sense to go into debt for school.”
“We could get jobs during the year,” I said desperately. “We could find a way to make this work. I can ask Mel if we can rent a place with her. Besides, housing in Montreal is cheaper. Don’t give up.”
He sighed, defeated. “Western just makes sense. It has a great business program and it’s the only way my dad’ll help with expenses. Plus, if I’m on his good side, he’ll probably help me find internships. This is the best shot I have at getting a good job one day and getting out of Pike Bay for good.”
“But—” I started.
“Please understand.” He blinked, his eyes red-rimmed. “I just don’t think there’s another way around this.”
I dug my nails into my palm to stop myself from saying what I wanted. Four more years long-distance, further apart than we’d ever been before. It was too much. But as I took him in on the screen, pale skin, hollows under his eyes, I knew I couldn’t ask for what I needed.
“I wish I could come to Western,” I said. My father had made it clear that if I was going to leave home, I had to go to the same school as Mel. It made sense from both a financial and “safety” perspective to my parents. There was no way to convince them.
He shook his head, smiling wryly. “So, the best schools for us aren’t the same schools. We have our whole lives together after. Don’t worry.”
I nodded weakly. Even if he didn’t intend it that way, it felt like he was saying we shouldn’t make big life decisions based on each other.
“Sure,” I said, unconvinced. “Do you think we shouldn’t be together in university?”
“No,” he said, aghast. “That’s not what I mean at all, Lia.”
Wes came up with a plan to make our long-distance relationship work for the duration of college. We’d meet up in Toronto monthly. Toronto was a three-hour drive from Western and a five-hour train ride from Montreal. We could make that work. All of this hinged on my parents finally being ready to hear about Wes and me. But once I went to university, they’d have to see I was an adult and respect my decisions. Wes and I would finally be able to be together.
I bought into his plan.
“Okay,” I said. “We can make this work. I just want you with me all the time.” My voice dropped. “You know, kissing me, touching me. As much as I love talking to you, this here”—I gestured at the screen—“doesn’t feel like enough.”
“I want that too.” His throat bobbed. “But I’m happy to have you in any way I can.”
A harsh knock pounded at the door, and before I could reply, it swung open. “Lia? Who are you talking to? Is that a boy I hear? It isn’t that Wesley boy from the summer, is it?”
“Of course not, Dad. Why would I be talking to him?” Adrenaline made my blood pump, my fingers clumsy as I switched screens. I was so enveloped in Wes that I must have missed my parents coming home. “Just Billy from debate. We’re prepping for our next competition.”
“Okay,” my dad said, walking away, leaving my door a crack open. I waited until he was gone before getting up and shutting the door. Guilt coated my throat as I went back to my desk. I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but why did it feel like I was?
“Billy?” Wes’s disembodied voice came through my computer. Hastily, I turned the screen on. Wes’s lips tilted downwards.
“My dad knows Billy,” I said to Wes. “We talk every week about debate prep.”
“You talk to Billy every week?” Wes’s tone was flat.
“Well, yeah? You knew that.” I wasn’t sure why Wes was out of sorts.
“I just didn’t realize your dad would be okay with you talking to Billy but not me,” he said. “You leaped to hide me.”
“Because it’s not like that,” I told him intently, willing him to understand. Hiding him was protecting our relationship. “It’s different for us. We just have to be patient.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “If you mean that.”
10 YEARS AGO
April
In the middle of April, after we’d paid down our tuition deposits for next year, Wes came to Toronto for his weekend with his father. He drove down late Thursday night, since he had Friday off. Meanwhile, I played hooky for the first time. My perfect attendance meant that my absence wouldn’t cause a call home. Besides, I was eighteen, an adult, or at least that’s how I felt.
Initially, Wes suggested we go out and then meet my friends at the mall after school. But when I told him I’d rather spend time alone, layering my tone with meaning, he was up for a change in plan. Anticipation raced down my back, my stomach eagerly fluttering. This was my opportunity to remind Wes that we were everything to each other.
Since Wes’s father was working during the day, we decided to meet at his place, a shiny condominium in the heart of Yorkville. The gleaming silver towers were the opposite of the worn, warm wooden home Wes had up in Pike Bay.
A part of me stabbed with anger for Wes as the shiny elevator doors closed behind me. Why did Wes have to work so hard throughout high school if his father could afford to live here?
Excitement replaced the anger as I walked down the hall of the lower penthouse to the suite, closer and closer to Wes and the monumental decision I had planned. The door swung open as I lifted my hand to knock. I smiled. Wes must have been staring out the peephole, waiting for my arrival.
His hair was cut short in that awkward way men’s haircuts always are, his shoulders taller as if a burden had been taken off him. He wore a new watch, shiny and metallic in the afternoon sun, but my eyes were fixed on his face.
“You’re here.” His grin was as wide as I’d ever seen it, cheeks dimpling. My own lips matched his, my heart beating with the certainty that only he could ever make me this happy.
Filled with the effervescence of reciprocated affection, I rose on my toes to pepper kisses on his cheek, then the corner of his lip and the other side until he caught his arms around me, pressing our lips together dead centre in a way that sparked in my heart.
I sighed into him. “I can’t believe I’m skipping school,” I murmured between kisses, blending from sweet to frantic, laughing breathlessly when our teeth clanged together. We were high on each other, the promise of summer and our futures.
His breath hitched as I gripped the nape of his neck. “I’ve been thinking about you like this. All the time,” he confided.
In Wes’s arms, I knew any doubts I’d been harbouring were unfounded. We were meant for each other. He could feel it too. I could tell by the way he held me, his hands moulded to my body like they belonged there.
I kissed him again, and he met me where I was at in a blurring clash of lips and tongue, our hands reaching until I was backed up against the open door, a hungry Wes flush against me. The skin of his chest was warm underneath his T-shirt, and his tentative exploration under the hem of mine, brushing gently at my waist, was leaving sparks that made me search for more. I wanted to be as close to him as humanly possible, so we could never forget who we were to each other.
Because here together, there was no question.
“When is your dad coming home?” I asked.
He looked at me, a question swimming in the waves of his eyes. “Not till the evening. Did you want to go out?”
“I want to stay here,” I said firmly. “Where’s your room?”
The guest room with the plain cotton sheets seemed out of place in the otherwise extravagant but impersonal decoration of the suite.
“It’s not much,” he said in response to my inspection of the room. “My dad furnished it for my visits.”
I didn’t want to dwell on how Wes was an afterthought to his dad. He was always at the forefront of my mind. Instead, I closed the door, twisting myself around Wes. He gripped my hips as he kissed me gently. Light kisses, closed-mouth kisses. Kisses that tasted sweet, of caring and adoration.
I needed more from us, the part where we lost our usual restraint, where our bodies and minds merged and were finally, finally in sync. The part that we never got to fully explore because our lives were usually a ticking timer until our next interruption.
This was the first time we had hours. And I wanted to glut on it until I forgot that there was anything else but the warmth of Wes on me, under me, in me. I wanted it all.
I dug my fingers into his short locks and bit his lower lip. “Let’s get into your bed.”
His eyes focused as my words sank in, the air taut between us as he stared at me. “Are you sure?”
“Are you?” I heard myself asking him. “I want to. If you do.”
We were paralyzed at the precipice of the cliff. I was ready to jump, but only if he was strapped to the bungee cord with me. I wasn’t scared of having sex with Wes. I wanted him to know I was all-in. What I was worried about was him not feeling it too, this magic that we had when we were together.
“Of course I do,” he said, his voice scraping against gravel.
“Good.” I shoved him onto the bed and then dove on top of him before either of us could get stuck in our own brain again.
His eyes danced as he looped his arm around my hips. I wriggled, as if trying to get away, but my movement only brought me closer to him.
“Oh…” I said, as he pressed directly against my core. We stilled and our gazes locked, his eyes bright with wanting.
Wes took a shallow breath. “Hey, you.”
My hands settled on his chest, firm and soft at once. “Hey,” I replied tenderly, leaning forward until he tilted his head to angle our lips together. I arched up against him and his fingers dug appreciatively into my thighs.
The sun behind the gauzy curtain shone through the window, dancing over us in a shimmer. I had never felt so warm everywhere, from the tips of my toes to the apex of my chest. Nothing felt this sublime, not even when I was alone. I craved him. I wanted the taste of Wes’s skin, his weight on me, until I didn’t know where he began and I ended.
“Take this off,” I said thickly, pushing his white T-shirt up and up, exposing the ridges of his abdomen. Feeling constrained, I pulled at my top, but he tugged me back before I could get my bra off, exploring me through the smooth fabric until my skin burned.
Finally, clumsily, he unhooked it, staring in awe as it fell away. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
In that moment, I really felt beautiful, with his eyes hot on me. “You are too,” I replied. There was an insane relief of his chest against mine as I leaned forward against him, our moans matching as we held each other tighter.
This, I thought between kisses, was what people tried to capture with words. The way he gripped firmly but carefully, so as not to hurt me. The way I wanted all of him everywhere. I had never experienced anything like it.
“Is this okay?” I asked, as my hand went to the button of his jeans. He nodded, fast and eager, both of us laughing as I couldn’t get the button through the loop, until he reached out to help me, his own fingers thick and clumsy until he was finally in my grip, my hand under his boxers. It was new, the way he felt, a silky hot glide under my palm.
Wes threw his head back as I explored, his laugh pained. “This is going to be over before it begins,” he said. “You’re driving me insane.”
“I could stop.” I smirked, finding a rhythm that made his face flush.
His bright, eager eyes met mine. “You’re evil.”
My grin turned cocky, but before I could gloat, he flipped me over, pinning my hands above my head, grinding into me. “I want to feel you too,” he said, leaving a scorching kiss on my throat.
And we felt each other, in uncoordinated kisses, clashes of teeth and lips, missed breaths as his hands explored my chest, my own wound tightly in his hair. Every touch and moment made me clench and ache until I was solely a being of feeling, all coherent thought gone.
He was right against where I needed him, but there were too many layers between us. The thin fabric of my underwear, his boxers. They all needed to be gone. It was clear he felt the same, as we both pulled at each other’s clothing until there was absolutely nothing left.
“Shit,” Wes said, stilling against me, where I couldn’t help but nudge into him. “I don’t have a condom.” His head fell into the crook of my neck, his warm breath against my skin a quiet torture.
“I have one,” I said thickly, my hands digging into his shoulders. “Give me a second.”
He nodded rapidly, faster than my pulse. “I need a minute,” he said, half laughing. “I can barely think.”
I pulled away for a moment, his eyes lingering on my bare body. Frantic, I dug into my bag to grab the condoms I’d stashed when I went with Zainab to volunteer at the community health centre. They’d been tucked into a secret compartment in my purse, waiting for this moment.
I handed the crisp plastic wrapper to him. He ripped it clumsily, carefully rolling it on himself. “Are you sure?” he asked, swallowing hard. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything,” I said, drinking him in. His ruffled hair, his earnest expression, his hands that held my body with such care. This moment was a culmination of everything we’d been through together, a moment to reinforce our futures. “I want to be close to you.”
He was so gentle, like the idea of hurting me tormented him. But I wanted all of him, even the parts that hurt. My leg wound around his backside, yanking him deep inside, the tearing pressure tying me to him, raw and aching and sweet. I couldn’t suppress a small gasp of startled pain.
“You okay?” he asked, immediately still. He made to pull away but I wrapped my arms around him tighter.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “Just give me a moment.” The sensation was overwhelming in its pressure, but also lovely, hot skin against mine. Wes pressed gentle kisses on my lips as he waited for me to shift, to adjust to him, while his own gasps were short and sharp as he tried to keep control.
His fingers wandered in between us, stroking me gently at the apex of my thighs until even the sting couldn’t keep me from rocking up against him. He was as tight and tense as me.
“I can’t last any longer,” he said, biting down on his lower lip.
I held him closer. “That’s okay, we can do this again and again.” His smile blurred against my mouth and I kissed him. “I love you,” I told him, as he fell apart. My understanding of us shifted in that moment—a painful, beautiful mess, the way the road of our life would look if we travelled it together.
“I love you too,” he said, pressing his cheek against mine until our grins were one continuum.
I’d never been so happy.