Chapter 22 10 Years Ago
CHAPTER 22
10 YEARS AGO
July
The summer was supposed to be perfect, but it wasn’t. All I could think about was the school year ahead and how far Wes and I would be from each other. Even worse, I dreaded how it was the last summer that my family would have the cottage all to ourselves. My mother was already planning what utensils to leave for renters and what precious belongings to take. We decided to leave my books in my bedroom, a selling point for young families hoping for some time away from the city for their children.
And I was lonely. Aside from occasional landscaping shifts, I spent most of my time at home. Wes was busy. He was determined to earn enough money to cover trips to visit me in the fall. Outings to Secret Island had fallen to the wayside. Time was too precious to be spent on the lake. In our few free minutes, we snuck into Wes’s room to find moments of privacy to torment one another.
“How am I going to survive without you?” I asked with a gasp as Wes kissed down my neck onto my chest, the hot feeling of his mouth through my blouse zinging down to my core.
His face was bright, feverish. As long as we were touching each other, we could forget about the reality that waited for us in the fall. How many years and miles were between us really being together.
Wes pushed me down onto his bed. “I don’t know,” he murmured against my mouth, tugging me free of my shirt as I delved into his pants to hold him hot and heavy in my grip. “I’m addicted to being with you.”
Oxytocin flooded my body. I couldn’t get enough of him, the scrape of his calluses against me, the salt of his skin, the taste of his tongue against mine.
Everything was quick and hurried between us as we rushed to untangle each other from our clothes, fighting against a countdown that wouldn’t stop. Scarcity amplified sensation, his hurried fingers fumbling on the condom wrapper, me impatiently stroking him bare against me until, trembling, he begged me to stop, stop, stop because he was so close already. I pulled the condom out of his hands, tearing the package open with my teeth in a mindless fever to have him back in me. The frantic intimacy pushing us over the edge in seconds.
Afterward, I wasn’t sated. Unravelling from him was painful. I needed and wanted all of him.
But our time was up.
“I have to go,” I said to him reluctantly as I layered on my clothes, the tang of his skin still on my lips.
“Want to stay over for dinner?” Wes asked, rolling out of the cerulean sheets to hold me against him. “Or maybe I could come over?”
“Soon,” I promised him, pressing a farewell kiss to his reddened lips. “My dad’s stressed out right now working overtime. It’ll be better if we wait till the end of the summer.”
Not for the first time, I wished Wes understood. I never threw in his face that he hadn’t told his father about me yet either. But Wes felt his father didn’t matter, even though he was the kind of man who wouldn’t approve of his son dating an ‘immigrant.’ I said nothing about it. My plan was to tell my parents at the end of summer, so that they would have some time to process it while I was at school. They had to understand, I was eighteen. A real adult. They would take my decisions seriously.
And once they knew, Wes and I could meet in Toronto every month. No more sneaking around.
“I just want to spend more time with you,” he said, hopeful. “It’d be easier if we could just go out together. You know, like everyone else.”
I pictured us going on dates, exploring the city together without a curfew, without limits, without worrying if my parents would find out.
“It’s all I want too,” I said. It felt like a prayer.
August
A couple weeks later, my sister arrived after completing a summer theatre course at McGill. She returned with a transcript filled with middling grades, a new nose piercing and a serpent adorning the bicep of her right arm.
“What’s this?” my mother asked, gripping Mel by the forearm when she came down the stairs for dinner dressed in a spaghetti tank top.
Mel spun around. “It’s my new ink. Don’t you love it?”
I did. It was simultaneously majestic and sassy. The tattoo screamed Mel. But tight vines of annoyance also curled around my stiff shoulders. Why did she always have to flaunt her decisions, the things she knew would set my parents off? Especially when I needed them in a calm headspace to accept Wes and me.
“One year away from home and she thinks she’s an adult,” my father proclaimed over our dinner of barbecued tandoori chicken and a garden salad.
My mother was trying to shift our meals into healthier fare after my father’s doctor told her that his blood sugar was creeping up, but my father was resentful. He wanted hearty beef curries, rotis and rice even if the current menu was more suited to the humid weather. The lighter meals made him irritable and his schedule only aggravated his temper. Pulling longer hours at work, driving to the cottage late on Friday nights only to leave again at noon on Sunday. He barely had time to breathe, and when he was with us he wanted silence and calm.
Which I happily gave him. But my sister, ever since she’d gotten back, was itching for a fight. Mel rolled her eyes. “Dad, I’m nineteen years old. I’m an adult.”
My father’s ruddy face steamed. “What is an adult, Mel? You are showing me a lack of maturity, a lack of understanding of what it means to be an adult, and what it means to be a member of this family. I trusted you and worked hard for you, and what do you do with my sacrifice? You spit on it.”
“You look like a vagrant,” my mother commented. “This is why you came home with mediocre grades. Not enough time on school, too much time gallivanting around. We are paying too much tuition for body mutilation and B minuses.”
“Mom,” I protested. “Everyone says that the first year of university is the most challenging. I’m sure Mel will get better grades next year.”
“Maybe you should transfer to a school in Toronto and move back home,” my dad said. “You can’t be trusted alone. Look at your sister. At least she focuses.”
My sister shrank into her chair, but she took one last shot, eyes wild as she looked at me. “You think your little Ms. Lia is so perfect? Well, she has a boyfriend.” Mel’s mouth then hung open like she was surprised by her own words.
My father shifted his gaze to me, eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about? Lia, explain yourself.”
My heart jumped into my throat. I couldn’t speak. Mel’s chin wobbled with guilt. She tried to meet my gaze with apologetic eyes, but her betrayal was a sharp knife in the back.
I searched between my mother and father. This was not the right time to bring up Wes. They were riled up and ready to prosecute with no evidence. Any proof that Wes and I were good for each other, that we loved each other, would be discarded.
“Billy and I were ‘dating,’?” I said, using my fingers as quotation marks. “We were spending so much time together on debate it kind of made sense, you know? It didn’t mean anything.” I tried to stay nonchalant, hoping my parents would see that none of this was a big deal.
My father was speechless, eyes bugging out of his head.
“Isn’t he that studious Korean boy?” my mother asked, putting together the pieces. “At least the boy was a hard worker, Karim.”
“That doesn’t matter,” my father said, anger and disappointment radiating from him. My insides shrivelled. “I can’t believe you would hurt me like this, my daughter. This boy, he is not like us. That you would even think about being with someone who doesn’t understand us, doesn’t understand our culture, makes me wonder where we went wrong with raising you.”
Pressure built behind my sinuses as he continued. “I have done everything for this family. We have come from so far, worked so hard to build a future here. When you were babies, every day we counted the money in the bank account to make sure you had food, diapers and opportunities I never had. But instead of being appreciative of where we come from, of who we are, you forget the values that we have instilled in you.”
I studied the worn linen tablecloth, searching in the frayed thread for the correct words to fix our argument.
“You are never to speak to that boy again,” my father said. “How am I supposed to trust you going to university next year, Lia?”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said, pinning my arms against my stomach. “You can trust me. I promise, it was nothing.”
“It isn’t nothing. You have broken my heart with how little you care for our heritage, our values.” He stood up from the table, the chair creaking with the absence of his weight. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
“But, Dad, I do care about our values,” I protested.
“I can’t bear to hear you speak anymore,” he said. Blood rushed to my cheeks as he walked away, my mother racing after him.
I stared down at my empty plate in the silent aftermath.
“I’m so sorry,” my sister tried to apologize, but it was too late to calm the suffocating, black dread taking over my body. “I just wanted him to understand who we are. You get it, right?”
“I can’t believe you would do that to me,” I snapped, gut churning. “You’re supposed to have my back. I would never have done anything like this to you.”
Mel started to say something, stopping and starting through inadequate words that I didn’t hear. I ran to the washroom as nausea spiralled my dinner up and out of my stomach. After, clammy and sticky, I worried there would never be a time when my parents would understand me.
A couple weeks later, my father was back in Toronto for work and the tension at home had dissipated. I was taking advantage of every free moment to be with Wes, but time was sliding through our fingers. The approach of September was a shadow over every second we had together. We gripped each other, knuckles white, trying to ignore the gloom.
“I’m dead,” I said as Wes’s weight pressed me into his bed. “You’re crushing me.”
He laughed, rolling to his side to face me, dragging his hand over my bare waist. I shifted closer to him, my feet resting against his shins. A chilly breeze wafted through the window, a warning of the fall. His smile faded.
“Lia,” he said, brushing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I’ve been thinking…it’s almost the end of summer. When do you think we should tell your parents about us?”
My liquid bones immediately crystallized, sharp under my skin. “What do you mean?”
Wes’s arm dropped from my waist, his expression sobering. “We’ve been talking about it all summer. I want to make it official before we’re away at school. I want us to be real.”
“We are real, I promise,” I said. “I just think we should wait. My parents are so freaked out right now about Mel. They want to keep her home next year.” My dad had started talking to Mel and me again, but our relationship felt fragile like fine china.
“But we’re eighteen. We’re going to university soon. What can your parents do then?” Wes asked, eyes earnest and wide like the horizon.
How did Wes not get it? Maybe because his parents were different. He’d taken on responsibilities he shouldn’t have because of his father’s failures. But my father had worked hard, done everything for me. I loved my parents, even if I didn’t always agree with them. I had to take their feelings into account when making decisions.
“They need time to accept that I’m growing up,” I said. “Besides, what if they get mad and decide they won’t help with tuition anymore or something?”
“But it’s not like I’m some stranger. They know me. How mad can they get?” Wes sat up, leaning against his headboard. I scrambled to join him, pulling the covers up to my chest. “Let me take you to my grad party next week. It can be our first official date. Everyone will be there.”
Shaking my head, I frowned. There was no way I could go to the grad party. Even if I got out of the house, the chances of getting caught were too high, especially so close to the end of the summer. I’d worked so hard to be perfect so my family would see me as responsible, but now everything was in jeopardy. One small tiptoe out of line had cost me their respect. Even now, I’d only been able to sneak out to see Wes because my father was back in Toronto and my mother had gone into town for groceries.
“I can’t go.” I looked down at the navy duvet. “My dad flipped out at the idea of me dating anyone, Wes.”
“Wait, you didn’t tell me you mentioned us to your parents? What did they say?” Wes asked eagerly.
“No.” I looked away. “They thought I was dating Billy. From debate club.”
“I know who Billy is,” Wes said, expression dimming. “Why would they think that?”
Hesitatingly, I described the argument with Mel over the dinner table and how she’d implied I had a boyfriend and my father’s reaction.
“I know it’s scary, Lia,” Wes said. “But we’re going to be together forever. Why not be open about it?”
“I know, but how does telling everyone now make a difference? It’s not like we’re getting married.”
“But we will one day,” he said, grabbing my hand. “I’d propose to you now if you wanted me to. I could ask my mom for her old ring. Would that make it better for your parents?”
I took him in, all ruffled hair and earnest smile, and acid rose into my throat. “Wes, that’s not the issue. We’re going to stay together forever. What are you so worried about?”
Wes dropped my hand. “I just feel like there are so many changes coming. I want to feel like what we have is for certain.”
“It will be,” I said, frustration staining my voice. “Why can’t you trust me on this?”
“Everyone says long-distance doesn’t work. Especially in university. People get distracted or fall for someone else. Even serious couples. And you don’t even want to tell your parents about us? My friends think you’re not in this, that I’m making a mistake,” he said.
I gaped at him. “Who would even say that? Andrea? Why are you talking to her about us?”
“She’s my oldest friend here,” he explained defensively. “She gets what I’m going through.”
Unlike you. The unspoken words lanced my stomach. I sidled away from him, crossing my arms tightly. “You know I don’t like her. She hurt Mel.” And she’s been waiting to hurt me.
“Who else am I supposed to talk to about this?” he continued vehemently. “How can I trust that what we have is real when you won’t even acknowledge us to your parents?”
My breath caught in my throat. “Wes, I love you. We’re real.”
“Then marry me, and your parents can’t do anything about us anymore,” he said. “We’ll belong to each other.”
My face shuttered. I dreamed of our future, Wes and I together as adults, celebrating our love in front of everyone. But not this way, with desperation and fear draped over us. I shook my head. “We can’t.”
Wes curled his back. “You don’t want to be with me?”
“I want nothing more than to be with you,” I said, begging him to understand. “But we’re eighteen. We don’t need to rush. My parents would freak out if I got married so young.”
“You mean like my parents did?” Wes’s face closed off. He slipped out of bed, grabbing his clothes, tossing mine at me. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“Can’t do what?” I croaked.
“I need some space to think about this. Us. Figure out where we stand before we leave for university.”
“What do you mean?” I choked out. Did he mean an hour? A day? Or something more permanent? We’d have hundreds of kilometres and a provincial border between us soon. My heart crumpled. I couldn’t believe that he wanted to miss out on a single minute together. Wes’s expression remained an impassive granite.
“A week. I have the party and stuff and you can’t go, anyway.” When I didn’t reply, he looked at his decorative Omega on the bedside table. “You should probably leave,” he said.
For the first time, I felt vulnerable being naked in front of him. I slid out sideways from the covers to throw on my clothes like armour, pulse racing as I trudged downstairs.
I stopped, leaning against the frame of the front door before I left. Each breath I took felt like an infinity as I tried to keep still, calm my heartbeat, so I could hear him call my name to get me to stop. He never called after me.