27. Summer 18
Icheck the clock yet again. It’s 2:36 in the morning. I frown as I realize only two minutes have passed since I last checked the time.
I toss my covers off and sit up. I reach for my phone and am nearly blinded by the beaming light. I guess it hasn’t gotten the memo that it’s nighttime.
Without a second thought, I shoot off a text.
Me
Any chance you’re awake too?
Andrew’s response is instant.
Andrew
Yeah
I just finished up a project.
What kind of project? You already have something for school?
No this is more of a personal thing.
Oooh a mystery!
Something like that haha
Do you want to come outside with me? I’d enjoy the company
Be out in 2
I grab a sweatshirt from my closet and tug it over my head before heading to the back door and stepping out into the cool air. With it being late summer, it never really gets cold here, but it does get into the mid-sixties at night, which is cool enough to cover me in goosebumps without the warmth of the beating sun.
I see a shadow moving on the Martins’ lawn. Then I hear Andrew’s voice whisper, “Come here.”
He pats the spot next to him and then leans back down on what appears to be a small blanket sprawled across the grass. I join him silently. When I lie back and gaze up, I’m surprised to see so many stars floating up in the sky. It looks like he turned the back patio lights at the Martin residence off, but I wonder what it would look like without the lights from our cabin or the little specks of light still glimmering from other homes around the lake.
We lie in silence for a while as I get lost in the stars. They’re gorgeous, and they remind me of my grandpa. Part of me wonders if he’s up there now. He used to say he wanted to be a star in the afterlife so he could help bring light to the dark and keep a watchful eye on me. I wonder if he’s proud of me, if I’ve done everything he hoped I would by this time in my life.
Andrew breaks the silence. “What’re you doing up at this hour?”
I turn onto my side and find myself face to face with him, his nose inches from mine. How long was he lying there like that?
I regain my focus and respond, “I’m getting anxious about leaving for college. You know how much I hate change and then there’s the fact that I have to meet new people. I hate those orientation-type things, you know, small talk. I want to skip ahead to the part where I know who my people are. Then there’s cross country. I am excited to compete, but I’m so nervous. This is a whole new level of competition. I’ll be racing with elite athletes.” I inspect his face, expecting to find overwhelm in his eyes. “Clearly, my mind is racing.”
He nods his head with understanding. “I get it. It’s hard to adjust to change. I’m nervous too.” Grabbing a hold of my hand, he adds, “But I know you’re going to be more than fine in college. You’ll have a built-in support system right away with the team. Remember you couldn’t stop talking about how great the girls were when you came home from your official visit? You’ve worked your ass off this summer, so you’re going to absolutely crush everyone. Don’t forget that you’re one of the elite athletes that will be out there competing,” he encourages.
A weak smile crosses my face, and I can tell he knows I’m not feeling any better. “Em, you’re the most dedicated, hard-working person I know. When you put your mind to something, you make it happen. If you want to make friends, you’ll do it. If you want to make it to nationals for cross country, you’ll do that too. You’re just that incredible. I’m honestly jealous of all the people who will go to college with you and get to experience your journey in person.”
I squeeze his hand. “Thank you, Andrew. I’m going to miss you. I know it isn’t all that different from the last nine years being apart during school, but—” I trail off. I don’t know how to tell him it feels different saying goodbye now. We’ve been through so much, and each day it feels like we’ve only been getting closer and closer.
“I’m going to miss you too,” Andrew murmurs. “We don’t have to talk about college anymore though. We are still at the lake together right now, so let’s enjoy it.”
He lies back down to stare up at the stars, and I follow suit. After a moment, Andrew asks, “If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would it be?”
I don’t hesitate. “Italy. The food alone is an obvious draw. I mean, imagine getting to eat fresh bread, pasta, pizza, and gelato every day! Oh my gosh, I’m drooling just thinking about it! I read this book a while ago where the main character spent a summer in Italy, and it made me want to go so badly. I want to see all the famous architecture and the rolling hills of Naples.”
He chuckles. “That is the most fitting answer I could’ve imagined for you.”
“What about you?”
“I don’t know if I have an answer,” he pauses and I wait for him to continue, comfortable in the silence. “I’ve always wanted to go to Greece because of the gorgeous turquoise waters and those simple white cottages along the coast. They’re like something out of a painting. I also think it’d be really neat to travel to Thailand though. The water there looks beautiful, and I’ve heard they have a beach where you can ride elephants. Plus, think of all the cool food you could try there. I heard everything is cheap in Thailand, so you could have all kinds of cool experiences on a budget.”
“Well, minus the fact that it costs a thousand dollars for a round-trip plane ticket.”
“Minor details.”
I snicker. “You’ve traveled with your family, haven’t you? Where have you gone?
“Yeah, we’ve gone on a few work trips with my dad. We went to Japan once and Paris. Japan was super cool!”
“Did you not like Paris?”
“Oh, Paris was incredible, but you know, it’s the city of love. I swear everything is designed for couples. There’s the lock bridge and the Eiffel Tower. Even the delicacies, like cheese and bread, have this erotic energy, like they’re meant to be fed to your lover. I think I’d want to go back someday with someone special. I’m sure the whole city would be a different experience if I could share it with someone I love.”
I nod, fighting the urge to imagine traveling to Paris with Andrew someday. Too late. I’m already picturing us eating dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower, feeding each other cheese and chocolate croissants, and kissing under the streetlights. I sigh a little at the thought and then mentally slap myself. I need to get back to reality.
“If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” I start us off again.
“Super strength, duh.”
I laugh at the simplicity of his answer. “Okay, why?”
“I feel like I couldn’t do much by myself without supernatural strength but think of all the people I could save if I had the strength to just throw the bad guys through a wall or stop a moving train with a single finger. What about you?”
“I think I’d want invisibility. I’m not sure it’d be as useful as super strength, but I’d like to be able to disappear every now and then.”
Excitement fills his voice. “You could be a spy and do all these super cool top-secret missions for the FBI or the CIA!”
A puff of air comes out of my nose as I hold back a laugh. “You’re right. That’d be pretty cool.”
“Tell me a story about you when you were little,” he pries. Our sides are completely pressed against one another now. I can’t move. I can’t breathe. I’m afraid that any movement will wake me up from a dream or make Andrew realize how close he is.
“What kind of story?”
“Anything you want. It could be a favorite memory or something embarrassing that happened to you. I just like to hear about your life. I’m only with you for twenty-five percent of the year. I want to hear about the rest of it.”
“I’ll tell you a story if you’ll give me one in exchange.”
He purses his lips for a moment, and then they curve into a smile. “Deal. You go first though. I need some time to think of mine.”
I scoff. “I need to think of one too. You didn’t exactly give me many instructions.”
“That was by design. I’m letting you be creative!”
“Okay, okay, I got one,” I say finally. He nods at me, encouraging me to continue. I watch eagerness grow on his face. “When I was little, I had a favorite stuffed animal named Lucky. My grandpa got him for me when I was three. He was this plush black puppy, and I took him everywhere with me. I believed by naming him Lucky, he would actually give me good luck.” I laugh a little with embarrassment.
“When I was six, I took him with me on a family trip to New York. I accidentally left him in the hotel room, and I wound up getting a double ear infection before the trip ended, which made the plane ride home absolutely miserable. I was in tears, and I insisted it was because I didn’t have Lucky with me. Once we got home, my grandpa came to visit me while I was sick. He brought me soup, told me stories, and he even brought me what I thought was Lucky. I later found out he bought me a new Lucky, but he washed him a whole bunch of times to make his fur look worn like my original one. It was really sweet of him.”
He smiles warmly. “When did you find out that wasn’t the real Lucky?”
“I didn’t find out until after my grandpa passed away. He didn’t have the heart to tell me, but Dani did. She thought it was worth telling me the story to show how much he cared for me.”
“You still miss him a lot, don’t you?”
I hesitate. “It’s gotten easier. You kind of start to adjust to your new life without that person, but it doesn’t mean I don’t still miss him all the time. You just get used to the ache, I guess? Certain times are harder than others though. Christmas is always harder. We used to go to my grandparents’ house for a week around Christmas and bake cookies and open presents on Christmas morning.”
“That’s sweet,” he says, without a hint of judgment.
“Your turn,” I say gleefully, trying to turn the discussion back around after the serious turn it just took. How’d we get from superheroes to losing my grandpa? Whoa.
Joy breaks out on his face in response to my excitement.
“Let’s see… oh, here’s something you might enjoy. Did you ever have those days at school when you did nothing else but read?”
I nod. “Yeah, those were my favorite days! We got to come to school in our pajamas and bring blankets to curl up with, and we’d just read as much as we could in a day to encourage kids to read more and boost the number of books they read during the year.” I buzz with excitement at the memory.
“They were my favorite days too! One year, probably fourth grade, the all-day reading day got canceled for whatever reason, so I pretended to be sick. My mom and dad both had to go in for work, so they left me home alone. The second I knew they were gone, I built a fort in the living room and spent the whole day reading.”
I gasp. “You little rebel! I love that you built a fort though. That’s so fun!”
He chuckles. “It was, until my mom caught me taking the fort down. She came home early, and she knew right away I wasn’t sick. I thought for sure I was going to get in trouble, but I think she thought it was funny. She pretended like she was mad at me for skipping school because ‘school is important,’ but I didn’t get grounded or anything.”
“I guess it’s kind of hard to punish your kid for enjoying reading.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“I used to read in my parents’ bathtub with pillows and blankets,” I tell him.
He bursts into laughter. “What? Why the bathtub? There’s got to be more comfortable places.”
“I’m not sure. I think one of my teachers who was really into reading had mentioned it to our class one time, so I was determined to try it. Honestly, I couldn’t get it to be that comfortable, but when my teacher talked about it, it seemedlike such a good idea.”
“You’re weird,” he laughs, “but it’s what I love about you.”
Blushing, I ask him my next question. “What’s a dream you have that you’re too afraid to dream?”
I can tell he’s taken aback. He blinks a few times. “What do you mean?”
“You know, the thing that you wanted as a kid, but growing up you were taught you couldn’t achieve it, so that dream got pushed down into the deepest parts of you, but it’s still silently there, begging you to make it happen one day.”
“Well damn. I’m kind of speechless right now.”
“Because you know exactly what I’m talking about,” I reply confidently.
“You seem to know this pretty well. You must have one too.”
I can tell he’s trying to turn the conversation back to me, to deflect. I don’t blame him. This is a hard question. I don’t even know what made me ask it because I can’t imagine saying my own out loud. I’m not even sure if I’m in tune with my younger self enough to know what the answer would be.
“It was my question. You have to answer,” I say finally, making sure he doesn’t get out of this one easily.
He shifts around a little in the grass and lets out a big sigh. “I guess if I had to pick one, it’d be to be a published author. You know I’ve always enjoyed reading, but growing up, I thought it would be so cool to be the person who wrote a story that touched someone else’s life the way all the stories I’ve read have touched me. I was told pretty quickly that most authors don’t make it, and even if you publish a book, you probably won’t make any money, so I don’t know that I’ll ever end up doing that.”
“For what it’s worth, you’d be one hell of a writer, Andrew. I hope someday, even if it’s when you’re eighty, you’re able to write a story and share it with the world. And when you do,” I add, “I better be one of the first people to read it.”
His pure smile melts me, and I swear he’s looking at me like I put the stars in the sky.
We continue asking each other questions back and forth for a long time, talking about the past, the future, and completely random topics. The sky gradually begins to lighten, and the stars begin to fade before I doze off.
I wake to the sound of my dad’s truck starting up. That thing is unreasonably loud!
As I open my eyes, I find my face buried in Andrew’s chest. One of his arms is draped over me, and we are still lying on the blanket on the lawn. He continues to breathe heavily, apparently unfazed by the loud noise moments earlier.
I’m afraid to move and wake him. He looks so peaceful. I allow myself to watch him sleep for just a moment before I begin feeling around with the hand that’s not currently pressed into Andrew’s side, trying to find my phone and check the time.
I feel the smooth silicone of my phone case and grab it, bringing it around so that I can peek at the time without disrupting Andrew. It’s almost eight. We should get up before someone sees us like this.
I shake him awake, muttering his name. It takes several shakes and raising the volume of my voice several times to get him awake.
He stirs finally and opens his eyes. When he meets my gaze, a smile crosses his sleepy face, and millions of butterflies begin swirling in my stomach with the sweet look he gives me.
He pulls me in tighter, wrapping me up in both his arms, and I don’t say anything. I’m too stunned to speak.
“We should do this more often. Despite sleeping on just a blanket in the grass, I slept great,” he mutters cheerfully in my ear, sending chills down my spine.
As he pulls back, I watch him melt before my very eyes. There’s no misreading the look he’s giving me. It’s filled with adoration. His eyes slowly drift from mine down to my lips.
I become aware of the way my body is completely flush against his. My chest is pressed against his, and his hand is resting on my lower back. If it moved one inch south, we could be in trouble.
He begins to lean in, closing the already small distance between our lips, and I feel my whole body light on fire.
Then his phone begins ringing.
Andrew pulls back, picks it up, and glances at the screen before muttering, “Shit!” I watch his body stiffen and then he shoots up from the blanket with alarm. “Brendan was supposed to pick me up ten minutes ago to go to the gym!”
Despite his sudden hurry, he still helps pull me to my feet and grabs the blanket, crumpling it into a ball in his arms.
I turn to head back toward my house and let him go get ready, but he grabs my arm and pulls me toward him. He wraps me in for a hug and presses his lips to my forehead. “Last night was amazing.” He lets me go and starts to head back to the house. “To be continued,” he says with a sexy smirk that makes me tingle.
This can’t be real! I have to be dreaming. There’s no way Andrew is saying this right now, looking at me the way he’s looking at me. Did we almost kiss?
My mind is swirling, and my heart is soaring. As I calm down and head back toward the house, I think to myself, I have to tell Rebecca!