Chapter Sixteen
ELLIE
19 years earlier
Mallorie finally turned fifteen and we celebrated her birthday at a house party in the “rich neighborhood”. Amy knows the kid who lives here but I had never met him before. A bunch of our friends showed up and there were a lot of people from school there too. It was dark and everyone stood around the trampoline in the backyard. We were playing a game called Draw the Straw. In separate groups of guys and girls, we drew from a cup of straws and whoever drew the short one from each group was paired up to go on the trampoline to kiss. I got paired with Patrick, a freshman from Amy’s German class. I gave him a quick peck on the lips, but he grabbed me and stuck his tongue in my mouth. I turned around and jumped off the trampoline, wiping my mouth in disgust and pulled my pager from my pocket to see why it was beeping.
“1439914399”
showed up on my screen. It was Lee’s code. I looked up and smiled just as Patrick stopped in front of me.
“If you liked that, there’s more where that came from.”
He said, trying to pull me in for another kiss. I pushed my hand against his chest, “No, thanks.”
I said and walked over to Amy and Mallorie.
“Damn, that was cold.”
A voice from behind me said. It was Tate, he was in my biology class.
“What was?”
I asked, turning to him.
He laughed, “You just dissed that little guy.”
“Yeah,”
I wiped my mouth again, trying to rid myself of that nasty memory from seconds before.
“Let’s just say, he wouldn’t have been my pick.”
I put my pager back in my pocket and walked closer to Tate. He’d been flirting with me in class this week, but I think he’s just an all-around flirt so I played and flirted back.
“Who would you have picked?”
“I wouldn’t have objected if I was stuck with you.”
My head tilted to the side in a cautious nod.
“Well, we could try it out, I guess.”
He took a step closer to me.
“We could, I guess.”
I closed the gap.
He kissed me softly and released my lips but kept his face inches from mine.
“How did that compare?” he asked.
“Not bad.”
I said. He smiled and kissed me again.
“But that was better.”
We hung out the rest of the party and he called me the next day, but this little fling quickly fizzled out and we mutually called it quits.
* * *
The next weekend, the girls and I went to the mall for some fun guy-watching. It’s what we do when none of us are dating anyone and we just walk around checking out all the cute guys, seeing who we can get to talk to us.
We walked into PacSun and saw two guys looking through the shirt racks. Amy dared me to go say hi and I was feeling up for anything.
“Hi!”
I went right up to them, thinking Amy was next to me, but I looked over my shoulder and realized she was still standing on the far side of the store with Mallorie. I rolled my eyes at her.
“Hey, what’s up?”
one of the guys said and I turned back around to face them.
“My friend over there wanted me to see if I could get your number for her.”
I pointed over my shoulder at Amy. Their eyes followed my finger and they glanced at each other.
“I don’t think so.”
Guy number two said.
“But I’ll give it to you, and you can just tell her it was for her if you call me later.”
“Deal.”
I said and I walked over to the counter to ask the cashier for a pen and handed it to guy number two. He wrote his name and number on the back of a receipt from the bag he was holding and handed it to me. Before he let go of the paper, he said “Remember, this is only if you call me later.”
I nodded and walked back over to Amy and Malorie.
We walked out of the store, waving coolly at the guys and then ran to the escalator laughing. I unfolded the receipt and looked at his name: Michael with a smiley face. We’ll definitely be calling you later, Michael.
About ten minutes after we dropped the girls off, I got home and called Michael. I asked him if I could dial Amy in on three-way and he said, “I mean, I guess, but I’d rather just talk to you.”
“I kind of told her I’d be dialing her in so she’s expecting it.”
“Okay.”
He sighed.
Amy picked up right away, “Hey sexy!”
she laughed into the phone.
Michael laughed, “Hey!”
I sat the phone down because really, Amy just wanted to talk to him, and I didn’t really care. I painted my nails while they talked and remembered that this was the same polish I wore when Lee and I went to the mall and walked around the lake – that was a pretty random memory, I was thinking to myself until I heard Amy say “Okay, you can hang up now.”
I placed the phone on the receiver and was getting ready to climb into bed when my pager vibrated on the floor next to me. It was Lee with his code and since I was at home when I got it, I called him right away. He answered after the first ring.
“Hi Ellie!”
“Hey! I got your page!”
“I know. I’m sorry for hitting you up so randomly. It’s been a while”
“Don’t apologize; I was actually just thinking about you.”
“Oh yeah, what about?”
“It’s really random, but remember that time we were laying on the hill by the lake and you almost kissed me before a frog jumped on your leg?”
I laughed.
He laughed.
Then he got serious.
“I heard our song on the radio the other day. I wanted to call you then, but I stopped myself.”
“I heard our song yesterday too. It always makes me think of you and it plays on the radio a lot. Why did you stop yourself from calling?” I asked.
“I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me.”
“You should have called. I always want to hear from you.”
“I seem to think about you all the time, Ellie. Even when I shouldn’t be.”
“Well, why shouldn’t you?”
I could hear him breathing on the other end of the line before he answered.
“Because I’m with someone. And she doesn’t know that when she kisses me, I wish it were you.”
“I wish it were me, too.”
There was a silence while we both tried to come to terms with the way we felt about each other but knew there wasn’t anything we could do about the distance between us. I grabbed the empty coke can from my nightstand and flipped the tab back and forth until it came off and I laughed at how everything feels like it’s meant to be but can’t actually be.
“What’s so funny?”
Lee asked.
“Don’t make fun of me if I tell you.”
“No promises.”
He laughed.
“So, I take the tabs off my coke cans, and I save the ones that land on ‘L’. I have a whole strand of them on my wall.”
I tell him.
“I don’t get it. What does it mean if they land on ‘L’?”
“You flip it back and forth going through the alphabet and whatever letter it falls on is the letter your future husband’s name starts with. I know it’s stupid!”
“So the coke cans determine who you will marry?”
“I told you not to make fun of me!”
“Okay, okay. But why are you only saving the ‘Ls’?
“You know why.”
“I don’t think I do; you should tell me.”
He teases.
“Don’t make me say it, it’s embarrassing.”
I cover my face.
“Are the ‘Ls’ for me, Ellie?”
“Yes, silly. Who else would they be for?”
“Well I don’t know – your other future husband.”
“There’s no other future husband, just you.”
“Lee, you have a visitor, it’s Maggie.”
I heard his mom call out.
“Shit. Sorry, Ellie.”
He whispered.
“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming over, thought you had practice today.”
I heard him say to someone else.
“We ended early. Who are you talking to?”
A girl’s voice came, and I felt the jealousy rise into my throat like vomit.
“Just a friend.”
He said to her, then to me, “I’ll talk to you later?”
“Sure. Bye Leebie.” I said.
“Bye.”
I could hear him smile as he hung up.
I spent the next couple of weeks dreaming about Lee and I woke up every night in a sweat when my dreams ended up with him picking this Maggie girl over me. How is it possible that he has such a hold over me, are you supposed to have this strong of a connection with someone you haven’t seen in two years?
* * *
For my sixteenth birthday, my dad rented out a hotel room for me and the girls, including Steff who had moved in with us the summer before my junior year. We brought a boom box and had been DJ’ing our own dance party with the book of CDs from my collection. We all jumped on the bed, singing karaoke style to the radio late into the night; it was the best birthday I’ve had in a while! That is, until my pager started beeping and I looked down to see “1439914399”
on the screen.
Mallorie told me I shouldn’t call him, “Let him wait for once. He doesn’t call you for months and all of a sudden, he wants to be in your life again? No way!”
she tossed my pager on the floor and started jumping on the bed with me again.
Steff gave me a knowing look that said she’ll take care of it. She snuck herself out of the room and left the party. It wasn’t until later that I realized she called Lee from the hotel lobby phone.
“Hello?”
Lee answered.
“Hey, it’s Steff.”
“Hey! What’s up buddy?”
“What’s up is that I’m at a hotel with Ellie and her friends, celebrating her birthday where she’s having a great time and you paged her out of the blue. Dude, that girl had been pining over you for months when you called before summer and then disappeared again. She was just starting to be okay until she saw your message. What’s wrong with you?”
She lectured.
“Damn. I didn’t realize.”
He stammered.
“I know you didn’t. And I’m not trying to be mean but if you’re gonna call her, you can’t just vanish after you hook her again.”
“Do you think I shouldn’t talk to her then?” he asked.
“That depends.”
She snorted, “are you still dating Maggie?”
“We’re kinda broken up.”
“Kinda broken up means you’ll probably be back with her next week, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t just call Ellie when your flavor of the week is out of the picture.”
“But that was our deal. Ellie made me promise that we would still call each other when we weren’t dating someone.”
He came back.
“Maybe she didn’t realize how much that would hurt her though.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to hurt her. That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“So figure out what’s going on with you and Maggie before you mess with her head again.”
“Can you at least tell her I said hi?”
he asked, sheepishly.
“I can do that. I’ll call you tomorrow kay?”
“Okay. Bye.”
“Bye.”
When they hung up and Steff returned to the party, she didn’t say anything about their phone call. She didn’t mention her talk with Lee until Sunday when we were hanging out alone in our bedroom. She went through the whole conversation with me: that she told Lee he shouldn’t call or page me unless he has broken up with his girlfriend for good, that she could see how much it hurt me when he stopped calling on a regular basis and that he agreed with it all because he didn’t want to hurt me.
“Thanks, Steff.”
I said, embracing her with a big bear hug.
“Anytime!”
she said playing with my hair.
“Hey Steff?”
I asked.
“How do you get over your first love?”
“That’s a hard call.”
She stopped talking and started braiding my hair while she thought about how to answer my loaded question.
“For starters, I think we need to get you a new guy to pine over.”
She tied my braid off with an elastic and leaned in like she was getting ready to tell me a secret.
“I was actually just talking to someone on IM and he wants to meet for a movie tomorrow night. Do you want to see if he has a friend, and you can come along, kind of like a double date?”
she asked excitedly.
“You wouldn’t mind your little cousin coming along on a date?”
I asked to make sure she really wanted me there.
She laughs.
“No way. Besides, if he turns out to be a crazy stalker, I won’t be alone.”
“Okay cool, sounds like a plan then!”
* * *
Justin ended up not being Steff’s type at all and before he walked her to the car, he asked if it would be okay with her if he got to know me a bit more. Steff didn’t think it was a good idea at first – Justin was twenty and I’m only sixteen – she reminded him how old I was, and he wasn’t deterred. I was already sitting in the car and couldn’t hear their conversation but noticed she was glancing over at me through the window and giving him a wary look. After a little back and forth, she gave him a warning to play nice and told him this could end up being a disaster for everyone involved. He agreed and we talked over Instant Messenger every day that next week.
On Saturday, Steff and I went on a second double date with Justin and his friend, Derek. Derek was a laughable date, but Steff had a good enough time that night and then decided to swear off guys for a while due to her bad luck.
On the other hand, I had started to get pretty close with Justin and things were moving along at a fast pace. I started testing the waters with the bad girl vibe and snuck out passed curfew to go driving around in Justin’s dark green low-rider while Steff covered for me at home.
We would go to the movies or back to his house to play pool usually. He even introduced me to his parents and his sister one night which shocked me because I kind of thought he was embarrassed to be with me since I was so much younger than him. When we were alone, playing pool in his basement, I asked him if he cared how old I was and he shook his head, “You don’t act like you’re sixteen, Ellie, that’s why I’m drawn to you so much.”
* * *
Before he brought me home on a chilly January night, Justin took me to his house, and we sat out on the swing in his backyard. It’s been three months, and I began to notice that we never do anything with his friends; it’s always just the two of us.
“Are you embarrassed of me?”
I asked, looking over at him. Instead of responding to my question, he asked if I’d ever had an older boyfriend before.
“No. I’ve had some pretty crazy relationships the last couple years but no one older like you.”
I laughed a little.
“What was so crazy about them?”
“I guess they weren’t super crazy, but one told me he carved my name on his chest and the other was a long-distance thing. That was hard; I’m kind of still getting over him.”
I admitted.
He looked over at me, smiled and said, “Well I’m not that crazy. I won’t be carving your name on me any time soon. But, no, I’m not embarrassed of you. It’s actually the opposite, I feel really attached to you already.”
he trailed off and looked out into the distance.
“I might be moving away for school, and I don’t want to be like your other boyfriend, with the long-distance.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Probably in March, and when I move, I will probably be gone for a couple years. That’s still far away though.”
“Yeah.”
I agreed and kicked us into a bigger swing with my feet.
“We can still hang out for now. And we aren’t there yet so we don’t have to think about it right now. But I wanted to let you know.”
“Thanks for telling me.”
I looked over at him and could see he was wincing at the thought of that confession pushing me away.
He slowly stopped us from swinging and grabbed my hand from my lap, wrapping his fingers around mine. His blue eyes pierced through the heaviness in my heart, and he brushed his lips softly and delicately against mine in the sweetest kiss that left me confused about where we stood after that conversation.
“Come on, it’s getting late, I’ll take you home.”
I was having second thoughts about my current situation; maybe I shouldn’t get too far into this thing with Justin if it’s just going to end up breaking me like Lee has. The whole point of Steff getting me together with him was to get over Lee and after tonight, I feel like I haven’t moved on at all – in fact, I’ve probably backstepped several feet and I wish that the last couple months never even happened.
That night, before I fell asleep, I wrote a quick note to Lee and dropped it in the mailbox the next morning and two weeks later, I got a letter back. I tore it open and took in his words as quickly as I could, devouring them with my eyes.
Dear Ellie,
I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to each other right now but I couldn’t let your letter go without writing you back. I know Steff told me to let you be, but you got me thinking about you again. How do you do that all the time? Hey I have a question for you … please answer it when you write me back.
What if one of these days I ask you to marry me and give you my name?
That’s all. Something to think about Ellie Belly.
Love Always,
Lee
“What if I ask you to marry me and give you my name?”
The question played on repeat in my mind all afternoon and if I wasn’t already having second thoughts about Justin, this really did it.
I wrote back to him that night and told him that if he were to ask me to marry him, I would take his name in a heartbeat.
* * *
Over the next few weeks, Justin picked me up for school in the mornings on his way to work and we talked about his plans for the future; he didn’t want to stay in Virginia, he wanted to own his own business and had a goal of making his start-up happen by the time he was thirty. Sometimes, I think I’m drawn to him and other times, I think I’m drawn to his maturity; he obviously isn’t like the guys at school, and he’s nothing like Lee. But do I really like him or is he just a way to get over Lee? I’m not entirely sure what part he plays.
And then on a random Wednesday, we made plans to spend the morning together – I would skip school and he would go to work late. He brought me doughnuts and we laid in my room talking for an hour before he started to put his hand up my shirt and unclasp my bra.
“I think we’re ready for the next step, don’t you think?”
he asked, cleverly removing my bra and pulling the straps down from under my tank and tossing it onto the floor.
He knows how to put the moves on. That was pretty good.
I kissed him to mask my nerves. I wasn’t sure that I was ready, but I was ready to get my first time done and over with.
Steff and I talked about this a lot over the last month. I told her I wanted to wait so that my first time would be all romantic with Lee one day. She told me the first time is not fun and it’s not romantic so it’s better to just let it happen so that the next time it’ll be more enjoyable. So that was my plan going into today and boy, was she right; the first time was absolutely not fun, and it, sure as heck, was not romantic. It started and ended fast, and it hurt – a lot.
As we lay in my bed, after he took my virginity and the pain was still searing through me, Justin looked over and noticed the string of coke can tabs hanging above my nightstand.
“What are those?”
he asked, nodding at the wall. I smiled but then said, “They’re just a memory.”
I didn’t want to tell him they were all the ‘Ls’ I pulled off my coke cans and collected them to remind me of Lee. It didn’t really seem appropriate when I just gave up a big part of myself to another guy.
I also didn’t realize I would feel so different after my first time. It was like I lost a piece of me, like I’m no longer that little girl who was nervous about her first kiss because now my innocence was gone. I immediately regretted giving that piece of my soul to Justin, but I kept a smile on my face until I walked him out the door and then I ran upstairs to rip the sheets off my bed and throw them in the washer. I took a shower and scrubbed my skin to remove any traces of him from my body, but it didn’t help because a piece of me walked out that door with him.
I let our relationship draw on for another two months because I knew he was leaving for college soon. But I made every excuse to not sleep with him again, and we said our goodbyes. We agreed we weren’t going to call each other boyfriend or girlfriend while he was gone. We promised to talk on the phone as much as possible but didn’t make any promises to stay true to one another and I wasn’t so na?ve to believe that college wasn’t going to introduce him to a whole new world of girls; girls that were more his age and probably better for him anyways.
* * *
As my junior year went on, I was starting to get sad and hoping the school year wouldn’t come to an end because it meant that Steff was moving out and going back to California. She didn’t like living in Virginia and couldn’t adjust to the different culture out here in small town living; she wanted excitement and nightlife, and I was going to miss her a lot. My friends had become her friends, and we threw her a big send off party the night before she packed up her car to drive across the country at the end of April.
Even though she wasn’t going to be sharing a room with me anymore, she said we would call every Sunday night to talk about the week and catch up. I looked forward to those calls even more every week because it was something to count on in my world where everything seemed to be changing; my friends were making college plans, and I had no idea what I wanted to do when I grew up.
She started talking about summer plans and asked if I thought my dad would allow me to spend the summer with her in California.
“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him, it’ll sound better coming from you since he doesn’t seem to trust me right now.”
I told her, hopeful and excited about the idea.
“Okay, can you give him the phone? I’ll ask him right now.”
I brought the phone downstairs and handed it to my dad.
“Dad, Steff’s on the phone, she wants to ask you something.”
He eyed me suspiciously and took the phone, holding it up to his ear. I stood by, hoping to catch his side of the conversation but he waved me away.
When he finished talking to her, he hung up the phone and turned to the kitchen where he knew I was standing and sighed and I thought, well that can’t be a good sign. But then he held the phone out to me and said, “Okay. I think maybe it would be good for you to spend a summer with Steff and get away from all of the things and people that have been distractions here. But once you get back, you have to focus on school completely. It’s your last year and you wouldn’t want to have to repeat twelfth grade, would you?”
“No way!”
I screeched.
“Okay, okay I promise, thank you, Dad, thank you thank you!”
Dad had somehow found out about Justin and threatened to file a report against him. I don’t even know how he knew but I told him it didn’t matter because Justin was moving away, and we wouldn’t be seeing each other anymore. This was why he didn’t really trust me recently and it put a strain on our relationship over the last month since Steff had been gone. I took the phone from Dad and hugged him excitedly.
The next thing that popped into my head was that I was going to get to see Lee this summer. Before thinking it through all the way, I looked down at the phone in my hand and dialed his number. Running up to my room, I closed the door and jumped on my bed.
“Hello?”
his mom answered.
“Hi Mrs. Combs, it’s Ellie. Is Lee home?” I asked.
“Ellie! Wow, I haven’t heard your voice in a while, how are you?”
“I know, we haven’t really talked in a while, I’m good – how are you?”
“Oh I’m doing great, thanks for asking.”
She said, knocking on a door.
“Just a sec, hon, I think he was sleeping.”
And then to him, “Lee, Ellie’s on the phone, she wants to know if –”
she was cut off by the door swinging open and I could hear Lee grabbing the phone.
“Ellie?”
he asked, sounding breathless.
“Hey!”
I said excitedly.
“Are you okay, is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, sorry, I know this is a random call. But oh my gosh, I just have to tell you something!”
“What?!”
“I’m coming out this summer and I’ll be staying with Steff.”
I told him.
“Really? When? For how long?”
he couldn’t get it all out fast enough.
“When school’s out, Dad’s booking my flight right now. I’m staying the whole summer. From June 4th to August 30th.”
“That’s awesome, Ellie!”
I paused.
“Do you think you’ll want to see me while I’m there?” I asked.
“What? Hell yes, I want to see you!”
“Will your girlfriend be upset if you hang out with me this summer?”
“I – um – well, it’s not – no, no.”
He stumbled over his words.
“What about your boyfriend?” he asked.
“We’re not really together anymore. Wait, how did you know about him?”
“Ellie, just because we don’t get to talk doesn’t mean I haven’t been asking Steff about you constantly since she’s been back. She told me you’ve been seeing this guy but didn’t tell me much else.”
“Oh, well he went off to college. So, you’ve been asking about me, hmm. What else did Steff tell you?” I smiled.
He breathed out a laugh but wouldn’t answer my question.
“Do you still talk to him?”
“Rarely. And he said he wouldn’t be mad if I met someone else while he was gone.”
I told him.
“Did he really say that, Ellie? It sounds like he’s hoping to come back to you.”
He questioned.
“No, I don’t think so. And it doesn’t matter anyways, even if we were still a thing, I would leave him in a heartbeat for you.”
He let out another little laugh under his breath and my stomach twists into knots because the sound of his smile makes my heart race faster.
Breathe, Ellie. In and then out.
“I can’t wait to see you, Ellie.”
“Me too.”
I twirled the phone cord around my hand.
“I’m probably going to dream about you tonight.”
Oh God. Why did he have to go and say that? Is it June yet?
I take a quick breath and try to make my voice stable, so he doesn’t know just how much that last sentence affected me.
“Well, I should probably go, it’s late and I have school tomorrow. But I guess I’ll see you soon?”
It came out as a question.
“Yeah, soon. Can I call you tomorrow?”
“Of course!”
“Ok, sweet dreams, Ellie Belly.”
I laughed.
“Bye Leebie.”
I hung up and squeezed my pillow to my face, shouting silently into it with happiness. I can’t believe I’m actually going to get to see him again! A million things were running through my head right now and I tried really hard to fall asleep, but I just kept opening my eyes and smiling.
This is going to be the best summer ever.
I’m probably going to remember this summer forever.