Letter Ten #2
John smiled at my dad, then turned to you.
“You should’ve seen Libby, Casey. She hides a pregnancy the last four months of her sophomore year in college, then comes back as a junior with a stomach out to here”—he stuck both arms out, gesturing with his hands—“and everyone’s looking at her like she’s crazy, right?
You don’t see many pregnant students around a place like Harvard, and she can’t stay in the dorms anymore.
A newborn screaming at all hours of the day and night isn’t exactly conducive to learning, so we get a place off-campus, and I take a gap year to help campaign for my dad and take care of Michael when he’s born.
Meanwhile, Libby’s taking shit from her professors and classmates, who all expect her to drop out before winter break. ”
You directed a look of pure awe at Libby. “But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Libby said, grinning proudly.
“Never even missed a single class. I went into labor three weeks early—on a Friday afternoon, during the middle of a lecture on public policy—but I was able to breathe through the contractions and make it through the rest of my day. Michael was born one minute after midnight on Saturday, and I—”
“Yep,” Michael said, heaving a big sigh. “I was nice enough to be born over the weekend, so she could be back in class by Monday and show them all what a total badass she was. The end.”
“Michael,” you chided with a smile. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you trying to ruin your mum’s story?”
“Because he has a mom,” I said, “who loves telling the story of his birth, and he has the luxury of taking things like that for granted.”
Nic grabbed my wrist again.
John knocked Michael on the back of the neck. “She’s right, Michael.”
“Sorry for being an asshole,” Michael mumbled.
“Anyway,” Libby went on, “like Michael said, I was back in class by Monday, finished up the term with a 4.0, and returned after winter break—to do it all over again. And no one dared to question how determined I was after that. I graduated with a twenty-month-old on my hip and went straight to Harvard Law from there.”
You beamed at Libby, impressed. “That’s amazing.”
I couldn’t help it. I had to. I said, “Probably helped that John stayed with Michael that first year, they had plenty of hired help when John went back to school himself the following year, and then they had even more help by the time Libby went to law school and Bree was born.”
Easy to graduate from Harvard with a baby on your hip when you employ a nanny to bear the brunt of the child-rearing for you. If she’d done it without John and their round-the-clock nanny—like most women had to do—I would’ve let Politician Barbie’s humble bragging slide.
“Oh, Elliot,” Libby said with a sigh.
“Elliot,” Nic said. “Come on.”
“Hey,” I said with a shrug. “I’m just stating facts here.”
Later that morning, while the girls and I lounged on the beach, you and Michael made your way down the red wooden stairs, carrying the gear for beach volleyball.
All that time we’d been living together, Casey, and I’d never seen you shirtless.
You dropped the net to the sand, revealing a pair of little black swim trunks that were a good few inches shorter than Michael’s.
They showed off a nice pair of legs that were a lot more athletic than I would’ve thought, and when you turned around, giving me my very first glimpse of your ass in those shorts, my stomach bottomed out.
To myself, I whispered, “What the fuck.”
Then there was the light dusting of dark hair on your chest. Your narrow, trim waist. The trail of dark hair disappearing into your shorts. Good God.
My imagination had never come close to doing you justice. The reality was so much sweeter.
Tinsley—who’d joined us at the Cape after breakfast, dropped off by her mom—yanked down her sunglasses. “Jesus. Look at the way he fills out that suit…in the back and the front.” She paused, biting down on her bottom lip. “Just makes you want to take a bite out of him, doesn’t it?”
“Tinsley,” Bree scolded, shaking her head. “He’s not a piece of meat.”
Tinsley ignored her. “I don’t see how you can stand living with someone that attractive, Elliot.
I’d go crazy wanting to sneak into his room at night and crawl into bed with him.
Or, like, wait outside his bathroom hoping to catch a peek when he steps out of the shower.
” She flashed us a big grin. “Hey. Remember when I accidentally caught Michael coming out of the shower last summer? Remember how pissed he was? I still don’t get why, though—I mean, it’s not like he has anything to be ashamed of. He’s well—”
“Oh my God, Tinsley, stop,” Bree said. “If I have to hear you describe Michael’s penis one more time, I will drown myself in that ocean.”
Here’s a truth for you, Casey.
Thanks to Tinsley—to the heat, to those shorts—I definitely went a little crazy that day, picturing myself crawling into bed with you.
Splaying my hand over your chest. Pressing my face to your throat.
Or catching you coming out of the shower, like Tinsley said, with the towel draped down the front of your body as you patted dry.
Maybe the towel would shift, just the tiniest bit, and I’d get a peek of—
“Elliot,” Bree barked, reaching across Tinsley to thump me on the leg. “Earth to Elliot. What are you thinking about over there?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, shifting on my towel. I squeezed my thighs together, trying not to blush.
Bree eyed me suspiciously above her sunglasses, Tinsley cackled, and a few feet away, Michael was giving you shit for the little black swim shorts. But you only laughed, hands propped on your hips.
Later, when you two finished setting up the net, Michael asked us girls if we wanted to play.
“I’ll sit this one out,” Tinsley said with a wink. “Just enjoy the view.”
I stood and quickly slipped into my white shorts.
Even though my dad made me wear one-pieces, and I loved the pastel yellow one I’d chosen to wear that day, you’d never seen so much of my skin, either.
Self-conscious, I lifted an arm over my small chest, toggling one of my tiny gold croissant earrings as I walked over to you guys.
“I call Casey,” Michael rushed to say as Bree and I approached the net.
“No way,” Bree said. “That leaves me with Elliot.”
“Well, I don’t want her on my team,” Michael said.
You glanced between them, confused.
“She hogs the ball,” Michael told you by way of explanation.
“Screw you, Michael.” I glared at him, arms crossed over my bathing suit. “Screw both of you.”
They rolled their eyes at me.
You picked up the ball, shot me a smile, and bumped my arm with yours. “Elliot can be on my team.”
You’ve got to remember our first game of beach volleyball, Casey. How could you not?
I remember being genuinely shocked at how good you were. I’d never pegged you as the sporty type—not on Michael’s level, anyway. But you were, your back muscles flexing with every serve and hit. You figured out pretty quickly that I was, in fact, a ball hog.
You ordered me to hang back, but I moved even closer, catching a whiff of your sunblock, mixed with the sweet tang of your sweat.
About ten minutes in, it happened: I caught your elbow to my nose. I stumbled back, then hit my knees, breathless from the pain. The white-hot rush of it.
“Oh my God,” you said, dropping next to me. “Elliot.”
Rocking back and forth, I dug one palm into the sand and clutched my nose with the other.
But I held back the sounds—they wouldn’t have been appropriate in that setting.
The taste of copper filled my mouth, liquid warmth oozing through my fingers and trickling down my arm. Then you saw it, too: the blood.
You grasped my shoulder. “Jesus.”
Everyone rushed over as you dipped your head to get a better look. “Here,” you said, gently pulling my hand from my face. “Let me see.”
Blood gushed down my mouth, and I caught your grimace, despite how blurry you were. Tinsley handed you a beach towel, which you told me—in a quiet voice—to hold to my nose. When you took my face in your hands and tilted it up, I braced my free hand against your chest.
I didn’t actually need to lean on you like that, Casey.
I just wanted to touch your bare skin. To feel how solid and warm you were.
To feel the stickiness of your sweat against my palm.
My dirty imagination soared again, until you snapped me back to reality by turning my face from side to side, inspecting the profile of my nose.
“I can’t tell if it’s broken,” Michael said from above. “Every year she does this.”
“Does what?” you asked.
“Gets hurt playing volleyball. Last year, she caught my elbow to her eye. So she walked around with a black eye for weeks.”
“And the year before that, she hurt her nose,” Bree added, “but it was definitely broken then. She needed surgery to fix it.”
“Well, yeah, but it usually happens much closer to…” Tinsley drifted off.
“Closer to what?” you asked.
Everyone went silent, shuffling awkwardly in the sand.
“Closer to what, Michael?” you asked.
“Don’t,” I croaked.
But Michael sighed and told you, anyway: “Her birthday.”
You lowered your gaze back to mine, and so many emotions flickered across your face: shock, sadness, empathy, pain. That’s when you realized you’re not the only one who hates their birthday.
I hate mine, too.
I still couldn’t see perfectly, but your eyes might’ve been shining as you took your thumbs and—so lightly I could barely feel them—brushed them across the bridge of my nose to check for a break. I clenched my hand against your chest.
Not because it hurt.
Because I wanted you to make it hurt.
“Come on,” you whispered, lowering your hands to help me stand. “Let’s get you inside.”
With my head tilted back, I couldn’t get there unassisted, so you and Michael helped lead me up the multiple sets of stairs to the house. As soon as we walked into the kitchen, Libby and Nic rushed in from the living room.
“Oh, honey,” Libby said. “Not again.”