Before I know it, my body answers for me and I’m climbing on top of Luke in the dark of our tent. Our kisses are frantic and breathless, searching and desperate. Our hands are trying to do too much at once. Luke’s hand is in my hair and under my shirt and on the curve of my butt. I lose my hand in his curls, in a fistful of his shirt, then under his shirt.
“What? What do you want?” he asks, stilling my restless hands as if his own are any better. My lips are too busy to respond, so I answer by tugging on his shirt. He tears away from me for a second to lift it over his head. My fingers map the terrain of his chest, his abs, his bellybutton.
He makes a sound in the back of his throat when I bite his bottom lip.
Luke’s hands search until they find the button of my shorts. He works it open and slips one finger under the waistband of my underwear.
A bloodcurdling scream makes us freeze. We are still pressed against each other, hearts beating wildly, fingers caught in awkward places, when we hear Willow’s voice.
“BRETT, WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?”
“Shh,” Brett says. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d freak!”
“I thought you were a freaking bear!”
We hear a hand making hard contact with flesh.
“You’re such a jerk.”
“Sorry, babe.”
“We probably woke them up. Sorry, guys, if you’re awake,” Willow says. “Brett is just an idiot.”
Luke and I find each other’s eyes in the dark.
For a moment, outside the cloudy frenzy and the want, we are who we are again. Two broken, angry, tired souls whose love destroyed more than it fixed.
What do I want now?
I want to be more than a mistake, I want to be better, I want to love someone I haven’t already lost.
Without a word, I roll off his body, bring my knees up to my chest, and turn so that my back is to him.
It takes ages before I fall asleep.
When I wake up, Luke’s body is curved around mine, his front around my back.
NOW
The ride home is quiet and feels much longer than the ride to the camping site. Willow records on and off as we drive. I listen to music with my earphones in, and Luke buries his head in a book again. We are having trouble making eye contact this morning, but for once, it’s not because of what I’ve done. It’s whatwedid, or almost did.
When Brett pulls up in front of my house, Luke gives me a demure kiss on the corner of my lips. It’s almost ... shy.
“See you guys on Monday,” I call to Willow and Brett. I feel Luke’s gaze on me as I walk up my driveway, but I don’t look back.
Inside, my parents are settled in front of the TV on our new sofa set.
“How was it?” Mom asks.
“Good.”
“How far up north were you?”
I’m really not feeling like discussing the specifics of the trip, but they seem genuinely curious. It’s new for me to get to debrief with my parents after any kind of outing or novel experience, and, I don’t know, it makes me feel like a little kid—eager to tell my parents about my field trip, what we saw and what we did and how I’m different because of it. So I sit down on the couch and talk for a few minutes, telling them about where we hiked and the trouble we had with the tents and how crazy hot it was. I obviously leave out the part about jumping Luke’s bones last night, even though it’s the part most fresh in my mind. When I stand to head upstairs, Mom stands, too, and throws her arms around me.
“I’m glad you’re back. The house is lonely without you,” she says.
It’s lonely withoutyou,I almost say, but decide to hug her back and breathe in her flowery perfume.
