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Somehow he manages to dodge my questions the next morning, interrupt me whenever I start talking about anything more than the weather and day ahead, and the annoying lack of electricity and water.
“More romantic this way,” he quips and I snicker. “I changed the sheets, though. Washed them, too.”
“That’s great,” I start, “so listen, Ross—”
“Race you to the river,” he says and opens the door, starting down the porch steps. “Last one in the water is a stinky rotten egg!”
And... he’s done it once again. Stopped me from telling him the truth. I can’t even be mad at him for doing it, scared to death and happy for any chance to put it off, put off the rejection that may come on the heels of my confession. Like the wimp I am, I take it and run after him.
He manages to also keep that T-shirt on. I’m beginning to hate it, beginning to see it like a symbol of avoidance, a hint that we’re not going anywhere with this. He won’t open up to me, I won’t tell him I love him, the summer will end and we’ll go our separate ways.
God, I don’t want it to happen. For the first time since I can remember I feel... happy. For the first time, I like this town. Not necessarily all the people in it, but I wake up excited to be living every morning, for a chance to see Ross, kiss him, feel his arms around me, lay naked with him. For a chance to hear his voice, to try and find the twisted, crossed wires between us and set them straight.
I want to know he’s happy, too.
“Those cuts look better,” I tell him as he pins me underneath him on the loose gravel at the water’s edge, smiling up at him, and he jerks a little when he realizes his T-shirt has ridden up a bit. “Did you take the pills I gave you?”
He nods and sits back on his heels. He traces my mouth with his thumb. His eyes are grave, the teasing light from moments before gone. “You’re good to me,” he says softly. “Too good.”
I catch his hand with mine, turn it to kiss his palm. “You deserve good things, Ross.”
His brows knit together and he pulls his hand away. “I don’t trust anything good,” he says, and for a terrifying few seconds I think he’ll tell me it’s over between us, that he doesn’t want me around anymore. But then he says, grudgingly, “I trust you. I dunno why.”
I kinda trust him, too. His flares of anger sometimes scare me, but he’s never laid a finger on me.
“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he whispers. “I’m not easy to be with. I ask myself sometimes, why you’re still here.”
“Because I want to be.”
Pulling him back down, I wrap my arms around him. Happy. He makes me happy. Every reluctant step he takes to meet me halfway, every quiet compliment, every hesitant apology makes my heart soar.
Maybe it’s because I know it’s hard for him to give ground, to show his feelings, after the harsh conditioning his Dad put him through. Because I know he’s more used to spewing nasty stuff and that he has to dig deep to reach his real self. The nice boy buried underneath, taught to keep silent and to let the anger take over when the pain gets to be too much.
Relaxing in degrees, he lies half on top of me and hides his face in the crook of my neck, and I let him hide for now. He trusts me, he said. Maybe one day he’ll trust me enough to tell me what else is bothering him, like a thorn inside his chest, let me soothe it, like I did with the cuts and bruises.
Maybe one day I’ll trust myself enough to tell him it’s okay to want and it’s grand to like someone, but what I feel for him is like an ocean, and I’m starting to drown...
***
Eventually it’s time to go. I find myself so reluctant to let go of him back at the house, it’s pathetic.
I don’t want to go. Don’t want to leave him, but we both have to go to work, and I really need to swing by home first. Aunt Emily is leaving today, too, and I really want to say goodbye before she does. She was very curious to know where I was heading, where I’d be staying the night, and though it always felt nice before to know she cares, yesterday it was stressful. I’ve never kept secrets from her before.
It’s a first. Another one in a line of firsts this Summer.
I wonder if Dad or Josh told her about me and Ross.
Pulling on my sandals, I evade Ross’s wandering hands, then I slip under his arm when he manages to cage me against a wall. Looks like he’s just as reluctant to let me go, and it makes me smile.
“What?” He grins. “What are you smiling about?”
“You.”
“Well, I’m easy on the eyes,” he says with no modesty whatsoever. “My dick, my ass, my mouth... Have I mentioned my dick? It’s huge.” He wags his brows. “So which part is your favorite?”
Your heart, I want to tell him, that you reveal bit by bit, your carefree grin that is so beautiful, but instead I pretend to roll my eyes for his benefit and am rewarded with a laugh.
God, I love his laughter, too. The deep, pure sound of it. And the small creases at the corners of his eyes when he’s smiling. The shape of his lips, of his face.
