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7
It’s our last week. Time always flies when you least want it to, when you most want the clock to keep ticking on forever. I try to ignore the pressure in my lungs, the sense of the summer dwindling before us.
Instead, we go for a swim in the lake. Our parents sit on the dock drinking margaritas and playing cards, joking and laughing. We swim out to the middle of the lake, where it’s deep enough that it reaches my shoulders, but we can still both stand. Our parents seem involved in their conversation, pretty distracted, and for once, Josh seems it too. So I take advantage.
I take a deep breath of air and dive under the water. Catch his boxers and tug them down. His hands grab at me, panicked, until he realizes what I’m doing. Then he lets me take over, hands wrapped through my hair as I gently stroke his cock.
I pop back up for another deep breath, and this time, when I descend, I keep going until I’m face-to-face with his cock. I keep my breath held tight and lick along his length, twirling my tongue around his tip. It takes me a few moments, and one more break for another breath, but I figure out how to part my lips and take him into my mouth. I clamp my lips around him, rock in the water, and his body goes tense against me, hands clamped in my hair with pleasure as he slowly rocks in time with me.
But of course, I can’t hold my breath forever. Just when he’s starting to rock faster, get into the motion, I run out of breath, and I kick away from him, swim to the surface and break through it with a gasp, grinning at him.
Our parents are still oblivious, chatting away on the docks a dozen yards away.
Josh swims up to me and wraps his arms around me under the water, inconspicuous enough that it will just look like we’re wrestling, if someone sees. We’re both laughing, though I am keenly aware of his hard cock, still bare, now pressed against my ass under the water.
“You used to be able to hold your breath a lot longer than that,” he murmurs into my hair, smirking as he kisses the nape of my neck quickly, fast enough that no one will notice. “Last time we were here, you could swim the whole length of the lake without taking a breath, remember?”
I tense against him. Because of course I remember—I remember every moment of that summer. He’s the one who never seems to. Who never talks about it, never even hints that we have a past. Even when I dance up to the subject, he avoids it, dodges any mention of what happened all those years ago.
Now it’s me who wants to dodge it, because what he just said brings up all kinds of unpleasant memories. I remember the months after that summer, all that time I spent wishing he’d reach out, wishing he’d write or call or even just explain what went wrong. Why he didn’t want to talk to me anymore.
I squirm out of his grip and swim across the lake, toward the distant dock and the canoes we fucked in at least a dozen times this summer. It’s not far enough away—right now, for once, I wish I could disappear from this lake altogether. But it will have to be far enough for now.
I pull myself onto the dock and wrap my arms around my knees, huddled there. Across the water, our parents are standing, Dad with the margarita glasses in hand, Susan picking up the card game they were playing. They’re probably going to refill their drinks, or maybe make some dinner. Dad’s gotten really into campfire cooking, and Susan plays his assistant, keeping the fire stoked, chatting with him while he cooks.
I watch them walk away, and my heart sinks even lower in my chest. Because I know they’re a good match. They have the same sense of humor, like all the same things. I know Dad is happy, finally, and I can’t take that from him. No matter how much it kills me to let go of what I really want.
Josh pads along the dock behind me. I should’ve known he wouldn’t let me just run away.
I feel him more than see him sit down beside me, his swimming trunks back on. For once, the sight of his glistening wet, muscular body doesn’t distract me. Not enough to pull me out of this funk.
I rest my chin on my knees and gaze across the lake, lost in thought.
“You okay?” he finally ventures, after a long, fraught silence.
“Not really,” I admit.
He touches my shoulder gently, but when I don’t react, he lets his hand drop. “What’s wrong?”
“This is.” I gesture between us. Keeping my eyes fixed on the cabin, on our parents’ home. “All of this. It’s wrong, and it’s weird, and it makes me worry I’ll hurt my dad, and it’s messing with me, because…” I shake my head. Rest my forehead on my knees instead so he won’t see the way my eyes glisten with unshed tears. “Because this is what I wanted all those years ago. When we were younger. I wanted to have this with you, and I never thought we would, and now, suddenly, we do, but as soon as this summer ends, we’ll have to stop, we’ll have to go back to being… Family, I guess.” The word sticks in my throat, tastes all wrong. “I just… I don’t understand why we never did this all those years ago. Back when it was still possible. Back when we had all the time in the world, and this could’ve been something.” I inhale deeply. Make myself lift my head and face him. I need to look into his eyes when I say this. I need to know his answer. “Why did you run?” I whisper, eyes locked on his. “After I kissed you, you vanished. I never heard from you again. Why?”
He looks back at me, silent. There’s a sharp look in his eye, a thoughtful one, like he’s considering what I’m saying. But he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t say anything, and after a long, terrible moment, I realize I can’t wait around for him anymore. I can’t wait to hear this reply. What could it possibly fix now, anyway? What does it matter?
I push myself to my feet.
Josh catches my hand. Winds his fingers through mine, until I finally give up and sink cross-legged back onto the dock beside him.
“Pau…” To my surprise, I notice his eyes seem over-bright too. There are unshed tears in his eyes too, feelings he’s trying to suppress. But what?
“I knew about the move,” he finally says, and it’s not what I was expecting to hear. It’s so confusing that I blink a few times and tilt my head to one side, brow furrowed as I wait for him to continue. “Mom’s new job,” he adds. “The one she got in Georgia. I knew going into that summer that it would be the last time our families would get together, maybe ever. I tried to fight what I felt for you, but the more we hung out that summer, the more time we spent together, the harder it got… I was going to just leave without every admitting it, without ever finding out if you felt the same. But then, that last night, you kissed me, and I realized you were feeling just as much as I was.” He pauses, his voice going low and fraught with emotion. He clears his throat once, hard. “Resisting was easy until… Until that. Until you kissed me. You were my first kiss, Paulina, and…” He closes his eyes. “I knew if I saw you again after that, if I had to say goodbye, I’d break in two. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t say goodbye to you, and I knew a relationship could never work with me leaving, so I figured… I figured just vanishing would be easier. I figured that way you’d move on faster, forget all about me, and we could both just… go our separate ways.”
“I never did,” I say, my voice hard. “I never forgot you.”
“I know.” His hand tightens around mine. “I never forgot you either, Pau. I know this is a shitty situation, and it’s messed-up, and maybe you’re right, maybe it’s too late, maybe we can’t make this work, but… I have to try. I have to make up for lost time. I was a coward back then, I ran away, and I refuse to run again. Even if…” He bites his lip.
“Even if what?” I ask, angry now. “Even if it ruins our parents’ lives? Even if we screw up their one chance at happiness?”
“That’s not—”
“Or maybe it’s just easier now because you know we can never have anything real,” I point out. “Just like last time. We were just teenagers, it was just a summer fling. So is this. It can’t ever be more.”
He cups my chin. Turns my face to his. When I meet his eyes again, I’m surprised by the heat of the fire burning in them. The passion so intense it threatens to burn anything that stands between us. Passion that hot could burn me in the process, too. Could burn both of us, from the wanting.
He kisses me anyway. It’s different from our other kisses. Sharper. Fiercer. There’s a desperation in it, and I give in, kiss him back, let him feel the desperate ache that echoes in my veins too. This time, when we break apart, he rests his forehead against mine, those eyes still sharp and hot and burning holes through mine.
“No,” he says. “We can be more. We can make this more.”
Without another word, he stands up. Breaks away from me, and my whole body aches at the sudden absence where he used to be. I stare up at him, dumbstruck, and he shakes his head, turning away.
“This time you’re the one who’s running, Paulina.”
He leaves me there, alone on the dock, and I watch him walk all the way back to the cabin before I finally find the strength to make myself stand again.
