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At first, since it was exactly the second kiss of my entire life, I tried to convince myself it was just that. That I had never experienced something so intense before, and that someday it’d fade away as I replaced his lips with others. I quickly discovered that wasn’t true. It doesn’t matter how far you go with someone, how much of yourself you give to them. Some people will leave heavier imprints than others. I’d only given Carter my lips, but he’d left them forever branded.
Even after five years apart, I wasn’t sure I could be forced into his proximity without stumbling back in love and undoubtedly wounding myself in the process. In support of the idea that I was stuck in adolescent purgatory, being around him again had given me an intense feeling of déjà vu. My body’s reaction to him certainly had not changed, if anything, it’d grown stronger. I now knew what the warmth of bare skin felt like against my own, I knew what it felt like to strip away the layers between myself and someone else. Those instinctive, carnal feelings had been dormant in me for a while, and he’d awoken them all. There were a lot of reasons that feeling wasn’t okay, the primary one being that if I had him, I’m not sure I’d be able to let go.
I was almost positive he wasn’t experiencing the same thing. This was all me. I think that’s why I’d been acting distant, even a little cold, toward him. I knew it was a reaction coated in pure self-preservation. I knew I had to stay away because I had to escape this purgatory, and my only way out was grad school. I had to move on at some point, and if I had him, I didn’t think I’d have the strength to leave again.
My mother called me down for dinner. My stomach tied in knots as I descended our staircase. I was hoping the walk to the Edwards’s would feel longer, but it took less than thirty seconds. We entered through the back gate and directly into the backyard. It was one of those phases of Oregon spring that gave us four or five days of glorious sunshine before coating us in rain again for two straight weeks. Our families had always made an effort to enjoy the sunshine days, and that often meant meals outside. Marlena was standing inside the oversized kitchen window that looked out over their yard. Our fathers were nowhere to be found– probably in the garage. Maddie and Charlie had taken to setting the table, and my mother walked straight inside to assist Lena. Carter was bringing food out from the kitchen.
“Penelope, can you help Carter bring the food out, please?” my mother asked.
Carter paused as he set a salad bowl down at the center of the dining table. He glanced up at me, a vacant smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes complimented his features. He craned his head toward the door, beckoning me to follow him. We made our way into the kitchen. Lena was standing over the stove when she looked up at us and smiled.
“Well, there’s a sight I haven’t seen in a while.”
Carter and I looked at each other and then at her, confusion plastered across both of our faces. The door that led from the garage to the kitchen swung open as both of our dads came inside. “Hi, Penny,” my dad said, coming around the counter and kissing the top of my head.
“I was just telling them that I haven’t seen them together in a while,” Lena said as Tom came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist lovingly.
“You’re right,” my dad agreed. “When was the last time you two saw each other?” I bit down on my lip. I wondered if it felt this awkward for everyone or if it was just me.
“This morning at work,” Carter chirped.
Our parents looked at each other awkwardly before shooing us all outside. We each took our place at the table, our fathers on either end and our mothers next to them. Charlie and Maddie insisted on sitting next to each other, which left me in between my mom and Lena and Carter in between Charlie and his dad. At least we weren’t across from or next to each other. Even so, I could almost feel the heat radiating off his body as I watched him sip from his glass. My eyes dragged down his throat as he swallowed, then found themselves back at his mouth as he licked his lips. His gaze found me then. I looked down at my lap, hoping I wouldn’t blush. My appetite was suddenly gone.
Once everyone had piled food on their plate, Tom asked, “Penelope, are you excited for your promotion?”
I looked sidelong between him and my father, forcing a smile. “Is it considered a promotion?” I asked in a joking tone.It didn’t come with a pay raise, I wanted to add.
Tom barked a loud, throaty laugh. “I’d say so. Wouldn’t you, Carter?”
“I’d always consider sharing an office with me to be a step up for someone.” He shrugged, drawing the laughter of the entire table. I tried (and failed) not to roll my eyes.
“If you plan on keeping our office as organized as you used to keep your bedroom, I’d beg to differ,” I muttered. His bedroom was always a pigsty when we were kids.
“Itwasorganized for me. It didn’t seem that way to you due to your OCD tendencies, but I always knew exactly where my things were.”
“Except the time I let you borrow my geometry textbook and you lost it inside the blackhole that was your closet.”
“And I paid to get you a new one!” Carter exclaimed. He was trying to keep his face serious, but it lightened just enough for one small chuckle to bust out of him. The sound of his laugh had me smiling, if not also laughing myself.
No, no, no. Don’t smile at him. Don’t let him make you laugh.I shook the feelings away. I looked away. Out to the pool. The pine trees that lined the back of their property. Anything but him.
“Actually,Ipaid to get her a new one,” Tom chimed in. The table erupted.
“Oh gosh, I missed this,” Lena said. “When was the last time you two saw each other before you started working together?”
Carter narrowed his eyes, like he was trying to remember. I blinked a few times as if I was doing the same, even though we both knew exactly. “The graduation party,” we mumbled simultaneously.
“That long?” my dad asked.
“No, that can’t be right,” my mom added. All of our family members zoned out as their eyes circled, adding up the math of the last time they remembered seeing Carter and I in the same room. Eventually, they all settled on the realization that it had, in fact, been five years. “Wow,” Mom said finally.
“Yeah. We had quite the reintroduction in Mr. Collins office, considering none of you told us,” Carter said. He didn’t have to specify what they had failed to inform us about. It was clear. Nobody had told Carter that I had moved home. Nobody had told me that he was also.
“Well, that wasn’t entirely our fault.” My dad nodded toward our sisters.
They looked at each other and giggled. Charlie and Maddie looked more like sisters than Maddie and I did. I, of course, was adopted, so it wouldn’t have been expected that I resembled her. Although, she and Charlie weren’t related either.
Despite the contrast of my mother’s dark brunette hair to my auburn, people often thought I more closely resembled her than Maddie did. We both had light colored eyes and fawn, freckled skin, where Maddie’s were a honey brown, like my dad’s, and her hair was black as onyx. My brother had my mother’s eyes, except where hers were ocean, his were ice. Almost silver. Easton also had my father’s chestnut brown hair. Charlie and Maddie had the same skin tone and brown eyes, but Charlie’s were amber like her mother’s.
