Emily Brooke Carper needed to get out of the house. For what felt like a whole minute, she'd tiptoed her way down the stairs, hardly breathing for fear of making a sound, only to realize she'd left that stupid backpack in her room. Voicelessly, she mouthed the word "shit," swiveled on the ball of her right foot, and raced up the stairs. Or rather, she raced up them for two steps before remembering she was trying to be silent. She mouthed another word, "fuck," sneaked up to her bedroom, and snatched the bag off the floor. As she examined its contents for the dozenth time that day, a flash of heat shot through her. Emily paused. This room had been hers as long as she could remember. That was
her
bed. Those were
her
well-loved stuffed animals. And yet somehow she felt it all belonged to someone else. Before she started her second descent, she reached a hand into her T-shirt and undid the hook. She left her bra on the foot of the bed.
Emily didn't have much experience sneaking out of the house, but tonight she didn't have much of a choice. Sure, she'd picked the date and the time--midnight on the last Wednesday in July, sure to be quiet--and it was her idea in the first place, but it was something she knew she had to do in order to go forward with the madness she'd committed to, now just around the corner. She had to do it at night, and she had to do it in secret. But she wasn't doing it alone.
Her phone chimed, and not quietly. Emily winced. It was a text message. It said, "I'm here."
"One sec," she replied, "Currently sneaking out with the stealth of an African elephant." She managed to silence her phone before receiving "😂😂😂" about half a second later.
Emily reached the bottom of the stairs, now with a backpack over her shoulder. She was mere steps from the front door when all the lights turned on. She shuddered. Fortunately, no one else was in the room. If she'd done this sort of thing more often, she probably would have thought to switch off the motion-detector lights earlier in the evening. She imagined blinding bright light pouring into the master bedroom under the crack at the bottom of the door and hoped that, somehow, her parents were still asleep.
She crept through the doorway and bolted down the street to the old white Mazda waiting for her at the corner, out of sight from the house, as she'd requested. As she ran, breathing more heavily now, she couldn't help but laugh at herself. For Emily, just leaving the house felt like a perilous adventure, and yet, in an uncharacteristic act of boldness on an otherwise unremarkable Friday afternoon in April, she had dared to enroll to attend college at Hillthorpe School. She thought she must have lost it. But really, Emily Brooke Carper was well on her way.
She leaped into the minivan. Inside it was Jason Hurley, her closest male friend going back to middle school. He grinned. "Glad to see you made it out of Shawshank," he said.
"Where's Alana?"
"She chickened last minute. Is it still alright if it's just us?"
"Yeah, that's okay," she replied. She'd hoped to have a female companion on this adventure, but if she didn't do it now, she wasn't sure she'd ever work up the nerve again. "Let's go," she said. And they were off.
"Did you bring a towel?" she asked.
"Yep, you?"
"It's in the backpack. Flashlight?"
"I keep one in the car."
"Did you check the batteries?"
"I switched them out this morning. We'll be just fine, Em."
"Bug spray?"
"Didn't think of that."
"I think I have enough for both of us."
"We're all set then!" Jason declared, turning off the main road and onto the wooded parkway. "I think we'll have a lot of fun. You're sure you still want to do this, even without Alana?"
"Well, I think I've got to try it."
"Emily, if you don't want to do it, neither do I."
"No, I really want to do it." She giggled. "It's just a bit daring for me."
"You have gotten more daring this year."
"Yeah, I might be going crazy."
Jason laughed heartily. "No comment."
Emily smiled. "We'll have fun."
"Yep, we'll have fun."
Jason parked the Mazda on the side of the parkway. In an uncharacteristically gentlemanly gesture, he walked around the front and opened the passenger door. Emily had thought her nerves were settling, but the moment she moved to step out of the car, the butterflies in her stomach started doing backflips.
"Right up this way," said Jason, beelining directly to the trailhead. Emily turned on her flashlight and followed, applying bug spray as she walked, and passing the can to Jason. The hike was just over ten minutes, and they hardly said a word to each other. At one point, Jason stepped over a fallen tree and said, "Watch out for this log," even though Emily could obviously see it. She followed him silently, breathing slowly and intentionally, listening to the whisper of running water gradually crescendo into a roar. And by the time she saw the waterfall in the beam of Jason's flashlight, Emily felt the calmest she'd felt all evening. Here in the clearing by the water, it was finally too late to fret over whether it was too risky or to worry about whether this could damage a long-lasting platonic friendship between a straight young man and a straight young woman, and their current task was too present and real for her to agonize over her decision to attend Hillthorpe. No, what they were about to do had finally been reduced to a few simple physical motions. Get in, swim around a bit, laugh, get out. The only barriers that remained were simple and physical: a T-shirt, a pair of running shorts, and panties. But then Jason spoke, and her momentary sense of peace was broken by the uninvited thought
I wish Alana were here
.
He said, "So I guess we can face back-to-back and then turn around when we're both done."
"Okay," she replied and turned her back. She started to grab the bottom of her shirt and glanced over her shoulder to check that Jason had turned around. He had, and he was already pulling his shirt off his head. She felt guilty for peeking. She took a deep breath, and her shaky exhalation caught her a little off guard. She thought it was kinda ridiculous that she felt this anxious about getting undressed with a friend. Sure, she wasn't the most adventurous girl in the world, but she'd never thought of herself as being unusually modest. And she'd hung out nearly-nude with Alana at home earlier this summer and hadn't felt
terribly
uncomfortable about it, even though it was definitely weird.
Going skinny dipping is normal, harmless teenage behavior,
she told herself.
This really shouldn't be such a big deal.
"Alright, I'm ready," said Jason seriously. Emily was still fully clothed.
"One minute. Don't turn around yet." Quickly, Emily pulled off her shirt, and the soft breeze reminded her that she'd left her bra in her room. She kicked off her shoes. She hadn't worn socks. When she looked down to pull off her shorts, she saw that her hands were trembling a bit. She also saw her breasts, exposed to the open air.
"Are you ready now?"
"Almost." She felt "ready" was a silly euphemism. The correct term was "naked." She took in another deep breath, and let out an involuntary and unexpected nervous sigh. Then she dropped her shorts and panties to the ground in one smooth motion and said, "Okay, I'm ready now."
"On three," said Jason. Now it was really too late to fret. "One. Two. Three." And finally, wearing only forced smiles, they turned around, flashlights in hand. They were naked.
When they saw each other, they both giggled like they were kids again. She resisted the urge to cross her arms in front of herself. She glanced at his flaccid penis and then averted her gaze. "Oh my God it's so..."
"Tiny?" Jason interrupted, smiling broadly. "It's not the size, Em. It's what you do with it."
"Oh yeah? And what exactly do you do with it?" she replied with a joking skeptical expression.
"Usually something like this," said Jason, helicoptering as best he could with what he had.
Emily yelped with embarrassment and covered her eyes with her hands. She peeked between her fingers to make sure he'd stopped swinging his penis around before she removed her hands and forced them to her sides. Feeling the side of her own leg reminded her of everything she was letting him see, and her heart jumped in her chest.
"Also, I don't know if you're aware of this, but my dick actually grows from time to time," said Jason, as if he were explaining gravity to a toddler. "Can you say the same about your..." he said, laughing and gesturing to his chest.
She said, "Hey!" and then felt even more naked. She crossed her arms in front of herself. She liked her breasts, but it was embarrassing for them to be
out
, for Jason to joke about their size so casually, like it was nothing. She realized that he must be appraising every part of her body. It was only natural that he would.
"I'm just kidding!" he said, "Your boobs are nice! To be fair, you said my dick was small."
"
You
said it was small. I was going to say it was so
white
."
"Also true! Race you to the falls!" He shouted suddenly, running past her toward the waterfall, granting Emily her first glimpse of his flat, pale rear. She followed.
There's no way skinny dipping is supposed to start with awkwardly standing around for a minute looking each other over,
she thought,
and without the influences of alcohol or sexual tension.
She dipped into the deep part of the frigid creek. "I win!" said Jason, standing under the falling water.
"You must be freezing."
