Dear Readers,
Welcome to my latest story. This is my first time submitting in the First Time genre, so I hope you enjoy this story. I wrote it as an exercise to practice the play of voice, style, themes, allusions, yada yada yada. So while I am always open to reading any bit of feedback you readers provide, I would very much appreciate any specific constructive criticism you may have. So, please share!
Thank you to AlreadyTaken for your helpful editing and encouragement! Always appreciated.
Vote and leave feedback! I'd love to hear from you all.
Enjoy!
Titania
******
Your face is screwed up in disgust. In hatred that makes my stomach burn. You curse me and I watch you turn away. I watch you march to your car and drive away and then just like the ticking sound of a clock that rises in and falls out of your consciousness, the blur before me converges to a single page and I realize I've spaced out again. I look up at the clock. My heart flutters. I blink and look harder, but the minute hand hovers over the 11. Only five more minutes. I look back down and try to finish what I can of the exam, but I don't understand any of these words, any of the questions. It might as well be written in Sanskrit. I can't read. I can't focus. All of me is centered somewhere else,
on someone else.
The instant I realize that, I blink and feel the pull of gravity like a (((boing))) on a rope. Ingots of magnetite drawing my eyes up and over to the right, two seats forward to his back. To the nape of his neck where his short brown hair meets his already tanned skin in a straight, cutting line. And I remember the feel of that skin. I remember his hair, too, although it was a little longer when I touched it. Long enough for my fingers to bury their way in, for strands to fill the empty spaces, tickle the sensitive joins of my fingers I always imagined as mini v's between thighs. The ghosting sensation makes my palms sweat and I can hear the rain on our tent.
And once again, I'm lost.
At eighteen, I'd already achieved what I was supposed to in life. But I'd lost it. Lost him. And now those stupid tears are back, and I see him though the fractured prism lines. Abstract and color. Shapes not really his shape. The tears are heavy against my eyes, and like a suicide jumper, they cling perilously and threaten to jump, to end it all with a definitive splat. I quickly look back down and blink, and they do just that. Two wet drops on the paper I can't focus on. I can feel the dripping of my nose coming on. And with a great shnuff up, I sweep my arm across my paper. Two wrinkled spots are all that are left, and furtively I glance around, knowing that they are looking at me, their heads turning my way. All those eyes. Except his.
My stomach is like a bottle of shaken soda. I stare at the doorknob, waiting. The fizz presses slowly out into my legs, tickling up my shoulders and down my arms.
I hold my breath as if that will silence the tell-tale thumping of my heart. Waiting. Waiting. Confident if his text doesn't come in this second, it will in the next. And when I hear it I'll open the door, walk silently down the hall and out the front. She'll never know exactly when I left. She won't stop me. Won't ask to see the group. Won't see just him and know that no one else is going with us.
I could have lied, I reason with myself. I could have told her we were meeting the rest of our group somewhere along the line, even though none of my friends live on Whidbey Island or in the direction of the mountains. Blah. But I hate lying. I just wish I had the gumption to tell Aunt Peggy everyone else bailed on us so we're going camping alone.
Well, I don't know,
I can hear that whiney voice of hers say. Well, I don't know. Do you think it's a good idea? I mean, what if something happens, you know? There'd be no way of me knowing, you know? And what about you and your boyfriend going off together like that. I don't know. What would your parents say?
The sound of that voice, real or in my head, makes my teeth grind. I make fists with my hands and decide I'm just going to tell her straight. I'm just going to let her know I'm not a kid anymore. I'm an adult. I'm eighteen and well within my rights to spend the night camping with my boyfriend if I want. And there's nothing she can do about it.
My phone chimes and I erupt, shattered open. My impulsive plan for bravery crumbles like a dried out cracker. My body is suddenly flying, my short hair whooshing off my neck as I'm opening the door. I listen for a quick second, but fizz is rushing through my ears. I don't hear her. I put my hand over my chest, fist my shirt. Can she hear my heart beating so loudly? But there's nothing. She must be in my parents' room still. I shut my door behind me. The hall is dim as usual. My ears are straining so much it almost hurts. The silence is big and expanding like a gum bubble blowing and blowing. Bigger. I turn toward the front door. Why does my house have to be so damn big? The front is so far away. Bigger. No other sounds but the pounding in my chest. Bigger. I'm almost to the front door. My ears bursts with sound as I hear a latch somewhere. Her room, behind me. I squeal again and race to the front door, throw it open just as Finn pulls into the drive.
I'm squealing and telling him to not stop. I heave my overnight hiking bag off my shoulders and slide into the passenger side of his old
Impreza.
Go! Go! Go!
I yell, a thousand fingers of lightning firing through my chest. I don't dare look back to see if Aunt Peggy has followed me out the front door yet. I don't want to see her call me back. I don't want her to know I've gone. I don't want to see her. I squeeze my eyes and put my head between my knees. The fizz finally drains away leaving me limp. The car veers and gases and I see vectors and angles of acceleration from calc class swirl in my head as I sway along with the vehicle's motions. I hear Finn laughing.
It's just about my favorite sound in the world.
"Can I look? Are we gone? Did she catch us?"
Finn's laugh had a note of mocking to it. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's this? Am I aiding and abetting an escapee? What has happened to my innocent little Gemma who never does anything wrong?"
"Who said I'm innocent?" Gemma shoved her hiking pack through the opening between their seats into the back and settled in.
"Well, clearly that's not the case anymore as you've now had to up your game to
running away
. I thought you were going to tell her." He had dropped the humored tone and sounded disappointed.
"I'm not running away, just...putting off telling the whole of it."
"I don't know why you put up with that. Why are you running? Just tell her you're going camping. Details aren't her business."
"Ha. Ha. Easy for you to say. You don't live with her."
"Thank God," he muttered.
"And she's my guardian. Details
are
her business. And it's not just her, Finn. Any girl's parents would object to her going off for the weekend with her boyfriend. Alone. Heck, probably even if other friends were going. We're just lucky she believed it was for class."
"It is for class."
"Yeah, well, I mean parents of teenage girls aren't likely to believe something like that. So just be thankful she lets me go off on these trips at all."
"I'm just thankful that in six months we won't have to worry about her. We'll be off to college and scot-free to do anything we please." He smiled over at her, but Gemma was staring ahead with that consternating frown of hers. "What is it?"
She blinked and looked over at him, wondering how he always knew she was thinking something. She had wanted a happy weekend together. A memory forever. Relationship talk always made her uncomfortable, stickers like tumbleweeds across the shadowed planes of her heart. "I don't know..."
And what is cold? Why do things become cold?
They lose their energy?
That's right. Less energy, and so what happens to their molecules? The atoms, even the tiny bits that make up the atoms? What happens?
They slow down?
Very good. They don't move as much, causing them to fall together and compress. So, generally, cold systems are denser.
Finn sighed. "Come on, Gem. Spit it out." Silence held out another minute. "Gem, whatever it is, you know you can talk to me about it, right? I mean, that's what this is about, helping each other, right?"
Shoulders lifted and tightened. "What if you don't go to U-DUB? I mean, you said it yourself, they don't really have a prelaw course as such. And what if you get that scholarship for Stanford? Sure, you'd still have to work to pay bills, but...it's Stanford. Nothing is worth missing out on it. If you got into law school there, you could get a job...anywhere," she finished quietly looking out the window.
The land was slowly stretching out into the Sound, this long bit of earth reminding her of pizza dough stretched until tearing. The waters of Juan de Fuca on one side, a little estuarine lake on the other. The spruce and firs that surrounded her house were gone, only tall marsh grasses dotted around. At that early morning hour, fog was creeping off the water and across the road. They were almost to the ferry.
Finn was quiet as he studied the curves of the road. He pulled out his wallet when they reached the line for a ticket. "Damn, living on this island is expensive," he muttered.
It seemed to snap Gemma from her thoughts. "Oh, let me get it." She turned in her seat to dig out her little wallet from the back.
"No, no, I got it," he objected without looking up from pulling the money out of his billfold. Gemma sighed and plopped back down into her seat.
"Finn, it isn't a big deal. I mean, what if I were just one of your friends? Would you pay to take the ferry onto the island to pick me up, pay to get off the island and then pay for all the gas to go out to the Olympics?"
Finn rolled down his window and handed the attendee the money for a ticket in return. Turning off the engine after pulling into the waiting lane, he turned and looked at her. "But you aren't just a friend, are you?" She was opening her mouth to argue. "Besides, look at it this way; we're doing this for your art and botany finals. By covering these expenses, I'm bankrolling your art career. I'm your sugar daddy." He smiled cheekily.
Gemma gave a little burst of laughter. "Yeah, okay." On impulse, she leaned across the console and pecked him on the cheek. "And what sort of compensation were you wanting for patronage?"
Their eyes held a minute. So easy to find the threads of lightning between them. And so easy to pick them up and follow along. He pecked her on the lips and then rested back against his door with a ragged sort of breath. "Oh, just watching you hike up that mountain with that cute butt of yours will be all the reward I need."
She tried to smother her laughter. She gave a half-hearted punch to his arm but he twisted and caught her delicate little hand. "Hey!"
"Jerk," she muttered while still smiling.
