Just then a squeak of sand was followed by a light sprinkling of grains on our faces. Julian sat up fast, pulling me with him against his chest. A pair of wobbly classmates laughed as they passed us, oblivious to our presence.
“Ugh,” I exhaled, pulling back and wiping sand off my face. “This was not how I pictured our first time.”
He smiled and touched my chin. “How did you picture it?”
“Not with you in pain. Or with all these people around.”
“I’m not in so much pain.”
I continued to my feet, straightening my sweater and dusting my bottom. “Let’s go,” I reached for his hand. “C’mon.”
“I want to stay,” he said, not standing. “I want to be with you.”
My shoulders dropped. “I want that, too, but… well, the timing isn’t right.”
He made an annoyed sound. “The timing’s never right.”
Pain clenched in my chest. I had assumed he’d agree with me. “Why are you mad?”
“Because I love you,” he said looking up at me.
I frowned. “And that makes you mad?”
“No, it just… it doesn’t seem to matter.”
I leaned over and kissed him softly. “It does matter, but we almost got stepped on!”
He put his hands on my waist and tried to pull me back down again, but I resisted. “Anna!”
“What?” Now I was getting mad. “I said let’s go. Let’s go!”
“Fine.” He stood and held out his hand, but I didn’t take it. I pushed past him stalking toward the car.
“Will you stop?” he called.
“No.” I walked all the way to the car with him following several steps behind me. When I got there, I stood waiting for him at the back.
Julian walked over and stood in front of me. “So that’s it?”
“Are you going to give me the keys?” I said, not meeting his eyes. I refused to cry, even though my insides were all tight and achy.
He exhaled impatiently and held the keys up. “Yes.”
I snatched them away and went to the driver’s side. We drove the whole way to my house in silence—all twenty minutes—and when we stopped in the driveway, I grabbed the handle to get out, but Julian caught my arm. “Why are you acting this way?”
“Because you’re trying to make me feel bad.”
He shook his head. “I’m not trying to do anything.”
“Yes,” I said, sarcasm in my voice. “You’ve been acting normal all night.”
“I’m not acting normal, I’m pissed.” Even in the dark I could see his jaw clench. “I want to be with you. But you don’t have to feel bad. I said what I did, and you said what you did.”
“And I feel bad because I don’t want to make you mad.” Then I looked down and sighed.
He pushed his head back against the seat. “Well, I can’t make you say the words.”
My brow lined. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure if we were talking about the same thing. I thought he was mad because I didn’t want to have sex with him on the beach, and I was mad because I had expected him to understand I didn’t want our first time to be practically in public with drunken classmates stumbling all around us.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Look, I’m sorry. I love you, and I want to be with you. You don’t feel the same. That’s just where we are.”
I didn’t have a response. “I’m confused.”
“About what?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think what you’re mad about is the same thing I’m mad about.”
“It’s late,” he exhaled leaning over and kissing my head. “My side’s hurting. I’ve got to get some rest.”
I chewed my lip watching him staring ahead in the dark. “Please don’t be mad at me,” I said. “I do want to be with you. Just not like that.”
“Okay,” he said simply.
I wasn’t convinced, but I leaned over and kissed him softly. “Are you okay to drive?” He closed his eyes and nodded. “Well, sleep good then,” I said.
I got out and walked to the door. I knew we weren’t okay, and it made my chest ache like a huge hole had been blown in it with a sawn-off shotgun. But I didn’t know what else to do. I stopped at the door and looked back. He was still watching me from the car. I waved and he smiled slightly. I opened the door, as he put the car in reverse.
Chapter 13
The wave of excitement following Friday’s game carried over into the next week. Mardi Gras was around the corner, and every day Rachel’s school krewe had planned a different spirit activity for the student body. Our school always named a carnival king and queen, and Rachel and Brad were a sure thing to win the title. We’d find out the winners on Friday, and a ball was planned for that night. It was a big, fun weekend, and I was hoping Julian and I would spend it together.
He’d been distant since our argument, and on Monday, he’d said he was meeting up with Blake during lunch—doing some welding on a car Blake was restoring. I didn’t complain because it allowed him to pick up the blowtorch and didn’t require heavy lifting. I hoped it would help him feel better and get us back on track.
Rachel took a break from decorating and preparing for Friday to run out and give me the latest on her apartment search in New Orleans. “There’s an apartment complex on St. Charles Avenue that’s just a few blocks from campus,” she said. “It faces the street, and I think it’d be perfect. It’s not too expensive, and we’d have a doorman.”
“That sounds great, Rach!” I said, looking at the pictures on her phone.
“Have you heard any more on scholarships?”
I shook my head. “No, and I’m getting discouraged. It’s getting late.”
“Well, hang in there,” she said, giving my arm a squeeze. “I’ll probably have to get a student loan for what Mom and Dad can’t cover.”
“I thought of doing that,” I said. “But it’d take forever to pay back on a journalist’s salary.”
“Not if you moved to New York!” she said. Then she turned serious. “What will you do if you don’t get it?”
“Shoot myself,” I said.
“Anna!”
“I’m just kidding.” I sighed. “I’ll probably just stay at home and go somewhere local.”
“At least you already have a job, right?”
I thought of working at
The
Bugle
full-time, and while I really liked everyone there, I’d hoped to get out and live a little before retiring to a smaller paper—or whatever people were reading at that point.
“I guess,” I shrugged.
After school, I went to the office. My art center piece had turned out really well. As Nancy predicted, the pictures sold it. She said I was a budding photographer, but it was hard to take a bad picture of those little guys. They were all hilariously cute covered in paint, eyes wide with excitement.
For my next job, she wanted me to cover an upcoming fundraiser by one of the East End Beach Mardi Gras krewes. They were a good group of folks who held an arts and crafts festival each spring to raise money for local charities. They needed help getting the word out to arts and crafts vendors that it was time to sign up. Naturally, I thought of Julian and wondered if he might want to get involved.
Summer had developed a peculiar interest in my work at the paper and asked if she could tag along and see what I did. I couldn’t come up with a single reason to say no, so I took her with me that afternoon. She’d toned down the insults and seemed genuinely interested, so I was happy to discuss my small assignments with her and introduce her to Nancy. She hinted that she might be interested in a job, but I had no idea of her qualifications.
“I like taking pictures, and I’ve been playing around with layout software at home,” Summer said. “Maybe I could be a photographer or help with paste-up.”
“Maybe,” I said, scrolling through the paper’s inbox. “You could talk to Nancy about it, but they don’t really have a big budget.”
“So you were really involved in the bicentennial insert, right?”
It was odd that she was suddenly so nice and into me, but I chalked it up to her interest in a job. “I didn’t write anything for it,” I said. “But I helped find articles and pictures from the archives. Stuff like that.”
“You worked on that piece about Mr. Kyser and Julian’s mom, didn’t you?”
“A little.”
Where was she going with this?
“You know I have a cousin who lives on Hammond Island. Not too far from the Kysers. Maybe you met her? Casey Simpson?”
My jaw almost hit the floor. “Casey Simpson’s your cousin?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, thoughtfully. “I think she dated Jack some before she left for Vandy.”
I was stunned. Casey Simpson was the girl who had supposedly broken Jack’s heart—right before he asked me out. I hadn’t thought about her in six months.
“I never really met her, but I saw her once.” I remembered her kissing Jack at the birthday party, and me running from the house. Julian had found me and comforted me. That warm memory of him carrying me back to his car, wanting us to take off and forget the Kysers, caused my lips to tighten.
“She’s really pretty, don’t you think?” Summer continued.
I nodded. “Very pretty. Do you talk to her much?” I wondered if Casey still kept up with Jack.
“Only when she’s home.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Jack was ancient history, and whether he kept up with his ex-girlfriend or not, didn’t really concern me. I was getting more serious with Julian, and that was all I cared about now.
When I got home, I had the place to myself. I dug out the mail from our box and walked slowly inside doing my best not to think about Jack and Casey Simpson and Julian and me. I dropped the stack on the table and noticed a fat envelope in the mix with my name on it. The return address said Loyola University.
With trembling fingers, I picked it up and tore off the top. Inside was a long letter congratulating me on receiving their Scholarship for Academic Excellence and telling me all the great things it included. My breath rushed out in a
whoosh
—I’d done it! But for some reason, my excitement melted into really heavy sadness. I didn’t want to look at the papers, and all at once, I felt very tired. I collected the contents and carried them up to my room. I stayed there through dinner, telling Mom I had homework and a headache.
My eyes were just closing when the telephone rang. It was Julian with our nightly check-in, and he was very upbeat. His afternoon with Blake had turned out as I’d hoped—blowtorch therapy. I smiled, thinking of his handsome face, and the sadness intensified in my stomach.
“I’m sorry I didn’t see you much today,” he said. “You sound tired.”
“I am,” I said, not wanting to tell him my big news. I couldn’t explain why, but I didn’t want to tell anyone. I didn’t want it to be real yet. “Summer came with me to the paper office this afternoon,” I said instead.
I could hear him frown. “Why’d you agree to that?”
“I don’t know. She was interested, and… maybe I was too hard on her? She can’t help it if her social skills need work.”
“That’s very mature.” Then he laughed. “Did all that maturity wear you out?”
“Yes.”
He laughed again. “Speaking of maturity, I’m feeling much better.”
My forehead creased. “I’m glad, but what does that have to do with maturity?”
“I was thinking about our relationship rating,” he said, then his voice lowered. “As in, my tree-climbing skills might’ve improved.”
My heart ticked up in spite of my weird college-scholarship depression. “I’ll unlock my window.”
He breathed a smile in my ear, and I closed my eyes feeling much better. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry about Friday.”
My voice was equally quiet. “You don’t have to apologize.”
His voice was a low vibration that set my insides humming. “I was a little drunk, and you make me crazy.”
A laugh escaped my lips. “I guess that’s good?”
“So what are you wearing tonight?” He went on. “That little sleep shirt again? I’m thinking teeth this time.”
“Teeth?” my forehead lined.
“I’m pulling it up with my teeth. Then I take my tongue…”
“I thought you were coming over,” I said.
“I want to,” he exhaled. “But Mom still hasn’t left. We might have to wait one more night.”
That news made me ridiculously sad again. Maybe I was getting my period. “You shouldn’t tease me like that.”
“You’re the tease.”
We said our goodbyes, and I was smiling as I hung up the phone, rolling onto my back under the covers. Snuggling under thicker blankets helped with missing him, but I wished Julian was wrapped up beside me now so much. I turned off the lights and settled in to sleep.
Sometime later I awoke. It was dark and my limbs were heavy with sleep, but someone was with me. I felt the warmth of his body on top of me, his hands rested lightly on each side of my face as he kissed me again and again. I kissed him back and tried to put my arms around him, but they were pinned against the bed. My body was filled with desire, and I felt the heat of his skin on my stomach, my arms, my inner thighs.