Love and Other Words
Page 46

“Stunning,” Mr. Nick agrees.
Alex runs over, throwing her arms around my shoulders. “Do you remember me?”
I haven’t seen her since she was three, and couldn’t possibly tell her I’ve thought about her every day since then. Laughing, I wrap my arms around her long, willowy frame, asking, “Do you remember me?”
“Don’t,” Miss Dina says, shaking her head. “I’m going to cry.”
Nick Jr. glances at her and groans. “Ma, you’re already crying.”
Elliot lets me go but doesn’t move away as everyone comes over to hug me. When Andreas reaches me, he whispers a quiet “Thanks for coming,” and I answer with my own quiet “Congratulations, meathead.”
The scene explodes back into noise as Alex launches into a debate with her dad about why she should be allowed to wear her hair up, and George argues with Miss Dina about where he can find the suitcase. Elliot helps Andreas with his tie, and Liz walks in, carrying a tray of snacks for the wedding party. She’s wearing a shimmering blue dress – clearly she’s one of the bridesmaids.
“Hey, Macy!” she says, coming over to me. At the confused stare of the rest of Elliot’s family, she reminds them that we see each other every day at work, and the room explodes anew, as they all remember what this means – that little Macy is a doctor now! – and I’m hugged all over again.
Wine is poured, Alex’s hair is brushed down, and then up again to her father and older brothers’ dismay, and the whole time, Elliot is there, his arm pressed to my arm, my twin heartbeat, a comforting presence.
“Dad,” Elliot finally says, with a quiet, rumbling laugh. “She’s fourteen. She’s wearing a floor-length gown with sleeves. She’s not going to get pregnant if someone sees the back of her neck.”
Mr. Nick glares at Elliot for a few seconds and then shakes his head at his daughter and wife. “Put it up. I don’t care. It’s just a lot of skin.”
“It’s my neck!” Alex cries, frustrated. “Tell the guys not to look if it bothers them so much.”
“Amen,” I say, grinning at her. Her grateful smile is like a sunbeam cracking through the window.
As the argument picks up again, Elliot leans down and asks, quietly, right up against my ear, “Want to walk around the gardens?”
I nod, shivering at his proximity, and he guides me toward the door with his hand on my lower back before reaching for my fingers. I feel the attention of the entire room on our joined hands as we leave, and Alex’s confused “I thought she had a boyfriend?” followed by Miss Dina’s sharply hissed “Shhhh!” and Andreas’s “They broke up, remember?” in our wake.
Elliot looks down at me, grinning. “Is it just like you remembered?”
I lean into his shoulder. “Better.”
then
saturday, september 9
eleven years ago
T
he first trip after the summer – after our declaration that we were together, after that sweet, aching kiss – was in mid-September. The air was thick with the relentless heat of Indian summer, and I used it as an excuse to spend the entire weekend in my bikini.
Elliot… noticed.
Unfortunately, Dad noticed, too, and outright required us to spend our time reading downstairs or outside, and not in the closet.
That Saturday, we spread a blanket out on Elliot’s scraggly front lawn, beneath the enormous black oak, and gave our updates on friends, and school, and favorite words, but it had a different weight to it. We whispered it now, lying face-to-face on our sides, with Elliot’s fingers playing with the ends of my hair or brushing against my neck, his gaze dancing across the swell of my breasts.
According to rule number twenty-nine – When Macy is over sixteen and has her first serious boyfriend, make sure she is being safe – Dad put me on the pill almost immediately after that visit. I was still several months away from turning eighteen, and Dad told me he planned to call my “female doctor,” but only after giving me a stilted, awkward lecture that it wasn’t permission to have sex with Elliot, per se, but that he was trying to protect our futures.
Not that he had to worry. Despite seeing each other every weekend throughout October, Elliot and I never came that close to sex. Not since that day on the floor of the closet, his body over mine, working on instinct. And Elliot was the one taking things slow, not me. He kept telling me it was because every tiny step was a first, everything we did together we would only do for the first time, with this one person, our whole lives.
It seemed a foregone conclusion that we’d be together forever. We hadn’t said love yet. We hadn’t made promises. But it was as impossible to imagine falling out of love with Elliot as it was to imagine holding my breath for an hour.
So, we were winding our way carefully through exploration. Kissing for hours. Swimming together in the river: my legs slippery and cold around his waist, my stomach covered in goose bumps, sensitive to the feel of his bare torso pressed against me.
Weekdays back at school became infused with this desperate anticipation. We agreed to Skype once a week – Wednesdays – which made it painful to sit through classes that day. Those nights, he would look at me through his camera, eyes wide. I’d think about kissing him. I’d even tell him what I was thinking, and he’d groan and change the subject. Afterward, I’d climb into bed and imagine my fingers were his, knowing he was doing the same.
And weekends, whenever we had the smallest window, were a blur of kisses on the floor, our mouths moving together until our lips felt raw, our breaths shallow from the exertion of wanting.
But that was it. We kissed. Clothes stayed on, hands stayed put.
Until they didn’t.
Late October. It was pouring rain and miserable outside. Dad took the car into town to get groceries, leaving me and Elliot alone in the house. It wasn’t premeditated. He didn’t even spare a glance back at us, reading in the living room by the wood-burning stove. He simply called out that we were out of milk, and he was getting stuff for dinner.
The door closed with a quiet click.
The car tires crunched on the gravel until the sound disappeared.
I looked up at Elliot across the room, and my skin flushed hot.
He was already crawling across the floor to me, and then he was hovering over me in the shadows of the flickering fire.
I still remember the way he lifted my shirt, kissing a path from my belly button to my collarbone. I remember how – for the first time ever – he figured out the clasp of my bra, laughing into my mouth as his fingers fought with the elastic. I remember the reverence of his palm as it slid from the open fastening, around my ribs, beneath the underwire. His hand came over my bare breast, his thumb and finger closing over the peak. It seemed like light flowed out of me from every pore; the pleasure and need were nearly blinding. He followed with his tongue, wet, his lips closing over me, sucking, and I pulled his thigh between my legs, insane for the relief, rocking against him until I melted, coming in front of him for the first time.
He stared down at me, pupils huge and black, mouth slack.
“Did you…?”
I nodded, smiling, drugged.
The car tires crunched back up the gravel driveway, and Elliot let out a sharp, frustrated laugh, pulling away.
“I should go home anyway.” He nodded down.
I looked down, too, at the heel of his hand pressed to the front of his jeans, seeking relief.