“It’s okay, Callie, it happens. Get it all out.” Porter held my forehead with one hand and pulled my hair back with the other.
My retching smelled like a Coca-Cola factory with too much island fun mixed into it. I spit once, twice, then sat down on the grass, hoping my stomach would feel a little more settled. I refused to look at Porter. Shame for what a careless idiot I was, in more ways than yacking in the shrubbery, encompassed my whole being. Porter sat down behind me, pulled me in toward him, then allowed my too-heavy head to rest against his chest while he continued to brush my hair away from my sweaty face.
“I’m so embarrassed. I probably should have been drinking more water, like Quinn was. This has never happened to me before.”Neverwas a bit of a white lie. During the third week of freshman year, Quinn and I had a dual prayer meeting over the porcelain pulpit. We were not yet trained up for the typical dorm party that occurred every Saturday night, but we learned fast. At least, I thought I had.
“I know,” Porter chuckled, peeling a few more errant moist hairs off my cheeks. “It happens to the best of us.”
Truth is, Porter could hold his liquor, and nothing mortifying ever happened to him. He was mature beyond his years, judicious with his time, and an all-around good guy. Porter was supportive, kind, and by my side, and the biggest part of me did want him to talk with my dad about job opportunities in New York. Even though we weren’t graduating for over a year, I needed the reassurance—early, often,and from everyone—that Porter and I would be together long after Princeton.
“It’s not exactly like you to pound booze, though, Callie. What’s up with that?”
I rolled my lips together to hold in the truth, like Quinn told me to. “Oh, I guess just a little too much enthusiasm for a first vacation with you. I also brought way too many bikinis,” I said with my eyes squeezed shut, not liking lying to Porter.
“There’s no such thing as too many bikinis.” Porter laughed and then kissed my shoulder lightly, letting his lips linger. “And it’s nice being here with you,” he whispered in my ear, his breath hot and rapid, matching the heartbeat I could feel against his chest. “Callie, I have something to ask you. I’ve been trying to get up the nerve, but, well, it’s not easy for me to say certain things.”
My body stiffened.Oh God,I thought,does he know my period is late? Did Charles overhear Quinn and me at the pool, and he said something to Porter when they were getting ready for dinner?My stomach felt queasy all over again.
“Porter, I want to tell you something too.” Quinn’s going to be disappointed in me, but I didn’t hide things from Porter, and I wouldn’t start.
“Okay, you go first.”
“No, no you,” I said, stalling a bit longer before I shared that our lives might be turned upside down and that I believed there was only one answer to our potential predicament.
“I know we have said it before, but Callie, I love you. Like really, really love you,” Porter said with an importance in his voice that felt new. “You are my everything. You look at the world the way you want it to be, pure positivity and full of possibility. You are a ray of sunshine—luminescent. I grew up more cautious, wary of the world. I think together we make a good team.” With Porter’s declaration and his strength, he turned me around to face him, drawing my right leg and then my left over his and pulling me up and onto his lap. A halfsmile turned up toward his right ear once he got me positioned where he wanted me. “And I was wondering, you know, if maybe you feel the same, like really feel the same.” Porter spread his massive catching hands over his heart.
“Oh, Porter.” I grabbed his face and looked deep into his eyes. A floodgate I had barely been able to hold closed in my heart broke wide open. “I most definitely love you. You’re my everything too.”
I went in for a kiss to make sure there was no doubt in his mind that he had me fully and completely, but Porter pulled back. “Maybe we could seal the deal after you brush your teeth?”
“Okay. That’s fair.” I giggled and threw my head back, unable to contain my sheer joy of what I had suspected: that this incredible man was truly, madly in love with me.
“Wait, you had something you wanted to tell me,” Porter remembered, a grin stretching from ear to ear on both of us at the newly elevated status of our love. His posture was relaxed after getting off his chest what had obviously been making him unable to slow down and unwind during the first two days of our holiday.
“Oh, it was nothing as important as what you just said to me,” I declared as I stood up. Quinn was right: There was no reason to ruin our perfect week in the Bahamas, let alone our lives. Whatever might happen, Quinn and I would handle it together. “Come on, let’s go back to my room so I can brush my teeth. I’m dying to kiss you. And then undress you, if I can make it that long.”
Porter looked at me, slightly terrified, and I couldn’t help but laugh again. “It’s okay, I promise. Warden Helen won’t catch you in my room right now,” I assured Porter, and he hopped up faster than I had ever seen him move on the football field to grab my hand and run to my room. “Nothing gets between my mother and her gimlet at dinnertime.”
Chapter Fifteen
Present
“Ouch. Ouch. Ouch.” I thought the worst of it was last night, leaning on the handrail to pull myself up the stairs, but it turns out walking down this morning is much worse. My quads quake and I grab my hamstring to securely place my leg on each step. If I had remembered to bring my phone upstairs when I went to bed, I could have spared myself this unfamiliar agony. I have Advil in my bathroom, so theoretically I could have made it through the whole day in bed, only having to move my fingers to text Lisa to bring me Chipotle.
I plop a K-cup pod into the magic java maker. While the machine spurts alive, I pour in water and watch my glass cup fill with murky dark-roast liquid gold. Though I threw away Dr. Kwan’s pamphlets in a fit of defiance, when Patty emailed me my blood work, she included a PDF of theHow Not to Diebrochures for what she called “good measure.” I think she discovered mine in the trash. Since finding out that Thomas will be at Alice’s wedding, the printed documents are now reluctantly taped to my refrigerator. There is also a Post-it note in my handwriting that says “You can do hard things,” a modern-day reference to Stoic philosophers reminding me of the mental mindset Ineed between today, August 8, and New Year’s Eve if I want to stun the hell out of Thomas at the wedding.
While the idea of waiting one to three hours upon waking to eat sounds torturous, I am willing to try drinking an eight-ounce glass of room-temperature water with a squeeze of lemon and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar first thing to aid digestion. And then I need to do it seven more times during the day, lemon and vinegar optional. I thought starting my system with caffeine was the key, but apparently that’s farther down the morning routine to-do list after drink water, plan protein consumption, secure ten minutes of natural light on the skin, meditate to calm the mind, and journal to contemplate life. Waking up has become a full-time job that doesn’t pay. I manage to shuffle to my front door and throw it wide open to bathe in the early-morning sunlight. Apparently, part of personal improvement includes my neighbors learning that I sleep in ratty Princeton sweats and eye gel patches. Supposedly the humiliation is worth the hit of Vitamin D to boost my attitude.
8:22 a.m.(Quinn)
You able to FaceTime? Alice and I are at a bridal shop on our lunch hour. She wants your opinion because, of course, mine is wrong. Always.
Ah, a mom-daughter drama text from Quinn. This is so much better than meditating.
8:23 a.m. (Callie)
You bet, give me five minutes to get settled in the living room.
8:23 a.m. (Quinn)
