“Come closer,” he says. “You’re too far away.” My heart races and I stand. Being his person has always meant following his directions.I need you.Come closer.I sit down next to him and lie back, letting our whole bodies touch. Every inch of my skin tingles.
“You’re always here for me, Jill,” he says. “Even when I don’t deserve you.”
“You always deserve me,” I say softly. His skin is so close, I can feel his heat, the tiny hairs on his arm grazing mine. I wonder if he’s aware of me, too. If he can sense the nervous humming in my veins. It bleats over and over again.You saved me. You saved me.
Adam heaves himself up to sit.
“Jill,” he says again. “Promise me you’ll always love me.”
The words shock me.How did he know?But before I can say anything, Adam leans down and the space between us disappears. I inhale sharply as his mouth presses against mine. His lips are soft and he tastes minty and sweet, like a peppermint patty. Every crevice of me is on fire. He slides his wet tongue against mine and I fight the urge to nibble on it. He brings onehand to my neck and rests the other on my knee. My body has wanted this for so long, to mold to Adam’s, to relent. To let everything go.
I feel him hard, pressing against his jeans. Something I’ve dreamed about forever, since the first night he came to my house. I wrap my arms around his neck and run a finger along the prickly baby hairs. They’re so real, I want to cry.
But my brain snaps to attention. The room tilts, as if everything is sliding off a table. Adam is suddenly stale against my mouth. It all just feels... wrong. Like he could be doing this with anyone.Icould be anyone. I’m justhere.
I pull back. “Wait,” I whisper. “We can’t.”
Adam lets out a soft laugh against my neck. “Of course we can. After all this time, we finally can.”
But everything is different now. I’m different now.
“It doesn’t feel right,” I say.
He leans back and flops against the bedspread, bouncing away.
“I don’t want it to be like this. If you want this,” I say, motioning to the air between us, “I want it to be real. For good. Not because you’re upset or sad. I want it to be more.”
“You don’t want to live in the moment?” He’s not looking at me now. His eyes are on the little boats, their white sails flapping in the wind.
I take a deep breath. If I say what I really want to, I can never take it back. I go for it. “I want us to be together next year when I’m at Brown. I don’t want to fuck this up.”
Adam turns back to me and runs his index finger down my cheek. “You won’t,” he says softly.
“Adam!” Cindy Miller’s voice rings through the house. “Can you come here for a sec? My laptop’s on the fritz.”
Adam rolls his eyes but flashes me a smile so wide I can see his dimple.
“Be right back.” The bed groans as he retreats and I blink back tears. It only took a minute for me to ruin everything. My phone vibrates against my thigh.
Did you read????Rachel writes.I don’t see anything usable yet. She mentions Adam though.
My heart beats fast and my palms grow sweaty.
I tap back over to my email and see the attachment has finally downloaded. I click to open and I’m greeted by dozens of pages of Shaila’s loopy handwriting. I scan the words, hoping to find something, anything, that could be a clue. I catch fragments of sentences, of Shaila’s effusive, loving prose, her all-caps moments of excitement. But one letter dated mid-March stops me. One word stands out. A name. It’s bolded as if Shaila traced the letters twice, maybe three times, without even realizing it. When I see it, my heart drops. I scan back to the top of the page and start reading.
KARAAAA!
I can’t even tell you how excited I am for summer these days. I just want to be back in the Hamps with you and Graham again. I am loooonnginggg for the days of hanging at Graham’s house, our feet dangling in the pool while we shove ice cream bars into our faces.
Adam says he’ll come out for a few weeks, too. Then it’ll really be like last year—all of us together again. I promise he and I won’t ditch you guys again. You know we were just running lines for that play he’s working on. He says I’m the only one he trusts here in Gold Coast to do his dialogue justice.
Speaking of, I’m starring inRent, bitch!!!! Remember when we saw it back in middle school and sang that candle song back and forth for literal months? Now I’m going to get to do that on an actual stage in front of actual people.
Adam has been helping me run lines after school and I cannot tell you how amazing it is. There’s seriously no one else here who gets this whole world. Thank god I have him. Anyway, I gotta go. Rehearsal is starting back up in a few. Talk soon, love.
Xo, SHAY
My head spins and I can hardly breathe. Shaila and Adam hung out the summer before freshman year? A lot, it seems. Enough that Kara had called her out for ditching. I knew they had gotten friendly duringRent, but why didn’t they mention it? Shaila made it seem like she saw him once or twice with Rachel. Never alone. Not that they had their own... thing.
