During the Revolutionary War, Aaron Burr had an illicit affair with the wife of a British officer.
You tell the girl that story.
You think it’ll make her feel better.
She asks you who Aaron Burr is.
You laugh, because you can’t understand how she’s surviving at Fulton Edge when she doesn’t even know the name of the man who killed Alexander Hamilton, but she is. She’s surviving, maybe even thriving. She works hard and she’s passing. Meanwhile, you barely pay attention and still ace every test.
But you show up to class now. Every single day.
Maybe you do it because you don’t want to be expelled. You’ve made it this far. Might as well see it through. Or maybe you show up to be with her.
Both of you are on track to graduate in a month. The entire school year almost gone in a blink. You spent most of it sneaking around, whispered conversations and secret rendezvous, meeting under the cloak of darkness without her dad knowing. He forbid her from seeing you. He told her you would cause nothing but trouble.
Thing is, she already knew that.
That wasn’t enough to stop her.
“So, Vassar, huh?” you ask, sitting beside her on the picnic table at the park near her house. It’s dark, pushing midnight, and you just got done with a full rehearsal for Julius Caesar. The Drama Club is putting it on in three weeks as part of graduation festivities. “Liberal Arts. Bet your dad loves that.”
“Yeah, he looked at me about the same way he did when he realized we were sleeping together.”
Man, he hadn’t taken that well at all. Full-blown rage to the point of taking his grievances to his boss. Your father shrugged it off, though, saying you’ve done worse things than bedding a girl. Needless to say, her dad isn't enjoying his job much anymore.
She’s committed to attending Vassar College next year. Meanwhile, you haven’t decided anything. You’re not even sure you want to go to college. You have dreams but they don’t include studying law at Princeton. You got accepted somehow. You didn't even apply. The whole thing reeks of your father.
“Congratulations,” you say. “It’s a great school.”
The future isn’t something you and her have talked much about. You’ve never even given this thing you have a title. No promises.
You don’t promise things. Ever.
But the future is coming up fast. It’s about to be the present. And whatever this is between you is going to be affected.
She nudges you with her shoulder. “Will you come see me?”
“I’m sure I’ll pop up from time to time.”
“You better,” she says. “I’m going to miss you.”
She’s getting emotional, her voice cracking around those words.
“We’ve still got a few weeks,” you say, shoving up from the picnic table as you grab her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Let’s not waste tonight worrying about it.”
You take a walk together, holding hands. There’s an inn nearby, beyond the edge of the park. A cranky middle-aged woman runs it, one of the only people you’ve ever encountered your nights when you meet up here. The inn is dark tonight. Sheets hang out on a clothesline, left overnight.
You snatch one off.
Along the water, you lay it down on the grass. You lay her down on top of it. You know you’ll have some privacy tucked back here, away from the picnic area. You don’t want to waste any more of tonight. Every stitch of clothing is removed, and you take your time teasing her, and tasting her, before you make love to her.
You’re going to miss her, too.
You don’t tell her that, not with words, but she knows. She feels it in every kiss. In every thrust of your hips. You make her laugh as you’re deep inside of her. You tell her she’s beautiful as she moans beneath you.
You lay there after you finish, still on top of her, catching your breath as you kiss her neck. You’re careful not to leave marks anymore.
There’s a rustling nearby, along the water, shadows moving in the darkness. You only have the moonlight to see. Whatever it is comes closer… closer… closer. It’s coming right for you.
The girl notices. She screams, the piercing sound shattering the silence of the night, when the thing in the shadows makes a noise beside her. QUACK.
She shoves you off of her. You’re laughing too hard to calm her down. She scrambles away, shrieking, yanking the sheet out from under you to wrap up in it, scattering your clothes.
“It’s just a duck,” you tell her, sitting naked in the grass. You’re still laughing as the duck veers toward her, quacking like crazy in reaction to the noise she’s making.
“A duck?” she says. “What does it want? Oh my god, it’s following me. Why is it following me?”
“It’s probably hungry,” you say.
“Do I look like duck food?” she asks, trying to shoo it away. “Go home, Daffy.”
You get to your feet and gather up the clothes, tossing hers at her. The duck waddles off, heading for the water. It’s too late, though. She made too much of a ruckus.
There’s movement again. More ducks are coming.
She runs away, toward the inn, carrying her clothes. You start to follow when a blast of light shatters the night. A flashlight. You freeze, alarmed. Someone is there. The girl hides in the backyard of the inn, but you hesitate too long. The flashlight finds you as a voice calls out, “Police! Let me see your hands!”
Your clothes drop. You stand there, in all your naked glory, and hold your hands up in front of you as a police officer approaches. He orders you to get dressed before putting you in handcuffs.
The girl starts to step out from the shadows. The police don’t know she’s there. But you do, and you shake your head, warning her not to do it.
The woman who runs the inn heard noises outside and called the police. Trespassers. She stands on her back porch, watching you get arrested.
Indecent exposure.
And you don’t know this, but that girl? She runs the whole way home wrapped up in nothing but that stolen sheet, her clothes abandoned. Her mother is awake when she gets there and hears her come in. You see, the woman has known her daughter sneaks out at night for months, but she’s never said a word about it. A mother knows. She knows what it’s like to love the boy the world tries to keep you from. Her mother would lay awake at night, listening, to make sure she made it back home, but this morning is different. The woman senses it. The girl confesses. She tells her you were arrested. ‘Don’t worry,’ her mother says. ‘I’ll help him.’
Chapter 13
KENNEDY
I absently tap my fingers against the screen as I stare at the text message on my phone. Are you interested in going out tonight? I’m debating how to answer that. Yes? No? Yes? No? Ugh. I type out some long-winded excuse before erasing it with a groan, typing some more utter crap before erasing that also. I type out ‘no,’ straight to the point, but ugh, I feel guilty, so I instead type ‘sure’ and press send like an idiot.
The second that it says ‘Delivered’ beneath the text bubble, I want to slap myself. So many regrets already.
“Ugh, what is wrong with you?” I ask myself, making a face as I start to type an excuse to get me out of it.
A throat clears behind me. “Wouldn’t know where to start.”
That voice, it catches me off guard, so close I can feel his warm breath fanning across my skin. A chill shoots through me, my hands shaking as I spin around, losing grip of my phone. It drops, landing facedown on the hard epoxy tile of the aisle. I cringe when it hits, but I don’t reach for it because of him.
Jonathan.
He’s right there, standing here in the grocery store, a foot of space between us, so close I have to look up to meet his eyes. My heart stalls a beat, being a traitorous nitwit, before it hammers in my chest, aggressively battering my ribcage like my insides are declaring war on my sanity.
Jonathan picks up my phone as it makes a noise. Before I can stop him, he glances at the screen and freezes. Something flashes in his eyes. He looks horrified. Oh god.
“It’s broken, isn’t it?”
He blinks at me. “Huh?”
“My phone.”