He craned his neck forward just enough to kiss her chin, her cheek, her lips.
She felt his hand slide down her back, across her butt, and slip between her legs.
“I hear Mark Michaelian is sleeping with Winona Grey.”
She shivered at his touch. “From what I hear, they’re not doing a lot of sleeping.”
Chapter Twenty-two
This has been the best summer ever. Cissy and I have learned a hundred ways to sneak off and be alone. Even at my birthday party, we figured out a way to hang out without anyone seeing us. It’s not that we don’t want people to know we’re together, It’s just that in secret we have all the privacy we need. No one worries about how much time we spend together cause they don’t know about it and Mark doesn’t think he has to tell Cissy why I’m not good enough for her. I know she’ll hear all that when she starts school, but I’m trying to keep it away for now.
The Fourth of July was especially tight. Everyone was busy with their own shit—Mom had the parade and the 4-H car wash to worry about, Aunt Winona was running her campaign booth, and Mark spent the whole day waiting for her to be done.
I took the money I’d saved this summer and spent at least half of it at the fair. I played games until I won Cissy the giant giraffe, and I kissed her on top of the ferris wheel at least ten times. When I was out of money, we went up to the hill by the horse barns and made out and talked. Best of all, I beat Mom home by about ten seconds. She found me in bed, reading, and said I’d missed a really cool time at the fair. She didn’t know I still had my clothes on under the blankets!
July and August have been the best months of my life. I don’t have time to write now (Cissy’s waiting for me at Twanoh State Park), but I’ll write soon . . .
Mark and Aunt Winona are going to Sol Duc hot springs for an overnight trip and they invited me and Cissy along! We know they did it because they want to pretend they aren’t having sex all the time. Like Cissy and I are blind AND stupid, but we so don’t care. When they said they were going, I totally acted like I was bummed but that I was down with doing a favor for Aunt Winona. Cissy acted the same way with her dad.
We all piled into Mark’s Escalade last night. Mark and Aunt Winona were talking so much in the front seat that they never noticed Cissy and me were holding hands. At the campground, we roasted hot dogs and made s’mores and played cards. At night we all slept in our own sleeping bags in a big orange tent. The worst part was being about ten feet away from Cissy. I could hear her breathing but I couldn’t touch her or kiss her or really even talk to her.
On Saturday we all woke up early and had breakfast at the lodge, which was cool. The place has this HUGE swimming pool that’s filled with water from the hot springs, so it’s like 100° or something. You can float in the hot water and then run over and jump into a regular swimming pool, which feels freezing. Aunt Winona and Mark were in the hot springs so long I think they kinda melted. When they got out, they were both trying to touch each other secretly—as if Cissy and I couldn’t see exactly what was going on. They came over to the edge of the cold pool and called for us.
Anyway Cissy is a freaking GENIUS. Cause she swam right up to them and said she wanted to hike up to see the falls.
I swam up beside her and complained that the falls were like ten miles away, even tho I knew it wasn’t that far.
And then Mark goes Noah, why don’t you hike up to the falls with Cissy, and Cissy groans and Aunt Winona (who has to solve every problem) says That’s a great idea, Noah. You two will be safe together.
Cissy and I got to hold hands all day and hike up the wide trail. The trees around us were gigantic. Everything was big—the rocks, the plants, the trees. Even though it was a hot day in August, there was practically no sunlight on the trail. Cissy got cold so I took off my shirt and gave it to her and even tho I was freezing I didn’t care.
We could tell when we were getting close. It was loud, like a train running through the trees, making everything shake. We crossed over this rickety old bridge and kept going until we saw the falls.
It’s magic Cissy said, holding my hand. I kissed her for a long time and it was the coolest thing ever. The ground was shaking and the spray was everywhere and it was so loud you couldn’t hear anything, but when we stopped kissing, I saw the sunlight shining on us—just us—not anything else.
I said I love you without even thinking about it and she started to cry.
I said I was sorry and started to pull away but she wouldn’t let go of me. She said Don’t be an idiot. I’m crying because I love you, too.
She said it was destiny, us meeting, and maybe she’s right. I mean, if we hadn’t kissed by the falls or hadn’t said we loved each other, or if the hot sunlight hadn’t landed on us right then, maybe I wouldn’t have taken her by the hand and pulled her into the shade beneath a huge cedar tree, and if I hadn’t taken her there, maybe I wouldn’t have seen it.
But there it was, just waiting for me. Carved into the tree’s shredded-looking brown bark was a smooth, perfectly formed heart. Inside the heart were two sets of initials and a date.
D.R. loves V.G.R. 8/21/92
Today was the 20th.
I sat up so fast Cissy kinda fell away.
What is it? she asked.
I wanted to tell her, I really did, but I couldn’t talk, couldn’t think. All my life I’d thought of my old man as nothing but a killer. Practically an animal.
But suddenly I thought of him as a guy who’d taken his wife here, to the exact spot I had picked for my girl, and I was scared.
What if he wasn’t an animal? What if he was just a guy who got spooked one day and did something stupid?
And for the first time I knew that all those people who gossiped about me might be right. Maybe I was just like my father. And he was just like me.