Puddle Jumping (13 page)

“Are your friends at the museum going to prom with their girlfriends?”

Colton’s hand was squeezing mine a little tighter than usual before I felt him shift in his seat and he spoke loudly into the quiet car. Placing our hands on my lap, he asked the most heart obliterating question I’d ever heard. “Lilly, would you enjoy it if we…”

I’m not going to repeat it here. But you probably get the gist. It’s pretty much third base. Okay, it’s almost a home run.

The car fishtailed from my foot hitting the brake so hard and unexpectedly. I slammed into the steering wheel, hitting the shit out of my sore boobs and stared at him like Bambi watching his mom getting killed.

“What?” I’m pretty sure that was my eloquent response. “I mean we’re already pretty . . . physical.” I knew what we had and had not done and it shouldn’t have surprised me that he was suggesting it, but to hear him say it was a completely different beast all together.

He straightened in the seat and looked at me for a moment. “Justin and Keith talk a lot about their girlfriends and the things they do. . .” Then he went on a very clinical diatribe about my lady business and what they suggested that he do to it. And also what they liked their girlfriends to do to them.

“Yeah, no. I get what you’re saying.” I tried to stop him with my hand up as I attempted to keep from laughing, and dying, at the same time. I drove for a bit, considering my next sentence carefully. Pulling to a stop on a desolate stretch of wooded gravel road, I killed the engine and turned in my seat to appraise him.

We were definitely going to be late that morning.

We’d never really talked much about that part of our relationship - it had just happened organically, but I guess hearing about it from two people he would consider ‘neurotypical’ had made him focus on it a lot.
A lot a lot
.

“Is it something you’d like to do?”

His eyes were looking out the window as he thought. “I’ve seen things before. I’m not entirely sure what the point is, though.”

So he’d been watching videos.

See? Just like a regular guy after all.

“I guess it’s because it feels good. Like when I touch you while we kiss.”

Sly smile. Of course it did.

“It’s not really necessary, you know. It’s not something people
have
to do to show their affections.”

At the time, I had no idea why I was trying to talk him out of it.

Maybe I secretly knew.

“Colton?”

He looked at me with those eyes, and his lips were so soft looking, and his face was so confused.

“Would you . . . would you like to? I mean, we don’t have to.”

I loved him. I wanted to. But only if
he
wanted to.

He
had to want to. Not because of any other reason than it was his decision.

It was hesitant, his yes. His looked unsure and I’ll be honest, so was I.

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

And then my anxiety kicked in.

What if it was a bad move?

I could be so, so,
so
bad at it.

I was panicking.

He just took a few moments to accept his answer and after a couple deep breaths he looked into my eyes for a second. Then he nodded and we were quiet as we moved from the front seat to the back.

I was intimidated a little.

Okay, a lot.

“Just tell me if it’s too much, or if it doesn’t feel good, okay?”

I knew he would be honest. That wasn’t an issue. The issue was that I’d never done it before.

I took my time but he was shaking, his eyes half closed and lips trembling slightly below reddened cheeks. His chest rose and fell in erratic rhythms and I braced myself for him to ask me to stop. But he didn’t.

After a few minutes I got worried and looked up again to see his face scrunched up anxiously. So I stopped.

“Should I do something different?”

He closed his eyes and brought his fists to his forehead in distress. “Too much,” he breathed. “I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” And that was about the time he started to get upset. I hadn’t seen him freak out about much before, except for Christmas Eve, but this seemed larger. He choked out words about the way it felt and how his body was reacting, that it felt good but it didn’t and it wasn’t the same as any of the other stuff we did.

“It’s okay,” I told him, pushing aside the feelings I was having at listening to him. “We can stop. We don’t have to.” I promised him.

The truth was that I felt like a failure.

But it wasn’t about me.

He was becoming increasingly agitated, shaking his head back and forth, squeezing his eyes shut and pushing his fists into the roof of the car. The words coming out of his mouth were all over the place but I could understand what he was conveying was that he just wanted to do the same stuff everyone else could and he was frustrated that it was so hard for us.

“It’s not this difficult for other people.” His eyes were open and staring out the window, his hands pressed against the ceiling as he breathed heavily.

“So what? So what if other people do this stuff? I don’t care.” I was reaching for his face and fighting back the tears threatening to show themselves again. Because he had tears in his eyes, too. “I don’t care what other people do. Because none of those other people are you.”

He closed his eyes.

“I only want you, no matter what, okay? Only you and me. The rest doesn’t matter.”

It was true. With everything he and I had experienced physically, I couldn’t say doing that particular activity would be a deal breaker. He had so much more to offer than just that.

I crawled into his lap and wrapped my legs around his sides, tucking my arms behind his head and pressing my forehead to his. There was about a minute of silence before he stopped shaking. Before his hands rested against the outside of my legs and he pressed them harder to his body. I flexed my thigh muscles and squeezed them against his hips, listening as a rush of air escaped his lungs.

And then, slowly, he opened his eyes. “That makes the noise disappear.”

“Yeah? When I squeeze you like this?” I did it again.

He nodded, letting his lids close.

“I’ll remember that,” I whispered, kissing him firmly on the forehead.

His hands started to roam up my back and under my shirt and he breathed out long and slow. “You’re my quiet, Lilly.”

Shaking my head, I mumbled, “I’m the one who got you worked up in the first place.”

His fingers traced the sides of my waist. “For as long as I can remember, you’ve been the one to calm me down.”

“How’s that even possible? When we were kids, I almost died every time we were together. I’m a mess. I’m chaos.”

“No,” he whispered. “You’re my beautiful Lilly. The one who makes everything right in my world.”

That day I felt like we saw each other in exactly the same way.

T
hen there was prom.

I watched a movie once where the lead actor said prom was an important rite of passage for teenagers. That it shouldn’t be missed. And I guess that’s a pretty true statement because I’ve heard of ladies who missed going to theirs and it scarred them for life. Like, they ended up being crazy and losing their minds, writing their memoirs from behind bars and linking it all back to the night they missed their prom.

Seriously. Watch an episode of
Snapped
.

Anyway, with as much as it was supposedly this big deal, I wasn’t quite sure I agreed. It was just another dance with people from school. Except, the dresses were more expensive and it was being held in a hotel instead of in the gym.

I think we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to be excited about these things. That they’re defining moments we
cannot
miss out on because they’re once in a lifetime. While I think memories are good to have, the buildup is usually better than the actual event.

Maybe if we stopped trying to achieve movie standards of greatness, we’d be happy with what we have.

I wish I’d had that mindset for prom when it came around. I should have expected it wouldn’t turn out the way I’d hoped.

* * *

My dress was white, much to my dad’s annoyance. He kept eyeing me like I had chosen a damn wedding dress and I had to roll my eyes an infinite number of times before he finally stopped gawking. I’d gone all out and had actually worn my hair up . . . I guess I really wanted to feel like I looked pretty that night.

Sue. Me. I’m still a girl.

Anyway, I’d been getting ready up in my room with Harper when the first phone call came in. It was Mrs. Neely and she sounded really apologetic, but Colton was still at work doing something for one of the exhibits, so he was staying late to try and get it finished.

And, as I knew, Colton usually completed any project he was given.

“When do you think he’ll be done?” I was holding the phone against my ear while trying to do my blush and failing miserably.

She didn’t know but promised to call me as soon as she did because she was going to try to tell him one more time how important his promise was to me. And that work could wait.

Mrs. Neely had a
tone
.

Disappointment set in as soon as I disconnected and my best friend tried her hardest to make me feel better by just being . . . well . . . Harper. She was cracking jokes and making stupid faces and voices to get my mind off it, but there was no denying it would be Valentine’s Day all over again and I would be in the limo by myself that night. Alone at dinner.

By myself at the dance.

I took pictures with the group, not as a couple.

I had no corsage.

The hardest thing was watching everyone else with their dates; matchy-matchy and all goo-goo eyed at one another. It just drove the point in even more I was alone that night.

Quinn and Sawyer with her pink dress and his pink vest.

Harper in her yellow dress . . . with two dates.

I suppose it was lucky for me that she had two: Blake and Derek. Laugh all you want, but neither of the guys cared they were both taking her to the dance. I’m pretty sure she’d promised them something I didn’t want to know about.

After all of the progress she had made . . .

They were nice. Attractive. Pleasant. She was happy. I couldn’t say anything to her about it. Tigers don’t change their stripes, as my mom would say. Or is that zebras?

The theme of the dance was James Bond or something equivalent. Pictures were being taken as soon as you went through the door, and I was super bummed with the thought of having to walk in alone, having a picture taken by myself when I actually, truly, did have a boyfriend. He just wasn’t there.

But before I could step foot into the massive ballroom, Harper stopped me and pulled me aside to tell me Blake would walk me in, if I wanted him to. It didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like I was going to buy one of the photos. I just didn’t want that pity look people were so quick to give. And the photographer was stopping everyone from taking group pictures at the door, so, really, what choice did I have?

Blake was tall and tan, with kind of a little faux-hawk on top of his head. I wondered if he had a tattoo . . . a piercing or something equally as exotic as his Hawaiian roots. I wondered exactly how old he was, because he had a baby face but this really sick looking manly body. He probably worked out five times a week. There was a seventy - thirty chance that he was in his mid-twenties.

He had an easy smile and reminded me of one of those guys who winks after they say something they think you will think is cute. I thanked him for taking pity on me and linked my arm through his, stopping in front of the photographer to give a half-hearted smile before we stepped through the door and into the frenzy of bouncing bodies who just the day before had resembled people I went to school with.

Now half of the girls looked like pageant queens and the other half looked like hookers.

I wondered which one I resembled.

Blake had no problem offering me pity dances and getting me a drink here and there. As it was, I was trying to have fun, no matter how hollow my chest felt.

Prom King and Queen were announced and I got choked up when Quinn and Sawyer won, taking their crowns and kissing each other in front of the entire student body. It meant something. It just . . .
did
. Regardless of who they were in a classroom, they were Quinn and Sawyer. Everyone knew them. They were equal opportunity in every last way.

After they had their dance, Harper pulled me to the side to tell me she was headed out front for a smoke with Blake. Derek had made a friend or two at the table where we’d stashed all our stuff and I had to laugh that he was chatting up a snobby cheerleader named Claire.
The
Claire of Chlam-Face fame.

I went outside with Harper because I had nothing better to do and I figured it could help clear my head a little. I’ll be honest, I was straight up
moping
.

She and Blake stood off to the side of the hotel, down an alley, smoking cigarettes and kissing and I felt like a third wheel, but it looked like that was the theme of the evening anyway. It was colder than I expected and I hadn’t brought a jacket, so I was doing that weird self-hug, watching the way the wind was making my dress whip around my feet. That’s why I didn’t notice Blake approaching me and hanging his jacket over my arms. I didn’t notice until I looked up and he was squinting away from the smoke coming out of the cigarette hanging from his lips as he put it on my shoulders.