The Charlotte Chronicles (6 page)

T
here are
different colors and sizes, and I’m a little stumped by the choices I have. ”Where does your sister get all these?” I ask Greta. She’s on my old gymnastics team and a fellow North Prep sophomore. We’ve been friends for a while, although not close. It’s been hard to make friends with girls as I’ve gotten older due to the Jackson brothers, because the boys, rather than me, are the main attraction. Greta has expressed interest in Nick which is why I picked her to come over instead of someone else, someone who might like Nate.

“I think when you go to college they’re in your welcome packet.” She runs her fingers through the pile, messing them up, and then she re-sorts them. Greta has a lot of nervous energy. One of her extremities—an arm or foot—has to constantly be in motion.  I’m too weak for nerves these days. I only have the energy for 
doing
.

“I can’t wait.” But really I’m not even sure if that’s a truthful statement. College was once a foregone conclusion. Nick and I had talked about it often—arguing about whether I would go to Notre Dame where he hoped to get a football scholarship. Nate, now that I think about it, never participated in those discussions. I’ve lived so much in the moment with the future this nebulous forward mass that was simply full of opportunity, hopes, and dreams.
Was
 being the key word now. My future is still nebulous but the shape of it has changed, and I don’t like looking at it anymore.

“I know. Me either.”

She picks up a gold foil one and one that is lime green.  I can’t imagine putting one of these on Nathan and definitely not a lime green one.  I pluck the gold foiled one out of her hands. “I’ll take this one.”

“The green one tastes like lemon-lime,” she sings.

I make a face and stick the gold one under my pillow. We chat a little while longer until Dad comes by and says that the car is ready to take Greta home.

As I’m getting ready for bed, it occurs to me that I should have had Greta bring over something sexy to wear. I have nothing that might stir a boy’s interest. My bras are plain and so are my underwear, and what’s not plain is rather juvenile.

Perhaps I could filch something from Mom. I creep out of my bedroom and down the hall to my parents’ bedroom. Their door is closed, but I hear their voices which means there is no way I can get inside. Turning I start to head back to my room when I hear my name and then Nathan’s. Instead of leaving, I draw closer and press my ear to the door.

“Aren’t we just saying ‘Sure, Nate, come and defile our angel all you want. In fact, let me buy you the condoms. Need any help slipping them on?’” It is Dad, sounding surly and gruff, a pretty unusual state for him. He’s always easy-going with Mom and me. I make a sad face for him. I hate that my daddy is sad because of me, but does he really think I’m never ever going to have sex? That sounds pretty dismal. How would I ever have kids? How would they have grandkids?

“If her current medical regime wouldn’t have made birth control contraindicated, I would have put her on the pill.” Mom’s voice is farther away, and I can barely make out her words. My guess is she’s standing in the adjacent bathroom and Dad is sitting on the sofa in front of the fireplace in their bedroom. He’s probably drinking Scotch or something amber in color. I’ve learned that anything darker than, say, a Mountain Dew is going to make me sick.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, sunshine. “

Mom laughs. “Didn’t we make the decision together that we’d rather have Charlotte experience safe sex than explore it with strangers without protection?”

“Sure, but we made that decision when she was eight and still called me Daddy unironically. I thought I had a good twenty years before she’d start thinking about sex.”

Really, Dad? When I was thirty?
I stop making my sad face for him. Now I’m frowning.

“Would you really not want your baby girl to enjoy sex, Bo? That’s your wish for her?”

“I feel like this is a trick question. Like there’s no right answer.”

I hear him shift on the sofa and then footsteps. Mom’s voice is louder, clearer now. She’s joined him on the sofa.  “I’m not ready for her to grow up either, but I don’t see how we stop it, and I’d rather she learn about stuff from someone like Nathan who’d gnaw off his own arm before he hurt her than some other stupid North Prep punk.”

“When you put it like that . . .” Dad sounds reluctant, but he’s obviously given up the fight. I grin to myself.

“Besides it’s only for a short while, and I put the fear of God into Nate this morning.”

“You did? Because I worked him over last night with the whole ‘I trust you not to betray the goodwill of your aunt and me.’”

There’s a slapping of hands as if they’ve just high-five each other. My parents. 
Gah
.

“We make such a good team,” says my mom.

“I know,” Dad says smugly. “Now swing your leg over here, sunshine, and let’s practice some of our other team moves. Like the one where you—” His voice is abruptly cut off, and there aren’t any more words, just noises that gross me out.

Wrinkling my nose, I straighten up only to run into a Nate-sized wall. He places a hand over my mouth to stifle a yelp of surprise and then winks at me, slowly dragging me down the hall to my bedroom.

“So your parents still get it on regularly?” He grins.

Inside my room, I flop onto the bed and try to shut out the visual. “Gross, Nate. Really.”

“Why’s that gross you out? How do you think you were born?”

“Do you really want to think about your parents having sex?”

He shrugs. “It’s not like I’m thinking about it every day, but don’t you think that it’s cool that they’re so into each other even after all this time? I mean, yeah, it’s not like I want to watch my dad chase my mom around the living room every night, but it makes me glad that they still work for each other years after they met. Don’t you want that?”

I do, and I know who I want it with.

He nudges me over and climbs onto the bed next to me. Plumping the pillow his hand brushes something and it crackles. 
Oh no, the condom. 
Nate sits up and pulls it out.

“What’s this” His face looks hard.

“A condom?”

“I know, but why do you have it under your pillow?”

I make a pffft noise. “Why do you think?”

There’s nothing for me to do but brazen it out.

“Who gave this to you?” His hand crumples the condom making me worry about the integrity of the rubber.

Reaching over, I pluck it from his hand and try to smooth it out, a little perturbed he’s jumping to some crazy assumptions and ruining my plans. “I think you ruined it.”

He takes it from me and throws it across the room. “I didn’t ruin it, and you’re not going to need it.”

“Geesh, Nathan, you’re as bad as my dad.” I lean up on one elbow to stare at him, acutely conscious that I’m wearing an old snoopy T-shirt and some sweatpants. I get cold really easily these days. I’m unsexy and frail and probably the last thing that Nathan wants. These past weeks the attention he’s given me has probably all been out of pity. Fine then, I’ll use the damn condom with someone else. I drop onto my back and start rifling through all the North Prep guys that might help me out. I’ll ask Nick tomorrow. He’d make a face, but ultimately he’d help me.

Nathan runs a hand through his hair and falls back on the bed. “It’s not like that.”

Not like what? 
I think. I burst out, “Is it because I’m too thin? My port is too ugly?”

“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” He looms over me now, his big body like a plank of wood. Stiff, straight, and hard.

“What is your problem then?” I yell at him.

He slaps a hand over my mouth to stifle the noise. Sitting up, he drags me over to sit on the edge of the bed, and then he drops to his haunches between my legs. He lays his head sideways so that one cheek rests against my knee. It’s the most intimate position I’ve ever had with a boy, and it’s setting my heart racing. He kisses the scar I got on my knee when I dragged myself over the carpet in the television room, not realizing that Nick had left his Leatherman tool open. I’d cut myself, and then Nick and I were afraid to tell anyone so it got infected and healed badly. Nick got a whooping and so did I.  Nate was mad at both of us for a week and hid Nick’s pocket knife. I’m not sure if Nick has ever gotten his original one back, although one of our dads’ friends gifted him a new one a couple of years ago.

“You’re beautiful, Charlotte. With your soft hair and your port and your scars, you’re everything I would want in a girl. Don’t you believe differently.” He turns his head again, so I can see his brown velvet eyes staring straight at me.

I believe.

He kisses up a little higher, to the top of my thigh. “I love your laugh. Your willingness to put up with the Jackson boys’ shit constantly. Your endless optimism. No one has your spirit.”

He rises and pushes me backward on the bed so that I’m caged on either side by his muscular arms. 
Why, Nate, you haven’t been skipping arm day, have you?
 I think ridiculously because I’m nervous and excited and I’m trying not to squeal.

He is going to kiss me. His face comes closer, and I lick my lips in anticipation. This is it. This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole short life. This is why I have to keep living so that I can remember this event over and over and over. Slowly his lips brush mine. I want to keep my eyes open, but they are dragged down as if there is a string attached to my lips.

“I just want to take things slow. Make them right for you. Do you trust me?”

I nod.

“We can’t go back. What we have between us,” he waves his finger back and forth, from his chest to mine, “will never be the same. We will have to fight to keep Nick with us. We will have to fight to keep together. No matter what. Will you do that?”

“I will,” I vow. I loved him so much for remembering Nick—that we are all one unit—and for wanting me to fight for him and for us.

He bends forward then and presses his mouth against mine again. His arms are shaking with the effort of something, some unknown force either holding him back or pushing him forward. He’s straining with the power of it, but his lips against mine are featherweight, light and without pressure. It’s a
hello
kiss. It’s a 
we’re going to get to know each other one new second at a time
 kiss. It’s endlessly sweet and wonderful, but it’s not enough.

So I grab hold of his wrists and it’s easy to tumble him down, but he turns at the last minute so he’s lying on his side, still kissing me, still telling me that kissing me is all he wants for now. He threads his left hand through my right, but his other hand is no longer occupied with holding him up, and so it drifts downward until it finds the curve of my waist. There it stops and finds purchase, gripping me tight. He won’t let me get closer, but as our lips move against each other I feel his fingers bite into my skin and that movement tells me that he’s so close to the very edge of something that he doesn’t even notice that his touch might be a little too tight. I revel in that—that I’m making Nathan Jackson feel out of control.

But his iron will is still in charge, and so we are just kissing, loving each other with the soft movement of our lips.

W
hen Nick
and I were ten and Nate was twelve, we went to the Shedd Aquarium for a school field trip. I had a crush on a boy named Lancelot. Everyone did, but I think it was because his name looked like it belonged on a Valentine’s Day card. In the basement of the big aquarium there was a dark room devoted just to showing off jellyfish.  Attached along one carpeted wall was a grouping of fake squishy jellyfish made of some kind of weird translucent polymer. You could stick your finger against the pliable rubber and bisect the jellyfish in half and when you released it, the half-moon body would spring right back. Lancelot was standing next to me, and I was transfixed as he stuck his finger inside the jellyfish repeatedly.

He whispered to me that this was what sticking his finger up a girl felt like. If Nate hadn’t been there hovering behind me, maybe all I would have done was blush or maybe 
I 
would have hit him. But before I had a chance to react, Nate had pulled Lancelot around and stuck a fist in Valentine’s Day’s face.  Lancelot tried to punch back, and the entire class was sent back to the bus for causing a ruckus.

Later that night Nate relayed the whole story to our families, much to my embarrassment. Dad ruffled Nate’s hair, and Noah patted him on the back. But the rumor got out that Nate and Nick would beat up any guy who even looked cross-eyed at me. It was Lancelot’s revenge, and an effective one because until right now, I hadn’t ever been kissed. Not once. Not even a not-so-accidental brush of my lips against a Y-chromosome during a birthday party game, mostly because every co-ed party, birthday or not, has also included at least one—if not both—of the Jackson boys.

But as I lie in my bed, my lower legs entangled with Nate’s and my hands trapped between our bodies, feeling his soft, gentle lips move across mine, I’m so glad I’ve never kissed anyone before. The shivery sensation inside me that is being generated by Nate and only him. This is the safest thrill ride I’ll ever be on, but I want so much more.

Parting my lips, I give a silent plea for him to take my offering and lead me deeper into the heart of our connection. Right now I feel like we are standing on the periphery looking down, and I want to dive in and be subsumed by sensation. He hesitates for just a moment and then I feel it. His tongue running lightly across my bottom lip. The shivers are turning into quakes, and my body seeks purchase against his. When his tongue sweeps inside my mouth, I stroke it with my own. His barriers melt, like an icicle in winter under the heat of the midday sun.

He’s no longer holding me a safe distance apart. His hands are in my hair, and then he’s rolling me over, pressing his long body into mine. A hard ridge in the middle of his body settles between my legs, and I clutch him even closer—my legs hitching up around his hips and over his thighs. His tongue feels huge in my mouth, and he’s licking every inch inside me as if I’m the tastiest thing he’s ever had the opportunity to savor.

All the locker room gossip suddenly makes so much sense. Kissing is the best thing in the world. It’s more exciting than a roller coaster at the Navy Pier. It tastes better than a root beer float from The Brown Cow in Franklin Park. It feels better than sitting by the fireplace after eight hours on the slopes in Aspen. I wish I had the courage to reach down and palm him. To feel what Greta was so shocked I’d never touched before. But I’m also distracted by the way the weight of him between my legs makes me feel and how that rigid length between 
his
 legs is making me pulse and itch. My fingers are digging into his muscular shoulders, and my hips are moving, almost as if they are independent of the rest of my body. I’m moving and pushing and pulling against him all at the same time.

My sudden flurry of activity causes Nathan to pull his mouth from mine and bury his face in my neck. He groans out my name, “Charlotte.
God
.” Then he’s pressing down against me hard, and I’m whimpering. I don’t know what I need or want right now, but I instinctively know that he can give it to me.

“Please, Nathan,” I plead.

“Oh, Charlotte,” he repeats as if in pain. Then with a giant sigh he pulls away from me and flops onto his back. His chest is heaving as if he’s run a very long distance, and I hear myself panting lightly. I lean forward to kiss him again, to restart all those lovely feelings, but he holds me away. “I need a moment,” he says.

“Why?” I’m genuinely puzzled. “We don’t need to stop.”  I start to roll out of bed to find the condom wrapper that Nate had thrown aside, but a large hand on my wrist makes me pause.

“I do.” Rolling to his side, he props himself on one elbow and pats the space right next to his body. I climb back into bed and cuddle next to him, staring up with big eyes. “I want this all to be special for both of us, Charlotte. There’s no rush.”

His hand has burrowed its way under my T-shirt and just that action makes my breasts feel a little heavier and a little more sensitive. “But I want more now,” I say a little petulantly.

“Me too,” he responds with a rueful laugh. “It’s just that I want to do this so right for you that when we finally do it, it will be one of the best memories of your life.”

“It will be,” I promise, because how could it not?

He shakes his head as if I’m not really understanding him.  “It’s your first time—no, our first time,” he corrects.

I scrunch up my nose, remembering that he’s had other girls before me, ones with more experience who aren’t as fragile as I am. Maybe he’s afraid I won’t be very good at this and that he’ll be sorry for all the promises he felt like he had to make because he’s Nathan Jackson and I’m Charlotte Randolph.

“Is it because I don’t have enough experience? If I’d done this before, we’d be having sex right now?” I ask in a small voice.

“No!” He shakes his head and pulls me closer to him. “I’m glad, selfishly, that I’m your first. And I wish I’d waited too because we could be learning together. I just think that we should take our time.” He gives a small shrug. “I didn’t come here tonight or last night just because I want to have sex with you, Charlotte. I want to hold you. Make some memories before you leave.”

“So let’s make the best memory,” I beg, but Nathan is resolute. I know I’m not going to be able to move him from his path, so I allow myself to vent some of my frustration in the form of a punch on the arm—the one he’s leaning on. I hit in just the right place, and he collapses next to me with a huff of laughter.

“I’m going to make it so good for you, Charlotte.” Tucking my head against his shoulder, he draws up the blankets around us. “So good.”