The hour was very late by the time the third set had ended and Ron showed up at our house. Caelyn had retreated to bed, allowing me to wait up for him without argument. It was as if she'd let go of me a little, which felt nice. My mother had always bordered on psychotic overprotection. I understood her worry, what with my lack of social skills and peculiar ailments, but since I was getting older, I was enjoying such newfound freedom. I didn't know what had brought on her change of heart. Maybe she could see I was growing up, and finally realized I'd grown more capable of making decisions for myself. Or she could've just been feeling extremely sorry for me after everything she'd gone through herself with my father.
I guessed I would be going through some of that in the months to come, but for the moment, I wanted to focus on the last few weeks I had left with Ron.
He was just as happy as I was about the being ungrounded thing. We'd both been kind of worried about skipping so much school to be together, especially so close to finals—me more so than Ron. We could stay caught up while still being able to see each other every night, if we wanted. I wanted that…a lot.
Once we'd settled in on the couch, I kept waiting for him to run screaming away, at first. I had tried to bite him earlier after all. As usual, Ron was acting as though nothing strange had happened. I tried to relax, and he made it very easy to do so. We made a few tentative plans and then curled up to watch a creepy vampire movie together. I feigned being scared so I could cuddle into Ron's warm chest more closely, but vampires didn't really scare me. I thought they were beautiful and fascinating.
I made sure I didn't fall asleep with him out on the living room couch. I didn't want to push my luck with Caelyn's generosity. And I wanted to keep her trust, show her I could act like the adult she was beginning to see in me. I did, however, linger to kiss him goodnight, tilting my face up to his, trembling with anticipation, as it would be the first I'd receive that wasn't from my mother.
Turned out, Ron felt even more nervous about Caelyn than I.
"Not now, Maura, okay?" His eyes flicked to the hallway.
I knew why he was hesitant, but I couldn't help feeling a little rejected. My face must have betrayed some of the turmoil I was feeling, because, in the next instant he lifted my lowered chin with a finger.
"Hey, it's not that I don't think you are simply the most kissable person on Earth." His eyes bore into mine to drive the point home. "This is our first kiss. I don't want to do it with one eye open, waiting for your mother to come down the hall and murder us both!"
"Yeah," I agreed reluctantly, "I guess you're right." Caelyn might have a coronary if she came out to the kitchen for a glass of water and saw her sixteen-year-old daughter making out on the couch with a boy at 3:00 AM. "Wow, it is really late! I'd better get to bed before she knows we're up together."
"I already know!" Caelyn's voice resounded from upstairs.
"Oh, crap!!! Goodnight!" I struggled to get up from the couch like my pajamas had caught fire.
Ron made me pause, taking my head into his hands. He leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on my forehead with those perfect, brown-pink lips. My skin burned, I was guessing with embarrassment, as much as I could put thought together in the moment. I somehow managed to get to my feet and mumbled, "Goodnight," feebly, as I stumbled to my room. I tripped over my own steps as I mounted the staircase. "I'm okay!" I called out before anyone could ask me the question.
I went to my bed and lay down, the dizziness almost consuming me. The silence was so heavy, it felt like it was crushing me against the little twin mattress. I had to get up to turn on my sleeping playlist. Ron's kiss still burned on my forehead, and I felt, suddenly, lethargic. But I couldn't take the stillness of the room. I staggered over to my computer and pulled up iTunes, wishing Ron were here to share the music with me. My forehead was still burning. Wow…what would a real kiss from him do?
I always chose the shuffle option, and that time, Muse's "Endlessly" came up first. I considered that one, secretly, to be mine and Ron's song. At the moment, it served to confirm my belief we were meant to be. I felt a momentary lapse in my continual sadness, reveling in the conviction that, somehow, some way, we were. I had to have faith. I had to hold on to that. The kissmark burned fervently, as if in response.
I rose and went to lie on my bed. I cuddled my Timothy rabbit close and tried to sleep, but the thought of Ron downstairs was like caffeine, keeping me awake and restless. The sheets and blanket broke free from their tuck at the bottom of the bed after a couple of hours. My forehead still burned where he had kissed me, disturbing me, but I wrote it off as a figment of my imagination. As much as I tried to dismiss it, the spot burned on, as if someone were holding a lighted match to my skin.
The burning seemed to find its way into my blood as the night wore on, and I kicked the blankets free. The heat coursed through me, and when I finally found sleep, infected my dreams. The first thing I noticed was the heat, like flames licking at my skin, climbing higher and higher. My dream awareness sharpened, and I realized where the fire was coming from. I was kissing Ron, and it wasn't my forehead his sweet lips were pressed against. His mouth was on mine, building a fire within me that radiated out onto every surface of my skin. The heat was so intense; I could feel each bead of sweat swell up in the small of my back and tickle as they slid downward.
Ron broke the kiss to murmur my name. "Maura…" Even the sound of his voice was heated.
But then there was cold, a cold so intense it burned my skin as well…just in a much different way. I felt it in my wrist… My right wrist captured by the sharp contrast of something icy wrapped around it. I didn't want to pull myself away from Ron, from the intense, all-consuming kiss, but I had to. The iciness was painful and made me want to escape.
I wrenched my mouth free to look up. There was a pale man gripping my arm. His eyes were an impossible shade of grey, bringing to mind midnight clouds stretched across a full moon….mercury threading its way up a thermometer. His light brown hair was just a shade darker than blonde and shot through with silver, as well. He was beautiful.
Ron's hand came up to my cheek to burn me again. He was so warm… I closed my eyes and pressed my face to his hand. The ice around my wrist intensified until the cold was unbearable. My eyes flew open yet again, and the young man's face was closer. His eyes bore into mine.
"What do you want from me?" I shrieked at him. I was angry he was trying to steal my attention away from Ron, but at the same time, felt drawn to him.
The strange boy smiled at me, parting his slender but perfectly-shaped lips. They were blood-red and behind them emerged teeth as shiny as pearl. The canines were sharp, like deadly little daggers. And as I watched, they grew, becoming a lethal set of full-fledged fangs.
"Come with me, Maura," he purred like a large, dangerous cat.
I awoke with a sharp start, sitting upright in my bed and stifling a short burst of scream with my Timothy rabbit I'd been holding in my arms. His body wasn't substantial enough to keep Caelyn, and then Ron, from bursting into the room.
"Maura??" Overprotectiveness at its finest and in tandem.
"I'm fine," I half sighed. "Just a nightmare." I was trying very hard to resist the urge to roll my eyes. I smiled at Ron. "Guess we shouldn't have watched that vampire movie last night."
We were down to the last week of school. A week after was the move. But it was Saturday, and I was determined to push all other thought aside and enjoy the day. I decided to try and forget we were moving away, completely.
"You know, we really should study," Ron said, behaving as the responsible one for once. His suggestion felt like a buzzkill after the stunningly-large breakfast we'd enjoyed. Caelyn had outdone herself. Waffles, eggs, bacon…but she'd escaped to her home office toting a protein shake. I was proving to Ron I could annihilate him in any bacon eating contest he might ever initiate. He proved the opposite in the waffle department. I was finding more and more carbs just weren't my thing.
"That's a good idea," my mother called in response. "Don't you think so, Maura?"
"Sure," I answered, begrudgingly. I grimaced and rose from the table to put the plates in the dishwasher.
"After all the school you've been skipping, I'd think you need to play a little catch-up today." I couldn't miss the menace in her voice. Ron and I looked at each other, both wearing the same expression of disbelief.
"How did she…" Ron started to whisper.
"Oh, Caelyn knows all," I answered. I thought I heard a smug chuckle come from the living room area. My mother, way smarter than I gave her credit for even.
"Well, let's hit the books," I said as I closed the dishwasher door.
"I just have to run home and grab mine." I must have made a face. "Don't worry, Maura; I won't be gone long." Ron chuckled himself and ruffled my hair, much the way Caelyn did when I was upset or sad.
I did use the time he was gone to my advantage. My puffed up hair from the night before needed to be tamed, not to mention the lingering dark eyeliner and heavy mascara. After my shower, I put on appropriately-boring jeans to protest the activities of the day—albeit spent studying with Ron—but chose a vibrant red top that screamed to me with its appeal when I saw it while rifling through my closet.
By the time I descended the stairs, Ron was already on our living-room couch, book in hand. But…he was talking to Caelyn. They both became mysteriously quiet as I cleared the stair landing. I had to fight the urge to accuse them of conspiring against me. I had a replay of that weird feeling there was something my mother wasn't telling me.
I brushed it off and asked, "Do you want to sit at the dining room table?"
"Sure!" Ron was agreeable about pretty much everything. "I guess that'll make it more businesslike. We do need to be serious." He adopted a very stoic expression, and I had to laugh.
Ron pulled my kitchen-table chair out for me, and I sat down with as much grace as I could muster. "Ow!"
"Maura?" he queried.
"I sat on my hair!" I noticed Caelyn was in the room immediately, hovering, expectantly.
How could it be so long? The last time I'd examined it in the mirror, about a week ago, it had fallen only to the middle of my waist. I was absolutely sure it hadn't touched the top of my jeans' waistband.
More weirdness. At that point, though, the oddity was more than I could bear. My voice was shaky as I mused aloud, "Hair can't grow that fast. It just can't." I eyeballed both of them. "How fast does hair grow? Like a quarter to a half inch a month right?" They both just stared at me like I had purple horns growing out of my forehead. "Mom! Ron! My hair is..." I reached down to verify. "…more than three inches longer than it was last week!"
Caelyn came over to me, and I received my second hair ruffle of the day. "Now, Mink, I think you're imagining things." I didn't miss the nervous twitch in her mouth and eyes.
Ron was, however, narrowing his eyes and looking at the hair that disappeared under my body. He looked suspiciously, to my surprise, at Caelyn, then back to my face. His expression was unreadable.
"Mom!" I exploded. "What is going on?!! My teeth, the hair, the cravings!!" I was close to the point of tears.
I could tell Mom was determined to calm me down. She looked at Ron and spoke to him in the same way he had to Shane the night before when insisting I'd been trying to help the boy who'd hit his head. "Ron, you haven't noticed anything strange about Maura, right?" She was pleading with her eyes.
"There's nothing strange about Maura." He spoke the words with utter sincerity.
I started to whimper and rock back and forth in my chair, pulling my knees up into my chest. They were lying to me, and something horrible was going to happen. I'd wake up one day in the hospital…or worse, one day I wouldn't wake up at all. Didn't they respect or love me enough to tell me the truth?
"Maura!" My mother came over to put her arms around me. "You're completely overreacting. You've been eating so much meat lately and growing so much! It's normal. Teenagers have growth spurts, and your diet's been better… Ron, don't you think she's overreacting?"
Ron looked down at me. It was almost like he was examining me. He pushed my hair out of my eyes and looked deep into them….and started a bit. He couldn't cover that up. He'd seen something which prompted him to react. Something in my eyes? But his lips said, "You look fine, Maura. Better than fine."
I must not have appeared convinced. He asked my mother, "Ms. DeLuca, can I borrow your laptop?"
She wordlessly went to retrieve it. I eyed him with suspicion. I still thought my mom was sharing something with him she was failing to reveal to me.
He sat down with the MacBook and typed in a Google search. A few seconds later, he called me over. "Come here and look at this, Maura, Ms. DeLuca." He had a very confident air about him as he clicked on links from the two browser windows open on the computer. "See. The effect of hormones on the body. They can do all kinds of strange things." He showed me an article about how a flux of hormones could cause strange cravings. The next web page was about a girl who'd experienced very fast hair and nail growth by adding extra protein into her diet. As I read, I started to relax. As it turned out, hormones could cause extreme changes in the body. And as Ron pointed out with another site he'd found, one of the most volatile times for hormone production was during the teen years when the body became flooded with them.
"Being a teenager is very overwhelming," Caelyn said softly. She was looking at Ron with gratitude. "Don't think I'm so old I don't remember being one myself." She patted my hair comfortingly.
"Mom, you're not old…" I noticed she was going back to the oven. Caelyn liked to cook bacon in the oven. She definitely wasn't a fan of grease splatter. More bacon? Yum.
"Here you go." She set a plate piled high between us. *Way to distract me Mom.* Her diversion totally worked. I grabbed up a couple of pieces, burning my fingers but not caring, and then scorching the roof of my mouth.
Caelyn laughed. "Well, there you go! Maura's healthy appetite is still intact!" I noticed Ron didn't laugh, though. He looked lost in thought.
He was creeping me out, so I nudged him, hard, with my elbow. "Hey, snap out of it! We have studying to do, remember?" I shot him an evil look since our sentence of boredom had been his idea.
"Oh yeah." He shook his head as if to clear it and opened his Trig book. Ughhhh.
Within a half hour, though, I found myself wrapping my head around the problems, so I actually ended up helping him study. "Wow, you must be really great at math." Caelyn choked on laughter that she tried to pass off as a cough. I shot her an unimpressed look.
"No," I admitted, feeling myself blush, "actually, I'm pretty terrible at it."
"It's her worse subject," my mother interjected.
"Thanks, Mom!" I shot daggers at her with my eyes. "Didn't you have work to do in your office?" She left the room, smirk intact.
"Well, you are still taking algebra…maybe you just have a thing for Trig." Ron shrugged his shoulders and went back to the book.
After we'd finished up with that subject, we moved on to my English final, which would include essay questions on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I tried to voice what I planned to write on paper, but it was so hard to concentrate, looking into Ron's dark hazel eyes. I wasn't mesmerized enough to miss his changing expression, though. His mouth fell open, but I couldn't tell if he was impressed by my argument or horrified at my lack of coherent thought.
"Wow…Maura!" His eyebrows shot up in astonishment. "Just how many times did you read this?"
My detail must have been lacking, even though I thought I'd been careful to cite enough passages from the play. "Oh, I don't refer back to the text enough?" My brain went back over my words, trying to figure out where I'd gone wrong.
Ron was shaking his head, vehemently. "No! Maura, you practically quoted, word for word, every scene you referenced! Wow!! I wish I had a photographic memory like that."
"Are you sure?" I knew I'd never been much good at memorizing before. I'd failed my French vocab test, miserably, a few weeks ago. He nodded his head, looking at me like I was being ridiculous. I mulled that idea over. Oh well, I'd always loved English. It was my best subject, and Romeo and Juliet was a long-time favorite.
The rest of the afternoon went much the same way. I caught on fast to the subjects Ron was taking in his senior-year classes and, even with the time away from class, remembered all the important stuff from my own. A break must've really done my brain good! Maybe getting a sneak peek at Ron's course material would help me with my own senior year.
"Wow, Maura, you're a brainiac!" Ron marveled. "If you keep this up, maybe we can go back to having some fun this week."
"Please wait until finals are over!" Caelyn's hearing was far too sensitive.
But she was definitely forgiven when she ordered us a Meat Lover's Pizza for lunch. I was so hungry, just like in the weeks past. *Completely normal,* I reminded myself. *Growing takes so much energy!* I wolfed down my sixth piece without any further worry, laughing at Ron for trying in vain to catch up.
"Here." Ron pushed his English textbook at me. The page was open to Poe's poem, "The Raven." "Let's try a little experiment."
"What do you mean?" I queried, looking down at the text.
"You read over the poem just once. Then close the book and repeat back as much as you can remember."
"Don't be silly." I felt uneasy about his little test and slid the book back in his direction.
"Come on, please! I'm completely envious of your memory." He smiled, and my heart softened a bit. "For me?"
I sighed heavily and pulled the book back. "Oh, alright. I still think it's silly." I lowered my eyes and read over the text slowly, trying to commit each word to memory. After I was done, I handed the large textbook back to him.
"Okay, no peeking!" He hunched over the book, covering the top edges with his hands, so I couldn't see.
I quoted back as much as I could remember but felt pretty sure I'd missed a large chunk from the middle. But when I was finished reciting, Ron's mouth was agape.
"Perfect," he breathed, clearly astonished.
"No way," I shot back. "I know I missed some of the middle."
"But you didn't, Maura. You got every word." His voice held a slight tremor. "That's crazy. It's almost supernatural."
I started in my seat as if his words had struck me like physical objects.
As if on cue, Caelyn came bustling into the room, slamming a stack of folders onto the dining-room table, making both Ron and I jump in our seats.
"Okay, I think that's enough studying." There was a very strained smile on her face. "You kids have been at it for hours! I think it definitely is time for some fun."
A reprieve from my mother was enough to break me out of my reverie. "Yay! What do you have in mind, Mom?"
I just wished Ron looked as happy about the break as I felt. He seemed miles away again, and I couldn't help but curse my own DNA. Maybe the reason Caelyn never spoke of my father was because of the freaky characteristics she wished I hadn't inherited.
Later that night, as I got ready for bed, something jumped out at me from the mirror. I was brushing my teeth but stopped abruptly when I noticed the difference in my eyes. Was the sight before me the thing which had startled Ron earlier? There was a black ring around the outside of the dark-brown irises. I knew it hadn't been there before, and the difference screamed out at me then. But that wasn't all. There was an eerie ring of color around the ebony pupil, as well, small and thin—so much so the slight change was barely perceptible—but colored a frightening tinge of faint crimson.
I felt my knees buckle as I fixated on the extreme change in my eyes. True, I had been closely examining my face when I'd noticed it, but for anyone familiar, the difference was impossible to miss. I was positive my eyes had been their normal black-brown yesterday. The rosiness ringing the area around my pupil wavered in my sight as I gripped the edge of the porcelain washbasin, trying desperately to hold on to consciousness.
Somehow, despite our spotty attendance record of the last couple of weeks, Ron and I both managed to pass our finals with flying colors. Caelyn took us to Olive Garden in Monroeville to celebrate. Ron was vanquished by me in a pasta-eating contest, shaking his head and looking me over, saying he couldn't figure out where I put it all. We fed each other Zeppoli for dessert, Caelyn trying to look anywhere but at the two of us. I couldn't help but feel guilty for being so happy near Ron but soberly remembered our fast-approaching departure and didn't feel quite so bad. Very soon, I would become acquainted with the same loneliness as my mother. I found it strangely comforting to think we could at least suffer together in our new Canadian existence.
I'd kept waiting for Ron to kiss me, but somehow it'd never happened. That night was no different. Caelyn ended up hanging out with us the rest of the night. We were watching another horror movie, her brand of entertainment. After I'd fallen asleep, Ron must've carried me to my bed, because that's where I woke up, my last memory snuggling into Ron on the couch. My mother had squeezed in close on my other side, making the night so cozy and warm. It was one of those rare, perfect moments that happen too infrequently, causing you to wish they could last forever.
The comfort also made waking alone in my bed feel extra lonely. I ripped away the covers and stormed down the stairs, hoping, somehow, Ron would be sleeping on the couch. I wasn't disappointed. Caelyn had been unbelievably lax about his sleeping over—always on the couch, of course—and Ron seemed to be grasping at every possible moment we had left, just like me. I felt our time together roaring away like a riptide.
I thought about how strange the passage of time could be. The moments you wanted to hold on to the most always ended up slipping away, like the tide pulling away from the shore…constant, unstoppable. Like the fluid waves of the ocean, there could be no holding life back, no gripping of time in your mortal hands. I could feel the only life I'd known, and Ron along with it, slipping away while I stood on shifting, ever-drifting sand. Tears stung my eyes…but there was the beautiful smell of bacon coming from the kitchen…
She may not have been happy about my dating, but Caelyn liked Ron. Of course she did. If not for him, I'd have been a corpse on the bottom of the river, instead of the pale-as-death, living girl standing before her then.
"You have two hours," my mother said on our last day in Indiana, Pennsylvania. She turned but did flash Ron a smile over her shoulder before going back into the house to supervise the movers packing our U-Haul.
The desperate need to cry had closed my throat, so I was thankful when Ron said, "You wanna go for a hike?"
I managed to squeak out a "Sure!"
We drove to a trailhead we'd meant to explore before, but much of the last week had been spent with Caelyn. She was anxious, needy and had been acting very peculiar. Every time the phone rang she jumped. As the move crept closer, she'd fidgeted and craved constant companionship. My mother had behaved very unlike her usual self.
One positive side effect of her nervous new mood was constant cooking. I'd always been the one on kitchen duty, but Caelyn had taken over with a vengeance. She must have read that Atkins Diet book or something, because we had protein, and not much else, at every meal. She did try to throw in the occasional salad, but those were highly unappetizing. The smell of the green leaves made me nauseous, and I found the taste to be unbearable.
I was contemplating the past days so hard, barely noticing when Ron shut the car off. Mechanically, I got out and climbed behind him up the steep grade leading into the woods, snapping out of my daze when he grabbed for my hand. His grasp was warm and tight, overly warm, telling me my own skin had adopted the all-too-familiar wintery chill. But leaving Ron behind was more than enough to chill the blood in my veins. Leaving him behind felt like a part of me was dying. I let him drag my numb body along until we reached the top of the trail.
Since the moment had arrived that we really had to say goodbye, I found I couldn't bear it. I sat beside him in the grass thinking of all the possible could-have-beens. I looked over at him, and he was staring straight ahead, his long ponytail trailing halfway down his back. Brown silk against the white of his shirt. I didn't want any regrets. On that day, I would do what I wanted and create remembrances, instead of always holding back. Reaching up, I slipped my finger under the band restraining his hair to pull the strands free. They fanned out over his shoulders straight and shimmering, hair any girl would envy. He turned to me with undeniable surprise in his eyes. It was uncharacteristic for me to do such a bold thing.
I shrugged. "I like your hair like that." I refused to apologize for anything in those last moments.
He didn't smile. "It's too bad you won't be here for your birthday," he said sadly. I suddenly felt guilty I'd told my mother two months ago we could go ahead and leave before the date. But I'd had no way of knowing I could've made special plans.
He had something in his hand, a something he placed in mine. He left behind a small purple box tied with a gold bow. "Happy Birthday early," he said.
I felt tears welling in my eyes. "You didn't have to," I breathed. The box was from the jewelry store in the mall. I was the mystery birthday girl!
"Of course I did. Open it."
My hand was shaking as I untied the shiny ribbon. I gently removed the glossy paper, wanting to save it, intact, for my scrapbook. When I finally managed to open the small box, I found a locket. The charm was small and heart-shaped. On the front was etched a black sliver of moon. It was ideal—beautiful and conventional, with a touch of dark mystery. I loved it. "It's perfect."
"I know how much you love the moon."
Then, I remembered the necklace's purpose, pushed on the release to pry the heart open. It was empty inside. I was disappointed he hadn't included a picture. I looked to him with confusion, holding the locket open. "Did you forget something?"
"Nope. We'll put our pictures in there the next time we see each other." He promised with assurance in his tone. "And I know we will." He locked his near-brown eyes on mine. "And we won't have to say goodbye again."
Had we really only been aware of each other for little more than a month? Suddenly, it felt like he'd been with me a much more significant amount of time. "I—I hope you're right." I closed my eyes and concentrated on holding back the sobs threatening to escape. I felt his breath on my lips.
I opened my eyes in shock, just as he softly leaned forward to press his mouth to mine. I'd always wondered what my first kiss would be like, and here it was, all softness and warmth. But there was more. It was as if my blood started to burn, threatening to sear through my flesh. The feeling was on the edge of being painful. I tried to tell myself the heated rush must be embarrassment, extremely annoyed the discomfort was stupidly distracting me from the gentle way Ron parted my lips with his own. The strange burning ran in curling, circular patterns as if irons were branding intricate designs on my insides. A moment later the intense heat faded away, and I felt calm settle over me. Ron twitched in my arms as if he were feeling what I had a moment before. The kiss became more peaceful. But that didn't last.
I was turning over and over the strange idea that someone so new to me had become so essential. I belonged right here. I wished I could never leave his arms, my calm turning to desperation. I never wanted to let him go. I raised my arms and pulled him closer with one, the hand of the other memorizing the texture of his hair as I ran my fingers over the silken strands again and again. His arms reached out for me too, pulling me into his lap.
My thoughts cried out, *This is so unfair! I don't want to go!* I'd been disappointed to leave him, yes, but at the moment found the thought unbearable. Was that what it was to kiss someone?
Our kiss was growing into something else, so he pulled back. I knew he'd be like that. I was beginning to cry, my head exploding with my then-desolate thoughts. The tears hovered at the edge of my lower lashes, and I knew they would spill over and give away the depth of what I was feeling at any second. He was staring at me in disbelief.
"Maura!" He pushed me from his lap to my great shock. "Are you hurt? Did that tree branch hit you in the eyes?" He brought his hands up to my face, his thumbs pressing under my eyes. He was scrutinizing them in a way that began to frighten me.
"Wh—what?" was all I could manage.
"Here, let me see." He pulled back and tore his shirt over his head. I felt a thrill run through my stomach, looking at his bare chest, despite the fact that his words were freaking me out. He balled the shirt up and dabbed at my eyes.
"What's wrong," I spat out, unsettled by his troubled expression. "Please, tell me!" I turned what I was sure was a frantic look on him. He kept dabbing gently, looking very serious…and unnervingly wide-eyed.
Surprisingly calm, he said, "Your eyes are bleeding."
I gasped in horror. "What?!" I squealed. I pushed his shirt-filled hands back to find garish streaks crisscrossing the white cotton.
I tried to calm myself, nausea rising from the pit of my stomach, and was, in the next instant, terrified of throwing up in front of him—or on him. I blinked heavily, trying to concentrate on my eyes instead. There wasn't any pain.
"They don't hurt…" I allowed the logical part of my brain to take over, swallowing the panic. "Look closer, are they cut or something?" My hands belied my rational thought, shaking intolerably.
He bent and pulled my eyelids up and down, instructing me to look in different directions as he peered closely. "Weird." He still looked startled. "There's nothing."
I was suddenly glad there was only a short walk back to the car ahead of us. I felt faint. First the kissing, and I'd somehow injured myself? Pure emotional overload.
He was gazing at me with fright in his eyes. I reached out to cover one of his hands with my own. "Hey, I'm fine. Nothing hurts, okay?" I pressed the fingers of my other hand against my closed eyes to test my own statement. Still, I felt no pain.
He didn't look convinced, so I promised profusely I would have Caelyn take me to the emerg as soon as I got home if the bleeding continued. He blotted at my eyes with a fresh patch of the shirt again. The fabric came away spotless. He seemed to relax a little.
"Whew, that really scared me," he admitted, eyeing me up suspiciously. "It really was weird. Were you crying?"
I turned as red as my shirt. "I—I…" Could I tell him how much the impending separation was, abruptly, hurting me? Should I?
"Actually," he said, since the emergency seemed to have passed, "I'm finding this really hard to accept." He turned away as if he were struggling with the grief as much as I. He looked back at me, though, before continuing. "I know you think we just found each other, Maura, but you have no idea how long I've wanted to be with you. Ever since we've gone to school together, I've watched you. Watched you go to class, eat lunch, read your books in the library. And I wished I could just have the chance to talk to you."
I felt my mouth drop open in shock. How had I never noticed?
"I guess I just always thought you were too pretty. I could never find the courage to even say hi to you. Not in all those years." He gave me that heartfelt smile of his. "It's just like me to wait until you're moving a whole country away to be able to talk to you."
I didn't know which I found more shocking. The miracle that he found me pretty instead of strange looking or the fact I'd been so clueless. How had I never noticed a boy's eyes following my every move for all my school life?
The moment was too heartbreaking. What kind of magic was his kiss, leaving my heart and mind full of him? My brain called up images to torture me as I pictured how different those years could have been. They filled in the loneliest gaps of my high school years with illusory hand-in-hand strolls, gentle kisses and cuddling into his shoulder while watching a movie on my living-room couch. I could picture us lying on my bed reading one of my favorite novels, opening presents together at Christmas… Ron taking my hand and twirling me as we danced in the rain.
"We could've done so many things together…." His voice trailed off. The way he spoke made me wonder if he might've been playing the same sad movie in his own mind.
I tried to choke back fresh tears, but what I'd been imagining had them running freely down my cheeks. I wondered how Caelyn would take it if I demanded to stay here, even though I knew remaining behind was impossible.
His expression shifted while I was gazing into his eyes, hiding an emotion that had started to creep in and alter his expression. His eyes had broadcast shock—or had that been fear—when I'd begun to cry. In the next instant, he smiled warmly and used his shirt to clear away the latest round of tears.
The locket was lying in my lap, and he fished the chain out. His fingers nimbly undid the clasp in one try, and he stepped behind me so he could fasten it around my neck. He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and finally my lips, very softly.
I'd closed my eyes, and when I opened them, his held my gaze. His eyes were soft, just like his heart. Their darkness was full of promise. "I know how you see yourself, Maura. But I'll take you just the way you are. Everything you are."
I crushed my face into his shoulder then to hide. Hide from all the things too late to say, all the missed opportunities that were just too much to take. "Thank you," was all I could say without breaking down. Wasn't that what every human wished for—unconditional acceptance?
A bit later, after one last hug and sweet kiss at the car, my eyes fell upon the shirt he'd carelessly tossed into the backseat. The cotton was far more streaked with red than I'd remembered.
He observed my scrutiny and put his hand under my chin so he could turn my face back to his, then opened his mouth to speak.
"You know, no matter what you say, it's going to start the waterworks again," I said in a hoarse whisper. The agony over leaving him was a feeling I didn't like at all. I knew all the months stretched out before me would be wrought with pain. I fought to turn my thoughts to something more pleasant. "Why don't you come visit?" I brightened a bit. "Very soon!!"
"Yeah!" he said and smiled then too. "I'll be working over the summer to save up for a plane ticket." I tried to imagine what a flight to Vancouver might cost.
"But…" he began again, and that time he spoke hesitantly. "I'm going to ask again." He looked down at the ground for a moment, but then his eyes bore into mine, shining with a fierceness I'd never seen in them before. "Why don't you stay?"
My eyes popped wide at his question, even though that was the second time he'd suggested such a thing. "Stay?!"
"I can take care of you," he persisted. "We can just run away together."
As violently as I wanted to stay with him, I knew I just couldn't do that to Caelyn. And…I couldn't believe he was really suggesting something so rash… It just wasn't like him to be so emotional and irrational. My eyes narrowed as I peered at him. He looked a little like he was half asleep; there was a glazed look to his eyes. I laid my hand on his shoulder and shook him softly.
"Hey, are you okay?"
He shook his head slightly and took my hands in his. "I'm fine," he muttered, but his voice sounded distant.
"Hey," I said more gently, wrapping my hand around his arm in a gesture of comfort and solidity. "You know we can't do that, right?"
He didn't answer, dropping his eyes to the ground. I had no idea what he was thinking…
"I know about your mom," I added quietly.
That got his attention. The haze cleared from his eyes, and he looked at me with surprise. "How do you…"
"That's not important," I said, and it felt like my words further ripped my heart from my chest as I spoke them, "but I know. And you can't run away from that. And I can't run away from Caelyn. Or Vancouver." I was steadfast in my resolve, suddenly. As devastating as the situation was, I knew absolutely that the present wasn't the time for Ron and me to be together. I didn't know how I knew, because I was just a stupid teenager. And he was my first love…but I knew. "Your mom needs you. And mine needs me." The steadfast, responsible Maura had returned.
I thought he was going to cry, even as hard as he was fighting against the urge. But the depth of his response also gave me hope. I knew I wasn't alone in the grief of temporarily losing one another. I knew he was taking the separation just as hard as I was, and in that there was strength. That would bring us back to each other. "We'll be together again, and when that happens, it will be forever."
I said that to Ron with complete conviction, because I knew, above all else, my revelation was true. Everything else became a blur. The drive back to the house. Leaving with Caelyn in the U-Haul, his perfect face in the rearview mirror. The forty-four-hour drive, with intermittent stops at hotels I couldn't recall the next day. I think I ate, but I don't remember any appetite after telling him goodbye. The only things that stood out about our journey to our new home in Canada were the tears that wouldn't stop coming and the slow, painful fracture of my heart into an infinite number of broken pieces.