Arousing Love, a teen novel (19 page)

We were all silent for a while as we took in
what he’d said.

“I won’t give myself away, I want to honor
you.”

Her father nodded.

Joanna’s mother sighed and got up. “I should
make us some dinner. Are you staying for dinner, Zach?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She started busying herself around the camp
stove. “This is the last time I’ll have to cook with this little
stove. It’ll be good to be back home again.”

“I wish we didn’t have to go home.” Joanna
said sadly.

Joanna’s mother smiled sympathetically. “I
know, sweetie. Maybe after dinner you and Zach could have a little
time alone together.”

“Really?” Joanna brightened. “Thanks
Mom!”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Joanna’s
father objected.

“We can let them go for a little walk, can’t
we?”

“Please Daddy! We won’t do anything. We’ve
learnt our lesson, I promise.”

Joanna’s father pressed his lips together
then sighed. “Alright, but just a short walk.”

After dinner, we excused ourselves and set
off for the beach. We wrapped our arms around each other and walked
slowly.

“Joanna, last night I asked God for a sign to
show me if I’m supposed to come to Colorado or not. I need God to
give me certainty about it, like he’s given you.”

“What sign?”

“If I get into college or not. I think it’s
likely I’ll get in to at least one of them, so God will have to
stop it from happening if he doesn’t want me to go.”

“Okay.”

I was surprised she was taking it so well.
She was being very calm about it.

“It’s okay, I understand why you need to know
for sure. We just have to pray God’s will is done.”

I smiled, relieved she wasn’t upset.

We got to the beach and instinctively headed
for our little cove around the point.

No-one was there, and we sat down on the warm
sand and watched the big waves rolling in. She leaned against me,
and I put my arm around her. A lone albatrosses floated on the air
currents above the point.

She sighed. “I’m gonna miss this place—the
ocean, and our cove, and just being here with you like this.”

“I’ll miss this too.”

She lifted her head from my shoulder and
looked at me, and I kissed her soft lips.

She smiled. “I feel like I’ve grown up so
much this summer. I was like a child before, but now I’m in love,
and it’s made me look to a future with you. I’m ready to make
decisions for the rest of my life, and I’m not afraid of it.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I was just
drifting before, not sure what I wanted to do with my life, but
then you came along and changed everything. Now I have hope for us
and our future, and hope for what I’ll do for God. It’s exciting.
I’m actually excited about the future now.”

She laughed. “Yeah, it is exciting. I feel
like I’ve grown spiritually, too. My faith was important to me
before, but it’s like it was always in the background of my life.
But now I have something real to believe in—I’m believing in God
for you. And ever since I got up on stage to sing my song, I feel
like that’s what I’m meant to be doing for God. I want to live for
him, and I want to serve God together. You’ve given me so much to
believe in, and so much confidence. Your love gives me
courage
. . .
” She choked up and
couldn’t speak for a moment. “It’s going to be so hard when we’re
separated. I won’t have you to keep me strong anymore. But we have
to stay strong for each other. It’s going to be so hard.” Her voice
was rough with emotion. “I love you so much.” Tears filled her
eyes. “It’s such a deep love, it fills all of me.” Her tears
overflowed down her cheeks, and I wrapped her in my arms and held
her against me.

“I love you, Joanna, with all my heart.” My
voice was rough too, my throat tight with the strain from all these
intense emotions. I remembered what her father had said about
looming separation bringing out such strong emotions.

“I can’t bear to leave you. I know I won’t be
strong enough.” She sobbed into my chest.

My heart was breaking for her. “It’s just for
a little while. Come on, let’s not do this on our last day. Let’s
cry after we’re separated, not while we’re still together.”

She lifted her head and wiped at her eyes,
trying to stop the tears.

I kissed her wet cheeks, and her lips. “Don’t
cry. Everything will work out. We just have to trust in God. He
knew we’d meet and fall in love like this. There’s a purpose for
all this. It’s too powerful to be for nothing. God will make a way
for us.”

“I know.” She smiled through her tears.

“Come on.” I stood up, and helped her up.
“Let’s carve our initials on the rocks over there.”

I led her by the hand to the sandstone
cliffs. There were some initials already carved into its face.

“Look at this.” Joanna ran her fingers over
some letters within a heart shape. “This must have been their
special place too.” She smiled wistfully.

“Let’s add ours to the stories of the cove.”
I picked up a sharp stone and started scraping a ‘Z’ on a smooth
part of the rock. She picked up a stone too, and started carving a
‘J’ next to mine. We went over and over them, making them deep
enough so they’d last, then I surrounded our initials with a love
heart. It was a monument to our love and this time we’d had
together. It made me feel nostalgic—we were marking it to remember
it by, and soon the best time of my life would be just a
memory.

The sun was setting, filling the cove with a
gorgeous yellow glow. Joanna smiled up at me, and she looked so
radiant, my beautiful golden girl.

“You’re the most beautiful thing that’s ever
happened to me.”

She looked up at me with such love in her
eyes. “I used to take my beauty for granted, but now I know who I’m
beautiful for.”

She leaned against me, and I wrapped my arms
around her as we watched the sun set in all its glory—beautiful
streaks of pink and orange and golden yellow. The waves turned
translucent as the sun gradually disappeared behind them.
Our
last sunset together.

“Beautiful.” I whispered, trying not to break
the serenity of the moment. She turned her face up to mine and I
kissed her, gently at first then with growing passion, and she
twisted around to kiss me with equal passion.

She broke from my lips. “Are we getting too
passionate?”

“No.” I kissed her again. She returned my
kiss for a moment, then pulled away again.

“But we can’t do anything sexual. Is this
sexual?”

“No, but it’s leading to it. We have to stop
when we get too passionate.”

“So kissing you like this,” she kissed me
gently on my lips, “is okay, but kissing you like this,” she kissed
me again, her lips sensually caressing mine for a long time before
she broke off, “isn’t allowed?” She stayed there, looking into my
eyes.

“Yeah,” I breathed. “That was good
. . .
I mean
. . .
yeah.”

She laughed.

I grinned. “I think we can still kiss like
that as long as we don’t do it too long. You know where it’ll lead
if we get too passionate.”

“You think we can still kiss like that?” She
seemed surprised.

“It would be too sad if we couldn’t kiss like
that anymore.”

She grinned at me, and I leaned in and kissed
her lips with lots of tiny kisses.

She sighed. “Those little kisses get me
passionate.”

“Everything we do makes us passionate!” I
laughed.

She pouted. “It’s gonna be so hard. I think
we’re gonna have to sacrifice some things we love doing or we won’t
be able to last a whole year. Let’s try not to make each other too
passionate anymore, there’s no point starting what we can’t finish.
It’s only one year, then we can do everything.”

“Yeah, but we’re not betrothed yet.” I kissed
her again passionately and she responded in turn. We kissed like it
was the last time we’d ever kiss like that again. Finally we broke
apart, both of us breathing hard.

“Maybe we should go back to the campsite
before we get ourselves in trouble.”

“It’s okay, that was our last passionate kiss
until you turn seventeen.”

“No, this is.” She kissed me again and I
could feel the passion rising in me. I wanted all of her.

“We’ve gotta stop.” I gently pushed her
away.

“I know.” She smiled. “The next time we kiss
like that will be our wedding night.”

I smiled at the thought of it.

“I can’t wait ‘til we’re married, Zach.”

“We’ll make love all the time.”

She giggled. “We’ll end up having lots of
babies.”

I laughed. “You’ll be on birth control I
hope.”

“I know, silly, I was just joking.”

“I wanna enjoy life together for a while
before we have any children, and we’ll both have college to get
through first.”

“I’d love to be a mom. I can just imagine a
little Zach junior, he’d be so cute.”

“If we have a girl who looks anything like
her mommy, she’d be the cutest little girl in the whole world.”

She smiled. “We should go back. It’s starting
to get dark.”

“I wish we could just stay here all
night.”

“I know.” She sighed. “But we really should
go, my parents will be worried about us. This was meant to be a
short walk.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “We don’t wanna lose their
last little bit of trust in us.”

Reluctantly we got to our feet, and I
casually brushed some sand off her bottom.

“Zach!” She giggled, and I grinned.

She took my hand, and we slowly walked
back.

Her parents looked visibly relieved to see
us, but they didn’t say anything or ask what we’d been up to. I
guess they wanted to show they still had some faith in us.

We sat around the campfire talking late into
the night. I didn’t want to leave, and they seemed reluctant for me
to go, but eventually we all had to get some sleep. I said
goodnight for the last time. When I got home, it was already past
1am, and I fell into bed, glad I was too tired to think about
tomorrow.

•••

I woke up and looked at the clock. It was
already 9am. I jumped out of bed.
What if they’ve already left?
Would they wait for me?

I got dressed, grabbed the self portrait, and
headed over to their campsite. I didn’t need to hurry though, their
tents were still up and there was no sign they’d even started
packing up yet.

“Good morning, Zach.” Joanna’s mother was
stirring something on the stove. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“No.”

“Well, sit down then, I’m making some
oatmeal. Joanna’s taking a shower, and her father’s gone to see
what’s taking her so long.” She smiled at me. “What’s that you’ve
got there?”

“Just a painting for Joanna.”

“Can I see it?”

I held it up for her.

“It’s very good.” She seemed surprised.

“Thanks.” I smiled.

I caught sight of Joanna then, coming back
from her shower. She was wearing a light yellow summer dress, her
long hair shone golden in the sunlight. She saw me and a beautiful
smile broke across her face, as she danced into the campsite and
spun around in front of me, making the bottom of her dress float
up.

She gave me a little kiss on the lips. “Good
morning, my love.” I couldn’t help smiling.

“What took you so long?” Her mom asked.

“I was making myself pretty for Zach.” She
smiled at me.

“Where’s your father?” Her mom asked with
consternation in her voice.

“I think he’s still in the bathroom,” Joanna
said without taking her eyes off me.

“Well, breakfast is ready. You can sit over
here, Zach.” I couldn’t take my eyes off Joanna. We were just
staring at each other. “Zach?” Joanna’s mother was looking at me
with raised eyebrows. “You can sit here.” She repeated.

“Okay.”

We took our seats, and her mom served us
breakfast. Joanna noticed the painting, and smiled. “I have
something to give you, too.”

Her father arrived and sat down at the table
with us. “Good morning.” He smiled. “We haven’t got the early start
I was hoping for, but I think we’ll still get on our way before
midday.”

“I’ll help you pack up,” I offered. It was
the least I could do after keeping them up so late last night.

“Thanks, Zach. You can help Joanna with her
tent.”

After breakfast, Joanna and I went over to
her tent. I looked through the doorway expecting the same mess I’d
seen last time, but she’d packed most of her things already.

It felt weird being in her tent again, like
it was a forbidden place. I found the air release on her mattress,
and we both lay down on it to squeeze the air out. We stared at
each other as we sank into the deflating mattress, and she kissed
me softly on the lips before she got up again. We folded and
squashed the mattress until it was completely flat, then I helped
her move her bags and stuff out of the tent.

We worked together to take the tent down,
folding it up and stuffing it into the tent bag. When we’d
finished, we just stood there looking at each other, not smiling or
saying anything. Everything felt so weird.

Her parent’s tent was already down, and her
father was busy trying to fit everything into the trunk of their
car. Her mom was packing all their cookware. It didn’t look like we
had much time.

Joanna looked into my eyes so intensely.
“Promise you won’t forget me?”

“I promise, I won’t forget you.”

“You’ll write to me?”

“Yes.”

“I have this for you.” She handed me an
envelope. “It has my address and phone number.”

“I should give you mine too.”

“You can write it in my diary.” She dug into
her bag and handed me her diary and a pen. I opened it to the last
page and wrote down my phone number, address and email, and I also
wrote “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”