The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time (5 page)

It was the most magical and romantic summer of my life.

Except for one thing.

Ethan hadn’t introduced me to his parents. I hadn’t even set foot inside his house, and that troubled me.

Sometimes I wonder if, perhaps, I shouldn’t have pushed so hard to meet them. Maybe if I hadn’t, things might have turned out differently.

But there I was, standing in my grandmother’s kitchen making tea, and doing it again—always looking to the past, regretting the choices I’d made, and wishing I had done things differently.

Chapter Eleven

August 4, 2015

Why is it, when we’re young, we think we have all the time in the world?

As I poured hot water over the tea-leaf strainer and breathed in the comforting, rising chamomile-scented steam, I contemplated this question and wished I’d known then how to appreciate the present more.

Or maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, because I know better
now
, don’t I? Yet there I stood, not really appreciating the moment. All I could do was think of the past and wish I were back there.

But you can never go back. You can’t change the past.

Unless, of course, you’re in a lucid dream…

Picking up my cup, I set my strainer in the sink and carried my tea to the living room to turn on the television. Since my goal was to go to sleep eventually, I decided to sit in the dark and cuddle up under a blanket.

Instead of watching late night programming, I found a local cable station that played a continuous loop of a roaring golden fire in a stone hearth. I watched it for a long while and let my thoughts return to that summer of my first love…

* * *

In the early days of July, September had seemed a million miles away—another season, another lifetime. It felt as if the four of us—Chris, Jean, Ethan, and I—would be together forever.

When it dawned on me, however, that we had all coasted rather unwittingly into the middle of August and the approach of summer’s end, a heavy cloud of dread descended. I couldn’t escape a constant feeling of impending doom—for I would soon be forced to return to Montana and start another school year, while Ethan would venture off to Yale.

There was nothing to be done about either of those things because he had an impressive academic scholarship, and my non-refundable plane ticket had already been purchased. Jenn and I would fly home Labor Day weekend, and my beloved, beautiful boyfriend would start a new life in a new city with new friends. And new girls to meet.

That’s when I realized that all summer long, I had been floating blissfully in an innocent bubble, believing I was Ethan’s one and only true love and nothing would ever exist outside the hours we spent together. He certainly made me feel that way when he used words like “I love you” and “forever.” But with September looming on the horizon, my doubts and insecurities about our future together began to erupt in a typically teenage, volcano-like fashion.

“I can’t believe we only have one more week,” I said to him one lazy afternoon while we lay on our towels at the lake, drying off under the hot summer sun after a refreshing swim off the dock.

He ran his finger across my shoulder. “I know,” he gently replied. “The summer went by way too fast. I don’t even want to
think
about leaving you.”

I entwined my leg around his, rested my chin on his chest and peered up at him. “Me neither. I wish there was some way around it. Another way to be together.”

He stroked my hair, lifted his head off the towel and kissed me softly on the lips. “I could fly out to Montana and visit,” he said.

“Really? When?”

He thought about it for a moment, then his eyes clouded over. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to come for any of the long weekends. My dad will expect me home for those. I’d have to sneak on a flight sometime…find a way to pay cash for it. I couldn’t use my credit card.”

“Why not?” I asked, leaning up on an elbow. “Wouldn’t your parents cover that for you? You could see Montana. I’d introduce you to my parents.”

Ethan sat up and I was forced to roll off him. “No, they definitely wouldn’t cover it,” he replied with a clear note of bitterness.

“Maybe if they could meet me and see how much we love each other,” I suggested, “they’d understand and help us.”

Ethan shook his head. “No, Sylvie.”

“Why not?” I continued to press. “And why haven’t you ever brought me home and introduced me to them? Are you ashamed of me or something?”

Rising to his feet, he strolled to the shoreline, picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the water. “You don’t understand.”

“No, I don’t, and that’s why I wish you’d explain it to me.”

For a long moment he stood with his back to me, gazing out across the calm, reflective water while ducks quacked in the distance. Then he turned.

“Fine. Here it is in a nutshell. My parents are snobs and they have high expectations for me, because I’m their only son. They don’t want me mixing with the “locals” in Portland, except for Chris of course, because he’s our neighbor and they would never be rude to his parents. They want me to marry some rich society debutante from Park Avenue and end up president of a multinational corporation, just like good old dad. A chip off the old block.”

I swallowed uneasily as I considered all of this: Ethan’s swanky lifestyle in New York City, the private jet, the sailboat at the yacht club in Cape Elizabeth.

“Did they ever meet Corrine?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my belly.

Ethan returned to sit on the towel beside me. “How do you think I met her? They
love
Corrine. They knew her parents from Dad’s Wall Street days and have been pushing us together ever since we were kids. It’s like some kind of arranged marriage or something. Dad would have been furious with me if he knew I’d ended it with her this summer, especially since she and her parents were staying with us that weekend. Thankfully, she didn’t tell them we broke up either. She’s kind of in the same boat as me. It’s the only thing we have in common. The
only
thing.”

He picked up a rock from beside the towel and tossed it halfheartedly into the water.

“So they think you’re still with her?” I asked. “They don’t even know about me?”

Ethan shook his head. “Trust me. It’s better this way.”

I felt a rush of anger and rose to my feet. “You
are
ashamed of me.”

“No, really, I’m not,” he replied, squinting up at me in the blinding sunlight.

“Yes, you are, otherwise you would have told them the truth a long time ago and let them meet me. I’m a nice person, Ethan, and I have big plans. I’m not some stupid “local” who’s going to end up working in a fish plant or something. I’m going to go to college and do something amazing with my life. I’m sure they’ll like me if you give them a chance.”

“You don’t know my father,” he said. “If he found out about you, he would have sent me straight home to New York the same day.”

Rancor sharpened my voice. “So that’s it then. You were
never
going to tell them. You were just going to have your fun with me, then go off to Yale and forget we ever knew each other.”

“That’s not true,” he said.

“I don’t believe you.” Bending forward, I scooped up my sundress, pulled it on over my head and kicked my feet into my flip flops. Seconds later I was stomping up the beach and walking past Ethan’s car.

“Where are you going?” he called out, gathering up our towels.

“Away from you!” I shouted over my shoulder.

I was aware of him running to catch up. By then I was on the narrow wooded lane, determined to march all the way back to town on my own.

The sound of his car engine starting up and the tires skidding over gravel alerted me to the fact that he was whipping the car around to catch me. I moved to the side of the lane to let him pass but he didn’t, of course. He pulled up beside me and said, “Get in, Sylvie.”

“No.”

“You can’t walk all the way back to town by yourself. It’ll take hours. It’ll be dark by the time you get home.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

He stopped the car, shut off the engine and got out to walk beside me. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“No, you’re not. You don’t care.”

“Yes, I do!”

“Then why won’t you tell your parents? If you did, they might help us see each other. Your dad has his own jet!”

Ethan touched my shoulder, but I shook him off.

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “My dad’s really strict.”

“But you’re eighteen!” I argued. “You’re out of high school. You should have the freedom to choose your own girlfriends.”

“No kidding, but I’m not the one who needs to be convinced of that. He is.”

I stopped on the lane. “Then why won’t you stand up to him?”

Ethan stopped, too. “Like I said, it’s not that simple. He controls my future, at least right now he does. He’s paying for Yale and he owns that car.” Ethan pointed at it.

I shook my head in disbelief. “So you’re telling me that your car means more to you than I do?
Great
. That’s just what I wanted to hear.” I started walking again. “You know what, Ethan? I don’t think we should see each other anymore. I think we should end it. Right now.”

“Sylvie…” He ran to catch up.

When he grabbed hold of my arm, something in me snapped. I was sixteen and hormonal, and I totally lost it.

Sobbing uncontrollably, I shoved him away. “Don’t touch me! You don’t care about us! You’ll go off to college and meet someone else—some rich girl your father will approve of so you can keep your fancy car. I hate you!” Then I turned and ran into the woods.

“Sylvie, wait!”

Branches whipped past my face and scratched my legs as I fought my way through the leafy bush.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I was behaving like a child, but I couldn’t stop myself. I loved Ethan with all my heart and soul. The way things were turning out was enough to send me into an emotional tailspin.

Tears streamed down my face as I emerged onto a clearing surrounded by evergreens. Having lost all sense of direction, I stopped and turned around.

Suddenly Ethan was there, grabbing hold of my arm, forcing me to look at him.

He was breathing hard. His eyes gleamed with raging intensity, his body glistened with perspiration. “Don’t do this,” he said. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can,” I replied, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand. “I can do whatever I want. Unlike
you
.”

A muscle twitched at his jaw and he shook his head. “I’m not letting you go.”

“Why not? You don’t care.”

“Yes, I do!” He pulled me into his arms and held me so tightly, I could barely breathe. “I love you.
Please
…Sylvie, I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t break it off.”

Shocked by the anguish I heard in his voice, and desperate just to be with him, I felt the anger seep out of me. My body melted into his. Quickly, I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck. The next thing I knew we were kissing fiercely, groping at each other in the cool shade of the quiet forest, our salty tears mingling wetly where our lips were joined.

“I love you,” he whispered again as he dropped a trail of passionate kisses down the side of my neck. “I don’t ever want to lose you.”

I was still crying… Maybe because I knew he would be gone soon, no matter what happened today or with his parents in the future. We had less than a week together, and of course I had no intention of breaking up with him. I was just angry. I couldn’t possibly leave Ethan.
How would I ever live?

He drew back and our eyes met. His chest heaved with ragged breaths while my heart pounded riotously.

I lifted my arms and reached up so he could pull my sundress off over my head. Then I tugged at the hem of his cotton T-shirt, pulled it off him and threw it onto the ground.

The sight of his bare, muscular chest filled me with desire, and soon we were sinking to our knees on the soft, cool moss of the forest floor. His lips found mine as we lay down together, wrapped in each other’s arms.

“I love you so much,” he whispered in my ear as he covered my body with his. “I want to be with you forever.”

“I want that, too,” I replied, cupping the back of his neck, running my fingers through his hair.

“I don’t even want my father’s money,” he said. “Not if it means I can’t have
you
.”

Our lips met and I reveled in the heavenly sensation of his body on top of mine. Yet it was bitter-sweet, for I couldn’t escape the ever-present agony of knowing we would soon have to say good-bye. How would I survive it?

And so, unwilling to consider holding anything back from him, I gave myself over to him completely—physically and soulfully—with no notion of how it would change both our lives, in the worst possible way.

Chapter Twelve

After Ethan and I returned home from the lake that day—drunk with passion and love for each other—he convinced me that it would be best to keep our relationship a secret from his parents, at least for the time being. He said if they knew, they would tighten the rules and keep a closer eye on his comings and goings from university, his expenditures and the friends he kept.