The Time Until (13 page)

Why is she messing with my head like this?

I power myself out of her embrace and get out of
bed.
 
I can’t look at her right now.

“What’s wrong, Al?”
Seriously?
 
She has to ask that question?

“What’s wrong?”
 
I consciously keep my voice from
raising
.

“Sam, we just attacked each other and you have
a boyfriend!”
 
It’s getting harder to
keep my voice down. “And what the hell is all this business with me being
yours?” I’m starting to feel the anger bubbling to the surface.
 
She doesn’t have the right to call me
hers
anymore.

I need more than some childhood promise.

Sam is surprised and I can see the guilt start
to sneak into her expression.

“You lost the right to call me yours when I
told you how I feel and you ran away to someone else.” I’m definitely losing
control now.
 
The hurt and confusion of
that day comes back to me and I feel it fresh.

“Do you have any idea how much it hurt me to
see you with him?!
 
How
much it still hurts me to this day?!”
Voice is no longer being
checked.
 
I can’t seem to care at this
point.

“I’ve known I loved you since I was eight,
Sam!
 
Eight!
 
And what?
 
Nothing.
 
You make my feelings out to be a mistake and
run into someone else’s arms.
 
I realize
I sprang them on you, but your reaction was way more than I thought you were
going to do.” I’m lost in the memory of her running away and then finding out
from third parties that she was dating Caleb.

I would have liked a first-hand admission of
that part.

“Then, someone starts to show some interest in
me and I start to think that maybe I can move on from this painful
relationship, maybe I can start to feel something for someone else, but you
have to get prissy and jealous. Seriously, Sam, am I never allowed
to get
over you?!”

She cringes a bit at the volume of my voice and
despite my anger, I feel bad for making her do it.
 
Tears break through and fall down her face as
I watch her quietly sob on my bed.

I feel worse now that she’s crying than I did
earlier.

“Alan,” Sam sobs, “I want…” Her statement dies
in her mouth.
 
I’m curious to know what
she was going to say, but I’m also too mad to ask her to finish.

“I think you should go home now, Samantha,” I
tell her as I hang my head low, Sam’s head shoots up to look at me with a
shocked look on her face.
 
I have never
used her full name — it’s always been Sam or Sammy before.
 
Tears are threatening to appear in my eyes
and I would rather have them fall when I’m alone.
 
Sam’s mouth is working but no sound is coming
out and she silently reaches to grab my hand.

I pull it back out of her reach.

She covers her mouth as fresh tears and sobs
rock her body.
 
Sam leaps from the bed,
sprints out of my bedroom door and out of the house.
 
I hear her loud cries from the driveway.

I collapse onto my bed, still saturated with
her smell, and wail into my pillow.

Present Day

“Alan!” I brace myself for the impact that is
inevitably coming, but I know that there is no such thing as bracing for one of
Jennifer’s patented “Tackle Hugs” — Sam named it.
 
She collides into me with the force of
runaway
truck,
it completely knocks the wind out of
me.
 
Despite the lack of air in my lungs
from the bear hug, I still manage to smile and hug her a bit harder.

“I missed you so much,” she squeaks without
loosening her grip.
 
My smile grows
bigger and I squeeze her back.

“I missed you too, Squirt,” I mimic, “but I’ve only
been gone a few days.” I laugh a little.

“A few days is way too long,” she grumbles,
“especially when you’re in the hospital for all of them.” She’s so cute when
she pouts.
 
She gets that bottom lip out
and crosses her arms.

It gets me every time.

Sam says that I’m more wrapped around her little
finger than my own father is.

I know it’s true, but I’ll never admit it.

Jenn
reaches up and
hovers
her fingers just about touching my patch. “I like the
design.
 
Nice touch,” she says sadly.

I nod my head without saying a word.

The hospital released me this afternoon after the
doctor and nurse ran some tests on me this morning.
 
I was surprised — I was getting ready to go
see Sam when they came by.
 
They removed
the bandages around my eye and the nurse did her very best to hide her pity —
it must really look bad.
 
They gave me a
cool looking eye patch though, it has a heart with a bloody arrow through it on
the front — apparently,
it’s
a gift from the staff.

I asked the nurse as I was leaving why they were
kicking me out so fast. She told me that technically I can take care of myself
now since I was able to make it to the bathroom and go on my own.
 
I seriously started laughing.

That’s the hospitals definition of self-reliance?
Whether or not you can piss on your own?

I found that really, really funny.
 
I’m sure there are a lot of other factors and
guidelines to let someone with my kind of injuries out of the hospital, but
hearing that the one that broke the camel’s back was the fact that I was too
stubborn to pee into a bowl one more time was a little more than I could
handle.
 
I laughed all the way to the
car.

My parents haven’t even touched my room since I
left for college.
 
It makes things easier
when I come home for breaks.
 
The only
downside is now I have to sleep in a room filled with memories of Sam.
 
There are pictures and memorabilia of our
time together scattered all around the room.
 
Just stepping into the room is enough to make me regret my decision to
come home.

Seeing all the memories around causes my chest to
seize.

This is
going to be harder than I thought
.

Jennifer follows me into the room and immediately
starts facing the pictures down.
 
It
doesn’t help, but I appreciate the gesture.
 
I don’t think hiding them will work either.
 
These memories are ingrained in my psyche,
hiding the pictures won’t stop the memories from coming back.
 
I gently stop Jennifer from turning any more
frames over and slowly shake my head.
 
She looks at me with compassion and leaves the frame as is.

The picture in the frame is one of Sam and me in
elementary school.
 
I think it’s around
the time we first met Arianna since she’s in the picture, but looks
apprehensive like she’s not sure she should be.
 
I swallow a tennis ball when I see Sam’s smile.

This is
definitely
going to be hard.

“Mom says that dinner will be ready soon,” my
father announces from the doorway snapping me from my wallowing.
 
Jennifer is looking at me with tears in her
eyes.
 
I make no effort to stop her when
she suddenly wraps me in another hug.
 
I
have a feeling these are more for her than for me.
 
She’s always been very close to Sam.

14 Years Ago (Age 6):
 
August

“So what are you going to name her?” Emily asks
my mother.
 
We’re in the delivery room
and it’s starting to get crowded.
 
Samantha — who hasn’t stopped staring at the small bundle in my mom’s
arms since we walked in — came with her parent’s, our families have gotten
really close lately.

“Actually, we were thinking—”

“Jennifer!” Sam loudly interrupts my mom.
 
Sam is curiously poking the baby in the cheek
with a contemplative look on her face.
 
She seems to be trying to get the baby to do something and she’s not
happy that the baby’s not doing it.

Everyone looks at her.

“Why do you say Jennifer?” My mother asks.
 
Sam shrugs her shoulders as she continues to
stare.

“She just looks like a Jennifer to me,” Sam
tells everyone matter-of-factly.

Present day

Jennifer has been attached to Sam ever since.
 
There were even times that Jennifer would
refuse to let us hold her unless Sam said it was okay.
 
I can’t imagine what this is doing to
her.
 
I make my hug a little tighter
before letting her free to leave the room to help mom with dinner.

“How are you doing?” my dad asks as he walks into
the room.

“I’m not sure,” I shrug.

“I have a lot of things that need to be done and I
can’t seem to care about it,” I continue.
 
I can feel the tennis ball start to grow into a bowling ball in my
throat and I quickly swallow it.
 
I take
a few calming breaths in order to stave off the tears threatening and I have
completely suppressed my weepy side — for the moment.
 
My dad massages my shoulder as I calm myself.

“One step at a time, Alan, one
step at a time.”

I nod my head and sit on the bed.
 
It takes a few minutes for me to realize that
I was lost in my own mind and I look up to see that my dad has shifted from
standing in front of me to sitting next to me.
 
The
fact that I don’t remember seeing him do
that is unnerving.
 
We’re silent for a
few minutes before my dad breaks it.

“Your mother isn’t sure you’re ready for this, but
I think you should know,” he starts and my interest is piqued.
 
Something my mom doesn’t want me to know
about, but my dad is going to tell me anyway?
 
Lay it on me.

“Okay,” I try to urge him on.

“Stanton’s arraignment is tomorrow and your mother
and I were going to go with the Cohn’s,” he sighs.
 
It feels like someone punched me in the
gut.
 
Arraignment?
 
So, Stanton must be the bastard’s name.
 
The ball of rage starts roaring in its cage.

“You can come if you want to, but I want you to
know that you don’t have to,” he continues.
 
Why the hell would I
not
want
to?
 
I want to see this guy for
myself.
 
I want to look him in the
eye.
 
I want to see him get what he
deserves for what he did to Sam and me.

You couldn’t keep me away from that even if you tied
me to wild horses.

“I want to go,” I tell him.
 
My dad looks at me for a moment then nods his
head and pats my leg as he gets up.

“Okay.” He makes his way to the door.

“Dad,” I call out to him, “thanks.” He nods his
head and smiles before turning and leaving the room.
 
I can’t help but get a sadistic smile on my
face.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Dinner is uneventful, pretty average for my
family.
 
There are lots of jokes and
laughter, but under it all is a tension and reserve.
 
I know they’re trying to make things seem
normal, but I can’t help thinking that it’s all forced.
 
The normalcy feels nice, but fake.
 
I can’t help but feel like things are never
going to be the same.
 
Everyone seems to
be forcing themselves and the tension thick in the room.

We stay up for a little while longer talking and
playing games before it starts getting late.
 
I say my goodnights and hit the sack thinking about tomorrow the entire
time.

5 Years Ago (Age 15):
 
May

Summer starts early here and May is usually when
the weather starts getting hot.
 
When I
say starts getting hot, I mean one day
it’s
40 degrees
and the next it’s 80.
 
There is literally
no lead-way.
 
Being close to June means
the cold days are gone and the hot days are getting hotter — by July, it’ll be
hitting triple digits.
 
This also means
one thing for the weekends:
 
pool
parties.

Kate and I have been dating since February and
I haven’t talked to Sam in months — except for the occasional “hello” and “how
are you.”
 
The tension and animosity
between them has also gone down a little, though only a little.
 
So seeing them both in bikinis by the pool is
a bit of a shock to my system.

I’m so glad I took an extra-long shower before
coming here — best decision ever — because, while I may have a volcano between
my legs, at least it isn’t active.

I watch Sam for a while.
 
Despite how things ended that day, I still
miss talking to her and having her in my life.
 
Her cut off sentence still plays in my mind from time to time.
 
What was she going to say?
 
Did I miss my chance with her because of my
hurt and anger?
 
I still feel for Sam
almost as much as I did before, which makes my relationship with Kate complicated.

Kate knows I’m holding back.
 
She also knows the reason why.
 
I think that’s one of the things I like about
her,
she hasn’t called me on my hypocrisy.
 
She’s being incredibly patient and
understanding.
 
It makes me feel like
trying harder to get closer to her.
 
There’s still that hurdle I have been reluctant to leap.

We still haven’t had sex.

It’s been three months already and
nothing.
 
Though, there have been many
encounters, there has been no real removal of clothing.

It’s like we’re stuck in the ‘50s, though it’s
mostly my fault.

This is unheard of, three months is practically
forever in high school relationships.
 
You get the relationship to live past three months and your friends
start planning your wedding.
 
I just
enjoy her company now and maybe one day soon we’ll be ready.

I hope.

“Kate’s going to get jealous if she catches
you,” the feminine voice from behind could be only one person: Arianna.
 
I turn to greet her.
 
Arianna has a great body that she heretically
hides in her baggy everyday clothes.
 
The
swimsuit she has on isn’t a bikini, but it’s cut in a way that shows a lot of
skin.
 
I smile when I see her; Arianna
has become something like my conscience in the recent years.
 
I can tell this is going to be of one those
moments where I’ll be hearing some sage advice.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I tell
her through my smile.
 
Arianna gives me a
knowing smile with a hint of mischievousness mixed in for good measure.

“I’m sure you don’t,” she plays along, “So, I’m
just imagining you ogling Sam’s swimsuit over there?”

I have to admit Sam looks good in that
suit.
 
It’s mostly strings, but the
important parts are completely covered.
 
Beads dangle from the knots on her waist holding her bottoms on.
 
I want to see what happens when I pull on
them.
 
The top is held on by a string
around her neck and one around her back.
 
It’s brown and matches her hair color very well.
 
She looks great.
 
She recently cut her hair; it’s short — to
her shoulders — and curled to frame her face.
 
I liked her long hair, but this cut makes my heart do funny things in my
chest.

Okay, so maybe I have been paying a bit more
attention to Sam than Kate.

But it’s not like I’ve been neglecting Kate
completely.

Kate has a bit more to offer in the chest area
than Sam does.
 
She has a good fitting
suit and her cleavage is visible, but not trashy.
 
Just like Sam, Kate’s bikini covers her
important parts well and leaves a lot to the imagination — and my imagination
is in overdrive.
 
There are no beads or
tassels on her strings, but there is a small sun pendant attached to the front
of her bottoms.
 
It flaps around when she
moves and forces me to focus on that area of her body.

It’s not that I really need a reason to stare
at her or anything.

“Just remember that you’re dating Kate not
Sam,” Arianna informs me.
 
I know exactly
what she’s saying.
 
Sam doesn’t want me
and I need to start thinking more seriously about moving on with my life.

Katelyn is more than willing and able to fill
that role.

“It’s not like I’m not trying, Ari,” I tell her
truthfully, “it’s just really hard.”

Arianna nods her head in agreement.
 
I look away from the subjects of our
conversation and gently grip her shoulder.

“I’ll make a better effort from now on.” She
smiles a sad smile.

“But seriously, I knew that Quentin was
rolling, but I never guessed this.” I did spend the first 30 minutes of getting
to the house admiring the architecture — Roman inspired.
 
The house could fit two of my parents’ house
and still have room for a two-car garage.
 
The inside was equally impressive, though too white for me.
 
The initial shock wore off by the time I made
it to the backyard, but the size of the pool definitely reminded me of it.

“Never ceases to amaze me every time I come
here,” Arianna agrees.
 
There’s a slight
hint of pride in her voice, but I ignore it as part of my imagination.
 
Giving a short nod at the comment, I crack an
inward smile as I walk in to the house to raid the kitchen.

As expected of Quentin, he has a full
fridge.
 
The last person in the kitchen
with me leaves, giggling, as I pull out the milk and raw cookie dough — nothing
beats a glass of milk and raw cookie dough on a hot summer day.
 
I nearly jump out of my skin as arms encircle
my waist and barely covered breasts squish against my back.
 
I know whom it is without having to turn
around.

I would remember Kate’s smell anywhere.

“What are you doing?” she asks my back.

“Would you believe trying to hide from the
sun?”

 
“Actually?
Yes, I would,” she laughs out.
 
I turn to face her and wrap my arms around
her.
 
We stay like this for a few minutes
as I try to sort out my feelings.
 
I know
I should say something, but I can’t seem to think of the words.
 
I chance a look into her eyes and she seems
to understand my struggle.

At least I think so.

“Kate,” I start, but don’t finish.
 
What was I going to say?
 
‘I love you’?
 
It doesn’t feel right to say it to her, I still feel awkward even
thinking about it about someone other than Sam.

I make a decision, right or wrong.

Can Kate be the one to help me get over
Sam?
 
There’s only one way to find out.

I drop my head down to connect our mouths and
force Kate’s body closer to mine.
 
It
starts out slow and sensual, but quickly gains speed and intensity.
 
It doesn’t take long for our tongues to start
dancing with each other.

I’m suddenly very aware of my hands position.

The nervousness washes over me in waves.
 
My hand on her back slowly — nervously —
moves down her back too cup her perfect cheeks.
 
Her ass is firm, but giving and the mix of hard and soft makes my heart
start to beat faster.
 
Kate’s gentle moan
sends it into overdrive.

I decide to go bolder.
 
I slowly glide my hand up Kate’s side and
gently start kneading her breast.
 
Her
breasts are bigger then Sam’s, but Sam’s fit my hand better.

I need to stop that train of thought right now.

We’ve done this a few times since February, but
the lack of clothes — and the inclusion of the thin material of the swimsuit —
makes this time more intense.
 
My
nervousness is gradually starting to fade as we continue our kitchen romp.
Also, the fact that she hasn’t stopped me yet is starting to bolster my
confidence.

That and my libido
is
seriously going crazy.

“Alan,” she breathes and the sound of it sends
shivers down my spine, “more.”

Now I’m definitely going to oblige that
request.
 
All nervousness is gone as I
slip my hand under her swimsuit top and start pinching her nipple.
 
She bites back a cry as she arches her
back.
 
I love doing that; it makes me
feel powerful — needed.
 
Kate’s breathing
starts to come out in huffs and puffs, labored and harsh.
 
I start kissing her collarbone, taking advantage
of her position.
 
She grabs my head as
she groans and I take that as good sign.

I place both my hands on her back to better
support her as I casually use my head to force her back to arch further,
providing the perfect position to introduce her breast to my mouth.
 
Using my teeth to knead her nipple through
the cloth, I can feel her hands grip my head harder; a soft gasp escapes her
mouth.

I slip one of my hands around her front and
slowly move it down.
 
Her eyes flutter as
my fingers whisper across her stomach and playfully wiggle the sun pendant on
her bottoms.
 
My mouth never stops
playing with her breast and now my hand is making a play for her nether
region.
 
Using one finger as a guide, I
slowly move lower along her waist until I find her natural slit to follow.

I enjoy stroking her over the cloth and the
seductive way she wiggles into my hand.
 
Her head throws back as she lets out a loud moan.
 
I slowly stop my teasing of her breasts as I
go back to fighting her tongue with mine.
 
My fingers inch their way under her waistband and touch soft, wet flesh
underneath.

I feel around for moment or two until I finally
find what I’m looking for, the hard little knob at the top of her
entrance.
 
I pinch it softly before
rubbing it smoothly across my thumb repeatedly.
 
Kate bucks her hips with each stroke and her breathing gets heavy.
 
She clenches her eyes shut and stops kissing
me as she focuses on keeping control of herself.
 
I smile despite myself as I feel her nails
dig into my back and shoulder.

Suddenly my hand gets even wetter as Kate
shakes violently with a final powerful buck of her hips.
 
I catch her before she falls to the tile
below, her legs have given out on her and her breath is shallow. She has a funny
looking — satisfied —
grin
on her face and she’s
giggling uncontrollably.
 
I can’t help
myself and start giggling with her.

Despite that, I can’t help remembering Sam’s
satisfied face and comparing the two.
 
I
mentally shake the thought from my mind and try to focus on Kate.

“You like that?” I ask her.
 
She nods enthusiastically pulling my head
closer to hers.

“Next time it’s your turn,” she whispers to me
between breathes.
 
A shot of anticipation
runs through my body.
 
Her promise of
future pleasure is enough to make me feel warm all over despite the air
conditioner keeping the house cool.

“Can that be right now?” I ask with a
half-smile.
 
Kate smiles back with her
eyes closed as she slowly regains her breath.
 
She pulls my mouth to hers and sweetly kisses me.

“Sorry, babe,
gotta
wait until next time,” she tells me as she shakes her head, “but I promise
it’ll definitely be worth the wait.”

Suddenly, ‘later’ can’t be here fast enough.