Remember When – ebook

Excerpt

She smiled at the thought that he might read those words, though. Later that night, as she lay with her eyes closed in the bathtub, the idea came back to her. She imagined him, 20 years older but largely unchanged, reading her words and remembering with her the soft summer nights parked by the river, the drive-in speakers and sneaking away for stolen moments—and sometimes more—at picnics and beach parties.

And then what? Would he know it was her? Would he try to contact her? In reality, he might email, would be less likely to call, but in her mind he knocked unexpectedly at her door. She imagined opening the door casually, expecting a neighbor, only to find him standing on her porch at dusk. In her mind’s eye, he was dirty from the construction site, as he’d always been on those summer evenings gone by. He’d arrive straight from work, as if he couldn’t possibly take the time to shower and change clothes before racing to her side.

She hadn’t minded, had inhaled the scent of him. Even know, the smell of sawdust made her smile, carrying her back to those days.

He would appear on her porch at dusk, smelling of sawdust, old smile the same but for a few creases around his mouth and eyes, and she would step back and invite him inside. As her mind wandered, so did her soap-slick hand, sliding over her breasts and then lower. It crossed her mind that she’d been on her own too long, that this was a little ridiculous even in fantasy form, but she didn’t care. It was a fantasy, after all, so she didn’t have to worry about any of the realities, about the initial awkwardness they would both almost certainly feel, about the likelihood that the changes in Larry went just a little bit beyond a few wrinkles around his eyes and a better car.

In her mind his rough hand was unchanged as it ran slowly up the inside of her thigh, as it had done one late football game night twenty-one years earlier, in the back seat of someone else’s car, while her best friend chattered innocently to her from the passenger seat. Her own fingers traced the path his had followed that night, and she remembered the exhilarating mix of fear and excitement, the way that her body had reacted to his touch even as she’d kept her eyes fixed firmly on the front seat, terrified that someone would glance back and discover them.

She remembered how she’d started when he’d slipped just one finger under the elastic of her panties, and how he’d smiled and quietly shushed her. She’d been wet where he touched her, but so uneasy with their friends in the front seat. She’d still been a virgin, then, seventeen years old and feeling a man’s hands under her clothes for the first time. She’d thought she’d die, somehow melt and explode all at once, as he stroked her noiselessly.

He’d stopped when she’d started to squirm. They were, after all, not alone. He’d pulled her back against him, wrapping his arms around her from behind, and kissed her hair, and she’d felt that she fit perfectly, that she could happily stay right there like that for the rest of her life.

Later that night, though, when they’d dropped her off, he’d gotten out of the car and said that he’d walk home. Her house had been dark and quiet, everyone inside long asleep, and he’d quietly steered her toward the tree house her younger brother still used. Jessica hadn’t climbed the tree herself in years, but she found that it came back easily, and in a moment she was sitting beside him in total darkness on the rough wood floor.

His hand followed the same path it had earlier, but this time she felt no fear. Alone with him in the quiet dark she opened her legs and let him explore her, amazed at the intensity of the sensations his fingers brought. This time when she began to squirm he wrapped one arm tight around her and continued to stroke her. Her breath came short and shallow and then she gasped softly, burying her face in his neck and inhaling the sweat and sawdust on his skin as she came.

He pulled her closer, holding her in both arms, and she said something softly, something that she could never remember and he later claimed not to have heard. Whether he understood her or not, he responded, “You know I love you, don’t you?” She’d known everything and nothing in that moment, and had tiptoed quietly into the house, afraid of waking someone who would look at her and see…whatever the indescribable something she felt might be.