That makes him laugh. “Noted.”
We don’t talk a whole lot as we pull our various clothes off, my shorts and tank top and Patrick’s T-shirt hitting the weathered wood of the dock in a cascade of quiet swishing. All I want in the world is to stare. My heart is thudding away inside my chest, the animal build of anticipation, the feeling of finishing what we started before everything crumbled away like wet sand. I swallow a breath down, trying not to shiver. Goose bumps prickle up and down my arms. When I glance up I see Patrick’s staring back at me, watching, curious and overt.
“Sorry,” he mutters when I catch him, rolling his eyes a bit.
“S’okay,” I reply, gazing back at him evenly, both of us standing there in our underwear. It occurs to me that this is the first time since I got back from Bristol that I don’t feel self-conscious about how I might look.
You can stare, I want to say to Patrick. It’s fine, it’s me; I promise you can look.
He shrugs, rubbing at his neck a little, looking out at the chilly black water. “You ready?” he asks.
“Uh-huh.” I clear my throat, swallow once. “If you are.”
“Yeah, Mols,” Patrick says. “I’m ready.”
We jump.
It’s exhilarating, hurtling through the air like that—the sensation of flying just for a second, the chilly morning air buffeting my skin. We smash through the placid surface of the lake like twin explosions.
“Holy shit,” Patrick swears once we’ve surfaced—it’s freezing, he’s not wrong about that, the cold sharp and immediate and aching. He barks out a frigid-sounding laugh. “Whose fucking idea was this again?”
“Some dummy’s, certainly,” I tell him, voice shaking a bit with the force of my shivering. I swim a few strokes toward the center, splashing around to try and warm up. Patrick turns a fast somersault, flecks of water sticking to his eyelashes. His bare collarbone juts in a way that makes me want to trace it with one gentle finger. I wonder what would happen if I did. I can feel my chest moving underneath the surface of the water. God, it is so, so cold.
“Now what?” I ask, a little breathless.
“I don’t know,” Patrick says, water dripping from his hair and skimming over his cheekbones, and puts his surprising mouth on mine.
It’s a good kiss. God, it’s the best kiss, it’s the kiss I’ve been waiting for all summer and maybe my whole life, Patrick’s warm mouth and the slickness of his wet shoulders sliding under my palms, his neck and the damp hair at the base of his skull. Every inch of my skin feels like it’s on fire, the prickle and pop of nerve endings coming to life all over my body. I swear I can hear the steady hum of my blood inside my veins.
“Hi,” Patrick mumbles against my jaw, licking at the pulse point just underneath it. I can feel the mossy floor of the lake underneath my toes. He’s fumbling for the band of my sports bra, my arms coming up to help him as he peels the whole soaking thing off, the water cold and black and all the warm places where he’s pressed against me. My legs come up like a reflex to wrap around his waist.
“Hi,” I tell him quietly, and kiss him again.
It goes on for a long time out there in the murky water, nobody around to stop or see us, his solid body and his hands carding through my wet, tangled hair. Patrick pulls back for a moment to look at me, intentional. For a second he only just stares. “Mols,” he says, in this voice like I’m a precious thing, in a voice like I’m rare. “Molly.”
I shake my head, blushing even as the water feels like it’s getting colder, how I’m freezing and burning up all over the place. “Patrick.”
“I meant it, what I said that day it was raining,” he murmurs, swallowing audibly. “About you being beautiful. I know you weren’t fishing. But you are.”
I get my hands on his face and kiss him again then, not wanting to think about anything but this moment, like the sound of our own quick breathing can keep everything else at bay. Still, though, I can’t keep myself from asking again: “What are we doing?” His mouth tastes like water, the zing of this morning’s Colgate behind his teeth. “Huh? Patrick? You gotta tell me here, what are we—”
“I don’t know,” Patrick tells me, urgent, more vulnerable than he’s sounded all summer long. His face is so close I can see his eye freckle, that dark fleck I’ve always thought of as just mine. Like you could get into his soul that way. “I don’t know. We’re going different places, aren’t we? You’re going to Boston with my brother.”
“I’m not—” I begin to protest, but Patrick cuts me off.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his hands wandering, me arching into his touch before I can stop myself. “It’s still here, isn’t it? Between you and me. I loved you, Molly, I love—”
Patrick catches himself just then, doesn’t finish. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold on.
Day 71
I’m useless at work the next day. I have to recalculate payroll three different times before the numbers check out. I can’t stop thinking about Patrick.
I remember finally telling my mom about me and Gabe at the very end of sophomore year—two weeks after it happened, graduation come and gone, Gabe headed off to be a camp counselor in the Berkshires, and Patrick and I still not speaking. Everything burbled up out of me like some long-dormant volcano: “Tell me,” my mom urged, looking at me hard and searchingly. It felt like a purifying fire.