We lay still on the steepness of the slope, a couple in a luge event, rigid and straight-armed, hurtling somewhere unknown. He fell asleep almost immediately, snoring quietly with his hands resting on his chest. His long eyelashes fluttered with dreams. Awake alone, I glanced up at the scuffed sky. It’s always been companionable to me—I like its unending stretch, and the notion that wherever you go it’s with you. My brain flexed and in a melt of cheekbones and lips, the clouds morphed into a kind, wizened old man with a face that was benevolent and warm. After that every cloud that rolled by became an exercise in changing clouds into figures—monks, wizards . . . and monsters. I learned, right there in the grass, that what you see each day is entirely your own invention. I found out that night that I could alter what’s in front of me—I could literally write the sky.
When I woke it was warm sunshine. HP was sitting up, bare-chested with his hoodie knotted around his waist. His back muscles tightened and relaxed as he plucked at strands of grass.
“Hey,” I croaked. He turned, the side of his mouth breaking into a grin.
“How d’you feel? A little less than average?” He lay down on his side, his head resting on his hand while he sucked a piece of grass. His pectoral muscle was heavy and grooved.
“I’m too hot.” I lurched and sat up to pull off my white T-shirt. Underneath I wore a small tank top. The morning air felt good on my shoulders. “Where is everyone?” I turned to catch HP staring at me.
He cleared his throat and pointed back down towards the fire pit, where people were starting to wander around. Someone had started a fresh fire, and we could hear it snapping as the flames licked.
“Here, I got you this.”
He passed me a bottle of cold water. I cracked the cap, drinking in the clean coolness like a shipwreck survivor.
“Where did you find these?”
“By Ez’s truck. He left a cooler there all night. I’ve been up for about an hour.”
He ran his grass strand down the skin of my shoulder and I wriggled, batting at him with a limp palm.
“Guess where my girlfriend slept last night. I’ll give you three guesses and the first two don’t count.” He flung the grass strand into the field while I looked at him carefully.
“Does it matter?”
He let out one bark of a laugh. “No; but I might kick the shit out of Ezra on principle.”
I used my hand like a visor and peered down the hill. There was Lacy on Ezra’s lap, wearing his grad jacket. Her hair looked like she’d run it through a hedge.
“Maybe he just wants the things you have. Or maybe she does.”
His brow had a tiny V in the center, his trademark stamp of deep thought. “At least you had the sense to not make out with him.”
“I told you. There’s no point kissing the wrong boy.”
I’m certain there was a beat where we stared at each other, where we wondered if we were thinking the same thing. A second. A half second. Was it his hand or mine that moved first? All I remember clearly is that the world suddenly felt fluid. In one flow of motion, his hand was behind my neck and I rolled onto the skin of his chest. Our heat-seeking mouths felt warm on the inside, our tongues sliding and smooth. My whole body pulsed in ways I hadn’t known before. The more I kissed him, the more I wanted. I tasted his neck; inhaled the smell of him, his beach-smoked oak. The buttons of our jeans snagged as we pressed together.
“We have to go somewhere,” he gasped.
I was struck dumb by an ache to have his mouth back.
“Ezra’s truck,” I suggested. It stood parked just twenty feet away with the tailgate open, the nose facing down the hill so the back end was entirely hidden. We ran there, half crouching as if under fire. HP hauled me up into the truck bed and unrolled his man blanket for us to lie on. He climbed on top of me, although he held back some of his weight because I could feel his triceps muscles tense when my fingers brushed them. We slowed down.
“Do you feel weird?” he asked, so close that I felt the words on my face.
“No. Do I?”
He shook his head, earnest, the fluff at his crown sticking up. I arched up for him, pulling him onto me. As the world blurred around us, dream-like, I couldn’t believe we were really doing this. Confidence beat from me: I know it was me who undid the first pant fly, who slid fingers under his waistband. My hands moved on him as if they’d already lived this scene, already knew what happened next.
He moaned and twisted, whispered, “Are you sure you haven’t been practicing?”
And we smile-kissed, free with the sky looking down on us, surprised by the rightness we’d discovered.
That early morning with HP was an on switch I never thought we’d flick. Once we’d found it, the light fell differently on us. I’d never been naked before—not like that. Suffice to say I didn’t know I had those instincts until I found them with him.
chapter
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4
As I speak, all these memories flood me and I’m back in the past, alive there, with all the light the same. I go quiet for long stretches, following pathways of old thoughts right to their very end, enjoying the camber of voices I recognize. So many perfect days are stored in my head. Novak brings me back if I take too long, and I try to let him see the moment I’ve just relived. I’m not sure if I can, though—not to any real depth. It’s one of life’s great sadnesses, surely, the inability to properly convey. But I’m trying.
I woke up in HP’s truck, pulling the fleece of the blanket around my ribs as I peeped over the rim of the truck bed. There were my classmates packing up camp, stamping out the fire, gathering up chip packets—I don’t know how long we’d slept but the sun was high in the sky and Ezra was starting the climb up the hill towards us.
“HP!” I shook his shoulder, rocking him out of the depths of sleep. “We have to get dressed!” I reached for my clothes, scrunched in a pile beside him.
“Hi.” He pulled me against him and nuzzled into my neck.
“They’re walking right up the hill.”
He stretched and yawned, his mouth cavernous.
“Get clothes on!” I squeaked, trying to bat his hands away as I fastened my bra.
“You look good when you’re freaking out. Your eyes get even bigger.” He pulled on his pants and sat up. “Listen. Slow down a second. I just want to say something.” I let him pull me over towards him and when he kissed me we were hungry again in a surge, our hands on each other’s faces.
It was Ezra who separated us. He clanked the cooler HP had pilfered into the truck and hopped up on the tailgate, his back to us.
“Well, well, well.” Ezra lit a cigarette and turned to face us. “Look who’s graduated.” He picked up my tank top and twirled it on his forefinger. I grabbed it. “You better get shoes on, bro. Your girlfriend’s ten steps away.”
HP said nothing but leapt over the side of the truck and sauntered down to the lake as Lacy arrived at the tailgate in Ezra’s grad jacket.
“Where did he go?” she asked, watching me roll up his man blanket.
“HP, HP, HP.” Ezra blew smoke rings and pinched a strand of tobacco from between his front teeth as Lacy took off down the hill again. “We all need HP.”
He looked startled when I grabbed his cigarette and took a drag. “Since when do you smoke?”
“You don’t know me like you think you do, Ez.” I inhaled deeply, coughing while trying to seem like I’d done it before. “And FYI, HP’s gonna kick your ass.”
“Oh, get real. As if he’s into Lacy.” He grabbed the cigarette back. “Lacy’s gonna kick your ass.”