“Can you just be here with me and forget about everything else for a little while?”
He glanced at my mouth and then up to my eyes. His chest started to pump in and out and then he looked at my mouth again. There was so much heat and tension between us that I could practically hear it pulsing with currents of electricity. He swallowed and then the restraint was gone as he crushed his mouth to mine. He was more frantic than ever before, stronger, holding my body to his, our tongues teasing each other until his mouth was on my neck, then my ear, and then he was pulling me effortlessly onto his lap. I never resisted him because it was perfectly familiar, like home, to be against his big body that way. He was breathing hard and kissing hard. I took his hand, which was gripping the back of my leg, and I pulled it up to cup my breast through my sweater. He was timid at first, but then he groaned and whispered near my ear, “What are you doing to me, Em?”
“I want you, Jackson . . . all of you.” Big words for a fifteen-year-old, but I meant every one of them.
He set me down and pulled away, then turned toward the pond, braced his elbows on his knees, and let his head fall into his hands. “What can we do? I mean, we can’t be together—we have nowhere to go.” His voice got higher. “There’s nothing we can do, Em.”
I rubbed my hand up and down his back. “It’s okay. I just meant I want all of you someday.”
“Someday,” he echoed. “Hopefully sooner than later. It seems like everyone is always trying to screw things up for us.”
“Everyone who? What are you talking about? My dad is going to jail. Your mom is busy with her men, and the Kellers will be fine, as long as I don’t get caught. This is enough for me, Jackson. Just being near you is enough for me for now.”
He looked up and there were tears in his eyes. “I know, I’m sorry, I’m being such a grump. It’s just that I’m sixteen, you know?” He laughed finally, and I laughed too as a few tears fell from my eyes. I knew what he meant. We were lovesick. We wanted to connect as deeply as we could. For us, the physical part was innocent. We would’ve done it out of our love for each other, not out of lust or peer pressure. We were more committed and genuinely in love than most married people—at least the ones we knew. We’d had years to develop our love and respect for each other. Fifteen might have been young for sex for other kids, but for us, it just felt right.
“I get it,” I said. “I feel the same way.”
“I want you so bad, it’s all I think about.”
“Just focus on the future. Remember when we used to dream about growing up? You said you wanted to be a ninja and I could be your sidekick, except you wouldn’t let me use the samurai sword because you thought I was too clumsy.”
“I don’t think about ninjas anymore, and I don’t think you’re clumsy either. I think you’re perfect. You’re going to stick with me, right?” His tone was serious.
“Yes. Of course I am. Always, Jax.”
“I can’t live without you. It’s such fucking hell living with Leila at the end of that dirt road, all alone, with no one else to turn to. She’s getting worse. She doesn’t even buy food anymore. I’ve been living on Taco Bell and cereal.”
“I’m so sorry, Jax. I wish I could help.”
He looked away like he was too embarrassed to look me in the eye. “When I think about you, about us as kids, it’s like some fucking movie. When it was just us, everything was fine.” He started to get choked up, but he was trying to be tough. He was fighting it.
“I know—it’s the same for me.”
“Now you’re gone and everything is so real and so fucking brutal. She’s disgusting. Leila is awful; she’s losing her mind. There’s a different guy at our house every night now, and I can hear her with them. I want to fucking die every time.”
“Don’t say that, please. Go to my dad’s. There’s no one there. You can sleep there.”
He looked up, shocked. “They condemned it, Em. The county is tearing it down.”
“What? What about my stuff? My clothes, my books, my mom’s stuff?”
“It’s all gone.”
I felt a lump forming in my throat. “What will my dad do?”
“He’s going to prison, and then he’ll probably go to a halfway house or something. This is it, Em. Everything is changing.”
My chest was heaving. “I better get to the library to meet Sophia.”
“Yeah.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the truck. But before opening the passenger door, he pushed me against it and rubbed his nose along my jawline. Jackson was only sixteen, but he was a man: strong, athletic, and masculine. “I just want to remember the way you taste and smell.” He kissed me hard, almost biting down on my lip. The pain felt good.
I stopped him and pulled away, breathing hard. “Don’t say ‘remember.’ You don’t need to remember. We’ll see each other again soon, right?”