“It’s like a cocoon,” she says, snuggling against me. My body reacts instantly to the feel of her so close, to the way her hair tickles my chin and the way her hands touch my legs. I have a hard time breathing when she’s so close—functioning in general.
“This lake is so pretty,” she says. “I’m not going to pretend we don’t have pretty landscape or mountains at home. We do, but there’s nothing like this. The sky isn’t so wide. The mountains aren’t this close. It’s like everything is in reach, you know.”
I know. I really know. Because Starlee is my mountain, my sky and stars. She’s right in front of me. So close that I can touch her. I am touching her.
I don’t respond with words, I just push her hair to the side and kiss the warm spot on her neck. She exhales and leans into me, grazing my knees with her nails.
“One day we’ll go to the Pacific Ocean,” I tell her suddenly. “It’s cold there but still really pretty. There are stones all over the beach, striped with sediment. We’ll take the highway and stop at all the overlooks.”
“I like that idea.”
We sit together for a while, watching the moon climb higher. I settle into the feel of her—the familiarity—and I consider for the first time that maybe this is going to stick. She’s going to stick—stay. I always feel like our time with her is like grains of sand; a gust of wind and she’d be gone. But it’s been months now, and maybe this is it. Maybe it’s real.
We stay like this for a while longer, until she stands and takes my hand, leading me back to the others. We hang by the firelight—five strong.
38
Starlee
At the end of the night, I kiss the boys one by one. We’re late for curfew but I get the feeling Sierra expected it and when Jake, my official date for the weekend, asks to walk me home she waves us off without a second look.
“Thank you for an awesome homecoming,” I say, looking up at his sharp, perfect profile as I step up on the porch. “You made a few dreams come true.”
“You deserve them all, Starlee.”
He lifts my chin and kisses me. My entire body lights up and I think I may need dousing with water like fire back in the park.
I’m sleepy but invigorated, feeling adrenaline from the freedom of such a special weekend. My mother would disapprove all around—from the game, to the sneaking off from the dance, to this late-night moment with a very, very handsome boy.
A streak of self-assured rebellion rolls over me.
“Do you want to come in?”
“To your house?” he asks in a whisper. “Your grandmother’s house?”
“She’s asleep and I’m not ready for this to be over.”
I doubt there would be any circumstance Jake would have said no, and he doesn’t, following me quietly into the house.
We slip off our shoes and I feel his fingers tuck into the back of my jeans as he follows me down the hall. Leelee’s door is closed, but even through the solid wood I hear the hum of her white noise machine.
I lock the bedroom door behind us and don’t dare turn on the light. I do ease off my hoodie and push away Jake’s jacket, hearing the soft leather hit the floor.
My knees hit the back of my bed and Jake stops and says, “What are we doing here, Starlee?”
I know what he’s asking. I’m thankful, it brings me to my senses. “Will you just lie with me?”
He nods and I push back the covers of my twin bed and quietly, we get in. There’s no choice but to press our bodies against one another—Jake’s too big and the bed’s too small. He wraps his strong arms around me and I feel the energy of the weekend finally starting to wane.
“Dexter and I had sex,” I confess to him, although he may already know. I’m not sure how much they share. In the dark I see the surprise in his eyes. “It was before I left, before my mother came and took me away. Just the one time.”
“Okay.”
“We haven’t again and I haven’t with the others.” I have no idea why this is rushing out of me. It must be the exhaustion. “But I like being close to you like this. Just the two of us. I like how you feel—how you smell.”
He runs a hand gently down my arm, his fingertips trailing over my forearm. His hand rests on my hip and he closes the gap between us, kissing me softly.
“I like those things about you, too.”