Three Summers

“Bye, Rowen,” I whisper, quickly turning around and forcing my heavy feet in the direction of my parked car. Before I get another foot away from him, his hand grabs mine from behind. I freeze in my spot, allowing the grass to tickle my ankles. I take a deep breath as he sharply pulls me back into his presence. For a second, it sounds like the crickets have ceased chirping, the cicadas stopped humming in the hollows of the trees… it’s as if the stars really have realigned, just for us. In this moment, the world is quiet. Just Rowen and I.

He takes his hands and grabs the sides of my head, bringing us face-to-face. I feel the patchy calluses on his hands, more than likely from the gym, as they scratch my high cheek bones. His fingers intertwine in my chlorine-scented waves as he tips my face up to the point that I can feel his breath on my nose. “I need you to know,” he whispers, lips so close that I can almost feel their softness. “That I want you, Sadie. So. Fucking. Bad.” My eyes widen, as I feel my lips moving even closer to his. Just one more centimeter, and they’ll be on mine. This will all be over. I want him to kiss me. I want to feel his lips brush against mine, I want to feel the hunger that I see in his brown depths. I want him to make the world stop spinning on its very axis. I close my eyes, imagining what would happen if I just did it. If I just leaned in a fraction of a second and pressed my lips against his. Would the world cease to exist? Would I cease to exist? Would it erase every single tear in my heart?

“I want you… and I usually get what I want.” His voice is pure sex, husky and strained, making me tremble all over. Standing this close, breathing his air, has my chest rising faster than it ever has before. Rowen tensely backs away from me, unwrapping his tangled fingers. I hear the ground crushing under his feet as treads around to his truck. I stay put, only a few feet from the bed. My body jumps to the sound of his truck door rattling. The engine revs up, making the grass floor shake beneath my legs. I watch as his headlights fade away under the expanding hills, and I finally let out a breath that I wasn’t aware I was holding. I consciously reach up and place my warm fingers on my mouth, rubbing my lips back and forth, painfully slow. I want to know what it feels like to have his skillful lips on mine again. I want to hear that husky, throaty voice groan as we connect once more. I want his mouth on every single part of my body, giving me that tingly feeling on my most intimate parts. I want it all. I want him. I want him back.

Part Three

Summer, 2012

Nineteen

I’m almost positive that every other twenty-year old knows how to use social media, everyone but ME! Did you really think that I could go the entire school year without checking in on Rowen? I tried. I tried my hardest to just simply put him out of my mind. I dated. I even got naked with a guy, but there was Rowen… right there in the back of my mind with his smoldering gaze, backwards hat, and perfectly long lashes covering those deep brown eyes. Ugh.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, when I’d reached my limit, I very deviously used Alicia’s profile (she really shouldn’t leave it open on her computer) and tried to search for Rowen. I got flustered after about three seconds and ended up rebooting her computer… oops. So, here I am. A year later and I haven’t even gotten a tiny sliver of intel on Rowen, other than fishing information out of Kyle (very innocently, I might add.).

“Alicia, hurry the hell up!” I squeeze my head out from my car window. She briefly puts her own head out of our miniscule, crappy, bottom-floor apartment and flips me the bird. I laugh under my breath. Alicia is literally late for everything. Class? She’s late. Lunch date? Late. A frat party? She shows up two hours after she said she’d be there. She’s relentless when it comes to not being on time. It drives me absolutely up-the-wall, considering I’m early for everything, almost annoyingly early.

I think Alicia and I are the last ones on campus. It’s sparse. Barely any cars parked in the student parking lot, no professors walking around carelessly with their heads buried in their phones, nothing. Just me waiting on Alicia. I was halfway home when she called me, asking to stay the night at my house. She was just going to stay in the empty apartment for the night, then her mom was going to pick her up in the morning, but the one thing I truly know about Alicia is that she hates to be alone so I turned my tiny Ford around and came back to get her.

A few weeks ago, Alicia’s car blew up, literally. I was with her, so that was fun. We were on our way home from getting Chinese off-campus at this little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that sells fake purses on the side, when all of a sudden, I noticed smoke pouring from below the hood of her car. She pulled over, gravel crunching beneath her tires, and we barreled out of our seats (still clutching the Chinese food, of course). The second we got out of the car, it caught fire. I guess she didn’t realize that you had to actually put oil in your car to make it go, so there’s that. She blames it on the fact that she doesn’t have a father figure in her life … she said, “Aren’t dads supposed to do these things for you? I don’t have one.” The tow truck driver rolled his wrin

kled eyes at her, then smiled; he had some type of tobacco sticking in his teeth, and his longing stare at Alicia’s model-like olive-colored bare legs was enough to have me call one of our other friends to come pick us and our Chinese up on the side of the road.

“Come help me!” I hear Alicia say from the doorway. She has three pink crates in her arms that are piled up higher than her head, blocking her face, and she has three bags strapped around her body.

“Oh my God. You’re a mess,” I say, through a fit of laughter as I skip up to her full hands and help her load the car.

Halfway down the highway, she finally turns down our mini ACDC concert and says, “I’m literally so excited to stay at your house. It’s like we’re having a slumber party.”

“We have a slumber party every night. We live together,” I counter, keeping my eyes on the fast cars zipping around us.

“I know, but this is different. I get to hang at your childhood home; I get to see where you grew up. And… ” She trails off, bringing her hand up to her chin and tapping it repeatedly. “And maybe I get to see Rowen.”

I almost bring the car to a slamming stop, my foot teetering over the brake. “There is no way you’re seeing Rowen tonight. I haven’t even see him, or told him… ” I waiver from the last part because I’m still feeling all wonky from my decision. She pouts, so I add, “You should come back for our friend, Kyle’s, annual 4th of July party. That way you can meet everyone.”

She nods her head in an excited manner, smiling from ear to ear. She turns the music back up and leaves me to my thoughts of Rowen.

This whole year, I’ve tested out every possible way to get Rowen out of my system. I dated two guys, and I mean, like… really dated. Not another Marky-Mark situation, who by the way, transferred to another school. Apparently, Rowen scared him that much. Anyway, boyfriend number one, was one that I met in the library. He kept staring at me from several tables away, making my face flush with every passing second. I finally got the nerve to walk over to him, because I simply couldn’t concentrate. I asked him what he was staring at. I still had Mark fresh in my mind and my bodyguard, aka Rowen, was over a hundred miles away, so I was not in the mood to feature in someone’s library fantasy. When I spoke in a bold voice, holding my stare to his, he grinned at me. A little tiny part of his full lip tipped up on the right side, casting a dimple just below his cheek, and I smiled out of reaction. He replied, “I’m staring at you because you’re hard not to stare at. Haven’t you noticed every guy in this room staring at you?” I remembered looking around the quiet library and people’s eyes really were lingering on us. I felt my body break out into a fevered sweat.

The rest is basically history. He asked me out and I agreed. We went on a few dates to some of the restaurants that weren’t too far away from campus, we went to some home football games, it was all very casual and easy. But I learned a long time ago that easy also means boring. Love is difficult, relationships are difficult; it shouldn’t necessarily be easy and calming. I want to feel something. I want to feel exhilarated. I want to feel those butterflies that Rowen gave me the first time he held my hand. I needed to feel something other than my impending thoughts of him. So, I ended it with boyfriend number one. It was all on good terms; I think he knew we were better as friends.

Then there was boyfriend number two; who I refer as “freak in the sheets” but his real name is Hoyt. “Professor” Hoyt. I made a complete fool out of myself the first time I met him because I addressed him as such in front of my entire Romantic Literature class. When I called him Professor Hoyt, the entire class snickered—causing a pretty crimson shade of red to creep onto my neck and face. He smiled at me gently and said, “You’ve given me a boost of confidence, but I’m not a professor. I’m just a TA filling in for the first three weeks of class, but thanks.” Then he winked at me and I felt a familiar pull in my stomach. He was attractive, and smart. He had jet black hair, and crystal blue eyes. He wore those fancy dress shirts with ties and slacks that hugged all the right spots. I often found myself daydreaming about him when he would talk of Jane Austen and his all-time favorite, Byron. I would catch him looking in my direction and he’d give me a small smile, barely playing at his lips. I’m sure no one else noticed, but I did and I liked the way it made me feel. Almost as if it was a drug. I couldn’t get enough of him. It took my mind off Rowen for 0.3 seconds, too, and I appreciated that. At soon as the three weeks were over, he came right up to my chair as I was shoving my MacBook in my leather-bound Fossil bag, and asked me out. I agreed, nodding my head wildly, holding back the biggest smile.

He was older than me, nearing twenty-five and working on his Master’s degree, and it was a breath of fresh air. I went straight from boyish Rowen, to creeper Mark, to fake boyfriend Rowen who beats up creepy guys named Mark, to library boy (who didn’t elicit a single spark in me), and then I landed Hoyt. He took me on real dates, and I felt like I was actually in my twenties. The first restaurant he took me to was a fancy sushi one, and we had a really good time. I felt sexy and like I had my life together when I pulled on my red dress, the one that hit right at my mid-thigh. The push-up bra I had stashed away in the back of my underwear drawer made my boobs look as if I was in my mid-twenties instead of barely reaching adulthood. I remember the exact moment Hoyt saw me in that dress. His eyes roamed the entirety of my body, making me feel the need to clench my legs together. His look rocked me to my core.

The date was simply perfect. We laughed at my attempt to eat sushi; I embarrassingly gagged on the raw, slimy fish, so he ended up taking me to get some gelato to end the night. We shared bites from one another and I would curse myself for wanting to wrap my mouth around something other than his plastic spoon. His crystal blue eyes were as bright as the sky on a sunny day. I got lost in them that night more than I care to admit.

Things went slow at first. I was like a little schoolgirl when he would sometimes wait for me after my classes, just to walk me to my next destination. We would text back and forth while I was back home, visiting my parents for the holidays. Then BOOM, things went south during spring break.

The weather that day was impeccable. It wasn’t too hot or humid, a small breeze rustling the giant oak tree’s limbs out front. I was on my knees, burying my hands in dirt, helping my mom plant the yellow and orange marigolds just beneath the windows when I felt a strange need to look towards the road. I wish I hadn’t because the second I caught a glimpse of that rusty red fender, my stomach clenched. My breath caught and just like that, I was back at Old Man Henry’s, feeling Rowen’s hands on my face; telling me he wanted me. He didn’t drive down my street. He just sat at the crossroads, parked by the stop signs, truck rumbling in the background. I couldn’t see his eyes, I was too far away but I knew it was him. I knew he could see me; just as I could see him. A horn blared from behind him, making me jolt out of my skin. I turned away just as he drove off, and things were never the same again between Hoyt and I.

I tried to ignore it for awhile, the guilt crowding my brain like gnat on a rotten banana. I even rushed us to the next level, finally taking the plunge, moving past all the foreplay that Hoyt was so damn good at. Sex. We had sex, mind-blowing, toe-curling sex but things came to a crashing halt. No pumping the brakes; we came to a tire-squealing, whiplash-inducing stop. I learned two things after having sex with Hoyt. Number one: Sex in my twenties is more pleasurable than in my teens. I think I’ve reached a sexual high. There is a reason I refer to him as “freak in the sheets”. That was all very good, but then came number two: Sex with Hoyt may be epically pleasurable but I felt nothing in my heart for him. He was exciting, and he was definitely skilled with his mouth and hands, but I felt nothing (other than the handful of orgasms). So, I made my decision. I broke things off with Hoyt, shortly after we had sex. I realized that I better start listening to my incredibly determined heart and give this whole thing with Rowen another go around. After all, if I can say goodbye to Hoyt, who no doubt is a sex god from another life, all because of Rowen… that has to mean something. Right?

Glancing in the rearview mirror, listening to Alicia yammer on and on about my house and how it looks so “cozy,” I fix my hair into a messy bun perched high on my head. I take my sunglasses off, wiping the layer of grease off my face and smile at my scar. It’s barely there anymore, thanks to the overly priced scar removal cream that my mom sends to me in care packages. I wonder if it bothers her more than it bothers me?

I just knew my mom would make an enormous dinner when Alicia and I made it home. Any chance she has to celebrate, she will. Tonight, we’re celebrating that Alicia and I are now seniors and that it was Alicia’s first time staying at my house. The night flew by: dinner with my parents who didn’t stop talking the second we sat down to gobble up some home-cooked pot roast and veggies, then Alicia went through all my high school yearbooks, stopping at every hot guy’s picture, raising her eyebrows and after that we watched a chick flick. We ended the night binging on my mom’s homemade, chocolatey, mouth-watering brownies, all while kicking each other in my tiny full-sized bed.

Alicia’s mom picked her up an hour before I had to head into the country club and I was as nervous as a snowman in July. I didn’t have a plan with seeing Rowen. I was just going to show up and hope he’d understand that this was me accepting to be his girlfriend, or at least to try things for awhile. I didn’t tell my parents, I was twenty (almost twenty-one). I was an adult, but somehow being back in my childhood home for the third summer in a row, I felt like I was still a little girl with pigtails who needs permission to leave