You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

Zack points to himself. “Not charmed. You, on the other hand . . .” His mouth tilts into a grin.

I want to smile back, but: “All those things she told you—she was right. I’m innocent and inexperienced.” Truths are spilling out of me tonight, fears and insecurities and secrets. It feels good to finally be honest with someone.

“I am too. I haven’t done anything, really. I’ve done . . . more with you than with anyone else.”

“Oh,” I say, grinning into the dark as the crickets fill the silence between us. Urging us on.

“We could corrupt each other,” Zack suggests. He reaches out and draws a line down the curve of my leg through the sleeping bag. Hip to knee. I shiver. “Cold?”

“I’ve never been camping. I didn’t expect it to be so freezing.”

“Nighttime can be a little rough.” He pauses. “You can, uh, come in here with me if you want to.” The tremor in his voice is so endearing that it practically pulls me from my sleeping bag.

“I really want to.”

With a little maneuvering, he adjusts the bag so we can both fit inside. I’m about to say that I don’t think there’s enough room for both of us, but I want us to be that close, sleeping pressed up against each other. I slide my feet down the length of the bag and align my body with his. He zips us up, and though I was right, there isn’t enough space, I don’t want any space between us.

We start kissing, and the night and general aloneness help our hands find each other’s skin quickly. I’m not worried about whether my chest is too big or whether he’s comparing me to my sister. He wants me. It’s difficult to separate what our bodies do from how our bodies feel, the clinical from the intimate. What’s happening between us is so much more than a chemical reaction, so for a while, I turn off my brain. We push against each other with our pajamas on, fingers and lips and discovery, and it’s all new and wonderful, like we’re the only two people who’ve figured out how to feel this way together, how to push our bodies off a cliff.

Once our breathing slows down again, I burrow even closer into him, face pressed into the hollow of his neck, which is always warm and always smells like a mix of soap and paint and, tonight, campfire ashes.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about us and what’s gonna happen next year,” he says. “I know we just started going out a couple months ago, but there’s a good chance I’ll end up on the East Coast in the fall too. That’s where most of my art schools are. And I know you’ll get into Johns Hopkins, and you’ll be in Baltimore, so . . .”

Swallowing around the knot in my throat, I echo him: “I’ll be in Baltimore. Maybe.”

“Long-distance would be tough, but we won’t be that far away. We could see each other every weekend.”

He’s combing my hair, his fingers so light, and I can tell in those touches that he’s imagining us there together, bundled up in our winter coats, sipping cocoa, strolling mitten-in-mitten through campuses with bright red trees.

For a while I don’t say anything.

“Tov?” he says. “What do you think?”

“I think . . .” I have to force the words out. “I think seeing each other every weekend sounds amazing.”

He kisses my forehead. Whispers, “And we can fall asleep like this more often.”

This feels too good, imagining our imaginary future. The logical side of my brain tells me this could all fall apart based on one admissions decision. But logic isn’t warm and solid, and it doesn’t have its arms wrapped around me. It scares me how deeply, how much I feel when I’m with Zack. There’s too much of it, and I can’t contain it, and one day it’ll burst out of me like a solid ray of light.

Adina is packing as I’m unpacking. She leaves for her audition trip tonight: New York, Boston, and Baltimore. Peabody, one of the schools Adina is auditioning at, is part of Johns Hopkins, though on a separate campus. My parents encouraged me to tag along, but I couldn’t bear it. Not with my future still so uncertain.

Adina’s door is half-open, which I interpret as an invitation. Quickly, before I can change my mind, I drop my duffel on my bed, snatch a box from my closet, and knock on her door.

“Come in.”

“Excited for your trip?” I ask, on such a high from camping that I bounce inside her room like I’m human sunshine.

She folds a sweater into a suitcase, then turns to me. Her grin is sunshine too. Real. Thank God. “I can’t wait.”

“I, um, got you something.” I hold out the box. “For your auditions.”

She arches a brow but accepts the gift. Unwraps it. “Tovah . . .” She picks up the container of Larica rosin. It’s top-of-the-line; I looked it up.

I bought it a few weeks ago, but after she humiliated me in front of Zack, I wasn’t sure I was going to give it to her. But I’m able to forgive, and after the camping trip I know my sister isn’t a threat. Zack wants only me, all of me. The expression on her face makes me feel like I’ve finally done something right when it comes to the two of us.

“I want your auditions to go well.”

“Thank you.”