Sliding (The Stone Series) (31 page)

“We got kind of drunk; I mean he didn’t get me drunk or anything, we were
just kind of hanging out and drinking with you and all of your friends. I even
smoked weed for the first time that night. Your class was always known as the
party class, I really don’t know what mom and dad were thinking letting me go
with you. I am never letting Holly take Heather to a party!”

As the polish is going on our toes Katrina finishes up her story with,
“So we just kind of ended up in a room together and I thought we’d just you
know…go to sleep but then Bobby kissed me and one thing lead to another and
bye, bye V card!”

We are lead into separate massage rooms, me for my hot stone, Katrina for
her Swedish so I’ll have to wait until we meet up in the sauna for further
details. The massage room is scented with Lily of the Valley which will always
remind me of my perfume from high school. The music is soft but when I lay down
and focus on it I hear what’s playing, “Here We Are” by Gloria Estefan and I
remember Tate and I a few days before graduation.

************

Tate finally decided to take UNC’s offer and go there to play basketball.
His father played there and at first Tate didn’t want to follow in his father’s
footsteps but in the end UNC was where he really did want to go. I didn’t want
to be at a different school from Tate but I also couldn’t turn up my chance to
cheer at the University of Kentucky. Adam, my cheer partner over the summer was
already there and on the co-ed squad. I sent them a video, they saw me at
summer camps every year and at a fewer competitions so they decided to offer me
a spot on the co-ed squad. Adam claims he had nothing to do with it but I don’t
believe him and I love him for it to this day.
 

Tate and I will be eight hours apart for the next four years of our lives
and as graduation is getting closer this fact is finally starting to sink in
and we are both questioning how good of an idea it really is.

Tate and I are on the beach one night just holding hands and watching
wave after wave crash over the rocks. We are both quiet, knowing there are a
lot of things that need to be said but neither one of us wanting to say them.

I decide to start, “I don’t want to break up when we go to school in the
fall. Do you?”

Tate brings my hand to his mouth and gently kisses my fingers. “No, I
don’t either but I’m afraid you’re going to find another guy. What if we grow
apart, change? Maybe you won’t love me like you do now” Tate ponders.

I laugh and assure him that I will always love him and I am never going
to want another guy.

“Do you think you’re going to meet a girl you’ll want to be with and
break up with me over the phone or do you think you’ll drive the eight hours to
tell me to my face?”

“Nah, I’ll just bag her in my dorm room while I’m on the phone with you
pretending I’m out of breath from jogging around campus.”

I punch him as hard as I can in his arm but it doesn’t even budge him and
he just laughs at me. “You know I’m teasing you right? I’m not going to hook up
with anyone. I will come see you as often as I can and we’ll do nothing but
fuck the whole time then I’ll be good until I can see you again. Hey, we’ve
been doing it all summer every summer for years and made it through” Tate says.

I sigh and start to cry as the next words come out of my mouth, “Maybe we
should break up. That way if you meet someone else you won’t feel guilty. If
we’re meant to be we’ll find our way back to each other, right? That’s what
they call fate, isn’t it”

************

Katrina and I met in the sauna room and I can’t wait to hear the juicy
details of her story and I have a few questions for her as well. As soon as we
sit down I am thankful that we have the room to ourselves because my sister is
going to spill it all.

“Okay, spill it all right now or I’m calling mom and telling her that you
gave it up at that prom party and then you can deal with her.”

Even though my sister is an almost second timed divorcee, almost forty
year old mother of two she does not want to deal with our mother. So she
decides to cooperate.

“Okay, okay don’t get nuts or I’ll tell mom that you gave it up on Tate’s
sixteenth birthday.” I look at her in shock, how does she know that?

“That’s right, I know all about that sweetie. I’m sure mom does too. You
realize you were walking like you had a pulled groin muscle for two days and
you’re the most flexible person I have ever met. So while we’re on that
subject…what the fuck? How big is your husband’s dick?”

I burst out laughing and refuse to answer that question but I do raise my
eye brows at her.

“Mmm…lucky you. Both of my ex-husbands could be candidates for penile
implants. Nothing like Bobby, now that man is hung like a bull” she says but
cannot keep a straight face. “No really, he is much bigger than both those
losers I married. Did I tell you, Tom was fucking his secretary up the ass when
I caught them? Poor thing, it’s the only place on that whore it fits snuggly enough
and there’s no way he was ever doing that to me even with that pencil thin dick
of his” Katrina claims. I manage to get her back on topic and sharing details
about her and Bobby which have to be less torrid then what she’s just shared.

“So we were making out in this room at the beach house and he lay down on
the bed and pulled me on top of him. I was able to feel his excitement if you
know what I mean? I let him put his hand up my shirt and then the next thing I
knew I was top and braless and Bobby was taking off his shirt. I don’t know
what happened to me. Maybe it was the beer or the pot but I sat up and undid
his jean shorts. God, remember jean shorts? What were guys thinking?” Katrina
asks but when I remind her of the fluorescent colors and big hair we had she
admits, “Good point.” I encourage her, “Go on” because she needs to finish this
story fast before I die in this oven they call a sauna. “So I undo his jean
shorts and pull them down. I had never seen one before and it was kind of ugly,
right? You agree with me there don’t you? They really aren’t the best looking
body part a man’s got.” I agree with her, “I’ve always favored Tate’s pecs and
stomach but let’s face it neither of them are going to get the job done.”
    
 
 

“So then he takes my pants off, I tell him I’m a virgin, he promises to
be gentle and yada, yada, yada so long virginity.”

I have to know after all that complaining Asia always did about Bobby and
his lack of skills in the bedroom so I ask, “Was he good? I mean did you uh…you
know? That first time?”

A smile breaks across her face, “The two best orgasms I have ever had!”

We head in to have our facials and when we hear “It Must Have Been Love”
we both think back to my graduation and the weeks leading up to my leaving for
college.

“Do you remember this song?” my sister asks. “You cried listening to this
freaking song for weeks. I couldn’t wait for you to leave so I wouldn’t have to
listen to it anymore.”

************

Tate refuses to accept my break up so we go through the days leading up
to graduation as always. Graduation is a blur of excitement and sadness. The
loss of David and Jeff still hung in the air all around us. We keep two seats
in the alphabetical order we were placed in empty for them. When their names
come into the order a moment of silence is requested. We get our diplomas and
head to the beach for a huge bonfire and party. Tate and I get completely
wasted as do everyone we were with. We all just stay there on the beach and
sleep until morning then head home.

I only have two weeks before I am due on campus to begin summer
conditioning and attend the college cheer camps with my squad. Tate and Bobby
aren’t leaving until the end of August for UNC and Asia is going to UCONN and
doesn’t need to head there until the semester begins after Labor Day. Tate and
I decide that we are going to spend every minute together until I leave. My
parents have agreed to bring him and Bobby along when they bring me to school.
  

I cry every second I am not with Tate, trying to imagine the rest of my
life without him. I am convinced that this is the end of us. That he’ll go off
to UNC and find someone else. Girls are always throwing themselves at him, how
long will he be able to resist them? A month? A week?

I make a mixed tape of the sad love songs that other girls at school
always play when their numerous boyfriends dump them and I play it and cry to
it for weeks. I’m lucky I had Tate as my boyfriend since I started having a
boyfriend. I never felt the effects of a break up or a broken heart. Sad songs
never spoke to me before but now I am listening to them and I think for the
first time my heart is breaking into a million pieces.

************

I am struggling hard right now and
I want a drink and a line but instead I head straight to see Drew. Drew’s
helping me to open up and share my feelings with Brook instead of running to
drugs and booze. Our house is finally ready and we find out we are having a boy
and a girl. My world feels complete for the first time but it’s the lack of
control over it that brings me to Drew today. I worry as the time gets closer
for the babies to arrive that I will turn into my father and try to control
their lives. I’ve already bought my son a basketball. I am no better than my
father and that scares me.

I have a long talk with my parents before the babies come about Michael
and Jeremy and they agree to meet Jeremy and talk with them, try to find some
common ground and a way to have a relationship with them. They want to be
grandparent’s to Andrew just as much as they do my twins and Holly and Heather.
They plan to come and stay for a few months after the babies come as do Michael
and Jeremy. It will be nice to have my whole family with me.

Tate is hard at work making me a labor playlist. He said he’s including
songs from our lives that will soothe and calm me, bring back good memories,
funny memories. He’s hoping that by my listening to this playlist I’ll be able
to remain drug free during my labor and delivery. I have managed to gain twenty
five pounds and keep myself and my babies healthy. I have my personal trainer
ready to move out here and resume our workout sessions as soon as the babies
come.

Heidi has been great through my whole pregnancy helping me whenever I
need her but also not coddling me, she has let me continue to work with our
dancers and choreograph our projects. She and Dominick are moving their
relationship along; they are even talking about marriage in the near future.
Heather and Holly are very excited because they want to be flower girls. They
may get two chances.

Bobby and Katrina won’t admit to a relationship but anyone who sees them
together knows they’re in love. They leave the girls with Tate and I and double
date with Dominick and Heidi. I am too tired to join them so staying in and
watching my nieces suits me just fine. Tate and I sit on the sofa with the
girls watching movies and talking about baby names. We decide on Zach and Zoe
Taylor for our twins.
 

Tate and I put the girls to bed and wait up for the happy couples. We
finally get into bed after midnight and Tate spoons his body around me, pulling
me close and placing his hand on my hard, round belly. I feel like I have only
slept for minutes when I am startled awake with the feeling that I have wet the
bed. Tate must feel it too because he jumps up with me.

“I think I just wet the bed” I report to Tate.

“I think your water just broke, how do you feel?” he asks just as my
first contraction cripples me.

We arrive at the hospital, the nurse checks me in, examines me and informs
me that I am only two centimeters dilated and have a long way to go. The pain
from the contractions is getting worse and I can’t get comfortable in any
position I try. Tate knows it’s time to transport me to a happy place so he
starts the playlist. The standards start it up, songs from the start like
“Little Red Corvette” and “Never Gonna Let You Go”. I am on all fours breathing
heavy when I hear favorites like “Footloose” and “Sunglasses at Night”. I can
still see Tate and Bobby dancing around in their sunglasses in our hotel room
in the city when we were in eighth grade and it brings a smile to my face. When
I look up my husband is standing there stomping his foot to the beat wearing
sunglasses like he did that night so long ago. I am happy and distracted but
then another contraction hits me hard and I scream out. Tate is having a tough
time dealing with his feelings of helplessness as he watches me wriggle in
pain.

“We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off” brings a smile back to my face as
Tate and I reminisce about that day on the bus freshman year going to States. I
can still see Danny and the other guys giving Tate a hard time and Tate giving
it right back. When the contractions get worse again Tate gets the nurse to
check me, I am now four centimeters.

Tate and I start the deep breathing we learned in Lamaze class through
“The Lady in Red” and Tate makes up his own little rhyme to make me laugh, “The
lady in red is giving me head” he sings and I look at him and ask “Really, what
you’re fifteen now?”