Taken by Storm (27 page)

Read Taken by Storm Online

Authors: Angela Morrison

Tags: #Social Issues, #Dating & Sex, #Christian, #Friendship, #Juvenile Fiction, #Sports & Recreation, #General, #Religious, #Water Sports, #Death & Dying

 
“What?” She loves making out. She breathes for making out.
 
“If we start making out all the time like we used to, all the rules in the world won’t stand a chance.”
 
“Jeez, babe. What are we going to do?”
 
“Talk. Study. Go out. Clean up Gram’s garden. We can start as soon as the snow melts. That will keep us busy.”
 
i don’t bring up diving, but i mentally add it to the list. “Can i even kiss you?”
 
“I don’t know—try it again.”
 
i lean over and kiss her softly, with all the tenderness, shame, and hope i can muster.
 
“Yeah.” She sighs. “That works.” She sits up and shakes her hair back. “Goodnight kiss only. On my porch. Not in here.” A smile creeps up on her face. “But it can last as long as we want.”
 
“Is this outlawed?” i lean over and suck on the corner of her plump lower lip.
 
“No way.” She’s breathless. “That you can do—anytime.”
 
So i do it again.
 
chapter 37
 
EVER AFTER?
 
LEESIE’S MOST PRIVATE CHAPBOOK
 
POEM #42, NOT Easy
 
One visit to church fails
to convert.
 
 
One kiss does not erase
her
.
 
 
One promise does not dissolve
my doubts.
 
 
But one hand, warm,
holding mine, makes
none of it matter—
deedee, diving, the unchancy distress
when his lips caress mine—
even my dreams of BYU—
until I let go
of his hand.
 
LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 01/09 12:09 A.M.
 
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—#8
 
i open the link Leesie sent. Reef Memorial is amazingly perfect. i can’t believe she found this for me. Maybe she does have magic powers. This is so right. This company stirs a diver’s ashes into a special concrete mixture and molds it into a sphere or an obelisk or a number of different reef-shaped formations. Then they haul it out to a spot just outside of the marine sanctuary and let it sink in about thirty feet of water. i can buy a monument that will be a permanent artificial reef made out of my parents. They’ll be part of the ocean. No worms. Coral. Fish. It’s all so cool.
 
i click through pictures of the different shapes Reef Memorial can make. i go for the biggest and baddest—a narrow reef that mimics a coral finger. It’s thirty feet long, with tubes for eels and a big ledge at the bottom where a friendly nurse shark might want to hang out.
 
As part of the underwater funeral, Reef Memorial attaches a buoy and gives the mourners a GPS tracking chart so the bereaved can dive their loved ones anytime. In a few decades, my parents will be covered in coral growth, a home for fish. i can see it sitting on the ocean floor, covered with algae and flowing fans, yellow and purple juvie fish. All of it not far from the condo. i could take my kids diving there. i think about Leesie, our kids. i’m never letting her get away again.
 
i fill in Reef Memorial’s online reply form. It asks for a date. i flip through the calendar Leesie marked for me when we started going out. MLK day? Too soon. Spring break? Too far off. Presidents’ Day weekend? Too short, but we’ll make it work. A solid, whole feeling that this is right comes over me. My face gets hot and my throat aches, but i feel something new. Beyond misery. Strong. Maybe i
can
be strong for them. Take them home, forever.
 
chapter 38
 
BON VOYAGE
 
LEESIE HUNT / CHATSPOT LOG / 02/12 11:37 P.M.
 
chapter 39
 
TRUST
 
MICHAEL’S DIVE LOG—VOLUME #8
 
i wanted to stay at the condo, but crazy Stan has it in the resort’s rental program. It’s like a hotel room now. Presidents’ Day weekend. Of course it’s booked. The guests check out Sunday, so we could have stayed in it for one night, but Leesie didn’t think that would be cool. Maybe she’s right. Just the airport freaked me. My parents were everywhere. Trapped in the mirrored ceiling over the escalator going down to baggage claim and the smoky doors that dumped us out into the honk and spit of Miami traffic. It was dark driving down, so i just got flashes of the miles of mangrove swamps we passed, but that was enough to set Isadore off.
 
We checked into the main hotel too whipped to care about anything by the time we got to the rooms. Leesie’s sharing with Gram. i get to bunk with her dad. He snores—sounds kind of like his pigs.

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