“We’re on a bit of a hill,” Steve explained to Naomi as soon as she reached him, Eric right beside her. “So we’re able to see the fireworks from here if the weather is good.”
She nodded. They hadn’t let her come out to watch them on the Fourth of July, but that was months ago. Besides, she might have tried to make a run for it back then. Not now. Now she knew better.
She shifted her bare feet across the icy cement and folded her arms. Eric looked down at her and smiled. “Are you cold?” He wrapped an arm around her as she returned her attention to the black night. Bursts of green and yellow popped in the sky. Seconds later, the sound reached her ears.
Everything was in its place now. Her past was far away like the fireworks, and not even as beautiful. It was nothing more than a memory.
“Do you want to go back inside?” Eric asked. “You’re shivering. I can get you one of Evelyn’s coats, if you like.” He squeezed her shoulders again. “I thought you’d like to see—”
“I’m okay.”
She looked down at her toes and smiled. Evelyn had painted them for her. They matched her fingernails.
“I first went to school to study biology,” she had said, bent over Naomi’s hands at the dining table. “Then I changed my major to English, then dance. This is what I ended up doing.” She smiled. “Beauty school. Then I met Steve in the salon where I was working, and he was good friends with the manager of a jewelry store downtown. When we got engaged, he got me the assistant manager job I have now at the jewelry store, and that led to—” She stopped and looked away. Her hand tightened around Naomi’s fingers, the smell of nail polish thick in the air. “Well, I love my job and I love Steve, and I’m happy you’re here with us.”
Eric’s arm tightened around her as she stared at the sidewalk. It led to nothing but darkness.
JESSE ARRIVED home a few days later. Naomi knew his flight would land at seven and that it would take him at least an hour to get home from the airport. It was eight now, and she kept looking at the clock as she sat on the couch watching TV with a bowl of popcorn. Eric had let her stay downstairs by herself after dinner. He did that a lot lately.
“Looks like a party,” Jesse said when he came in through the front door. He smiled and her heart did a summersault as she blurted, “How was your trip?”
He shrugged and looked around. “Good. Where is everyone?”
“Evelyn and Steve are upstairs, and Eric’s in his office.” She nodded to the open door by the dining room. If she leaned over far enough, she could see him in his chair talking on the phone.
Jesse was quiet for a moment. He cleared his throat and nodded to his bedroom down the hallway. “I brought you something. Want to see?”
“Yes!” She jumped up and the popcorn flew out of her lap and landed on the floor.
“Happy to see me?” He laughed and set his duffle on the floor before stepping around the couch.
She fell to her knees, cursing when she spotted a butter stain on the tan carpet. “Evelyn’s going to kill me.”
“Nah, she has cleaning stuff. It’s not a big deal.” He dumped a handful of popcorn into the bowl.
Naomi shaped voiceless words in her mouth. She hadn’t seen him in two weeks. Her heart was pounding at the sight of him, at his clean, familiar scent now that he was only a few inches away. Their hands brushed as they picked up some kernels. “I missed you,” she blurted. “A lot.”
He smiled and set the bowl on the coffee table just as Eric peeked out from his office.
“Oh, you’re home. Good flight?”
“A bit crowded, but it was fine.”
Eric nodded. “Come see me in the office when you can. We need to talk about the meeting.”
“Sure thing.” Jesse stood and offered Naomi his hand. “Follow me.”
She stood and followed him to his bedroom, staying in the doorway. She had never seen his bedroom before. Bookshelves lined the walls and in a corner by the window sat a drafting table. One thing she hadn’t realized was the fact that both Jesse’s and Eric’s rooms were directly below hers. Her heart fluttered at the thought of Jesse sleeping right below her.
“During the first weeks you were here I heard you crying at night,” he said as he let go of her hand and walked to his bed. “You don’t do that anymore.”
“Uh, I guess not.” She stared at her red toenails. They were bright, just like her fingernails. The color reminded her of Evelyn. Until she had met Evelyn she had never been one to paint her nails or do anything very girlish— except for the makeup thing.
Jesse cleared his throat and she looked up, giving him an inviting smile. She wanted him to take her into his arms. He should at least say something sweet and predictable like, “I missed you too. I could barely breathe I missed you so much.”
Instead, he turned around and started rummaging through the duffle he had thrown onto his bed. “They’re in here somewhere,” he said, pulling out a few paperback books. He tossed them onto the bed, mumbling to himself while pushing aside shirts and pants. “Ah, here they are.” He turned around and motioned her toward him.
She approached and looked down at a stack of books in his hands, counting four of them. They were old, cloth-wrapped hardbacks with gilt lettering on the spines.
“These are my dad’s,” he said, and set them in her hands. They were heavy and smelled like the basement of a library.
She looked up with questioning eyes. “Your dad’s?”
“He said you could borrow them for as long as you like.” He glanced at the top book in her hands, which she finally noticed was
The Great Gatsby
. Her stomach plummeted as her mom filled her head. She shoved her away.
“They’re first edition prints. My dad thought you’d like them. You know, not everybody appreciates stuff like this. I told him you would.”
“I thought you said he didn’t know about me.”
“Oh, he didn’t.” He turned back to his bag and pulled out a few more paperbacks. “He does now. Well, he knows
about
you.” Clearing his throat, he gripped a paperback in his hand. “But he doesn’t know who you are. I can never tell him ... who you are. I told him we ran into each other in a parking lot. I suppose that’s not a complete lie.” He cleared his throat again and tossed the book onto the suede bedspread with the others.
She didn’t know what to do. Her chest was pounding with more emotions than she could possibly sort through. When he finally turned to her and didn’t take her into his arms and kiss her, she thought her heart might burst.
Eric’s voice yelled out from the office. “Jesse, you free yet?”
His face fell. “I’ll be back. Do you want to wait for me here?”
Her heart retreated to a manageable pace. “Sure.”
“Make yourself comfortable.” He smiled and ran a hand over his scratchy jaw before settling his attention on the bed. “There’s plenty to read. I’ll be right back.”
She waited until he was gone and set the stack of books on a desk beside the bed.
Her hands froze.
He had left his laptop case on the desk, and her mind filled with a very stupid idea.
Jesse had helped her download music to her iPod countless times, and she had noticed that on his laptop he had a guest account with no password. Emailing Brad would be easy. She could type Eric’s full name— Eric Moretti, or Steve and Evelyn Thompson, or even the address she had memorized from the mail she had seen for the first time on the kitchen table a few weeks ago. They were careless about things like that now. They trusted her. It would be easy for the police to find her. None of them would know.
She hung her head and rested her hands in her lap. Could she do that? To Jesse? To any of them?
She couldn’t. More than that, she couldn’t fathom what it would be like to go back home. She recoiled at the thought.
Positioning herself on the edge of the bed near the desk, she looked at the stack of books. She picked up
The Great Gatsby
and ran her fingers across the emerald green cloth and Fitzgerald’s name before opening the cover. The print date said 1925. The paper was yellowed and dull against the shiny, red polish on her fingernails. It was probably worth a small fortune. She had to admit it was amazing, but at the same time it freaked her out just to touch it. Shouldn’t Jesse’s father keep it in a safer place instead of sending it off with his son in a bag full of dirty clothes?
She set it back on the desk and turned to the clean, white pillows on Jesse’s bed. There was no clock in the room. The air was stale and silent, and after a while she pushed Jesse’s duffle to the floor and curled herself in the middle of the bed. Tears formed in her eyes. Was she making the right decision? Her mother’s voice echoed in her head.
Don’t judge him too unfairly in the beginning.
Her throat tightened. Had she judged her mother too unfairly? She was eighteen now—old enough to decide who to live with and what to do with the rest of her life. It was her decision to stay here. As crazy as it was, she wanted to stay. She buried her face in Jesse’s pillow.
SHE DREAMED of flowers, a whole garden of them. One in particular caught her attention—white and ample, like a magnolia unfolding beneath the sun. It reminded her of a painting in her mother’s room.
“Naomi?”
Her eyes fluttered open to see Jesse leaning over the bed. “I’m sorry,” she stuttered, sitting up. She focused on his messy red hair and bright eyes.
“Why are you sorry?” He leaned closer and glanced at his watch. “I’ve been gone for over an hour. I was afraid you might head back upstairs.”
She returned her head to the pillow, but kept her eyes attached to his. “No, you said you would be back.”
He looked at his watch again. “It’s getting late and you look tired. You should go to bed.”
“No!” She shook her head and raised herself from the pillow. “I don’t want to leave. I want to be with you. I missed you so much while you were away.”
If he made her go back to her room, she might scream at him. She needed him.
He smiled. “I missed you too. I wanted to talk about you all the time with my dad, but I couldn’t say very much without giving away my ... secrets.” He leaned down close to her mouth. “You were the first thing I thought about when I went to sleep and the first thing on my mind in the morning.”
His lips touched hers. Finally. She wrapped her arms around him as he crawled onto the bed next to her. “Let’s not wait anymore,” he mumbled, moving his mouth to her neck. He paused along her collarbone, breathing heavily, and slid his hands up her back. Then he peeled her shirt up her body and over her head.
She was surprised at how natural it felt to be with him like this. On his bed. With her shirt off. It wasn’t awkward or scary. Smiling, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled his shirt off too. There were freckles across his shoulders and chest. She ran her fingers over them. He was warm and strong and beautiful. She wanted him so badly her entire body ached.
“You won’t ever hurt me,” she whispered, staring into his eyes. Then she moved her attention to her red fingernails. “Not like Brad.”
She gritted her teeth. Brad was the last person she wanted to think about right now, but no matter how hard she tried, he still hovered in her mind like a lonely shadow.
Jesse’s fingers tightened around the button of her jeans. “What do you mean? Did he hurt you?”
She tried not to cringe. She supposed it depended on what he meant by hurt. “Not exactly,” she said, thinking carefully. “I wanted to the first time ... so much. I swear I was the last girl my age at school to have sex. Maybe that’s what I wanted to believe, I don’t know, but it didn’t seem like it would be a problem. It was fine, I guess, but that first time ... it hurt. I guess that’s normal. After a while, he sometimes ....” She choked on the next words and looked away.
“Yes?”
“It’s nothing. Most of the time I didn’t want to and he made me feel like I had to ... and always his way. That’s all.”
That really was all. As far as she could remember Brad had never truly hurt her—except for the one time he had hit her, of course. He was simply overbearing, insistent, persuasive, demanding, and a hundred other things she didn’t want to think about right now. Jesse was none of those.
“Oh.” He pushed away from her. “So is that the problem, then? Brad?” He leaned closer to her face. “I know you want this as much as I do.”
She did want him. She wanted a commitment with him more than she had ever wanted with Brad. Her body was begging her mind to shut off and leave her alone.
“I’ll be gentle,” he whispered, unbuttoning her jeans. He pulled the zipper down. “I won’t hurt you, Naomi. You must know that.” He searched her face, and when she didn’t react to him tugging her jeans down her hips, he stopped. His eyes hardened. “Are you still in love with him?”
“I was never in love with him.” She was surprised at how fast she answered the question, and shifted beneath his weight. Why did her heart feel like it was being ripped in half? Why were her fingernails digging into her palms like daggers? She was sure they would draw blood any moment as he leaned down to kiss her cheek. He lifted his hands from her waist and curled them around her face.
“I’ve already told you I’m going to Italy with you. I’ll stay with you because I’ve never felt this way about anybody.”
Her heart swelled. She focused on the weight of his body, his skin on her skin. His heart was pounding almost as hard as hers. Something was opening up between them, letting in more light to the darkness that had surrounded her for so long. She knew if it shined brightly enough she might see him for who he truly was, if he let her. She had already let her own secret box open to all those raw emotions that still haunted her sometimes. This made her shrink away.