Chapter Eighteen
I pushed away, the strain in my arms making me groan.
James continued to come at me, his belt whirring as he pulled it off and threw it to the floor.
“Just get back.” I cried. “Please.”
James approached maniacally, his eyes swirling pools of black sunken deep into his face. He shook his head, clapped his hands together excitedly.
I scrambled backwards only to find a wall blocking my path.
“James!” I yelled, my voice breaking, pleading. I looked around trying to find something familiar, when my eyes fell on the bodies of Laynie and Jonah.
My heart roared, exploding in my chest until what remained was just a dark ink splatter on my soul.
My quivering lips ceased to tremble and I balled my hands into fists as I came away from the wall, straight into his grasp.
Heat exploded in me as I sat straight up screaming. I scrambled to get away, tears streaming down my face.
I took in my surroundings, trying to figure out where I was, where I could go.
The cabin. I ran to the bathroom and flipped the lights on, jumped into the bathtub and turned the faucet, letting the cold water rush over me.
I gasped, sputtering and screaming as I washed away James’ memory.
Wrapping my fingers through my hair, I cried angrily, slamming my fists and kicking my legs. The water grew warmer.
I felt hands on my back, flinched. Jonah climbed into the bathtub, wrapping his limbs around me, rocking me back and forth.
Water poured down our faces as we huddled together in the steaming shower.
Jonah whispered sweet words into my ears, pressed kisses to my shoulder.
He didn’t pressure me to tell him what had happened to frighten me, and he didn’t suggest we move somewhere else. Instead, he waited for my shoulders to slump as the last bit of energy I had left escaped me. And then I spoke.
“James tried to hurt me.” I said softly. “And I didn’t let him get near me.” I sniffed quietly, wiping at my face. The water continued to fall, partially drowning out my voice. “He hurt you and Laynie. So I gave up.”
Jonah pressed gentle kisses to my shoulder and my back. I didn’t care that he could see me my body beneath the drenched shirt I was wearing, and I didn’t care that my hair wasn’t straightened perfectly. I reached up, turned the water off, and sat there, my legs already beginning to chill.
We sat in silence while I sat there, my hair starting to frizz and curl. Jonah’s jeans were coarse and rough against my legs, but I didn’t mind.
“Don’t give up.” He said softly.
I stood up, looking down at myself, Jonah stayed where he was, looking up at me looking down at him.
I held my arms out for him, he stood and hugged me before he stepped out of the tub and handed me a towel.
He took his shirt off, unzipped his pants and carefully took those off as well.
I stood in the tub, unfazed. I wiped at my face and hair, trying to absorb most of the water.
Jonah left the room for a few minutes and returned in a change of shorts with our bag in hand.
He kissed my nose and walked out again.
Life couldn’t change anymore. Just a few short weeks ago I was waiting outside of my house waiting for Laynie. Weeks before that I was trapped in my house, sparing myself from everything outside. And now I was here, soaking wet in a white shirt with a boy that loves me in the next room. I slipped out of my wet clothes and found another shirt, more underwear.
I walked back to the living room to find Jonah sitting on the couch with a blanket poised on his lap, inviting me to join him.
I kissed his nose, then his lips. “Thank you.” I spoke softly, and buried my head in his chest to fall asleep once more in the safety of his arms.
I scented the air, letting out a light sigh. Fingers brushed against my face, through my hair.
I smiled. “Good morning?”
“Good morning to you too.” Jonah kissed my forehead.
“What do I smell?”
“You smell,” he exaggerated his words. “Bacon, eggs, toast, and possibly orange juice if your sniffer works really well.” He laughed.
“I feel like I was hit by a bus.” I said, stretching on the couch and opening my eyes. The light filtered into the cabin, turning everything gold. “Must have slept wrong or something.”
Jonah eyed me curiously. “You. Don’t remember?”
My eyes bulged. I looked down at myself, leaping from the couch and standing a great distance away from Jonah.
“What am I supposed to remember exactly?” I asked timidly.
Jonah frowned grimly. “You had a bad dream last night.”
It rushed back to me. “Oh.” I blushed. “Sorry about that.”
Jonah shrugged. “It’s not your fault. But enough of that kind of talk. Eat. Change. And I have another adventure planned.” He grinned.
I eyed him curiously for a moment before my rumbling stomach made me walk towards the table and sit down to a helping of breakfast.
I showered and dressed quickly, unsure of what could possibly top the past twenty four hours. But of course, Jonah being amazing and all, something could top it.
While exiting the garden, I sighed sadly.
“We’re coming back later.” He laughed at my face. “But I can’t keep you cooped up here forever. We need to socialize!”
“So where exactly are we going then?”
“I can’t tell you. I can however, tell you that the last time we planned to do this, I was an idiot and skipped it for something unimportant.”
I pondered, unsure of what it could have been.
“Don’t think about it too much, you’ll get a head ache.” He smiled, poking at me.
We walked the short distance back to his car hand in hand. I had been told to put on a swimsuit top, which Laynie had made Jonah pack without me knowing about it, and shorts. But when I had asked if we were swimming Jonah shook his head with a big grin on his face.
We drove a few miles, further into the unknown until I finally began to recognize my surroundings.
“Okay. We’re in Parnell. What exactly are we doing in Parnell?”
“We’re turning out of Parnell.” Jonah said, accentuating his words with a right turn.
I squealed. “I know what we’re doing!”
“Trust me. You don’t know the half of it.” He laughed to himself.
We drove down the road. I was jumping up and down excitedly, happy to be spending the day with Jonah, and happy to be on our way to probably the most spectacular place in Iowa, at least to a bunch of bored teenagers.
We swung a left after a few miles onto a dead end road where Green Bridge lay before us. We pulled up next to The Chum Buggy. I screamed, jumping out of the car and running to find Laynie.
She was on the bridge, Bryce standing next to her. She waved a big hello and jumped down into the English River below.
I screamed, clapping my hands over my mouth.
I jumped over a fallen tree, scrambled past broken concrete, and carefully made my way over to the bridge that I dare not set foot on.
Whoever made this bridge lied. It was in fact, just a complicated crossing of giant metal beams attached to a structure that looked like it was supposed to be a bridge, but the construction workers got too hot and went home.
Laynie swam to shore, dragging herself up onto the sand.
Jonah jogged past me, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before rushing over to take his turn after Bryce.
Laynie’s eyes bulged as she made her way to me. “Was that?” she motioned over her shoulder at Jonah.
I blushed.
“Oh my gosh! You did it!” she screamed.
Jonah was caught off balance and I flinched. “Don’t fall.” I said softly to myself, not wanting to startle him further. He straightened and walked with ease the rest of the way across the bridge.
“I didn’t do anything!” I hissed.
“So he was on top.” Laynie said with the nod of her head.
I rolled my eyes, a grimace working its way across my face. “We didn’t do anything. I swear.”
“So he hasn’t kissed you yet?” Laynie said with disappointment.
My blush deepened. “I didn’t say that.” I choked back a laugh.
“You dog!” she smacked at my shoulder. “Shall we begin our trek, madam?”
I took the arm that she held out for me and proceeded to walk down to the water’s edge.
“Tide! Come jump!” Jonah called from up on the bridge.
“Hell no!” I yelled back. “You’re nuts!”
“Only for you.” He said smugly and jumped off of the bridge backwards with a small wave.
Laynie melted next to me for a moment, her hands covering her heart. “That boy loves you.” She cooed.
Jonah and Bryce made their way towards us as we continued to trudge up the river. After several yards Laynie and I started to slow.
Laynie huffed loudly and fell to her knees.
“Let’s muskrat, dear.” She said laughing. She propelled herself forward with her finger tips.
I sunk down, my knees cushioned by sand, and crawled forward.
We made our way upstream slowly, the current pulling us back. We struggled, something falling into deep pits, coming back up sputtering.
Jonah and Bryce walked ahead of us now, looking back at us to make sure we hadn’t disappeared entirely under the water.
“You guys are really making me nervous.” Jonah said, turning around to make sure that our heads were above water.
Laynie and I bobbed in the water, taking deep breathes when we sunk below the surface, and then pushing back up with our arms, lunging forward.
Laynie looked over at me and snorted. “We look like idiots.” She laughed as she bobbed again.
I cackled back, silly and joyful.
She was right. We coughed and sputtered every few seconds as we slowly made our way forward.
The bridge was far off in the distance and we had hit a large sand bar. Laynie and I laid back, letting the shallow water run over us.
Bryce urged us to get up and keep walking.
“We’re too tired.” Laynie sighed heavily, lifting her arms and dropping them down exasperatedly for effect.
Jonah rolled his eyes.
“We’re going to keep walking for a bit. You guys can just relax here. Don’t go anywhere.”
“Right Jonah. Because Tide and I are going to get kidnapped in the middle of nowhere in the middle of a nowhere town in the middle of Iowa,” Laynie rambled confusedly.
Bryce looked at Laynie adoringly as Jonah and Bryce continued up stream.
Laynie laid back again.
“This is nice.” She smiled, the sun raining down on us through the trees.
“Yea.” I agreed. “I can’t believe you guys planned this.” I smiled.
“I didn’t plan any of it. It was all Jonah.” She said. “Well, I guess I sort of had a hand in planning last night... speaking of which, how did that go?”
I glared over at her, my face a red flame. “I can’t believe you did that! Do you have any idea how awkward that was?”
“So you did it?”
“No! I told you earlier that we didn’t do it. Why would we?”
“Are you honestly saying that after dating some idiot for two years or more and always having testosterone around, and then going without it forever, that you don’t look at Jonah and automatically want to jump on him?”
My mood shifted as I thought back to James, about the afternoons that we had spent together locked in his bedroom.
I shook my head. “No. I mean, yes. Everyone thinks about that kind of stuff as some point. But after everything that happened with James…”
Laynie sensed the change in mood and sat back, intent on listening.
“I really thought I loved him, Laynie. We spent every waking moment together, and even more than that. It got to the point where that’s all he ever wanted, and all I felt that I should do to make him happy.”
I remembered all the days that I had locked myself away with him. Cutting everyone else out of my life and focusing on just how James liked to be kissed, focused just on what he wanted.
“I got so confused. I didn’t feel happy. I got so messed up in everything that instead of it even being love anymore it was just something to do in the day, something to please him. And it became all I thought I was meant for…” I drifted off, trying to block out the images of sweat, and heat, fingernails, and trembling skin. “It wasn’t love anymore…”
I spilled out everything, feeling awful but relieved that this giant weight had finally been lifted, I didn’t have to lie about the things that I’d done.
Laynie looked over at me, tears welling up, but yet to fall. She smiled softly, encouragingly.
“Let’s get off of this subject. How was your movie night with Bryce?”
“It was good.” She said. We both were still quiet, not yet switched back to our previous good mood. “We watched the Rocky Picture Horror Show.” She smiled slightly.
I laughed. “Of course you did. I swear, you two are like. The same person.”
“Me and Bryce?” she yelped. “What about you and Jonah? I mean, you guys have this way of just being together. Not like, you move, he moves sort of way, because that’s just uncomfortable. But like, you don’t have to be on top of each other to show that you’re in love. You guys can be sitting across the room and the chemistry in general is so tangible that it puts everyone else in a good mood too.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re off your rocker, woman.”
“Am not!” she shrilled. “Ask anyone. You push each other, and better each other without turning weak whenever you’re together. You’re stronger with him.”
I had to agree with that. With James I’d melted, needing to be taken care of, feeling like my entire life depended on being with him. But now, with Jonah, I felt like I was constantly being built up as we steadily began to grow stronger together.
Laynie brushed back her wet red bangs from her forehead.
“Look at your legs.” She laughed.
I looked down at myself, and then scowled at her.
“You really are the palest Italian in the country.”
Jonah and Bryce came running at us, water spraying over our faces and we shrieked and turned from it.
Jonah fell to his knees next to me, resting his head on his arm next to me.
“Have you guys had enough girl talk for the day?” He asked us.
“Actually, we were just talking about how our periods are going to start syncing soon.”
“That makes it a bit easier I guess. I mean really, when we’re all living together in college and all, I’ll know which days out of the week to stay somewhere else.”
I rolled my eyes. “We aren’t even going to the same college.” I informed him. “Didn’t you get accepted up North? And Laynie wanted to go to New York.”
“I did get accepted up North, but I also go accepted at the University. And after debating for a bit, I decided that I’d get the same education at either school and it would be more cost efficient if I went to the University. And, if we all roomed together, that would be a lot less expensive than living on campus.”
“It’s true.” Laynie nodded. “New York is too expensive for me. And as much as I would absolutely love to go there, I have the rest of my life to move up there and work in the theatre.” She smiled. “We talked about it a few weeks ago and didn’t want to get your hopes up until we both knew that we were accepted, and that you were too.”
“But I haven’t gotten my letter yet…” I tried to remind them.
“Your mom sent me a picture this morning of it, my phone’s back at the Chum Buggy.” Laynie grinned from ear to ear.
I screamed, jumping to my feet and sloshing through the water excitedly.
“We’re going to college together.” I said happily.
“Right you are, miss!” Laynie hooted.
We danced around in the water together, grabbing each other by the elbows and sloshing happily in circles.
Jonah watched with obvious amusement, his eyes shining.
Laynie and I swung around each other in messy circles. I felt a hand on my arm. Jonah pulled me to him gently, hugging me close to him.
He took both of my hands in his, pressed them to his forehead. He closed his eyes, a smile on his face. For the first time, he didn’t need to take my strength, and I didn’t need his. It circulated between us like blood through our veins. It became something that was tangible and real, throbbing around us as our strength, and hopes, and promises, started to bleed together to form the only thing that matters in the world. Love.
I was both relieved and dissapointed that it was a dream.. happy they didn't actually get hurt, a bit sad that there were no real action.
