These Are the Moments (9 page)

Chapter 20

Then

“
So, what’s the verdict? Had fun?” he asked her.

Simon turned into her driveway back from a bonfire at Reese’s. There’d been a shift, lately. A move from Simon and Erica, to Simon alone, and now it seemed like a
matter of time
. That’s what people were saying about Simon and Wendy.

Wendy knew that Simon noticed how people watched them together now. It was like people were armed with pens, ready to check off the Simon and Wendy box from their
things that are inevitable
lists.

The more they pushed, the more he pulled back.

He walked her to the door. He seemed quiet and a bit tired, but not overwhelming tired; and when she unlocked the door, he lingered.

“It’s not really that late,” he said, casually, like he was just stating a fact.

It was 11:30.

She thought quickly, and pushing open the front door, she said, “The movie!”

“The movie?”

“You still haven’t seen
When Harry Met Sally
.”

They’d been going back and forth about this for weeks. She’d watched his favorite,
Fight Club
, and he’d promised to watch hers. With her, he insisted. “It’s too sappy to watch by myself,” he’d said.

“Oh, you’re right,” he said.
Was he smiling?
“Let’s watch it.”

“What about curfew?” she asked.

He waved her comment away. “My parents won’t mind.”

Her parents had gone to bed. She flipped on the lights in the living room. For the first time in her life, she had the house to herself with a boy. Not just any boy. A boy who felt larger than life itself, a boy who felt like something someone had written into existence, a boy fixed out of stars.

He watched her as she fumbled with the DVD case.

God.

He smiled at her the way every person wants to be smiled at, like he’d been saving up this special construction of his face just for her.

“I think it’s raining,” he said.

Outside, the soft falling rain barely made a sound, but she could see it in the floodlight by the back porch. “You’re right.”

She slipped the movie into the DVD player, and he said, “I have an idea.”

He bounded over to the light switch and flipped it off. He did this with the kitchen, hall and dining room lights as well, undoing what she’d done so pointedly, until all they were left with was their own ashen silhouettes.

“That’s better,” he said, making himself comfortable. “Here, come sit.”

When she sat beside him, she left enough room between them to say
we’re just friends
. She played the movie, but didn’t pay attention. She watched the rain instead.

“Question time,” he whispered.

“I thought it was movie time,” she whispered back.

He turned away from the television. “If you only had an hour left to live, what would you do?”

Her mouth fell open. “That’s a little morbid, don’t you think?”

Certainly not romantic
, she thought.

“Just answer the question.”

“Well,” she said, “I guess I’d want to be with the people I love. I’d want to tell them not to worry. I’d want to tell them how I feel. How much they mean to me.”

You included
, she thought.

“You’re such good person,” he said. “You know that, right?”

She blushed. “What would you do?”

“I’d want to be with my family. Owen. You. I think I could let go of life knowing that I was with everyone I love the most.”

She sighed.
Everyone I love the most
. What was he doing to her?

“Wow. I didn’t know you thought of me that way.”

He moved in closer. “How do you think I think of you?”

Wendy knew to be careful with her wording. But she wasn’t. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t know how you feel about me.”

Simon leaned into her. She looked at his lips, his jawline, his clear eyes. “Are you asking if I have feelings for you?”

Wendy sunk into herself. It was happening. He would let her down gently, and she would say she never wanted anything more anyway, and then . . . and then what?

“Do you want to know? Because I’ll tell you.”

He inched closer to her. He looked exactly like the type of person who could hurt her; and yet, she hoped he wouldn’t.

“Sure,” she said from between her teeth. “Just tell me.”

“Well, first off, you have to know that you’re my best friend. Probably the best friend I’ve ever had. Believe me?”

“Uh huh.”

She imagined this was what a break-up felt like. Buttering someone up before the blow.
You’re perfect, but
.

“Good. And yes, I’ll admit that obviously there’s more here. I have feelings for you that go beyond friendship, feelings that even I can’t fully understand. This is . . . new for me.”

There was a but coming. Waiting in the wings.

But what, Simon?
But it’s too complicated? But it’s too soon?

She couldn’t even focus on what he was actually saying.

“But.”

There we go.

“But I’m scared of jumping into this. Not now anyway. You are the kind of person I could love in a big way. And me? Well, let’s just say there’s a lot of work to do.”

He said love.

He said love, right?

That’s where her mind fixated. She rolled the word around like a ship over her watery heart.

But it was future tense. He didn’t love her. It was an
I could love you if.

If. But. An endless parade of excuses.

“But if you’re asking if I have feelings for you, the answer is yes.”

Yes. He had feelings for her. Yes. Simon had said what she’d wanted to hear in his own complicated, roundabout way. Yes. The answer was yes.

She felt a hundred things at once, a mess of feelings like a pendulum swinging. “But you said—”

“I lied.”

All of the disclaimers, all of the
we’re just friends
. Lies to keep her. Lies to keep them.

“Wow,” was all she managed to say.

“Yeah,” he said, running his fingers through his hair.

“I don’t even know what to say.”

He pulled back from her. “You don’t have to say anything.”

“No,” she said quickly. “I have feelings for you too. Obviously. Of course. And I didn’t know you felt . . . I didn’t know.”

“Feels good, doesn’t it? Admitting it?”

She laughed, dispelling the tension in her chest. “Oh, is that what we did?”

“You know,” she said, collecting her thoughts, “I think you’re pretty great. You might think you need work, and that’s admirable. But I think you’re amazing.”

“And I think you’re a person that deserves a person far better than I’m capable of being. Lucky for you, I’m selfish. And I want this.”

Outside, the rain picked up, slinking off the roof and slapping against the ground.

“So,” she said. “What now?”

“So,” he said. “Want to watch the rain with me?”

He propped the pillows up on the couch, and laying down, they settled themselves next to each other. His arm snaked behind her head and found its way to her shoulder. She curled into him.

Quietly, they held each other.

And she thought about love: falling, being and first. She didn’t know much about it. She didn’t know if the feeling of love was the same as being in love or if being in love meant more than everything she knew right there in that moment.

Because there in the dark, beneath a curtain of rain, she was falling in love.

“Wendy,” he whispered, “I like you.”

She tilted her head up to him and whispered back, “I like you too.”

When he kissed her, she forgot that she’d never done it before. She forgot that she’d never kissed him, had never felt the incredible, out-of-body feeling, because it felt as familiar as slipping into her own bed. It felt like she had kissed him forever, as if kissing him could blur the lines of time, sending her forward and backward all at once.

Chapter 21

Now

It felt like forever.

Standing in the department store, she waited for Mom to shop the sale rack. The whole place was a mess of racks, pushy attendees and makeshift aisles. But Mom swore this was the best place to find a decent pair of shoes, and Wendy couldn’t argue. Claudia, however, did an excellent job.

“I don’t understand why I have to go to buy Wendy’s wedding shoes,” she griped.

“Because,” Mom said, “We’re spending the day together. And it’s not optional.”

Claudia stormed off to the car, and Mom rubbed the knots out of her shoulders. “That one’s going to kill me, I swear.”

“She’s just off lately,” Wendy said. “All this Casey stuff.”

“I’m worried,” Mom said. She looked it, too.

Wendy never knew how to act when Mom was upset. Mom was Super Mom. It was easy to forget she was a person, too. “She’s going to be okay. I promise.”

In the store, Claudia browsed through the makeup counters, while Mom and Wendy picked shoes.

“How about these?” Mom asked, holding up a pair of nude heels, closed toed, strappy.

“They’re okay,” Wendy said, meandering around another shoe island.

Mom shrugged. “You should at least try them.”

So Mom started a nude heel pile, beside the seat with the small foot mirror. Those were also the worst. They had the power to change you from decently legged to cankled in one second flat.

At home, Wendy already had a pair of nude heels. But Mom insisted on taking her to the store “just in case.”
In case of what?
As Mom reasoned, “You can never have too many nude heels.”

False, Wendy thought, picturing her closet spitting out a mound of tan colored pumps.

The bridesmaids’ dresses were going to be peach, Vivian said. “Peach for the beach!”

“It doesn’t match my hair,” Reese said, gesturing to her red mane.

Vivian mumbled, “You could always dye it.”

Later on, Reese ranted to Wendy, “She did it on purpose. She hates my hair, and now she’s strong-arming me. That’s fine. I’ll just dye it yellow. Not blonde. Yellow. Let’s see how she feels about that.”

Vivian and Owen had set a date, and booked a venue. They would have a spring wedding in Destin at sunset, and a reception on the beach beneath the stars. It was the perfect Vivian setting, and she would be the perfect beach bride, as long as Reese didn’t kill her first.

“These are pretty,” Mom said. More nude. More straps.

“Uh huh,” Wendy said.

Mom rested a hand on her hip. “Uhh . . . hello? You do remember these are
your wedding shoes, right?”

Mom got spunky sometimes. It usually gave Claudia a good laugh. Wendy, not so much.

“Sorry, Mom,” she said. “Just got a lot on my mind.”

Mom thought about her words. “Simon stuff?”

“No,” Wendy said. “Uhh, work stuff.”

“Still liking it?”

“It’s all right,” Wendy said, picking up a pair of black ballerina flats. “A job is a job. These days, you’re lucky to get one at all.”

It was a speech she knew well. Everyone wanted to know if she liked her job, what she did for a living, that sort of thing. People used to ask her about painting, how that was coming along, what were her
plans?
No one asked about plans anymore. They just assumed they were all made and done.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

Mom was giving advice, telling an anecdote about a friend of a friend.

Wendy checked her phone.

A text. “Have a good time at the party?”

She’d deleted his number a year ago, but that didn’t erase it from her brain. It was singed in the folds.

“Wend?”

“Yeah?” she said, looking up.

“Wanna try on?” Mom asked.

Wendy nodded. “Uh huh, absolutely.”

Claudia came over. “Are we leaving soon? I’ve got homework.”

Wendy looked down at the phone again.

Yes?

No.

I had a great time?

No, not that either.

He never reached out first.

Not Simon.

“Yeah, I did,” she answered. “How about you?”

She sat down on the ugly foot bench, slipped her toes into the soon-to-be wedding shoes and without giving them a second look, said, “These are good.”

Chapter 22

Then

When Wendy and Simon became an
official
Wendy and Simon, they spent their nights in the dark.

For their first real date, he picked her up to go to the movies. They held hands and ate too much buttered popcorn, and then he dropped her home.

“Want to come inside?” she asked on the porch. “I think Mom’s still up.”

“Of course,” he said, smiling. “We should say hello.”

An hour later, they were still with Mom, filling her in on the movie and school and practically anything that would distract her from the fact that Simon wasn’t leaving.

He finally checked the time. Past eleven. “I should get going.”

“I’ll walk you out,” she said.

They spent the next forty-five minutes on the porch, trying to make time stretch itself thin.

The same thing happened on the second date. And again on the third. Now, they had it down to a science.

“We’re going outside for a little bit,” Wendy said one Saturday night.

Code for:
we’re going to make out
.

On the front porch, there was an old wooden swing with rusty chain links. The wood was chipped and the chains threatened to break, but there was something homey about it.

Aside from the bugs. There were hundreds of them that would catch in her hair and buzz around her ears. It bothered her, but not enough to keep her from her twenty minutes of privacy with Simon, when they would talk and laugh and kiss until their lips were raw.

Simon opened the door first. He walked around, checking the columns and the planters, while Wendy stood barefoot in the hall.

“See any roaches?” she asked.

“All clear,” he told her. “Need a ride?”

“Yes please.”

He hoisted her up on his back, and carried her into the night.

Losing track of time was simple. Talking. Dreaming.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked her.

They talked about this every now and then, but usually she just shrugged and said, “Not sure.”

That night, she told him, “Career-wise? I don’t know. But I think . . . I’m going to be a painter.”

Her head was in his lap, and he stroked through her tangled hair. “A painter? You paint?”

“Sort of,” she said. “We’ve been doing some painting in art class, and I think I kind of love it.”

“This is awesome,” he said, getting excited, kicking the swing harder. “I can’t believe you’re just telling me this now. What do you paint? What kind of paintings do you do?”

She smiled. “I’ve only painted one thing so far. Just this abstract nothing piece. It’s not a big deal. I just think, maybe, I could be good at it. Really good at it, actually.”

“Oh, I know you could,” he said. “What medium? That’s what they call it, right, a medium?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing, beaming in his enthusiasm. “And: watercolor.”

“Watercolor. Wow. That’s amazing,” he said. “Can I see?”

“It’s at school, but you can see when I’m done.”

“Good, I’d really like that,” he said. “Huh. Wendy Lake, painter. Yes, I can definitely see that.”

“Thank you,” she said, blushing.

He kissed her. “You’re amazing. You know that, right?”

“I’m not
amazing
,
” she said.

“Stop being modest,” he said. “I wish I was creative. You with your painting. And you’re a pretty good writer, too. Talented across the board.”

She smiled even wider, covering her face with her hands. “Thank you.”

“Maybe I’ll teach myself to play guitar or take piano lessons or something,” he said.

She laughed. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, “you know who you are. You have this identity. Painter. I don’t have anything like that.”

“You have an identity. Just because you aren’t creative doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything.”

“I need a thing, though,” he said, “I mean, what do I have? Future entrepreneur? Business nerd? That’s boring.”

This was the best and worst thing about Simon: he never stopped pushing to be better, but that meant he never stopped. Never stopped to be happy with himself. Never stopped to just be content, right there and then, with life.

So she kissed him. She reached for his neck and brought his lips to meet hers, kissing away the bad and the good and words altogether. He breathed in sharply, then pulled her up beside him. His hands were in her hair, clutching to the root.

“Come here,” he said, between breaths.

They were on their feet, lips locked, when she felt the window shutter behind her back. Hard. His body pressed up to hers, her own body pressed to the wall. There wasn’t any more air left and his hands were everywhere, in her hair, on her face, down her neck.

She kissed him harder, locking her arms behind his back and pushing herself against him.

His hands trailed down to her chest, and she shot backward.

“Wait,” she said.

He did, but stayed close to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I just,” she said, sucking in air, “I just think we need to slow down.”

“Okay,” he said. “You’re right.”

That was another thing about being
official
Wendy and Simon. The lines they had to draw. Wendy had never known how fast kissing could become
more than kissing
, how quickly air could disappear. Her emotions were taking a physical shape now, deep down in the pit of her stomach, stirring.

It was too fast. Too much.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “No, it’s okay. We’re okay.”

“Come here,” he said, taking her hand. “Let’s just sit for a while.”

Her head fell back into his lap, the bugs swarming toward the light, and they rested, rocking.

“Top five favorite songs?” he asked her.

She unwound. “I need a genre. Without a genre, that’s just plain impossible.”

This was the best thing about Simon and Wendy, official or not. When it came down to it, they knew each other, and sitting on a swing, talking about nothing special was the best feeling in the world.