Boys, Bears, and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots(49)
Author: Abby McDonald

“Thanks.” She pauses, looking at me for a moment. “Umm, OK.” Backing out quickly, Susie all but trips over herself to get away. I stare after her, puzzled, but it’s not until I catch a glimpse of myself in the dresser mirror that I see what made her so flustered.

A hickey.

I lean closer, already cringing with embarrassment. The small mark is just below my collarbone, out of sight — if I weren’t still in my bikini top! Tugging on a sweatshirt, I wonder if it’s possible to avoid Susie for, oh, the next five years.

It’s not. After dinner, there’s a cautious knock on my door. “Jenna? You got a sec?”

“Sure.” I turn the music down, but she’s still waiting. “You can come in now,” I call.

She edges in with a weird look on her face. “About earlier . . .”

I gulp. “Uh-huh?” My voice comes out squeaky and high-pitched.

Susie takes a seat on the edge of the bed and fixes me with an understanding mom look. “It’s all right, Jenna. You don’t need to explain yourself to me. You’re practically a grown-up.”

Oh, boy.

“Really, Susie —”

“You don’t need to tell me anything.” She ignores my protests, determined to say her piece. “Fiona mentioned something about Ethan a while back.”

Ethan!

I sit, silently mortified, while she continues, giving me this knowing, conspiratorial look. “I know what it’s like: having desires, experimenting. I’m glad you’re having fun.”

At this moment, fun is so not on the agenda, but insisting I’ve never been beyond second base wouldn’t achieve anything right now. I have no choice but to sit, meekly listening to her be understanding about all the sex I’m not really having.

“I just wanted to let you know, I’ve made a special drawer in the bathroom, full of, well, things you might want.” I’m gratified to see even Susie seem slightly freaked out now, despite her supportive act. “Come and see.”

“No, really, it’s fine . . .” I try to fend her off, but Susie takes my arm and all but drags me to the green-tiled bathroom.

“I know condoms can get expensive,” she chatters, pulling open the pretty wooden vanity to reveal a supply that would keep half the population of Stillwater child-free. For a year. “So I bought plenty. Look, even flavored ones!”

There’s a moment of silent horror for both of us as we contemplate the implications of those words.

“And, uh, it’s for Fiona, too,” she adds hurriedly. “So you girls just go right ahead and, well . . . just know it’s there.”

“Thanks, Susie,” I murmur numbly. If only we were still doing construction up here — maybe then there would actually be a chance for the ground to give way and swallow me up.

“And don’t worry about your parents. This is just between us.” She squeezes my hand reassuringly as I wander blindly back to my room.

“Umm, OK.”

“OK,” she echoes with a nod. “I’m glad we had this . . . talk. And you’ll come to me — if you need anything? Anything at all?”

I can’t imagine what I’d ever need that isn’t already stocked in that “special drawer” of hers, but I nod along.

“Great.” Susie gives me another supportive-yet-freaked-out smile. “See you for dinner!”

The moment the door closes behind her, I hurl myself facedown on the bed.

“Give me ten good reasons why I shouldn’t kill you right now!” Fiona bursts into my room minutes later, the murderous-yet-traumatized look in her eyes meaning only one thing . . .

“She showed you the drawer.”

“Yes!” she wails. “I don’t need to hear any of that. Especially from her!”

“I’m not arguing with you,” I tell her.

Fiona throws herself down on the window seat. “Why do parents have to do this? I mean, couldn’t they just give us a copy of Forever and leave well enough alone?”

“Just be glad it wasn’t your dad,” I note darkly.

“Oh, it was.” She shudders at the memory. “Like, two years ago. He had a textbook and a banana and everything. It was the most uncomfortable ten minutes of my entire life!”

I’m tempted to ask about Grady, and all the kind-of-crush signals she’s been giving off, but I don’t want to push my luck. Instead, we sit for a moment, reflecting on parental sex-talk terror in a strange kind of companionship. I may not have Olivia, I realize, but it’s not as if I’m alone out here.

“I don’t suppose you want to get out of town,” I suggest hopefully. “Even just to that ice-cream place in Pedley.” I name a small town about half an hour away.

Fiona waits a moment before shrugging. “Sure, OK. I don’t think Dad’s using the car.”

I look at her in surprise. I wasn’t expecting her to actually agree. “Great!” I grab my cardigan before she can change her mind.

“Just let me get some CDs.” She heads toward her room, and I decide to follow.

“Can I pick? From your music, I mean. Some of your stuff is, well, kind of depressing.”

Fiona looks at me for a second, as if she’s deciding whether or not it’s worth the fight. “I guess,” she says at last. “CDs are on the shelf.” She pulls on a pair of flip-flops while I make my choice between angry emo guys and angry emo girls. Then I spy a Paramore label buried under the heavier stuff. Aha!

“Ready!” I beam, brandishing my compromise. My eardrums, and fragile emotional state, are safe for another day. “Now let’s get out of here.”

29

Now that Susie’s keeping her eyes on me — and my late-night activities — I find it impossible to sneak away and see Reeve, but part of me is relieved. The more time I spend with him, the more I get caught up in our kisses and strange, whispered intimacy. It’s getting harder to keep up the casual act, even with the end of summer looming closer all the time.

Luckily the next few days before the big opening are so hectic, I barely have a moment to do anything except polish silverware, touch up paint-jobs, and launder seven bedrooms’ worth of crisp linens. Even so, as I throw myself into the chores, I can’t help but wonder if that day at the lake really was as final as it felt to me then: a moment out of place in the rest of my regular life. It was only three days ago, but I haven’t heard from him since. Already the breathless intensity is fading, and now it just feels like a dream to me, snapshots in somebody else’s photo album.