My Heart Insists Making Wishes Might Help
Blankets speckled the beach, each occupied by school mates, various friend groups, and couples. It was getting dark, and stars began winking from the July sky. It was a perfect night for fireworks, still pleasantly warm, despite the ocean air, and full of anticipation.
Except I wasn’t feeling it.
Instead, I was stuck in my head, hands in the sand, pondering the fact that my parents had decided to move and were, at that moment, still going through the garage. We had less than a week until doomsday.
“You’re graduated now,” Mom had said after I’d complained for the umpteenth time and asked them to hold off until the end of the summer. “Nineteen. Off to college. What’s the deal?”
Dad had stopped what he’d been doing with a toolbox to watch the exchange. His engagement was always unsettling for me. I tensed and waited for an explosion, but there hadn’t been one for the last year and a half. That was how things worked now. A year and a half from my car wreck, and a year and a half of his sobriety. We mostly talked through Mom. This wasn’t a Jack Peter’s issue, it was mine. He’d tried, and I’d maintained the distance. I didn’t trust him. And I didn’t understand how Mom did. How many times had he been on the wagon? Just because he was a year into this stint didn’t mean he wasn’t going to fuck it up. Her forgiveness pissed me off. It felt like an indictment against me. I was struggling to forgive him, yet I’d been forgiven by Gabe and hadn’t deserved it. This awareness slammed me with guilt I didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Why can’t you just wait until I leave for school?” I’d asked.
“Jobs, Seth,” she’d said. She’d put something in a box, then stopped to level a pragmatic look at me, her eyebrows sharp over her eyes. “No one is making you come with us.”
I’d wanted to argue with her. They kind of were. How could I afford to live on my own for a month before I moved into the dorms and reported to the soccer team? The whole timing of the move was stupid. But she was right, I was technically an adult. I just didn’t really feel like one yet. How did that feel? Did the realization settle on your shoulders and make you feel all-knowing? My parents hadn’t acted like adults in all the time I’d known them, so it seemed like the whole idea was a crock of shit.
A little while later, I was with my friends on our way to the 4th of July beach bash. Carter was driving. Abby, Gabe, and Hannah were squeezed into the back seat of the car. I’d climbed into the front seat, wishing I could be closer to Hannah but not having a reason to be. I’d been crushing on her the whole year and had been too much of a coward to do anything about it.
I’d listened to her and Abby chatter about remaining summer plans that I wasn’t going to get to be a part of. Abby was leaving for Hawaii in less than a month, Hannah for Oregon University. Gabe was leaving for California, and Carter for Washington. I hadn’t told them I was moving, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to break the news. How did one say, “So, I’m moving to Benson next week. See you on the flip side.” What a buzzkill. I was leaving Cantos, and there wouldn’t be a reason to return. This could be the last time I spent with my friends, beyond cell phones. While I didn’t have a lot of good memories of Cantos, they had been the best thing. And the thought of losing time with them made me angry.
Now, after our picnic of chips and crackers and other kinds of convenience foods (except for the sandwiches Hannah had made). I looked up at the sky and watched for shooting stars before the fireworks began. Maybe the sky held the answer. I could probably ask Gabe to crash at his parents’ place for six weeks, but I didn’t. He would have said yes, and I didn’t really feel like I deserved that. Plus, I didn’t have a way to pay my own way. Carter’s family was bursting at the seams already. Maybe I could make a wish.
Abby bumped my shoulder with hers. “You okay?”
I looked at her and nodded.
“You seem a million miles away.”
I offered her a smile. “Just waiting for the fireworks.” It wasn’t a lie, exactly.
She looked at me a few beats longer, as if assessing the validity of my claim, seeing through me, then turned back to Gabe. He whispered something into her ear. She smiled one of those kinds of smiles between couples that I wished I had and dropped her head onto his shoulder. He kissed her head.
I stood up with the itchy feeling to get away and wove through the tapestry of blankets and people toward an edge, needing to catch my breath and fix my attitude. With my eyes on my feet, concentrating on staying upright in the sand, I ran right into someone else.
We toppled over into the sand.
“Oh. Shit. I’m–”
Hannah.
I was sprawled out on top of her. Her hair was spread out around her head. She giggled, and I felt the vibration of it in my belly.
“I’m sorry,” I said and extricated myself from the way our limbs had braided together.
“That’s okay.” She smiled. “You were on a mission.”
I stood and helped her up.
Nerves fluttered about inside of me like bouncing and unpredictable dragonflies. I’d been a bundle of nerves all year with her—I liked her, really liked her. Gabe had spent the entire year calling me out on it. “Just ask her out,” he’d said repeatedly.
I hadn’t, even if I’d wanted to.
Hannah was a good one, and I deserved no part of that. Not given who I was and what I’d done. My insecurities in all the threads weaving me together made me feel like I might unravel, and I didn’t want her to see that. I liked her too much.
“I just needed some space to think,” I replied. “I really didn’t see you. I’m sorry.”
Her hand reached out and touched my arm. “Stop.”
I froze.
“It’s okay. You want to be alone? Or are you okay with some company?”
Just then, the first firework exploded in the sky, a succession of sparking white blooms. A collective gasp moved across the beach.
“I’m okay,” I told her. “I mean, I’m sure you want to watch the show with the crew.” I’d sort of nodded over my shoulder.
“I’d like to watch them with you.”
My heart constricted in my chest. First with awareness, then with hope, and then with anxiety. “You would?” I hated this insecure dude and wanted to take the words back and replace them with something cooler.
She smiled, as if she liked this anxious guy. “Yes. Shall we sit?”
Another firework exploded. I followed Hannah past the last rows of blankets—where people were either watching the show or making out—to a spot up against the dunes behind everyone else on the beach around a little alcove that made it feel private, like our own spot under the sky. Hannah sat down, and I sat next to her, my arms wrapped around my knees. A string of fireworks exploded—red, white, and blue—against the backdrop of a dark velvet sky, and all I could think about was Hannah’s shoulder pressed against my arm, creating fireworks under my skin and heating up my chest.
“They’re so pretty,” she said.
“Yes,” I agreed, but I was looking at her. I’d been so stupid, being afraid to tell her how I felt. And now I was leaving.
I’d never have another chance with her.
With my heart pounding a nervous rhythm in my throat, I worked up the bravery to put an arm around her.
She froze.
I started to retreat, thinking I’d taken it too far.
But Hannah grasped my arm and pulled me back, snuggling in closer. She looked up at me, offered me a smile, then looked back up at the sky, thudding like my heartbeat. When Hannah threaded her fingers with mine, my body melted, aware of the movement of her fingers. Back and forth, a rhythm that had me thinking about more than just our hands touching.
“Is this okay?” she asked.
I could barely hear her and leaned forward, my lips against the skin near her ear. “What was that?”
She turned her face to meet my gaze, and her usually bright eyes were as dark as the sky. “Is this okay? Holding your hand?” Her gaze dipped to my mouth, then back to my eyes.
I nodded, but I was thinking about her looking at my mouth, both surprised and excited that she wanted me to kiss her. My belly tightened with anticipation.
I’d known Hannah since elementary school when we’d played boys-chase-girls during recess and insisted that the other had cooties. I’d never really noticed Hannah. Until I’d been in rehab after the accident, and it had been Hannah who randomly wrote me You can do it! cards and delivered homemade cookies. When I’d finally figured out that I had feelings for her, I didn’t know how to navigate real ones. So, I’d wasted spring of junior year and all senior year being a coward.
Now, with her wrapped up in my loose embrace and her hand caressing mine, I knew I had a choice: coward or risk-taker? I realized if I didn’t, I’d regret it. Impulsive decision made, I leaned in and pressed my mouth to hers. My heart was outside my body. I waited for her to slap me in case I’d misread her, but she didn’t. Instead, she leaned toward me, her mouth soft against mine. When her lips parted, it surprised me, and when her tongue touched my lips, it ignited the fire in my gut. I invited her in, opening my mouth to kiss her like I wanted to. She let go of my hand, turned, and leaned against me, her hands now wrapped up in my t-shirt at my waist. The kiss somehow matched not only the intensity of my heart but the fireworks above us.
My hands framed her face, our mouths exploring one another.
We ended up lying in the sand, me on my back, and Hannah draped on top of me. I submerged my hands in her hair as if she might slip through my fingers or effervesce into the night sky like a firework.
She moved so that she was closer and moaned into my mouth.
I ran my hands over her back, stopping at the small of her back and pressing her against me. I was pretty sure that she’d be able to feel my erection.
“Oh my god,” she said against my mouth, “Seth,” and moved so that she was straddling me.
My eyes opened, hands now on her hips as she pressed herself against me, both alleviating the pressure but building it tenfold. “Oh my god, what? Hannah?” I couldn’t speak very clearly, the words sounding like bursts of air as she pressed her body down onto mine.
The fireworks continued above us.
I was about to have exploding fireworks in my pants.
“I can’t believe I’m kissing you.”
The words tripped me up. I couldn’t decipher them and retreated.
“I’ve wanted to for a long time.”
I moved, sitting up and rotating Hannah onto her back, because those words I did understand. “Me too,” I said, and kissed her with more fervor, angles, tongue, teeth. I was cognizant that I was afraid to scare her away with my exuberance.
“Me?” She opened her legs wider so I could settle deeper between her hips. “You wanted to kiss me?” Her doubt was said against my lips.
I nodded, surprised by it, and unwilling to end the kiss to tell her yes. I trailed the kiss down her neck, another firework exploding above us vibrating through me. “Hannah–” I started to say, barely able to catch my breath and loathe to stop, but it felt like too much and not enough simultaneously. I wanted so much more, but it felt out of order.
Her hands moved up under my shirt, gripped my back, and tilted her hips toward me. “Yes? Seth?” She let out a gasped breath as I rocked my hips against her.
Another firework exploded above us, illuminating Hannah’s beautiful face.
I stilled. First, because I was going to blow my load in my pants, but also because… this was Hannah. She deserved more than me dry humping her on the beach.
What was I doing?
I was leaving in a week. As much as I wanted this with Hannah, what was it going to mean beyond this moment? We were going to different colleges. She lived in Cantos. I was relocating two hundred miles away in Benson.
I sighed and pressed my forehead against her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“I’m sorry. I got carried away,” I said.
“I like getting carried away with you,” she said. “I’d like to keep getting carried away.”
My resolve almost melted away as another set of fireworks exploded above us. Her touch was fire on my skin, leaving hot trails as she caressed my back with her fingertips. To maintain control over myself and the situation, I moved off her and laid down in the sand by her side, taking her hand in mine as I offered her a smile.
“Is something wrong?”
I could have told her then that I was moving. I opened my mouth to confess. To tell her how angry I was about it. How on the night I’d finally found the bravery to kiss her, show her how I felt, it was too late.
But I didn’t say anything, unwilling to ruin this. Instead, I shook my head and offered her another smile. Another set of fireworks exploded, resembling shooting stars, and I squeezed her hand and coaxed myself to be content in the now with her even as I made a wish that this didn’t have to end.
