Everett studies my face. “No, you’re not. You don’t like it. That’s why you haven’t turned it in yet.”
How the hell does he know me this well, even after all this time.
I sigh, relenting. “No, I’m not. I don’t like it. I can’t seem to get it right. How am I supposed to fit everything I feel, all of my personality, into these faceless paragraphs? They’re going to hate me, they won’t understand my passion or—”
Everett snorts, and I stop, rearing back. He was baiting me, waiting for me to admit an insecurity and now, like I predicted, he’ll pounce on it.
“Kennedy, no one could ever hate you. You’re the most qualified person I’ve ever met, no matter what it is you’re trying to achieve, and anyone would be an utter moron to deny you of it. I’m sure this essay is light-years better than what every other kid is writing theirs about. You just have these impossible standards, even for yourself.”
That last part feels like a backhanded compliment, but my heart is beating so hard and my cheeks are so flushed right now that I can’t even acknowledge the barb. I think Everett just told me I was great. In a sense. Maybe.
“It just doesn’t feel like me. And it’s too late to do anything about it.” I shrug, trying to seem nonchalant.
“Can I read it?” he asks, with a note of hope I haven’t heard in his voice since he came home.
“No.” I say it so quickly that I curse myself.
Because the curious light immediately goes out of Everett’s eyes.
“I just mean … the topic is a little private.” How can I let him read my essay about not being able to cope with death when he’s seen so much of it?
He nods slowly, taking a sip of coffee. “I get it. But again, I’m sure it’s the best fucking college essay I’ve ever not read.”
“Everett!” I squeak, because the people two tables over heard him drop the F word and are now looking at us.
“Come on, Kennedy, you aren’t afraid of a little curse word. I’ve seen you throw around worse three beers in.” He rolls his eyes, the grin marking his lips purely devilish.
That makes me laugh, because I’ve been known to rap while drunk. “If you can’t spit a little Cardi B once in a while …”
We both look at each other, exchanging smiles in the silence. It’s the first time since he’s been home that I feel like us again. The Kennedy and Everett we used to be; friendly, known to make each other laugh, with an underlying chemistry that can’t be denied. For a split second, his capture and return, the promises and terrible words, they cease to exist. I have a glimpse of what we could have been, and if I’m being truthful, what I still want us to be.
“So, can I sit here and look through my course catalogue, or are you going to keep trying to distract me?” His lopsided grin has me mesmerized.
I roll my eyes, but we both know I’d never tell him to leave.
“You can stay. But be quiet. And maybe buy me another donut.”
17
Everett
The first letter I ever wrote to Kennedy was on enemy territory.
I was deployed only weeks after bootcamp ended, sent to the front lines as one of the Marines black ops recruits. I was high on the adrenaline of a naïve soldier’s heart and also scared shitless. As I lay awake, listening for the sounds of enemy footsteps or bullets whizzing past my head, I’d take out a piece of paper and scrawl my feelings and thoughts by moonlight.
I told her, in that first correspondence, that I missed her. That one of my biggest regrets was not kissing her before I left. Those are the types of things you say when you’re thousands of miles away and feeling like a big shot who might have his head blown off at any moment. I told Kennedy about my training, what little I could divulge, and I wrote about missing our coffee shop dates and barn parties and …
Her.
I wrote some things in those letters that I honestly didn’t feel like, at the time, I’d ever have to face. Those are the things you do when you feel like your life was in the balance. Yes, I was cocky enough to think I was coming home. But I was also cocky enough to think that I wouldn’t have to have a real conversation about the letters we exchanged.
Kennedy and I wrote to each other for a year, sometimes I’d send multiple or receive multiple ones a week. Her curvy, scrawled handwriting was my comfort at the end of a long day. Her words gave me strength when I didn’t think I could get through another patrol. I carried her picture in my back pocket through every terrifying mission.
It’s easy to forget that, to ignore the stack of letters still in my canvas recruit bag that I haven’t dared to open. It’s easy to ignore the promises I made her, simply because I don’t want to deal with the consequences of making them. Blaming the conversation I don’t want to have on my PTSD, on the torture I suffered, it’s a cheap excuse. But one I thought I could use.
Now, I’m not so sure. We sat across from each other in that coffee shop for an hour or two. The quiet companionship, the crackling heat of sexual tension, the glances we both stole when we thought the other wasn’t looking.
I can’t ignore that anymore.
Something is shifting with us, something I can’t stop or control. The more I’m around Kennedy, the more I want to bring up the kiss I never gave her. The date I never took her on. The Valentine’s Day I never planned. All of these were things in my letters, and even though I’ve fought hard against my feelings, they’re stronger than my willpower.
I’ve been lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about taking her letters out of my bag for almost an hour. Will they cause me pain? Cause me to be transported back to a time when all hope in my body was crushed, along with my bones? Or will they give me hope, and perhaps courage, to finally tell her how I feel?
Kennedy’s light comes on, the twinkle of it drawing me to my own window.
How many times has the flick of illumination from her side caught my attention? I’ve stared across the void of our houses hundreds of times. At first, as a shithead teen trying to get a peepshow. The only thing I ever managed to see was Kennedy dancing around in her training bra, a memory that I used thousands of time back then to jerk of to. If she knew about that now, she’d probably smack me.
But later, when we both got into high school and my feelings for her ran deeper, it was more of a study. I wanted to know her, wanted to read her expressions, see who she was when no one was looking. I’ve seen Kennedy thoughtful, I’ve seen her sad. I’ve heard her humming old show tunes through the window when it was open on a summer night.
Now, I linger in the shadows of my room, standing right in front of the window but all the same holding my breath. I’ve wanted to storm down her door since yesterday, to finally give her that kiss I promised years ago.
She walks to the window, her slender yet curvy body swelling in all the right places. Backlit from the lamp on her desk, I can make out her figure but not the specific parts of her body. When she comes closer to the window, moving until the moonlight streaks over her face, she’s looking straight at me. Those coffee-colored eyes hold mine, questioning, searching.
I lean an arm against the window jamb, pressing my body closer, as I feel my cock harden. My sweatpants begin to tent, all from just watching her through this pane of glass. Like some kind of voyeur, in this secret, taboo way that only she and I are privy to. Can she tell how much she’s turning me on?