I’d never been into guys who smoked cigarettes, but seeing Emery’s lips around the paper, the smooth way the smoke left them when he exhaled, the cool, confident manner he had as he took another hit like an expert — it sent a warm rush over me, and I swallowed, adjusting my position in the folding chair.
He went to pass it back to Glen but I stopped him, my hand finding his forearm. “Wait.”
Emery paused, smoke still seeping through his lips as his eyes connected with mine.
Listening to Nora and Glen share their stories had me looking at my own life up until that point, the twenty years I’d had on Earth and all I’d experienced — or rather, the lack thereof. Something about that night, that fire, or maybe those people had me wishing for more. I wanted stories of my own to tell, and I knew that wouldn’t happen if I didn’t step out of the box I’d lived in so comfortably my whole life.
My hand was a little shaky where it rested on Emery’s arm, and when the next words left my lips, my voice followed suit. But I was more sure in that moment than I had been at any point up until then.
“Can I… can I try it?”
I couldn’t stop giggling.
It didn’t matter what happened, or what anyone said, because I was stuck in my own thoughts, and everything was funny. And when I tried to explain why it was funny, I just laughed harder, and barely got a word out.
“You are so high,” Emery whispered into my ear, his elbow leaning on my chair’s armrest.
“I am,” I agreed, and then another fit of giggling started. “I’m so hot, too. Is it hot to you?”
I knew I sounded ridiculous, since it was in the forties that night, but the fire was warm and so was my sweater. I picked at the neck of it, searching Emery’s low, red eyes. He was watching me with a soft smirk, his hair mussed as always, his eyes curious.
“Want to take a walk to cool off?”
I nodded, and before I knew it, he was standing and pulling me up with him. He told Glen and Nora we’d be back, making sure it was okay to leave Kalo with them, and then we were walking by the light of the flashlight on his phone. I tripped on a rock, nearly falling as I laughed loudly, catching my balance with a firm grip on Emery’s arm.
“Hold onto me so you don’t fall,” he said, chuckling, too. “Are you okay? Do you feel okay?”
“I feel amazing.”
He laughed again, and I threaded my arm through his, leaning into him. He smelled like fire and citrus.
The farther we got from the fire, the more settled I felt. I was cooler, my skin tingling with the transition from the warmth of the fire to the icy night air, and the urge to laugh seemed to be left behind at the campsite, especially once we reached the edge of a small cliff at the end of the park. The moon and stars were bright, illuminating the edges of the mountains in the distance, and Emery clicked the light off on his phone, letting the night surround us.
The sky almost seemed sea blue instead of black, and I watched our breath float up in front of us in little puffs of white. It didn’t feel real, standing there with Emery, knowing I wasn’t in Alabama anymore, that I never would be again. I’d already seen more in the past four days than in my entire life before, and I knew it was just the beginning.
“That was fun,” I finally said, nodding back toward the campsite. “Making that list with them. They’re funny.”
“Everything’s funny to you right now.”
I nudged him. “Don’t make fun of me! Are you high, too?”
Emery looked down the bridge of his nose at me, one side of his face shrouded in the darkness, the other illuminated by the moon. “I am.”
“It’s a weird feeling.”
“It is. I remember my first time, too. It doesn’t affect me the same way anymore, though.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
A loud, long breath left his chest as he turned his eyes back toward the mountains. “I used to laugh like you, and now I just get…” He faded off, mouth flattening like he didn’t know if he should say anything more, like he wasn’t sure he could trust me.
I squeezed his arm, letting him know he could.
“I get in my head,” he finished after a moment. “And that’s a dangerous place to be.”
Suddenly, I felt sober, though I knew I wasn’t yet. His words struck that chord inside me, the one that warned me, that buzzed to life when something was a threat. I didn’t want him inside his head, not if it was the same dark mind that almost took his life.
“Maybe it’s only dangerous because you’re the only one there. You could…” My voice faded along with my confidence. “I’m here, if you want to talk.”
Emery smiled, though it fell quickly, and he tucked his hands into his pockets. My own hand was still wrapped around his bicep.
“It’s nothing specific, honestly. I just get to thinking… like tonight, making that ‘list of hopes and dreams’ with them. You were so happy making it, laughing and listing things off. And it made me… sad.”
“Why?” I whispered.
He shrugged. “That’s the kicker. I’m not sure.”
My thoughts were fuzzy in my head, and I suddenly wished I could come down from my high, that I could be sober and present. I fought through the cloud, trying to find the right words to say.
“Do you think it’s because making a list like that takes something as grand as life and simplifies it? Makes it so… small?”
Emery turned to me then, his brows pulled together, my favorite lines forming between them. “Kind of,” he admitted, as if it surprised him that I understood. “It was also hard for me, to even come up with those few that we did to start the list.”
“You think you don’t have any real hopes and dreams.”
“I don’t.”
I shook my head. “Yes, you do. You’re just figuring it out. It’s not easy for everyone.”
“It was for you.”
I laughed then, but not because I was high — because the thought of anything in my life being easy was hilarious.
“Nothing in my life has been easy, Emery. Sure, I know that I want to go into natural medicine, but that’s only one part of life. A tiny part of it. Maybe it was easy to make my list because life hasn’t disappointed me yet. I’m still lusting after things you’ve already experienced and been let down by.”
“Like love,” he said, and it wasn’t a question. It was a statement, one he punctuated with a turn in my direction, with a stare down into my eyes that felt like a piercing needle.
“Yes,” I whispered. “Like love.”
Emery wouldn’t take his eyes off me, not even when I blushed and looked away, or when I found his unwavering gaze once more, my breath suddenly hard to catch.
“It’s such a shame,” he finally said, voice as smooth and calm as the sky above us. “That you’ve never been really kissed.”
“It is?” I breathed.
His Adam’s apple bobbed once in his throat as he nodded, stepping closer to me, and the hands that were in his pockets had somehow found their way to my neck. They crawled up, framing my face, his thumbs by my ears as his fingers curled into my hair. My mind rushed like the waterfalls we’d seen earlier, my heart racing along with it, our breaths meeting between us in a mixture of white puffs.