Chapter 22
I’ve never gone to my family’s mountain house with a boy before.
We mainly go in the winter as a family. My parents, Ashley, and I like to go skiing. I’ve always preferred the time we spend together post skiing—sitting by the fire with hot chocolate in hand or relaxing in the hot tub outside. In the summers we make use of our second home too. There’s plenty of hiking around the Catskills. Ashley and I have gone to a few concerts at Woodstock. Two summers ago, I was able to invite my friends. Carmen, Jess, and I wore matching jean shorts and neon T-shirts that had Sunshine & Song lyrics printed on them. There’s a framed picture in my bedroom from the concert where Carmen’s on top of my shoulders. But I push this thought out of my head. I can’t even think about her right now.
Once she’s no longer in sight, I open the paper heart she had stolen from me. It says, The key to second chances is where your heart is. She was right about the Catskills, but what she didn’t know about was the bronze key I’ve kept on my lanyard. I had a feeling “the key” meant I was finally going to figure out what it opened.
I’m quiet for the majority of the car ride. Andy volunteers to drive but I insist on being the one behind the wheel. For some reason, it feels like this is something that I have to do.
So I drive for an hour and a half to the mountain house, trying to think about anything besides my traitor best friends. Each one of them calls. Every time the phone rings, the music from my phone stops playing and my ringtone blasts into the car. My phone’s on the console so I can follow the GPS as I’m driving. The fourth call is from Katie. As the phone rings, I ignore it like I’ve ignored the others, but I can feel Andy staring at me.
“Are you going to get that?” he asks.
“No.”
“So are you going to tell me what happened? Is this trip because my spontaneity is rubbing off on you, or does this spur-of-the-moment getaway have something to do with”—he pauses, reading the name on my phone—“Katie?”
“Both,” I answer honestly, keeping my eyes on the road. “And I’ll tell you. Just not tonight.”
“Okay, I can wait for the drama. Until then I’ll pretend you just wanted to whisk me away instead of having other boys asking you to dance all night.”
“Sounding jealous over there. But for your information, no boys asked me to dance.”
“Maybe because you left after ten minutes. But have you seen yourself tonight? I meant what I said. You look beautiful.”
“Oh, in this old thing?” I laugh. I’m still in my dress, while Andy’s in regular pants and a T-shirt. “Well, I’ll be changing into my bathing suit once we get there.”
“Um. Ella. I know you’re having a crisis of some sort with your friends, but you do realize it’s the dead of winter.”
I laugh. “There’s a hot tub.”
“Hot tub!” he yells. “I can get used to this new and spontaneous Ella.”
“Me too,” I say as my cheeks turn warm, and not just from the heat blasting.
When we get to the house, the last thing I’m thinking about is the next paper heart. It’s ironic, considering that’s all I’ve been thinking about for the last few weeks. That’s why I’m here to begin with.
But being alone with Andy—really alone—has made me focus solely on him. Maybe it’s because the second we park in the driveway Andy hops out of the car and opens my door for me. Before he walks me to the house, he twirls me once under the moon and whispers in my ear that it’s because I deserve at least one spin tonight when I look this good. Then he dips me like he did for our first kiss. When he does, all the tension built up from the car ride releases. It’s like he sucks all the negative out of me. Here I am at my favorite place with my favorite person, and the funny part is that I didn’t plan this—but here we are.
Andy takes my hand and we walk to the door. This feeling of safety mixed with excitement bursts inside me. It makes me walk faster, and soon I’m at the door, trying to let us in. I fiddle with my keys, thumbing the mystery bronze key, before finding one to the house.
“We made it.” I exhale as we walk inside. I still can’t believe we’re here or that I’m the one who drove us here after all those months of not driving.
“We did. So tell me the plan,” Andy says, spinning me again toward the living room.
“No plan,” I say, smiling. “My dad keeps wood in the garage. If you know how to make a fire, that would be pretty nice right about now.”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” he says. “Fire and hot chocolate like you and your fam do?”
“You remember that?” I ask. I know I told him about my family vacations on our ride to NYC, but hearing him repeat it now is surprising in a good way.
“I remember everything you tell me,” he says, rubbing my shoulders.
“Everything?” I ask.
“Mm-hmm. Like when you told me there was a hot tub that we can take advantage of.”
“Oooh, hot tub, then fire and hot chocolate?”
He smiles. “Sounds like you’re trying to plan now.”
I frown. He’s right.
“Hey,” he says, kissing my forehead. “You know, I like that about you. And hot tub then fire sounds amazing. Let’s do it.”
“Really?”
He spins me again. “As much as I’m going to hate you changing out of this dress. Yes.”
We kiss again until I can feel we’re both smiling. “Go change,” he whispers. I nod and head to my room. My bathing suit drawer is a mess, and it takes me longer to find a matching top and bottom than I expected. It’s only when I try on my favorite black bikini that I feel self-conscious. I stand in front of the mirror, looking at the scar that runs along my chest from the accident. Normally I’m able to hide it, but there’s no hiding it in this suit.
It’s dark outside; he won’t even be able to see it, I urge myself. But it only helps a little. I find a robe in my closet that I can wear until the last possible second.
As I make my way to the hot tub, I can hear the water rushing. Andy must have started to warm it up.
I move over to the window. Peering out, I can see that Andy’s already inside. The hot tub is lit up, and I suddenly want to turn back around and say I changed my mind. But almost like he knows what I’m thinking he looks up and spots me. There’s suddenly a huge smile on his face, and he waves me over. I take a deep breath. It’s now or never.
I make my way to the sliding glass door. Opening it, I feel a burst of cold air. I run quickly to the hot tub. I’m barefoot, so my toes are cold as they hit the cement pathway my dad put in years ago.
When I reach the hot tub, I know that the faster I take my robe off, the faster I can get into the warm water, but I hesitate, looking at Andy. His hair is wet from going under. There’s a small drop of water on his lips that I have the urge to kiss away, but it slides off when he talks.
“Are you coming in?” he asks, watching me hesitate.
“Yes,” I say, but my body stays frozen where I’m standing. Maybe I can ask him to turn around. Then once I’m in the water, I can stay low so my scar is beneath the bubbles.
“What’re you doing? I can’t kiss you from all the way over here,” he teases.
I sway awkwardly in my robe. It’s not that I don’t want to go in and kiss him. I do. I just wish with everything in me that I could go back to the days where I could put on a bathing suit feeling as confident as I did in the dress I wore tonight. But as I’m thinking this, Andy moves over to the edge of the hot tub to be closer to me.
“Is something wrong?” he asks.
“I…I have a scar,” I confess. “From the accident. The second I go in there you’re…you’re going to see it.”
His eyebrows furrow. “And you think I’ll care? Is that really what you think of me?”
“No, not just you. Everybod—”
“I’m not everybody. I’m telling you that nothing is going to change the way I feel about you.”
He reaches out his hand. His eyes are staring straight into mine—unflinching—and the way he’s looking at me now makes me believe him.
Slowly, I untie the sash around my waist. Andy’s eyes remain on mine. When the robe drops to the ground, he smiles his warm Andy smile. I quickly grab his hand and he pulls me toward him. I walk up the steps and then slide into the hot tub beside him. My body goes from freezing to warm in an instant.
Still holding my hand, Andy pulls me closer to him so that we’re completely facing each other. The moonlight dances on his face.
He pulls our hands out of the water and brings the back of mine to his lips. He kisses it and then slowly starts kissing up my arm and up to my collarbone. My heart starts beating faster with his face so close to my scar, but when he kisses the spot right along my clavicle, I feel like I’m melting right here in this hot tub.
Soon he is at my lips, and when I kiss him back, I do so more passionately than I’ve ever kissed anyone. His hands move to my face and he holds me closer. I never want this kiss to end.
When eventually we pull away, he looks at me and brushes a piece of wet hair out of my face. “I love you, Ella Fitzpatrick.”
At first, I’m not sure I hear him correctly over the bubbles around us but the look on his face tells me everything I need to know. He looks at me like I’ve always wanted to be looked at. He sees all of me.
I wrap my arms around his neck.
“I love you too.”
With those words he finds my chin with his hand and lifts my mouth up to his mouth. He kisses me gently—so gently that it feels like my lips are fully absorbed into his.
Seconds turn to minutes. When we finally break for air, I don’t know how long we’ve been in here, only that our hands have become pruned from being underwater.
We decide to head inside, sprinting as fast as we can to the house, my robe in hand. Still not tired of kissing him, I lead him to the shower. In between kisses we rinse each other off in our bathing suits, my breath speeding up as Andy’s hands touch my skin.
After the shower we change back into our clothes and I make hot chocolate in the kitchen while Andy starts a fire in the living room.
Once we’re both done, we sit together on the couch, sharing a blanket. Little pops come from the crackling fire. I rest my head on Andy’s chest and he strokes my hair with his free hand. It’s so soothing that I completely forget about everything that’s happened in the past couple of weeks. All I can think about is that I meant what I said outside—I love this boy. It happened so quickly but it feels right—like everything that has happened so far was important because it led me to him.
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now, I think. It’s the last thought I have before I fall asleep, the fire crackling in the background.