I sit next to this girl who’s no longer a stranger as fireworks go off above us. She’s not draped in my lap in some romantic way that I would have liked. No, she’s just sitting next to me after a fun day full of laughter. At some point in the middle of the colorful display over Lake Julian, Lily pokes me.
“Relax, Chris.”
“What?”
She laughs and looks at me, and I smile.
Yeah okay fine.
Easier said than done. Especially now that night has come and … well, I don’t know.
A day of riding around and seeing some sights like a famous mountain and a cool bridge.
Everything’s happening so fast.
How’d I get here from
No stop not here and now.
So yeah, I stop. And listen to Lily. I let out a silent sigh and keep looking up, but I’m not paying the fireworks any attention. I’m keeping her in my peripheral vision. She watches and comments on the colors and claps and acts like a little girl.
It’s nice to see her relaxed. No—she’s always relaxed, but in a standoffish sort of way. Now she’s just free and easygoing.
Especially when she moves closer to me on the blanket.
We stay on that blanket after the show is over and let the crowd disappear and leave us alone.
Or at least that’s what I’m thinking and hoping.
“Summer of sixth grade. Running around with all my crazy cousins in Georgia. In the country. Shooting off bottle rockets and Roman candles and almost putting someone in a hospital.”
This is Lily’s fondest Fourth of July memory. She laughs at her own comment, not believing how crazy her family used to be.
“Do you ever see them?” I ask.
She shakes her head and doesn’t say more. She’s resting on her elbows while lying on her stomach, staring out at the dark lake in front of us. I’m doing the same, but I’m watching her more than anything else. Even in the dim light of night, I can see her clearly.
“You miss Illinois?” she asks.
“Every day.”
“I can understand. Maybe I need to come live in Asheville.”
“Too bad your grandmother didn’t live around here,” I say.
For a moment Lily looks at me, then she nods and smiles. “Yeah, too bad.”
I want to ask about us, what we’re doing and what this means and if there’s some kind of chance—
“Chris?”
“Yeah?”
“I see smoke coming from your ears.”
I laugh. “That bad, huh?”
“I see that mind spinning.”
“Sorry, it’s just—”
“It is fine,” Lily interrupts. “Relax. I mean it. Relax. I’m not going to bite. We’re not going to do anything tonight, and we don’t have to worry about anything. You don’t have to tell me how much I mean to you, and I don’t have to ask how you’re feeling and any of that nonsense.”
I kinda like that nonsense.
“I’m just a girl. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
Once again, I crack her up. “What?”
“That was so unconvincing.”
“Sorry.”
She moves over and then moves her lips toward my ear. Then she bites me. Hard.
“Ow!”
I move and sit up on my knees, rubbing my ear. “Wha—”
Lily sits up as well, laughing with a playful look on her shadowed face. “I’m going to keep doing that until you just ease up.”
“I’m eased up—I’m relaxed.”
“Yeah, right.”
“That killed.”
“Good,” she says, then adds, “Oh, come on, be a man.”
I raise my eyebrows as if to say something, but she just looks at me, waiting.
“Yeah?”
“I don’t get you.”
“Join the club, pal.” She then slides up beside me as if we’re on a bus and have to cram next to each other. “You okay?”
“That really hurt.”
“Do I need to make it better?”
I look at her and so badly want to say that yes, she needs to make it better. I want to have the James Bond reply that has a double meaning, but I just can’t. I’m just way too nervous to say anything.
“You really are cute, Chris,” she says. “I’m not just saying that.”
“So are you.”
Her face grows serious, and she shakes her head. “No, Chris, I’m not. There are some things I am. Many things I am. But cute is not one of them. I was cute a long time ago. Not anymore.”
I don’t know what to say. As usual.
We sit there for a while and continue to look out at the lake. We don’t make out in outrageous passion, nor do we continue this playful back-and-forth. I picture it in my mind, but here and now we’re just sitting in the quiet.
“See, it worked,” Lily says eventually.
“What?”
“The bite.”
“What about it?”
“You look relaxed now.”
“Either that, or you gave me rabies and I’m slowly going unconscious.”
She just laughs. “This has been a great day, Chris.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She studies me for a moment. I wish I could read thoughts. Especially girls’ thoughts. Because I’ve never been able to figure out what they’re thinking.
She’s thinking something big, but I can’t tell what.
“Me neither,” Lily finally says.
Later, after dropping her off and receiving a sweet hug that was just that—a sweet hug—I’m back at home in my bedroom, and I can’t stop thinking of her.
Then it dawns on me. The text from Marsh. About relief and letting go.
He’s right.
This thought—these two words—terrify me.