Secret Lucidity(68)

So, when kisses aren’t nearly enough, we peel back the layers until we’re flesh upon flesh, and we do so much more than just have sex. That’s too simple—too crude for a moment like this. I do, however, make love to this man right down to his bones.





WITH THE INCEPTION OF SPRING taking root beneath the grounds that hunger for water and warmth, there’s an energy that can be felt from all around. The sun is just starting to ascend into a sky hued in pale pinks and purples. Everything is covered in dewy sweetness, and when I step out of my car, I fill my lungs with the scent of rebirth.

It’s the second week in March, marking the end of swim season. This weekend is state finals, and the bus is already in the school parking lot, waiting to take us down to Norman, which is where we will be staying for the next two days.

Even though it’s a short forty-five minute drive, we leave before seven in the morning to give us time to get settled in to the hotel and prepare for a day of qualifying heats that will start at ten thirty.

This will be the last time I swim for Edmond Ridge High, and I’m ready. Never have I been so anxious to say goodbye to this school—to this town. After this year, I’m ready for my own rebirth, to move to a place where David and I won’t have to worry about what people will say when they see us together. Even though I won’t be his student anymore, if we were to stay in Oklahoma, people would still talk. There’d be a stigma forever attached to us. But in North Carolina, where I wound up accepting UNC’s scholarship offer, no one will know that he was once my teacher.

We’ll be free.

“Morning,” David says when I hand him my bags to stow beneath the bus.

I give him a smile, a smile laced with our hidden secret everyone around us is clueless to.

When I step onto the bus, I spot Ming flagging me down toward the back.

“Cam, I saved you a seat,” she calls out in her tiny voice.

I make my way past my teammates and take the spot next to her. The second I do, I wish I hadn’t; I’m now sitting right across the aisle from Taylor.

“What’s up?” Kyle says casually from the seat in front of me, and I give him a weak, “Hey.”

Kyle and I have remained semi-friendly toward each other, despite my nonexistent friendship with Linze.

“Can you believe this is the last time we’ll swim together?” Ming says while I watch David step onto the bus and start his head count. “It’s so sad when you think about it, ya know?”

“Uh-huh,” I respond vacantly while keeping my focus fixed straight ahead.

His eyes catch mine for a split second before he takes his seat behind the driver.

“Oh my God,” she pops off excitedly, drawing my attention back to her. “I totally didn’t tell you, but I got my acceptance letter in from the University of Florida! Can you believe it? Trading in crap-ass Oklahoma for sunny Florida? I can’t wait!”

“Wow, Ming. That’s great.”

As the bus pulls away from the school and turns onto the main road, Ming goes on talking about everything Florida: the palm trees, weekend trips to the beaches, the hot guys, and everything else in between. I nod and do the occasional, “That sounds amazing,” and “You’re going to have so much fun,” but after a while, I tune her out and eavesdrop into Taylor’s conversations with a small group of girls to the side of me. I’m pretty sure she wants me to hear, considering she isn’t trying to keep her voice down. She’s going on about a party she went to last weekend that Kyle was clearly at when he starts commenting about the crazy night.

But it’s when she drops Kroy’s name that I’m all ears.

“You made out with him?” one of the girls says in what I guess is supposed to be a whisper. It’s loud enough that a few people sitting in front of us noticeably turn their heads, listening.

“Yeah, she did,” another girl says. “Right in front of everyone.”

From the corner of my eye, I see that Taylor wears a prideful slutty smile. “I kinda figured he always had a thing for me.” She catches me watching her and leans toward me. “He told me it was you who broke things off with him, so I figured you wouldn’t care.”

And it isn’t the fact that she kissed Kroy that makes me want to knock the whore right out of her, it’s that time and time again she’s gone out of her way to humiliate me, to remind me, that in her eyes, I’m scum.

“You figured right,” I tell her. “I don’t care.”

I turn and face straight ahead when Kyle looks over at me and mentions, “Kroy was completely wasted.”

“Like I said, I don’t care. If he wants to drink and keep bad company, that’s on him.”

Taylor continues to gossip to the girls about what a good kisser Kroy is and blah, blah, blah. I know her mission is to push my buttons, to get under my skin, and make me jealous. The thing is, I’m not jealous. Maybe I would be if I didn’t have David, but I do, and I love him in a way I never did with Kroy. It took David to show me that Kroy and me never really belonged together. So, Kroy can have Taylor if that’s what he wants. He can have whomever because jealousy can’t live when there are no emotions to feed it.

“She’s such a bitch,” Ming says to me from under her breath. “You should have seen the way she was flirting with Coach Andrews the other day after swim practice.”