17 & Gone(11)

“I live here,” Luke Castro said. As he said it, I remembered. Luke Castro from school did live somewhere around here —I was pretty sure.

The glare from the sun, or from her memory, made it so I had a hard time looking directly at his face, but it was him, the same guy from school.

He was checking out Abby in her camp-issue tank top. Out of all the girls there, he eyed her and only her— because she was older than the others, because she’d gathered up the most flowers, or simply because she had on the tightest shirt.

“I live down the hill, that way,” he said.

He gestured out into the trees, though none of the girls knew where that could be, or what direction. Was it toward Pinecliff or away from Pinecliff? Near the train tracks or far from them? The counselors hadn’t taught the girls how to judge direction by the sun or to use a compass yet, and Abby should have figured out how to make this a teaching moment. But she couldn’t care less.

Abby had come here to train to be a camp counselor. On her application, she’d written that she loved kids. She didn’t actually love kids; she’d wanted an excuse to get away from Jersey for the summer. She had no idea how much she’d hate kids after just the first week, after all the yelling through megaphones; eating slop, or trying to; burning through her arm muscles rowing those canoes.

Right then she wished the girls would just wander off into the woods and entertain themselves with twigs and pinecones or something so she could have a moment alone with this stranger here.

But the girls were telling Luke to get off camp property, and he did, with one last glance at Abby.

These girls couldn’t know what was communicated in that glance and in Abby’s. The Hey, the Hey yourself. The What’s up with all the weeds? The Oh my God, don’t even ask . The What’re you doing with these losers anyway?

T h e No freaking clue, I’m sooooo bored. The Yeah? , the Yeah. The Then maybe you should come out later and hang with me.

Luke Castro rode off, his motor buzzing in the trees all around them like he could come crashing back and run them over at any moment, crushing toes this time, leaving carnage. But he didn’t come back, not that day.

All Abby remembers is how she said, under her breath, “Who was that?” And how she had no idea she’d find out soon enough. She’d find out.

— 7 — SHE wanted to show me another memory of hers before I left the campground that night, something more about Luke.

That was Abby’s giggle scattering in the air like pine needles. We were rolling. It was too dark to see, and I’d lost track of my flashlight, but I could feel the warm grass through my shirt, the mud and leaves leaking through my clothes. The ground had given way to some kind of hill, and the decline went on until it stopped at a soft bottom, where another body dropped next to us, as if this other person had gone rolling down the hill, too. Even though I felt connected to her—she and I, me and Abby—I was also aware that there were just two bodies at the bottom of that hill: the boy, who was Luke, and the girl, who was Abby. I was only watching.

She took his hand then—it felt like I, too, took his hand—and she held it tight.

She spit out pine needles and smoothed the leaves from her hair, even though it was too dark for him to see her hair, and she said—she said it and my mouth echoed the shape of it: “Oh my God, I totally love you, Luke.”

It had just come out. She didn’t mean to say the words out loud, but something from the fall down the hill made her tongue loosen. Because there it was now, a creature hovering over them in the night, and she couldn’t unsay it.

I didn’t hear what he said back, and at first I assumed that my hearing was going in and out of this memory, but it wasn’t that I was losing sound and connection. It was that he didn’t say anything. She’d told him she loved him and he didn’t bother to respond. He silenced her with his mouth instead.

The last time I was kissed, it was Jamie, who tasted like cinnamon, which was the way I was used to a boy tasting.

But being kissed by Luke wasn’t what I was used to. He didn’t use his tongue at first, and that made Abby want him to.

He teased with his lips, pressing his mouth to her neck. One side of her neck, below her ear, then the other. Then down her neck, down and down to her collarbone, and lower, to between her breasts, which is when I realized her shirt was wide open. Then he brought his lips up again, climbing, climbing, and his tongue entered her mouth, finally, and she tasted him, I tasted him, and he tasted us. It was sweet, a faint and faraway sweetness, and it was much wetter than I expected, so much so, I had to wipe my mouth off after. So did she.

He wanted more than the kiss, but the night wasn’t over yet. Up above, at the top of the hill, was Abby’s borrowed bicycle. I know this like I knew the grass was tickling the backs of her thighs because she had on shorts, but it was too dark to see if they were the red ones with the white racing stripes or another pair of shorts. If this was the night or another night.

And then his mouth left hers and she had a moment to catch her breath. She pulled back, dropping her weight to the soft ground, the grass wet with dew from the night, and gazed up to the darkened sky over her head. All those stars: the very same ones I was seeing almost five months later.

This was what Abby remembered.

She liked returning to it to keep herself from thinking of what came after.

— 8 — JAMIE was shaking me. He had me by the shoulders and was calling my name, his voice cracking, like this had been going on for a long time. He’d taken my coat—which had somehow detached itself from my body—and was holding it over me, like a blanket. My skin was slick with chilled sweat underneath the wool coat, my chest sticky with it, and my buttons were all undone, my shirt flapping open. I put the buttons back together as quickly as I could and wrangled myself out from under Jamie’s grip, so I could stand up by myself.