Song of the Fireflies (5 page)

But two days came and went, and Mitchell never came back to get it.

Elias took the falling-out with Mitchell really hard the first few days. It was only to be expected, since they had known each other even longer than
we
had known each other. Despite everything, Elias knew that it wasn’t his fault, and he wasn’t going to sit around and blame himself. Mitchell had brought this all on himself. Eventually, Elias went from feeling bad about what happened to indifferent.

He still had me, after all.

By Friday night, we were debating whether to go to the river or not, because Mitchell would almost definitely be there.

“I say we go, Elias. Don’t let him ruin our good time.”

Elias kissed me on the forehead and squeezed me around the waist as I sat straddled on his lap.

“OK. We’ll go. Just stay away from him, all right?”

I draped my arms around his neck and then kissed his lips. “I’ll be too busy with you to worry about him,” I said suggestively.

Elias smiled and squeezed my butt in his hands. “How did we get like this?” he asked, studying my face and my lips.

“It was inevitable,” I said in a quiet voice. My fingers touched the contours of his cheekbones and probed him as if he were a beautiful¸ delicate statue. He hadn’t shaved in a while, but I found the growing stubble sexy on him.

“Do you remember our first kiss?” he asked, smiling at me.

“Of course I do,” I said. “The first night we met.”

He shook his head and his hands slid up my back.

“No, I mean the first
real
kiss.”

I swallowed hard. On the inside I was screaming as another memory infected my thoughts in that moment, but on the outside, I looked as blissful as he did.

“Yes. I remember,” I said distantly.

Elias’ blue eyes softened, not sensing the turmoil going on inside of me. I was thankful for that.

“I’ve always wondered about that day,” he said. “When you asked me to kiss you, did you really just want to practice? Be honest.”

I swallowed again and my hands began to shake. I steadied them, interlacing my fingers around the back of his neck. The memory of our first kiss was one of my most cherished. I would never forget it. But the other, more solemn memory that always came with it nowadays was what I couldn’t bear.

“I did want to practice,” I answered, hiding the pain in my heart. “But it was just an excuse. I really just wanted you to kiss me.”

Elias’s smile widened. And then he touched his lips to mine, slowly brushing the tip of his tongue between them. I wilted in his arms.

He made love to me that morning before we packed the car and headed to the river. And I noticed—very hard not to—something about Elias that I never expected, but that drove me absolutely mad for him. Every time we would have sex, he was different, he would
feel
different. Sometimes aggressive, sometimes explorative, though it seemed like he was holding something back. I had been with several guys, but none of them had anything on Elias. Sex with him was never the same. He was focused, determined, meticulous, and experienced. And each time I went in, I found myself wondering what he was going to do to me this time. Just anticipating it was thrilling. And sometimes scary. In a good way.

For the first time in my life I didn’t feel wrong about the way I was inside. I didn’t feel ashamed. But instead, I felt like I could
almost
be myself completely with Elias. But only almost. I wasn’t ready yet to lay something like that on him. I was afraid of making him look at me differently, or lose respect for me.

Because the truth was, I was addicted to sex.

I wanted it all the time. In every way. On the outside I was a seemingly innocent girl by today’s standards. Before Elias, whenever I would have sex with guys, I always felt ashamed afterward. I didn’t want any of them, sexually or otherwise. I wanted Elias in every way imaginable.

Now that I had him and was picking up these familiar sexual vibes from him, my mind began to spin with the possibilities.

Were Elias and I more alike than we ever knew? Was that even
possible
? Was Elias just as addicted to sex as I was?

By this time, even without knowing the answers to those questions yet, I thought that life really couldn’t get any better. We were in complete and absolute love, finally living the dream with one another that we had always dreamed about. There was so much to do, so many things about ourselves and about life to explore together, and we had our whole lives ahead of us in which to do it.

But on the night of April 20, everything we knew would change, and that life together we had waited so long to have would come crashing down around us like some cruel fucking joke.

*     *     *

We made it to the secluded party spot on the river just after dark. It was getting slightly cooler as the night approached, but that never stopped anyone we knew from swimming. Summer in Georgia wasn’t officially here, but it might as well have been.

There were a lot of people at the river, some I knew, most I didn’t. Tents had been pitched throughout the woods, spaced far enough apart for privacy. Two separate campfires burned, and people sat around each of them talking and drinking. The smell of pot filled the air. Not even two minutes in, as Elias and I carried in our camping gear, a group of people offered us a joint. We stopped and took a hit before heading into the woods to stake our claim on a spot for the weekend.

“I haven’t seen him yet,” I said about Mitchell as I set our ice chest down beside a tree.

Elias unzipped the tent bag and started setting up. “Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and he won’t show.”

“Hopefully,” I said.

After we were satisfied with our setup, we walked through the trees the short distance back to the main camp, where everyone was sitting. Music was playing from a portable radio, but the river was so close that it nearly drowned out the music coming from the tiny speakers.

We sat down next to a couple and immediately the guy passed a joint to Elias. Elias took a long hit and shotgunned it to me, exhaling it into my mouth. My eyes watered and burned a little, but at that point I didn’t care.

“I’m tellin’ ya, man,” another guy to our left said in a half-joking manner, “once you get married, it all goes to shit. Should jus’ keep things like they are.” The guy took a hit and let the smoke trickle out of his lips and funnel back through his nostrils.

“He would know,” the blonde-haired girl sitting next to him said. She took the joint from him and put it to her lips, pressed between the tips of her thumb and index finger. “My dear idiot brother here has been married twice.” Her voice strained and cracked as she held the smoke deep in her lungs. “Was with his ex for six years. Perfect together. Got married and—” she snapped her fingers “—
poof
! Instant destruction of a perfectly good relationship.”

Laughter ripped through the air.

Elias pulled me from beside him and over between his legs, wrapping his arms around me from behind. I could tell he wasn’t paying any attention to the conversations going on around us. Not the one about that guy’s bad luck with marriages, or the one on the other side of us about some girl’s recent endometriosis diagnosis. He was enjoying his high, and I was enjoying mine with him.

We zoned out for a while, me sitting between his legs, leaning against his chest. We listened mostly to the mix of the radio and the nearby river, which somehow blended harmoniously. Being high has many strange and unexpected perks. After a couple of hours, most of our company either went swimming, or drank too much then hit their tents to pass out.

Elias nuzzled his mouth at the back of my neck. My body folded forward, attacked by a tickling sensation that raced down my spine.

“Want to go for a swim?” he asked, then whispered hotly into my ear, “Or, you can go to the tent with me.”

I giggled and tilted my head to one side, exposing my neck to his mouth. He dragged his teeth across the skin, raising chill bumps all over my body.

“Why don’t we do both?” I suggested and licked his tongue playfully with the tip of mine.

He smiled and drew his head back. “You want to swim in the tent?”

I teasingly elbowed him in the ribs. “No,” I said and turned around on my knees to face him. I leaned inward toward his ear, bit his earlobe, and said, “You can fuck me in the water.”

And that was just what we were doing when Jana and Mitchell finally made their grand appearance.

Mitchell jumped off a rock several feet high into the water not far from us. It scared the crap out of me, but Elias was so close to getting off that he wasn’t about to let something like that stop him. It was always harder to get off when under water, so the thirty minutes we spent with my legs wrapped around his waist and him slowly thrusting in and out of me wasn’t going to be for nothing.

Elias grabbed me closer, one arm around my back, the other positioned partway in between my butt cheeks, and held me still when I startled.

“Ignore him,” he said, staring deeply into my eyes, his face just mere inches from mine, as he tried to stay focused.

He never took his eyes off mine. It made me insanely crazy for him. I pushed my bikini-covered breasts firmly against his rock-hard chest and kissed him. He devoured my mouth, pushing in and out of me beneath the water the whole time. Water dripped from his lips and his cheeks and I licked it off of him. The gesture made him thrust deeper, his fingers digging painfully into my back.

“Oh look,” I heard Mitchell say, “It’s my best friend. Who kicked me out for a girl.”

Elias’s concentration was unshaken. I, on the other hand, was getting pissed. And a little worried someone—mainly Mitchell—would notice what we were doing. He certainly didn’t need any more fuel for the fire he started.

Jana jumped into the water next, thankfully slightly farther away from us than Mitchell had.

“Come on, Mitchell,” I heard her say. I never looked away from Elias’s eyes. “Don’t do that shit here. You’ll ruin everyone’s night, not just theirs.”

The two of them swam away in the opposite direction and left us alone.

But apparently Mitchell’s presence and misplaced grudge against Elias, instead of the apology Elias had been hoping he’d get if he saw Mitchell tonight, was too much of a distraction. He pulled out of me without getting off and then hugged me.

“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing the top of my head.

“What are you apologizing to me for?” I kissed his lips. “He’s a fucking asshole. Enough to kill anyone’s buzz or orgasm.” I brought my hand out of the water and flicked droplets at his face. “You can finish with me later. However you want it.”

For a second, it seemed Elias was just going to smile and join in with my impish gestures, but I saw something shift in his eyes when I said that last part. He looked at me with a deep curiosity.

“However I want it?” he asked, searching for further explanation.

I rested three of my fingers on his nose and then dragged them down his face and onto his lips, where he kissed each one individually.

“Yeah,” I responded coyly. “You know you can do anything you want to me, right?”

He still looked incredibly curious, that sidelong look in his darkening gaze, but I could sense that he was as afraid to come out and say what he was thinking as much as I was. We were still feeling each other out. Testing those boundaries. Hoping that there
were
no boundaries. But we were each afraid of scaring the other one off. We should’ve known that nothing could ever do that. It would’ve saved us a lot of pent-up sexual frustration a lot earlier on.

A giant gush of water covered us like an angry ocean wave. Elias and I broke apart from each other’s grasp. I couldn’t see; the water burned my eyes as well as my nostrils and the back of my throat.

“What the fuck, man?!” I heard Elias shout.

I pushed the heavy, wet hair back away from my face and finally got my eyes open. I saw Elias first, and he had a murderous look on his face. I swam back over to him and draped my arms over the back of his shoulders, wrapping my legs around him from behind.

Mitchell was grinning enormously, proud that he’d splashed us.

“Let’s just go to our tent,” I said.

He ignored me. “You’re twenty-seven years old, man,” he snapped at Mitchell. “A little old to be acting like that, don’t you think?”

“Seriously, baby, let’s just go.”

Mitchell laughed and laid on his back, floating on top of the surface. He spit water into the air. Jana, floating upright next to him, dodged it and made a face. Mitchell didn’t say anything else, but there was no shortage of spiteful looks exchanged as Elias and I left the water and got as far away from him as we could.

“We can go home if you want,” Elias said to me. He pushed back a low-hanging tree branch to clear the path for me, and his other hand rested on my lower back.

“No,” I said. “I want to stay. Screw him. I can’t believe he’s even acting like that. I feel like we’re back in junior high school.”

“Well, it’s like you said, it’s the drugs. He’s definitely not himself.”

We made our way up the rocky path leading back to our tent, hand in hand. But before we got there, my left flip-flop broke.

“Shit.” I bent over to fool with the strip between my toes, trying to make it hold long enough so I could walk the rest of the way through the woods.

Elias lifted me up, swung me around on his back, carried me the rest of the way. My arms were hooked around his neck and his were hooked around my thighs. We hung out at the tent for a long time, but neither of us could sleep. We had uncomfortable sex inside the tent, and then we talked for a while until we decided to explore the bluffs. I “borrowed” a passed-out girl’s flip-flops from another tent nearby, and Elias and I headed deeper into the woods.

“What if we get lost?” I asked, gripping Elias’s hand. “We didn’t exactly bring any survival gear.”

“We’re not going far,” he said. “I saw a ridge when we were swimming. People were hanging out on top of it.” He pointed. “It’s just up ahead. Jared and a few of the other guys went this way to get to it.”

I had seen it, too, and wondered how everybody got over there.

After several more minutes of pushing our way between trees and bushes and stepping over dead branches and stray rocks, we emerged from the woods into a clearing at the top of the ridge that overlooked the river many feet below. A campfire had burned here recently; I could smell the leftover heat and smoke still rising from the charcoaled sticks on the small pile. A few empty beer bottles were strewn about the ground.

We walked to the edge of the ridge and looked out at the river; the moonlight was reflected off the water like hundreds of little diamonds. Some of our friends were still in the river below, floating on small plastic rafts, but it was fairly quiet everywhere, as the party had begun to die down for the night.

I sat down near the edge of the ridge and drew my knees toward my chest, wrapping my arms around my legs. The breeze blew through my hair, and I closed my eyes and raised my chin to the sky, taking in the tranquility of the night.

Elias sat down next to me, propping his wrists on his bent knees. “I almost went to South Carolina after you,” he said.

I glanced over. He was looking out at the water. “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“Mitchell told me you were engaged.”

I started to turn to him, shocked by what I’d heard, but I realized it didn’t surprise me much. “Well, he lied,” I said in a calm voice instead. After a pause, I added, “I wish you would’ve come after me anyway.”

Elias looked right at me, the emotion in his eyes pulling me in. The breeze brushed through the messy dark hair that framed his beautiful, stubbly face. “I know,” he said and looked away. “And you should’ve called me instead of Mitchell.” There was no blame or resentment in his voice.

“I know,” I said.

“I guess there are a lot of things we could’ve and should’ve done differently,” he said. “But you came back regardless. And we’re together now, despite all of that. And that has to count for something.”

Silence fell between us for a moment, giving us both time to reflect.

“Did you love her?” I asked about Aline, and I knew there was no need to clarify who I was talking about. I knew enough about her from Mitchell.

“Yeah,” he said and I felt an uncomfortable twinge in my stomach. “But she wasn’t you. I can love a lot of people. Aline. My parents. Hell, even Mitch’s dumb ass. But I could never love anyone the way I love you.”

The twinge softened and became something warm.

“Did you love
him
?” Elias asked.

“No,” I answered honestly. “I, uh…” I sighed and looked out ahead of me again. “I think I used him,” I admitted to Elias
and
to myself. And while I felt like a horrible person for it, suddenly I felt the need to spill the truth because I had been holding this inside for so long.

I went on:

“Even before I left, before we got together on your twenty-second birthday, every guy I was with, I think deep down was a substitute for you. It’s why none of them lasted, why I couldn’t date anyone for more than two months. I told you before, Elias, I was always scared of being with you. Of ruining what we had.”

“I know,” he said, but it was all that he said. I got the sense he wanted me to continue.

And so I did. I took another deep breath and began to tap my fingers against my knees out of nervousness.

“Lissa introduced me to Garrett,” I said. “He was a friend of her brother’s. I don’t know what the hell was wrong with me, or how I managed to stay with him for a year, but I did. I didn’t love him, but I guess I needed him. He wasn’t you, but he was there.”

And I needed sex
, I wanted to say, but couldn’t.
I didn’t want to sleep around with a bunch of different guys, so I found one and stuck with him. I used him for sex. I used him to pretend that he was you. I
used
him. I’m awful.

I couldn’t say these things out loud. I wanted to. I wanted to so bad that every word was on my tongue, pushing against the back of my teeth. I needed to get the truth out—about Garrett, about all of the other guys after him—to feel the impending relief. But I was still scared. I knew that I could trust Elias more than anyone in this world, that Elias would stand behind me no matter my flaws. But it was a double-edged knife, because I was terrified of losing that one person. And I had seen people lose others over much less.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said, surprising me.

My gut twisted in knots.

“You know you can always tell me anything,” he went on, but I couldn’t look at him. “There is absolutely nothing you could ever say or do that would make me leave you.”

He knew I was hiding things from him, and he was desperate to know my secrets. And I was desperate to tell him. But he didn’t want to push me. He wanted me to tell him when I was ready, but he was letting me know that it would be OK.

And I believed him. I looked over, into his eyes, and he smiled warmly back at me.

I was going to tell him right then. Suddenly, it felt right. That small window a person is given in which to say or do something they’ve always been afraid to had opened up for me in that moment. I felt elated and alive and longed to not feel suffocated anymore by the weight I carried on my chest.

But the window closed too quickly, and I shut down.

It was as if he could sense it right away, too, because I saw the hope and determination in his eyes fade seconds after the window closed. But he wasn’t mad. Disappointed, yes, but never mad at me. That only made me love him more.

He reached out his hand and cupped the back of my neck, pulling my head toward him. He pressed his lips to my forehead.

“Y’know, I think I’d rather sleep up here than in that stuffy tent,” I said after a minute of quiet.

Elias pursed his lips and thought about it, then his head bobbed in agreement. “Not a bad idea,” he said and stood up. “Let’s go back and get the blankets.” He reached out his hand to me.

“I can wait here,” I said. “Unless you want me to go with you.”

“No, I can go,” he said. “It’s not that far. I’ll be right back.”

He leaned over and kissed me on the lips, then walked across the opening and disappeared among the trees.

It was so peaceful sitting on the top of the ridge all alone, looking out at the dark landscape and how the river snaked a path through the trees below. I gazed up at the sky and closed my eyes again to savor the wind on my face. It had been a long time since I felt this free, not since I was kid. I hated that with growing up came the knowledge that life won’t always be like it was when we were children. I wished we could just grow backward.

I heard footsteps behind me coming from the trees, and I thought initially that Elias was back sooner than expected. Two figures emerged from the woods far away from where Elias had gone back in.

As the two moved closer into the moonlight, I saw that the skinny blonde-haired one was Jana. The other was a girl with supershort black hair whom I had never seen before.

I stood up as Jana stumbled toward me, the black-haired girl following close behind.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” I thought I heard Jana say, but I wasn’t completely sure, as her words were slurred and choppy.

She was clearly drunk. And maybe high on something, too. Her more so than her friend, who didn’t have any trouble standing up straight.

“Are you all right?” I asked, peering at Jana.

Her black bikini top sat sloppily over her breasts, barely containing them. The straps were left untied from around her neck and hung freely. She had on a pair of men’s shorts, and she wore no shoes. I noticed one of her big toes was bleeding.

“I’m fanfuckingtastic,” she said with a big drunken smile. “Hey, aren’t you Elias’s girlfriend?” Her finger unfolded from her hand and pointed at me shakily.

Then she looked over at her friend and said, “This was the girl I was telling you about.”

Jana stumbled again and almost fell. I grabbed her instinctively and held her up by the elbow, but she shoved my hand away. “I got this,” she snapped. “Don’t… I’m great, I told you.”

I didn’t really want to help her anyway, so I was happy to let go.

“Yes, I’m Elias’s girlfriend,” I finally answered.

She attempted a grin, but it was quickly overrun by the lazy fluttering of her eyelids as though she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

“He’s a good lay,” she said to me and then smiled at the black-haired girl, who looked bored, or just ready to get back to the party rather than stand up here with the two of us.

I gritted my teeth at Jana’s comment but held my composure.

Jana laughed and almost fell over again. This time I didn’t try to stop her. I
wanted
her to fall.

“They both fucked me at the same time,” she added, that grin finally winning its battle with the inevitable unconsciousness. But she didn’t seem to be gloating about it, just reminiscing a little too openly. “Him and Mitchell. God damn.” Then she looked right at me and pointed again. “Have you done them both? Surely you have, since you lived with them and all.” She said it so casually, as if she and I were talking about what to have for breakfast. Clearly she wouldn’t be saying these things if she wasn’t so messed up. No, I take that back—she definitely would.

“Ummm, no, I haven’t,” I answered, trying to stay calm when really what I wanted to do was hit her in the fucking mouth.

“Let’s go back to the fire,” the black-haired girl said.

“Well, you should,” Jana said to me, ignoring the girl’s suggestion. Her upper body swayed backward slightly like a tower hit by a gust of wind.

Then she stuck her finger in my face. “Hey. Oh my God!” Her breath was rancid. “We could totally have a foursome. You game? Or shit, a fivesome!” She pointed at the girl and the girl’s face soured. “Wait”—she had a dumb moment look on her face all of a sudden—“that’s an orgy, right?”

I swallowed hard and took a step back away from her. “No,” I said. “I think I’ll fucking pass.”

“Uh, yeah, me too,” the black-haired girl said. “Jana, I think you need to find your tent and sleep it off. Seriously.”

“Fine. Whatever,” Jana said, but she wasn’t responding to the girl. She was still talking to me. Her eyelids started getting heavy again. “Probably better, anyway. I think I fucked up when I screwed them. I mean it wasn’t that long ago, but I think I might be pregnant with your boyfriend’s baby.”

The breeze burned my eyes as they widened and I sucked in a sharp breath. “What the hell did you say?”

The black-haired girl shook her head and took a step back. “I’ll see you later. No bitch drama for me tonight.” And then she walked off toward the path that Elias took and left Jana and me standing alone.

Jana’s head swiveled on her shoulders and she tried to stifle a laugh, pressing the side of her index finger against her lips.

Now
she was gloating.

“Yeah, I’m like five days late,” she said twirling a hand in the air, pleased to be filling my head with this information. “And I’m
never
late. So yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m knocked up.”

I punched her right between the eyes and her head snapped backward. I don’t know how she managed to stay on her feet that time. It was an uncontrollable reaction to hit her, in retaliation to her taunting me about it. I regretted it a second after I pulled my fist back. My knuckles stung painfully.

With her hand cupping her nose, she just laughed.

“For your sake,” I said with anger rising in my voice, “you better hope that’s not true.”

I started to walk away, back through the clearing and toward the trees. She followed.

“Or what?” she mocked me. “You won’t do
shit
except babysit our kid on the weekends. Fuck you.” She laughed.

I kept walking toward the trees, but I was blinded by anger and hatred and so many other emotions that I didn’t realize I was walking in the wrong direction, more toward the area Jana had come from rather than to where Elias had gone.

She kept following me, and I kept walking. All the while, she yelled curses at me and taunted me. Tears streamed down my face. My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands, almost breaking the skin. I couldn’t get the images out of my head: her pregnant with Elias’s baby, him divided between the two of us, him leaving me to be with her, thinking he was only doing the right thing. I even saw him marrying her. Their life together flashed before my eyes, and before I knew it I was standing at the edge of a ravine. I had taken a wrong turn at some point, and the only way back was past Jana, who was closing in on me from behind with her hateful, spiteful words and that laughter in her voice that made me want to kill her. Figuratively, of course.

“Move!” I said, turning to face her. I went to push my way past her, but she grabbed me by the arm.

“Fucking
move
!” I roared.

A white-hot pain seared through the side of my head. I spun on one heel and fell backward, tripping over a rock. Before I could get to my feet, I reached up and touched the side of my face where she had hit me, letting the realization of what she did sink in. Then I sprung to my feet and was mere seconds from beating the shit out of her. I was in her face, our noses practically touching, my hands clenched into fists at my sides.

But I couldn’t bring myself to hit her again. If she was pregnant, I couldn’t hit her because I felt like I’d be hitting that baby, too. I hated her. I fucking
hated
that bitch for coming into my life and ruining what Elias and I had gone through so much together to have. But I couldn’t hit her back. I started to walk away, but she grabbed me from behind, both of her hands winding tightly in the back of my hair. She became violent, like an animal, so quickly it made my head spin. She screamed something I didn’t understand, and all I could do was try to pry her hands off me.