The Crushes
Pamela Wells
To all who have had a crush—may this book be an inspiration to you.
ONE
Usually hospitals had a distinct sterile smell, but Children’s Hospital of Birch Falls smelled like cinnamon buns. Sydney Howard passed a room and saw a small blond boy ripping apart a cinnamon bun with his fingers.
That explained it.
It was mandatory for all students at Birch Falls High to take at least four weeks of a volunteer course before they graduated. Sydney had wanted to volunteer somewhere with her friends, but Raven and Alexia had completed their volunteer hours their freshman year at the senior citizens center. Kelly was volunteering at the animal shelter, but all their volunteer spots were full.
Sydney’s guidance counselor had talked her into volunteering at the hospital. Apparently, they were shorthanded for the summer and were taking all the volunteers that applied.
While Sydney wasn’t exactly a kid person (there was that time she made her little cousin cry when she told him there was no Santa Claus) she was always up for a challenge.
“This is the east wing of the Children’s Hospital,” Melanie, the human resources manager, said, keeping her voice low as she swept through the halls. She was a nice woman in her late twenties, with a pixie haircut and black horn-rimmed glasses, who was responsible for coordinating the volunteers.
The tour group of about six people rounded a corner into a new wing.
“And this is the west,” Melanie said. “Each of you will be assigned a department. I’ll let you know where you’re at when you come in next Monday.”
The group moved around a TV cart in the middle of the hallway. There was a video game console on the shelf below the TV, and the shelf below that was full of video games.
“Oh, sorry, Mel,” someone said from behind the group. Everyone turned around to see a guy about their age grabbing hold of the cart. A few of the girls standing next to Sydney instantly perked up.
“I was just coming to move this,” the guy said.
Melanie rolled her eyes. “Sure you were. Everyone, this is Quincy, another volunteer and also my younger brother.”
“Quin, please,” he said, grinning. “Why do you torture me, Mel?”
Sydney couldn’t help but appraise Quin. She was close enough to see he had caramel brown eyes partially hidden behind rectangular black-framed glasses. He was tall, at least six feet, and seemed to have compact shoulders or maybe just a really nicely tailored white Oxford shirt. His jeans fit just as nicely but were baggy in all the right spots.
He’d used a rubber band to tie back black hair. When down, Sydney guessed, it probably hit just below his shoulders. Where did Quin come from? He certainly didn’t go to Birch Falls High. And he was close to her age, if not a bit older.
He flicked his eyes to her and Sydney quickly looked away, the blush in her cheeks clearly spelling out the guilt she felt for staring.
“Nice to meet you, guys,” Quin said before wheeling the TV cart away.
“Okay,” Melanie said, “let’s move on.”
The group followed Melanie down the hall, but before they rounded another corner, Sydney looked back over a shoulder to catch sight of Quin one last time.
There was something different about him, something intriguing. Sydney just didn’t know what
it
was. She looked away and hurried after the volunteer group.
Returning home, Sydney pushed her bedroom door open and saw Drew sitting on her bed. He’d been there since that morning reading
The Messenger
by Mark Goodman. When Drew started reading, it was hard to get him to do anything else.
His dark hair was overgrown and starting to hang in his face. He didn’t seem to notice, but it was starting to drive Sydney crazy. She thought he looked so much better with short hair. He just didn’t do long hair well. Not like Quin did.
Quin.
Why was she even thinking about him?
She plopped down on the bed next to Drew and grabbed one of the black throw pillows, putting it in her lap. She tugged on the corner where a loose string hung. She wound the string around her index finger waiting for Drew to say something.
“I just put a pizza in the oven,” she said, snuggling in closer to him. “Are you hungry? It doesn’t look like you’ve moved all day.”
He held up a finger to give him another minute. Sydney pursed her lips and continued to pick at the pillow.
Finally, he slipped one of Sydney’s sticky notes inside the book and closed it up. He set it on her nightstand and turned to her. “Pizza sounds good.” He put his arm around her shoulders and ran his fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes, enjoying the attention.
“So, how was your first day volunteering at the hospital?”
Sydney kept her eyes shut as she said, “It was good. The girls in my volunteer group are nice. The guys, they want to be doctors so at least that means they’ll take this job seriously and…” She trailed off, Quin’s name on the tip of her lips. She wanted to tell someone about Quin. It was that weird excitement of discovering something new. You wanted to tell the whole world about it, but she couldn’t tell Drew without him taking it the wrong way. It wasn’t that she wanted to date Quin; she just wanted to get to know him better, wanted to figure him out.
“I think I’ll like it there.”
“That’s good.”
Sydney nodded. That was a safe answer, right? It wasn’t like she was deceiving Drew, because there was nothing to lie about. She loved Drew.
Loved him
-loved him. At the beginning of this year when he’d broken up with her, she’d felt like a part of her had died. Sydney and Drew had been together for over two years now. She didn’t count the few months they’d been broken up. That was just a hiccup in their relationship, and she’d never let anything come between them again.
She’d learned a lot being single. She’d learned that she’d taken Drew for granted and that to have a good relationship, you had to meet halfway. The breakup changed her for the better. She knew now more than ever that every second with Drew counted.
But the most important thing about the breakup? Sydney had gotten to know herself a little more. She’d let loose a bit, learned that life was not about schedules and homework and pressed khakis.
Drew had been right about one thing—it was time to have fun, get out, live a little. Sydney was trying to do just that, trying to put the spark back in their relationship. Unfortunately, it was harder than she first thought.
“Syd?”
Sydney opened her eyes. “Huh?”
“Your timer is going off.”
“Oh, right.” The timer beeped in the kitchen. She got up just as Drew’s cell rang playing Lune’s new song, “Did I Hurt You.” He flipped the silver RAZR open and said, “Hey.”
Out in the kitchen, Sydney shut the timer off and the usual silence of the house settled around her. Her dad was
still at work, and her mom was in Hartford finishing up for the week.
A few months ago, her mother was practically living in Hartford and came home every other week. She’d since promised Sydney she’d take more time off to spend with her family. She seemed to be doing well so far.
Sydney enjoyed having her mother around. She felt like she hadn’t really had a mother since Mrs. Howard became an executive at SunBery Vitamins in Hartford. And, while Mr. Howard tried hard to fill the void left by his wife’s absence, he wasn’t very good at it. He tended to forget things like paying the bills and buying groceries. At least his cooking was getting better.
After shutting off the oven, Sydney set the baked pizza on the stove top. She pulled out the utensil drawer, looking for the pizza cutter. Her father never put things back where he found them. Neither did Drew. Those two had a lot in common.
Finally, after searching forever and finding the pizza cutter in with the pans, Sydney threw slices on Drew’s plate and on hers. She was headed down the hallway when Drew came out of her bedroom.
“Where are you going?” she said.
He grabbed a piece of pizza off his plate. “Going to Todd’s.”
Todd, her friend Kelly’s brother, was Drew’s best friend, unfortunately. Todd was obnoxious and annoying and immature. How did Kelly deal with living with him? Sydney was glad Todd wasn’t
her
older brother. She’d be tempted to move out.
“Now?” Sydney asked. “He can’t wait a few minutes for you to eat with me?”
Drew took a bite off the end of the pizza and shrugged. “He needs help with something. I’ll come back later.” He passed her, chomping on the pizza some more as he disappeared into the kitchen.
Sydney hurried after him. “So you’re just going to hurry off, then?”
He pulled open the back door and stopped. “Come on, Syd.” He was using that tone of voice. The one that said Sydney was being unfair. Was she, though? She’d just gotten home, she’d made them pizza, and now he was taking off to hang with his apish friend.
Sydney wanted to point all this out, but she was trying so very hard not to nag. She needed to communicate calmly.
“Sorry.” She set the paper plates on the counter. “I just…you know…wanted to hang out.”
He leaned over to kiss her forehead. “I’ll be back. Promise.”
“All right. Love you.”
He grinned. “Love you, too.”
Sydney watched him cross her yard and climb inside his truck. Despite the fact that they were back together now and seemed to be going strong, she still worried every day that she’d lose him again. She couldn’t let that happen.
Alexia Bass watched the seniors at Birch Falls High stream into the gymnasium for their graduation ceremony. She’d already seen half the graduating class. Ben had to be coming out soon.
The gym was as hot as a thousand suns and stuffed like a turkey. It took Alexia nearly fifteen minutes to find a seat: a very tiny six or so inches on the fifth bleacher up.
She was sandwiched between a can-barely-sit-still little girl and a paunchy man who smelled like cigars. This was not the way she’d envisioned Ben’s graduation. It was too bad Kelly’s brother, Todd, went to a different school and had graduated last week. Alexia could have sat with Kelly’s family. Or, if she weren’t so chicken, she might have asked Ben’s parents if she could sit with them down on the first row. Ben’s parents weren’t exactly warm and inviting, though. Not like Ben was.
A few more seniors entered the gym, and still no Ben. Where was he? He better not have skipped out and left her hanging. Not that he’d ever do that. At least, he would never
leave her hanging; the skipping part he
would
do. To Ben, there would be nothing funnier than skipping your own graduation ceremony. Ben would use that as a story for his kids and then his grandkids, too.
Streamers and balloons adorned the stage at the far end of the gym. There was a table stacked with leather-bound diplomas. Several metal folding chairs held school faculty.
Alexia looked out over the sea of spectators and saw a few familiar faces.
In the back of her mind, she’d known this was coming, but she’d always hoped that, for some crazy reason, Ben would wait for her to graduate before leaving Birch Falls. Not that she would ever let him do that. He had to get out and go to college.
It just hurt that they were already putting distance between them. That couldn’t be good for a relationship. Would the strain be too much? Alexia didn’t want to consider it right now, not with their summer vacation starting. Worrying about something she couldn’t control would ruin the time they had together right now.
A shrill whistle sounded, the heat waves carrying it up the bleachers to Alexia. She looked up and saw Ben. His eyes were on hers and he grinned, his forest green tassel hanging in front of his face.
Alexia smiled back and waggled her fingers at him.
It was amazing how, even after dating a few months, Alexia still got butterflies whenever she saw him.
He headed over to his seat near the stage while the last of the graduates entered the gym.
After the ceremony introduction, the principal and the
valedictorian each made a speech. Before they handed out diplomas, a slide show played on a projector screen. Ben was smiling in all of his pictures.
When he was away at college, Alexia would miss his humor the most.
Oh, stop thinking about it! she chided herself.
When the ceremony was over, Alexia joined the exodus to the front lobby to get fresh air outside with the rest of the crowd. She waited beneath the sycamore tree where she and Ben had taken to meeting during their lunch hour.
Would this be the last time they’d meet here?
Ben came out of the open double doors, his twin brother, Will, at his side. Despite the fact that they were identical twins, it wasn’t hard for Alexia to tell them apart.
Will carried his graduation cap beneath an arm. Ben didn’t have his, probably because he’d tossed it in the air at the close of the ceremony. His forest-green gown was already unzipped. Beneath it, he’d worn a white T-shirt and his usual khaki cargo pants. Will probably had a suit on beneath his gown.
“I’ll meet you at the car,” Ben said to his brother.
“I won’t wait long,” Will answered and ambled off to the parking lot.
Ben came up alongside Alexia, putting his arms around her shoulders. “Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
He leaned over and kissed her softly. An excited chill ran up her spine despite the sweat still lingering there from the overheated gym.
“Congratulations,” she said when Ben pulled away. “You’re officially done with high school.”
He nodded and leaned his forehead against hers. “Officially done. I cannot wait to spend the summer with you. There will be virgin strawberry daiquiris, afternoons spent lying out in the sun, and many make-out sessions.”
Alexia whapped him on the arm.
“Hey, now, I have a wet Speedo contest later. You can’t damage the goods.”
Alexia threw her head back and laughed. “A wet Speedo contest?” She rolled her eyes. “That would be fun to see.”
“And sexy.”
Alexia smiled, but lately that word made her tense up.
There came a point in every relationship where sex went from thoughts and whispers to full-on conversations. She and Ben had reached the latter, and it was starting to make her nervous.
On the one hand, she really loved Ben and wanted to share that important event in her life with him. On the other hand, part of her wanted to wait longer. Not because she was afraid of regretting it or that she doubted Ben was the “right” one.
It was the simple fact that her parents had brought her up to believe the
first time
was a special event and that she should think about it before making a decision. She didn’t want to jump into anything.
Ben kissed Alexia’s forehead, bringing her out of her thoughts. He took a step back. “I have that stupid photo thing with my family, so I can’t hang long. And then Will and I are celebrating with some friends later. Though Will seems to have a different definition of ‘celebrating’ than me. We’ll probably end up making goal lists and future-income graphs in Microsoft Excel or something.”
Alexia laughed. “There’s nothing wrong with goals, you know.”
“I know. I have goals. I just don’t want to put them in a spreadsheet.”
Cocking an eyebrow, Alexia said, “What kind of goals, exactly?”
“Well,”—he puffed out his chest and set his hands on his hips—“there’s this girl who I love more than sunlight and someday I’ll marry her and then we’ll have three and a half kids and a goat and a picket fence. How are those for goals?”
Alexia wanted nothing more than to share the rest of her life with Ben, and the fact that he was thinking the same thing made the butterflies in her stomach dance.
“Sounds good to me, except for the goat.”
He came a little closer. Close enough that Alexia could take in his familiar smell. It was a woodsy scent with an undertone of Tide laundry detergent.
“So,” he said, his voice low and eager, “have you thought about
it
?”
She didn’t need clarification of “it.”
It
was sex.
And yes, she’d thought about it. She thought about it every waking moment.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I take that as a ‘Yes, I’ve thought about it, Benjamin, but can’t you see this is an important decision, and I don’t want you pressuring me!’”
She grinned. “That’s pretty close.”
“Take as much time as you need to think about it. I want you to be sure.”
Relief loosened the muscles in her shoulders. If it had been any other guy, he probably would have lost patience with her by now. She could always count on Ben understanding.
He leaned over and kissed her quickly on the lips. “I have to go before Will leaves without me. I’ll call you later.”
“Okay. Have fun.”
He waved good-bye as he rounded the corner of the school for the back parking lot. Alexia sat on the cool grass beneath the sycamore tree, leaning her head against the bark.
Why did sex have to be such a big deal? Why did the thought of making a final decision put her stomach in knots? She wished she could just do it and get it over with, but that wasn’t the right answer either. Sighing, she got up off the ground and went home.
Alexia slammed the front door, shutting out the June heat. Thankfully, her house was air-conditioned to a comfortable sixty-five degrees. She felt like she was baking all the way home, the sun beating through the driver’s-side window of her car. It didn’t help that sex was on her brain.
She found her older brother, Kyle, in the kitchen, making what appeared to be instant mashed potatoes but which had the consistency of melting snowballs. He either hadn’t dressed for the day or wasn’t planning to leave the house, since he was in a pair of Yale sweatpants and a white T-shirt. And Kyle wasn’t the type of person to go out in public wearing sweatpants.
“Hey,” Alexia said as she took a seat at the kitchen island. “Mom and Dad here?”
Kyle shook his head. “They’re scouting locations for a new office.”
Despite the five-year difference between them, Alexia and Kyle got along well. He’d always been a good sounding board. He never pulled the parental role and talked down to Alexia. He was a good median between her best friends and her parents. They didn’t talk a lot when he was away at school, but she enjoyed having him around the house on his summers off from Yale. He’d just graduated last month with an undergraduate degree in anthropology. From the sound of it, he didn’t know what he was doing next.
“Kyle?” Alexia said.
“Yeah?”
Kyle had always told Alexia that if she ever needed anything, she should come to him if she wasn’t comfortable talking to their mom and dad. Sex was one of those areas, but did she really want to talk to her
brother
about it?
She knew she could take anything to her best friends and that they’d never make fun of her, but she felt like such an inexperienced prude talking about losing her virginity when her friends had already gone through it. Well, Raven and Sydney had anyway. Kelly was still a virgin, but she said she didn’t think sex was a big deal and that she was confident she’d know when to do it.
“Um.” Alexia picked at a fingernail as she tried to think of a way to broach the subject.
Kyle shut off the stove burner and started to scoop his instant mashed potatoes into a bowl. He didn’t seem to notice her stalling.
“How old were you when you had sex for the first time?” she blurted out.
Kyle froze mid-scoop. He looked across the kitchen island at her, unblinking. Finally, he set the pan down and pressed his hands into the counter as if to balance himself.
“I was fourteen.”
“Fourteen!”
He ran his hand through his red hair and avoided looking Alexia in the eye.
“Do Mom and Dad know?”
“No! And don’t tell them. Mom would flip out. I mean, not that it’s a big deal now. It’d just break her heart.” He inhaled deeply. “Why are we talking about my sex life anyway?”
Now it was Alexia’s turn to avoid eye contact. She didn’t say anything because she wasn’t sure what to say.
At any rate, her silence clued her brother in.
“Oh,” he said, drawing that one word out into five syllables. “You and your boyfriend are thinking about it?”
More like
she
was thinking about it. Ben had already made up his mind. Of course, it didn’t help that he had already lost his virginity. For him, this was nothing.
“Do you love him?” Kyle asked.
“Yes. Or at least I think I do.”
“Is he pressuring you into having sex?”
Was he? Not really. It wasn’t as if he asked her every single day. He never pushed her when they started making out and things got heavy. He never made her feel bad for avoiding it.
“No,” she decided.
“Do you want to have sex?”
“Yes and no.”
“Do you trust him?”
That was an easy question to answer. “Yes.”
“Then you’ll know when the time is right. It’s like riding a bike without training wheels. Eventually you’ll get to the point where you just do it because it feels right and then afterward you’re like, ‘Wow, that wasn’t so hard.’”
Alexia furrowed her brow. “Did you just compare sex to riding a bike?”
“Yes I did.”
“And you went to Yale?”
He puffed out his chest. “And graduated with honors.”
Alexia scooted off the chair and pushed it back beneath the edge of the counter. “Thanks, Kyle, for…you know.”
“I think if anyone would make the right decision about sex, it’s you. You’ve always had a good head on your shoulders.” He paused and curled his upper lip. “God, I just sounded like Dad, didn’t I?”
Alexia laughed. “Yes you did.” She stuck a finger in his potatoes and licked her finger. She cringed. “And apparently you cook as bad as he does, too.”
Kyle sighed. “Want to order pizza with me?”
“I would love to,” she answered, “but I’m supposed to meet my friends at Bershetti’s for a late lunch.”
Kyle tossed the potatoes in the garbage. “Well, it looks like I’m ordering pizza alone, then.”
Alexia laughed. “Good idea.”