The Firebird flew down the windy dirt road, kicking up swirls of dust in the red glow of the taillights. We sat in complete silence, except for the intermittent buzz of my pager in my purse. I pulled out the plastic contraption and saw the numbers "5138008." When I turned it upside down it said "BOOBIES." I rolled my eyes. That had to be Sam.
"Everything okay?" Zach asked.
"Fine," I said, but underneath my hands my stomach twisted in nervous excitement.
The pager buzzed once more. I turned it off. The car was silent again, except for the crunch of stone gravel under the new tires. Zach leaned back in the driver's seat with his arm straight out the window caressing the warm air, heavy with the scent of spring. I curled my legs underneath my dress. My bare feet poked out of the tulle underskirt. I glanced down at the fresh coat of cherry red toe nail polish I painted carefully this morning. I thought about all the preparations for this moment. It was months in the making.
"You look so beautiful tonight," Zach said, breaking the stillness.
His voice was deep like the sea, spreading out in delicate waves that lapped at the shores of my heart. Zach brought his left hand to the steering wheel, then moved his right hand down to turn on the radio. His hand came to rest on my knee. Smooth.
"The way you danced tonight... so free. It's like I finally got a glimpse of who you really are."
"And who is that exactly?" I asked coyly, wanting more. Wanting it all.
"Someone passionate. Someone sexy."
Sexy? The compliment spread like a blanket of warmth from my head to my toes.
"There it is. Mirror Ridge," Zach said as the mansion emerged from behind the trees.
I chuckled. "Did you know I found this old place in the woods when I first moved here? I was out exploring on my bike. I even lost my Grandma's necklace somewhere in that field in front of the house."
"No kidding. What were you doing out here?"
"Just exploring with my brother." I smiled at the memory of knocking into the statue and squeezing it with all my might as Ryan nearly died laughing. It seemed like a lifetime ago. "I got up close and personal with that statue in the back yard."
"Up close and personal?" Zach raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, I kind of got tripped up in the grass and bumped right into it. I hope it's still standing."
"You bumped into Dionysus? That explains some things."
"Like what?"
"Well, Dionysus is the god of wine and partying, but that's not all. He's all about letting go and giving in to your dark side."
"My dark side?" My throat went dry as I whispered the words. I felt the shadowy abyss inside of myself. The place I didn't want to go. "How do you know all that?"
"We learned about the Greek mythology in ninth grade English class. I guess it just stuck with me because I've seen that statue my whole life. My granddad got it when he planted his first grapes. Probably twenty or thirty years ago. I guess he was hoping it would bless his harvest."
"Did it?"
"Maybe. You'll have to try the wine sometime and let me know how it makes you feel." Zach made a sharp left, pulling onto the weed-ridden driveway of Mirror Ridge.
"I thought we were going to the farm?" I asked.
"Oh, we are. I just thought it would be fun to give you an official tour first. A legal one."
"I want to see it," I said, the memory of the dark abyss ready to swallow me whole flashed in my mind. "I really do, but—"
"But, what?" Zach slowed to a stop and put the Firebird in park.
"Well, Katelyn said this is where you took her when you...uh, you guys, um—"
"Katelyn, huh?" Zach looked down and shook his head. "Did she give you a hard time tonight?"
"Kind of."
"You know, what? Screw Katelyn. Our relationship is over. I'm starting a new chapter tonight, and am so glad it's with you."
My flesh tingled with goosebumps. "Really?"
"Yes. You are so different than Katelyn. So sweet and good. It's like that poem we read in class, 'She Walks in Beauty.' That's you."
Then Zach recited the second stanza that he read out loud that day in English class. He knew it by heart. Mine practically stopped beating.
"One shade the more. One ray the less, had half impaired the nameless grace, which waves in every raven tress."
Zach placed his hand the side of my head and caressed my cheek, I couldn't help but lean into his touch.
"Softly lightens over her face," he continued.
His mouth inched closer to mine. I closed my eyes in breathless anticipation as the warm nearness of him tantalized my senses.
"Where thoughts serenely sweet express, how pure their dwelling place."
At long last, I felt the searing heat of Zach's lips squeezing mine in a fierce embrace. The tip of his tongue pushed ever so slightly into my mouth, tasting me. Teasing me.
So this is a real kiss? It felt strange and beautiful. I hoped I was doing it right.
Zach swept up my bottom lip with his, gave it a swift tug, then let it drop slowly and pulled away. I blinked my eyes open and fought to catch my breath. The dash board lit up Zach's face in fiery glow, just like that night at the bonfire. A new song by the Smashing Pumpkins played softly over the speakers. Zach turned up the volume. With eyebrows raised he loosened his bow tie and let out the top button of his tuxedo shirt. Zach's pupils swallowed up the blue spheres of his eyes, and he lowered his gaze, like a leopard about to pounce, but to my complete surprise, I pounced first.
Rushing forward, my mouth found his as the music reached a fevered crescendo. Each kiss swept me away into another reality. One where I was beautiful and desired. One where passion, not fear, lit up the recesses of my mind in flashes of red and orange. There was this need. A desperate void of insecurity to be filled, like Zach had the missing pieces to my heart and being with him could bring the fractured shards together again. I so wanted to be complete.
Instinctively, my hands found their way to his soft hair. I pulled away from his lips and found the smooth, vulnerable skin of his neck, leaving a trail of kisses along his hairline. His scent, so intoxicating, filled every cell of my body. Something switched on inside of him. Urgent. Primal. Zach grabbed me by the waist, and pulled toward him until I maneuvered out of my seat, my bottom resting partially on the carpeted hump between the seats and his lap. He kissed me with a hunger and desperation that made my heart ache and threaten to burst right out of my chest.
"Rose, this feels so right," Zach nearly growled between kisses.
"It does," I whimpered.
"What you said that night at the bonfire... did you mean it?"
"Mean what?" I asked, almost out of breath.
"When you said, 'I want you.'"
My heart thudded like a drum solo in my chest.
"Do you still want me? Because I want you." Zach's eyes darted to the backseat. "You want to fool around in the backseat?"
I wondered what a heart attack feels like and if I was about to have one. Zachary Ashburn wanted me. He said so. Right here. Right now.
"I, uh, well..." It was like someone dropped me out of an airplane and I was free falling into nothing. I searched my heart for the answer to his question, but I all I found were flashes of the past. I remembered the first moment I laid eyes on Zach at the pool as he twirled his whistle carelessly, staring down at his tanned feet looking like he belonged on Beverly Hills 90210, lost in thought and totally aloof. But, somehow he seemed to see me standing there so plain and shy. I saw him walk around the corner after the first away football game, looking like a Greek god bathed in golden light at exactly the precise moment I needed a ride.
It was fate.
When I fell at the pep rally, Zach was there to scoop me up in his arms and carry me to safety. The delicious smell of his skin just inches away from me now. And his lips... I used to stare at them as he chewed on his pen cap in class and looked up at me with his blank, mysterious eyes wondering what it would be like to feel them pressed against mine. I remembered the warm glow on his face at the bonfire when all my fear disappeared into the night and I finally spoke the words inside my heart—the words that brought me to this very moment.
It was destiny.
Tonight was the culmination of all these months of secretly wanting and waiting. The desperation. The heartache. Tonight was the beginning of my happily ever after, just like in an old, black and white movie. I couldn't go back. If I didn't take this chance with Zach right now, I feared he might slip through my grasp and back into Katelyn's arms. I couldn't let her win.
Tonight. It has to be tonight.
"Yes." My voice quaked.
I wanted to say something else. Something sexy or memorable. Something like a dramatic kissing scene flickering on the screen of a movie theater, but there were no words, just my breath going in and out, my heart pounding and my thoughts racing.
I shimmied off his lap and hesitated. Am I ready to be in the backseat with a boy doing who knows what? But that persistent voice inside knew the answer.
Tonight. There will never be another night like this. It has to be tonight.
Determined, I collapsed onto the white vinyl of the bench seat behind Zach. It squeaked when I landed. He expertly crawled into the backseat and hovered above me. A searing heat erupted on the surface of my skin. His mouth locked onto mine, dousing me in hungry, wet kisses. When his lips found my collarbone, and his hands inched up my calves, all the air rushed out of my lungs. I stared out the rear window into the midnight sky.
Oh, my God! Is this really happening?
My pulse raced. Butterflies flapped their wings hellishly under the bodice of my satin ball gown. This is what I thought I wanted, but it wasn't at all how I pictured it. In my head, lying in bed at night, I imagined myself taking long walks with Zach, going out on dates and meeting his family. I pictured myself wrapped in Zach's loving arms, staring up into the heavens. The stars would shine down at us as we fell in love.
"We never looked at the stars," I whispered without even realizing it.
"You want me to put the top down?" Zach asked between kisses on my neck, his hands caressing my inner thighs.
"No, it's okay," I said, not wanting to spoil the moment. "Maybe next time."
Wait... next time? It sounded so casual. But, will there even be a next time?
Reality slapped me in the face. Zach wasn'y even my boyfriend. This was our first date. My first real date. Ever. My first kiss, even! I only said said yes to climbing into the backseat because I was afraid of losing Zach—and because I was clinging to the naïve hope that this was love, when all signs pointed to a sweaty, no-strings-attached hook up on prom night.
Leo is right... I'm such a cliché. In that moment, I hated him for being right and I was disappointed in myself for being wrong. I thought I was older and wiser now, but, I was still such a fool. The pain of self-actualization stabbed me like a dagger, right between my ribs. That insecure voice inside me wanted to scream out, "You're such a freaking idiot! Stupid, stupid girl! Ugly, fat and stupid!"
But, I knew better now.
"Zach, I think we should slow down." I inched away from his lips.
"Don't worry. I'll take it slow." His fingers tugged gently at the waistband of my fancy black underpants. I pushed his hand away. Zach backed off and shook his head in confusion. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not Katelyn."
"I know. I don't want you to be Katelyn."
"Are you sure?" I wiggled out from under Zach and climbed clumsily into the driver's seat. Even with my ball gown securely in place, I felt naked.
"Look, I don't know what Katelyn said to you," he said with his hands up, "but—"
"Stop." I gripped the steering wheel and stared into the darkness. "It's not about her. It's about me."
The truth burned deep inside, and it was time to pull it up from the depths of the abyss which haunted my dreams. Tonight, I was ready to see the truth and accept whatever I found down there. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, turning my vision deep inside myself. At the bottom of that dark pit of shame, cowering in the shadows, lost and forgotten, was a little girl. I could finally see her in my mind 's eye. She was abandoned. Rejected. Sad and lonely. Desperate for someone to love her.
The little girl in the dark was me and I put her there.
My whole life I played the victim, but I was the bully too. I hated myself. I believed the mean things a few people said to me, but never the accepted all the good things said by the people who loved me. Even now, at sixteen, it was clear to me part of me was still that little girl, standing there, begging to be loved--but the truth was, I never loved myself. I always wanted to be someone else. I looked to everyone else for approval. I let other people tell me who I was. I was so damn insecure.
My biggest enemy is me.
When Zach crawled into the passenger seat, I knew I couldn't keep it in any longer.
"I get it now. All this time, I wanted to win you over to not only to prove something to myself, but to everyone who put me down. To prove I was worthy and show Bethany and Katelyn I was their equal. They treated me like crap and I let them because I thought I deserved it. I thought I was more confident now. I thought I could finally compete with Bethany and Katelyn. Being here with you tonight seemed like the sweetest victory. But doing this, when I'm not ready, just to beat those girls at their game with you as the prize... well, that's like the textbook definition of no self-esteem. I mean, I wanted to be with you, but not like this. Not tonight."
"Hold up. You're here with me right now to get even with Bethany and Katelyn?" Zach's voice raised an octave.
"Yeah, maybe a little bit," I admitted, my gaze falling to my lap. "I guess I am a little confused."
"Me too. You were all over me at the dance. I thought you liked me." He shook his head and ran his hand through his hair at the same time, as if Zach was trying to make add it all up in his head, but maybe there was no solution. "I thought you wanted this."
"I do, but I need to know..."
"Know what?" Zach straightened out his shirt.
"The truth. I'm being honest with you and I want you to be honest with me," I said, finding my voice, strong and loud. "Why did you ask me to prom? I need to know asking me to the dance wasn't some scheme to get back at Katelyn or make yourself feel better. I need to know you have real feelings for me. I don't want to be another notch in your belt. That's not what I deserve."
"What do you deserve?" His condescending tone extinguished any fire remaining between us.
"I deserve more than a backseat on prom night with a guy who might not even care about me!"
Finally, I allowed the anger I repressed for so long to bubble to the surface. A fierce protective instinct took over. It was time I started defending that little girl. Protecting her. Loving her. Loving myself.
"And this place? You act like you're a prince and this is some kind of castle, but it's a haunted house with a horrible history. Instead of restoring it, someone should burn it to the ground." I pounded my fists on the steering wheel in frustration. "God, what was I thinking coming here?"
Zach grunted his disbelief.
After a few moments, I gained my composure with a deep breath and started the engine. "Look, I'm driving you back to your truck. I had a good time at the dance and I really like you—"
"Rose, I like you, too. I meant what I said. You are sexy." Zach said, not making eye contact.
"But?"
We sat in awkward silence. Zach crossed his arms, looked out the window for a few moments. He brought one hand to his mouth, carefully guarding the truth. "I'm not over Katelyn. Not even a little. I knew inviting you to prom would be an insult to her."
It was just like Leo said.
The truth hurts.