Page 7 of When Love Gives You Lemons
“I love you,” I told him.
He didn’t say it back that time.
What happens now?
Chapter 1.75
Spoiler Alert: The Act One Breakup!
My question lingered on the warm Atlantic breeze.
What happens now?
The hem of my shirt billowed open.
What happens now?
His hands found their way to my exposed skin.
What happens now?
“Fielder,” he whispered, his fingers sending shock waves through my system.
I shuddered.
His ocean eyes were millions of miles of endless dark waters.
Normally our lips moved in syncopated rhythm, and I would get lost in him, but something tugged at me. At him, too.
His fingertips were cold. His touch distracted. His eyes full, wet.
I moved back beside him, elbows digging into cool sand, and stared up at the stars, my new dream box in my lap.
He stood up, brushed the sand off his legs, grabbed his hoodie, and threaded it over his upper body. “Let’s do something wild.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know,” Ricky said, bouncing on his heels. His nervous energy over the last week had grown in intensity every day. I usually knew how to read him. But there was something strange in the way he avoided looking directly into my eyes. “Skinny-dipping!”
“With the sharks? Lord.”
Though it elicited a small laugh, it ended quickly.
It wasn’t unlike Ricky to suggest being naked—he liked being one with nature and all that—but this felt forced. Like he was trying to be spontaneous as a distraction for something else.
Suddenly, as if he was unable to achieve the desired outcome, he groaned.
His head tipped back as he vibrated like he was trying to expel his demons; the whites of his eyes glowed in the moonlight. When we were kids, Nonna would watch us while our parents worked, and her favorite pastime was making us fried meatball sandwiches and sitting us down to watch those ridiculous “documentary” shows about “real people” who experienced hauntings and demonic possessions. While we watched poorly acted reenactments of children getting possessed by the devil or a lesser demon, she would say, “This is why you need to be good.” Ricky and I used to take turns pretending to be possessed, and Nonna would call upon Jesus and grab her crucifix. Ricky’s sister, Sienna, would laugh at us from the corner of the living room, where she lived on her phone, and tell us we were going to hell. At night, Ricky and I would sneak out onto the roof to stargaze.We talked about ghosts and demons, god or the gods, love, and whether or not we thought any of it was real. How, together, we would find answers.
The thing about ghosts was that they lingered; even if you couldn’t see them, you felt them.
On the beach, Ricky shouted the sign of the cross in Italian: “Nel nome del Padre, e del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo. Amen!” Dropping to his knees, he clasped his hands together in prayer above his head. A hungry look came over him, the one he got right before he speared his opponents during wrestling matches in school, and he darted toward me, launching into my midsection, and tackling me into the sand.
Nonna called me “Pasta Dolce,” sweet dough, because of my blond surfer hair and soft linebacker body—but I didn’t date the captain of the varsity wrestling team for all those years without learning a move or five.
Using my weight against him, I pinned him to the ground.
“I win,” I panted. I knew he let me, but it still felt good.
