Page 94 of The Sun
“Only the best for my girl.” He winked, then flipped the switch to the stereo. The speakers crackled, the CD whirred, and Elias hit the skip button several times before he was happy. The rumble of the waves nearly swallowed the easy-going strum of acoustic guitars. I adjusted the volume while Elias worked to strip the gold foil from the neck of the champagne.
“You do realize ‘Crash’ is super cliché?” I said.
“I do,” he winked as he held the bottle away from us and pushed on the cork. It shot off with a loudpop,landing somewhere down the beach. “I don’t know if you’ve notice, but I’m a helpless romantic.”
“You mean hopeless romantic?”
“No. I mean helpless. Hopeless would suggest I’m in despair over loving you, all I am is powerless to it, Sunny Ray.”
Leaning in, I smiled. “I feel like I have my very own Shakespeare.” I kissed him while Dave Matthews sang to the rolling waves and the last cold air of the millennium whirled around us, until all I could taste was him, and it felt like we were breathing for each other. Until it felt like the world was spinning and spinning while we were sitting still, lips to lips. Heart to heart. Soul to soul.
We were Romeo and Juliet in Act II. Hopelessly—tragically helpless—in love.
“I love you,” I whispered against his parted lips.
He passed one of the glasses to me. “I love you, too.”
I watched the tiny, effervescent strands dance along the sides like pearls caught in a tumultuous sea, and when I went to take my first sip, Elias shook his head.
“We have to toast,” he said.
“Right. How so very adult of us.”
“To four more months,” he said.
I cocked my ear, trying to figure out what his smirk was about. “What’s in four months?”
“It’s when you’ll be old enough to marry me if you wanted.” Elias held up his hand. A small diamond ring was gripped between his fingers. The moment was reminiscent of the day in my tree house when he promised he’d come back for me, except, this time he wasn’t leaving, he was vowing to stay.
He slipped the ring on my finger. The stone was a speck of a diamond set on a silver band, and it was perfect because it was mine.
“You may be like the sun in a lot of ways,” he said. “And I may be like the moon, because I’ll fall for you, day after day. I’ll chase you until the planets fade into an oblivion. But the thing is, the sun and the moon? They’ll only ever spend a few minutes of their lifetime together. I don’t want a few minutes. I wanteveryminute.” His lips pressed to mine in a featherlight touch. “You’re my world, Sunny Ray ’cause the minute you’re gone, some part of me stops existing.”
Parting my lips, I clung to him and fell back—half on the blanket, half on the sand—and I brought him with me.
“Marry me?”
There was no hesitation, no wondering if we were possibly too young to understand what love was, because how could I be too young for something my heart was capable of? So I whisperedyesover and over between kisses.
Fireworks crackled and fizzled far down the beach. The muted echo of strangers singing “Happy New Year” rang out as we fought to gracelessly untangle ourselves from sweaters and boots and jeans. I let myself fall drunk on his promises and the way his fingers tangled in my hair, and even though it was freezing, the second his skin covered mine, the very moment he slid into me, I couldn’t feel anything except the boy I would forever believe loved me in a way that was too good for me.
32
Sunny
January 2000
Instead of going back to school on January fifth, I ended up at Coconut Larry’s with the rest of the early-bird crowd, waiting for Daisy to come out of the restroom. It was cold outside and about eighty degrees inside, which caused the windows to fog. I watched a drop of condensation trickle down the glass before I wrote Elias’ name in a heart.
The table shook when Daisy slammed her palms over it and slid into the booth.
“Why do I have to pee all the time? The thing can’t be any bigger than like a peanut or something.”
The waitress sat a basket of steaming, grease-slicked hash brown tots on the table. Daisy took one look at them and gagged while shoving them as far away as she could.
“You love Larry’s Breakfast Tots.” I pointed at them.
“My mouth is full of I’m-going-to-toss-my-guts-spit right now.”
