“And...what’s that?” I ask softly, unable to look him in the eye.
“I think you know,” he says, circling my waist with his muscled arm. “But what I don’t know, at least for sure, is what you want out of this. Out of...us.”
My heart is lodged in my throat as I think of how to answer. I need to be bold now. To tell him the truth. Even if I’ve read him entirely wrong, and he thinks I’m insane for what I’m about to say, we’ll be out of each others’ lives in a few months’ time. So, here goes.
“If we hadn’t been interrupted,” I say, softly but steadily, “I wouldn’t have stopped until we’d had each other. That’s all I wanted.”
He glances down at me, and I force myself to meet his gaze. His eyes smolder with wanting me. The intensity of his lust nearly bowls me over.
“That’s what I wanted, too,” he growls, catching my chin in his hand.
He brings his mouth to mine, kissing me forcefully, deeply. But there’s a hint of finality in his kiss that nearly brings me to tears.
“What are we supposed to do?” I whisper, pulling away from him. “It’s Wednesday. No, Thursday now. By Sunday, we’ll technically be siblings.”
“I know that,” Emerson replies, his teeth gritted in hopeless frustration. “And once that’s the case, we can’t...”
“I know,” I whisper. “Of course we can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”
“Nothing about this situation is right,” he scoffs.
“God,” I mutter, “Why couldn’t we have just found each other years ago, before we were out of time?”
“We’re not out of time. Yet,” Emerson says carefully, as if testing the waters. My heart clenches tightly as he goes on. “Tomorrow is my birthday, Abby. Saturday is yours. That means that on Saturday, and only on Saturday, we’ll both be legal adults. Legal, unrelated adults. Who can argue with that?”
“Are you...are you suggesting...?” I reply, my eyes going wide.
“If I don’t at least suggest it,” Emerson says, pulling me into his lap. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. So, yes. This is me telling you that I want you, Abby. I want to be with you. I want us to have each other, if only once in our lives. I’m suggesting that we give ourselves that before it’s too late. You can tell me I’m nuts, or to go fuck myself, or whatever you like. But I have to at least tell you...that that’s what I want.”
“Well, Emerson,” I say, struggling to take a deep breath, “That’s convenient. Because I...want that...too.”
We stare at each other for a long moment before bursting into uproarious laughter. Gut-bursting, tension-relieving, hysterical laughter that almost sends us both toppling off the platform at once. I throw my arms around Emerson’s shoulders as we both roar at the insane, absurd hilarity of this whole situation. A wave of relief crashes through me as laugher wracks my body. God, it feels good to let some of this pressure release.
“That might be the most awkward thing I’ve ever said in my life!” I crow, wiping tears from my eyes.
“This may be the most awkward conversation that’s ever occurred between two people,” Emerson replies, “‘Hey, I know you’re about to be my sister, but I really want to do you.’”
That sets us off again. We collapse into each other until we end up lying on our backs, chests heaving, staring up at the stars. Our hands are clasped, our smiles wide. Despite the crapiness of the whole situation, here we are together. On the same page.
“Promise me it will happen,” I say to him. “Promise me that on my birthday, we’ll get to be together. The way we want to be.”
“I promise,” Emerson says, giving me a sweet, chaste kiss on the forehead. “But. Um. I hope you don’t mind if I ask another sort of awkward question,” Emerson goes on, his fingers tightening ever-so-slightly.
“Shoot,” I tell him, turning my head his way.
“Well. You know, I’m no novice, when it comes to sex,” he begins, delightfully blunt as ever. “I’ve been with a few girls in my time. But in your case...I guess what I mean is...Have you ever...?” My smiles fades at once as I jerk my face away from his. He senses my entire body tense up in the wake of his question. “Shit,” he groans, “That was so stupid of me—”
“No,” I cut him off, steeling myself for what I have to say, now. “No, it wasn’t stupid. It’s just...not an easy question for me to answer. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to, it’s just...bear with me.”
He squeezes my hand, but doesn’t say a word. I take a breath and go on.
“I was going to tell you this earlier. When we were trading secrets. I wanted to explain what happened at the diner tonight, but I was afraid that you...anyway. The short answer to your question is, yes, I’ve had sex before. The slightly longer answer is that I didn’t really want to. Didn’t want to at all, actually.”
“Oh, Abby...” Emerson says, his voice as soft as I’ve ever heard it. “Do you mean—?”
“It was back in freshman year,” I go on, plowing ahead before I lose my nerve. “I was sort of a late bloomer, so I was really only beginning to get attention from some guys at our school. There was one in particular that I’d had a crush on since about Kindergarten. He and I were at the other middle school, not yours. Anyway, he teased me pretty mercilessly through eighth grade—for being smart, for always having my nose in a sketchbook, all that. But come high school, that teasing gave way to flirting. And we started, uh, hanging out.
Right when my mom died, he was still sort of in the picture. We weren’t dating or anything, but we were spending time together. I went over to his place one night when my dad was wasted, just to get out of the house for a minute. His parents were away, so it was just us. He’d broken into his dad’s liquor cabinet and offered me something to drink. Said it would make me feel better. I had some booze, he gave me more. He over-poured my drinks. I got drunk. Then he started touching me, pushing me further than we’d been before. By then, we’d only really kissed. But he was feeling me up, trying to undress me. I told him to stop, I was too wasted to enjoy it, to want it. But he kept on me. Said that would make me feel better, too.