Page 22 of Harper

He’s staring out at the water, a hopeful half-smile on his face, the very picture of a recent high school graduate with his whole life ahead of him. The thought of breaking up with me to save his own heart from shattering won’t have occurred toJoe. His love for me is everlasting; as shatterproof as the granite mountains that surround us.

For Joe, love is an absolute thing; it’s a safe and mighty thing that makes your life stronger and better.

For me, love is a risk; it’s something that can disappear when you least expect it, leaving fathomless chaos and inconceivable pain in its wake.

While I take measures to protect myself from its loss, Joe lives his life with his heart on his sleeve. It’s part of what attracts me to him, and I’m sure my insecurity is part of why Joe works so hard to prove his love to me. The equation of our relationship is one of want and plenty, of open space and available mass.

“Someday, Harp,” he says, grinning at me with eyebrows raised flirtatiously, “we’ll bring our kids here. We’ll show ’em where their mom and dad celebrated their high school graduation.”

Here’s a secret I keep close to my heart: sometimes Joe is too much for me.

It’s not that I want someone else. It’s not that I can see myself with anyone else. But no matter how much I love Joe, and no matter how much he loves me, nothing lasts forever. I can’t just close my eyes and blindly trust Joe to always be there the same way I trusted my mom to come back from heliskiing that dark day so many years ago. I have to stay open to the possibility that sometimes love doesn’t last forever. People move on. People don’t come back. People die. So it grates on me when he assumes that forever is a probability for us; not because I don’t want it, but because I’m not certain forever even exists, and it feels careless to pretend it does.

I lean down to look for a skipping stone. “You think?”

“Oh, yeah. For sure,” he says easily. “A couple of girls. A couple of boys.”

“You expect me to have four kids?” I ask, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“Your mom had six.” He winks at me. “Heck, I’ll take as many as you want to give me, Harp.”

I feel my cheeks flush and turn away from Joe, skipping the flattest stone I can find. My suddenly sweaty fingers slip as I throw, and the stone sinks almost immediately.

“Losing your magic touch?” he teases.

“No way!” Rising to the bait, I look for another stone.

“Anyway,” says Joe, his voice low and suggestive, “I’ve heard that practicing is pretty awesome.”

“Practicing?” I ask, even though I know exactly what he’s talking about.

“I’m not pressuring you to—you know…do it. I just thought you wanted to,” he says. “After graduation, right?”

He’s right. I did say that.

Although it’s been almost two years since our first kiss, Joe and I haven’t had sex yet.

Do I want to? Of course I do.

Physically, I’m a normal teenager who’s just as horny as the next girl. Not to mention, Joe is scorching hot, and I’m crazy about him. But having sex with Joe will bind me to him even more profoundly than I am now…and then, what happens if he goes to college and meets someone new? Or hits his head, gets amnesia, and forgets that he loves me? Or dies suddenly in a freak ice storm accident? There I’d be, left with these once precious—then agonizing—memories. I know how hard it was to lose my mother without any warning. I never want to go through something like that again.

So, as much as I want to do it, having sex with Joe scares me, too.

I find a good, flat rock and stand up.

Just then, Joe puts his arms around me from behind. Leaning his head down, he nuzzles my neck, making goose bumps rise on my bare arms. His body is hard and warm, his arms corded with muscle where they wrap around my waist. I can feel his erection through the layers of his khaki pants and my white sundress; it presses against my butt insistently. My stomach flutters wildly. My eyes close in surrender.

Am I scared? On an emotional level, absolutely. But I’m also human, and I think we’ve waited as long as humanly possible.

I turn around in his arms, letting the stone slip from my fingers as I clasp my hands around his neck. He fists handfuls of my dress, pulling it up and over my head. Then he works his belt open, quickly unbuttoning and unzipping his pants. They fall to his ankles while I reach behind my back to unfasten my bra. It slides down my arms as he pulls his dress shirt and undershirt over his head and chucks them aside.

We stand still before each other, surrounded by cast-off clothing, him in his boxer shorts, and me in white panties. It’s cool for June, but I don’t feel cold. I feel hot as soon as I raise my eyes to Joe’s.

“Are we really doing this?” he asks, the muscles on his chest flexed and hard as he waits for permission.

“Yeah.” My mouth waters. “We are.”

He reaches for my hand, braiding his fingers through mine and pulling me toward him.

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