Page 79 of Summer, in Between
‘Exactly.Last word.Three letters.’The frond moves across my chest and down my stomach.He could be writing the magnum carta for all I know; every nerve across my body feels alight.He looks up from my chest, and his eyes feel like they’re seeing all the way through me, through the sand dune and into the Earth’s core.His leg crosses mine, the hair of his calves electrified against my ankles.My pulse hammers in my ears and I lick my lips, tasting the sea mist, a grain of sand under my tongue.‘You get that?’
‘You love me?’
‘I love you,’ he says.
Bunny tail forgotten, he’s kissing me, and I never want him to stop.
34
‘IKNOW I’m going toregret this but if I tell you something do you promise not to laugh?’Paul’s piggybacking me to the beach, his arms tucked through my bare legs.
‘Not after that,’ I say, ‘I promise nothing.Give it to me, Lightwood.’
‘Oh, so we’re going by surnames now, are we?Good to know, Kelty.’
‘Stop stalling.’
‘Picture this, Year Eleven English and we have to write a poem.I wrote about this walk, from the car park to the beach.’
‘Why would I laugh?I love that.’
‘I wrote it completely off my head and I got the best mark I’d ever had.’
‘I have to read it.’
‘No way would I let you read my high distinction Year Eleven poem.’
‘Wait, high distinction and you were on something?’I mock-smack his shoulder.‘That’s so unfair.Some of us have to work for high distinctions.Maybe I should just take drugs?’
‘Don’t even think about it.’He hitches me up higher on his back and I lean my head down to breathe in that incredible space between his shoulder and his neck.‘I’m pretty sure the teacher was on something.Want to hear something funny?’
‘Uh huh.’I’m distracted.Maybe he could carry me around like this forever, his back hard against my chest.
‘She was my English teacher but also the careers teacher, right?She wanted me to go to uni open days and when I said that wasn’t going to happen, she was really pissed off.She tried to make an appointment with Mum and Dad and everything, but you heard Dad.’He drops his voice to mimic his father.‘“No point wasting money on tradies.”She thought if I put my head down, I could have had a crack.Can you believe that?Me at Uni?’He laughs.
‘Of course I can believe that, but why didn’t you?I mean your actual teacher was telling you to go for it.What did your mum think?’
