lie down. His head moves from kissing my lips to my breasts to my thighs. My legs spread, his mouth moves to me.
No comet can touch this.
When he moves back up and kisses my mouth, he pulls away. “I love you,” he says it again and again.
Love.
Love.
I repeat the word over and over in my head until the hollow slide of a wooden drawer brings my eyes to the bedside table.
He takes out a condom. Andrew leans back on the pillow.
How many ways are there to stare?
Blond hairs run over his knees. There’s a sheen of red, a burn from where he’s missed suntan lotion. I want to run ice over it. I see these details in the bruised moonlight. The thin condom wrapper splits so easily in his hands. Andrew lifts his eyes to mine. He sits back against the wall with his knees bent a little. His penis is hard and it’s not science telling me, it’s me. I want his body, want to put my mouth all around him, and I do. There’s a pulse through me. A star racing across the sky.
He touches me on my shoulders, stopping me, and I lift my head up. My lips pulse with my heartbeat.
“Is it okay?” I ask.
“Yes, I just need you to stop. Or . . . ,” he says.
“Oh!” I say, and we share a smile. I know what he means.
“You want to do this?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say in an exhale. “Yes.”
The condom remains poised in his hand. I wonder if he wants me to reach out and put the condom on him myself. But he does it; a slow roll. He crawls toward me. Every time his palms touch the sheet it leaves an indentation like a handprint in the sand.
He slides on top of me, his hands curl over my shoulders, and Andrew breathes softly on my lips. When his mouth is on mine, he enters me. I open, I widen. Andrew thrusts his body and something deep inside me tears just a little. I gasp and my hands tighten on his shoulders.
“Are you okay?” he says, pulling back.
The pain dissipates, rippling away. Andrew’s eyes move from my parted lips to my eyes. “Sarah?”
Andrew leans forward and runs his lips over mine. He doesn’t kiss me. He skirts over my mouth with his own so an electric wave rolls over me all the way down to my toes.
“Are you okay?” he asks again.
“I’m perfect,” I whisper. Andrew starts to move again.
And only as his mouth touches mine, tasting of salt and sweat do I realize that yes, I am fine. I am fine. Me. The girl he has grown to love is here. I’m here, I am here, I think, as his body moves with mine again. I’m here and I love you.
I love . . .
“Don’t leave in a week. Don’t leave . . . ,” Andrew whispers in my ear.
He cups the back of my head with his palm and whispers it again. These whispers are the bay breeze in the morning through an open window.
“Don’t leave,” he says again.
They are tiny waves rippling onto the shore.
Oh, Andrew, I want to say as the rhythmic timing of our bodies quickens.
I’m already gone.
Sixteen—eighteen—isn’t it all the same? Boston College, Scarlett, bonfires, lawn parties, and beaches.
Andrew is on his side, stroking my hair. Sweat slides down my temple and my heart beats between my legs.
They say that the light from a star takes four years to reach Earth. Four years ago, I was twelve. I liked my bed. My toys. The Boston Planetarium. Four years from now, I will be twenty, Andrew’s age. When the light leaves the nearest star, right now, from the moment Andrew and I made love, it will take four years to reach me again. Somehow, this comforts me. This amazing moment can be relived.
“What am I going to do without you until school?” he says in a growl. The early morning makes his voice hoarse. “I know,” he says with a lift to his voice, “I’ll move you into MIT. It’s like twenty minutes away from me on the T.”
Something cracks apart inside my chest. Like a bone or a muscle.
“I’ll show you around Boston. We can do it together.”
I take a breath. “Yeah . . . ,” I say. “That sounds perfect.” And it does.
He pulls me toward him as the tropical storm blows everything around outside and the branches knock on the windows. I curl my body