Between Us and the Moon - Rebecca Maizel Page 0,67
don’t. I see pieces of myself now and then.”
“I find that hard to—”
“Believe it,” I interrupt. “I know who to be when I track comets. When I talk about science. I guess . . .” I have to stop and gather my breath. My cheeks warm and I bring my fingertips to my face. I didn’t think I would be so emotional. Not about Andrew being hurt, that makes sense, but because I am confessing something so deeply true and I’ve never said it out loud before. Maybe I didn’t really know how to say it before today.
Scarlett, Tucker, and Dad were right about me.
“I just assume no one likes me,” I say but can’t bring myself to meet Andrew’s eyes. “I just automatically assume it. It’s easier than putting myself in a situation where someone . . .”
“Could reject you?”
“Bingo.”
“Who are those girls? Who cares what they think?” Andrew says. He sounds like Scarlett.
Andrew reaches out for my hand and the warmth and tender grip of his skin nearly makes my knees buckle I’m so relieved.
“They’re really nice, actually. Those girls? That was all me. They were coupled up and I felt stupid.”
“You never did that with me, did you? Show off because you were nervous?”
I make another split-second decision. I tell another lie, simply adding and adding to the countless number I have told.
“No,” I say. “I’ve never pretended to be someone else with you.”
A wave of nausea flows over me. These words are sour so I have to couple it with something true.
“You always remind me how much I matter. The me on the inside. The one I’m piecing together,” I say.
Andrew turns me toward him and bends his knees so our eyes meet.
“Can I just add that I have never felt so stupid in my entire life?” I say.
Andrew doesn’t let go of my hand. He gestures to the sand and we sit down just as the first firework explodes in the sky. The blast vibrates deep in the center of my belly. The tiny glittering arcs fall slowly back to the Earth.
“I told you this already,” he says with a shake of his head. “You are so different than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“My strangeness is interesting. Great.”
The second firework explodes above his head in a red burst and now tiny glitters of crimson lights rain down from the sky.
“Anyone who goes to a library to research my tattoo is a girl I want around.”
I gasp. “What? I . . .”
“Curtis told me.” Andrew is smiling now.
I bring my palm to my forehead with a smack. Andrew’s laugh echoes in the street and the fireworks pop, pop, pop in a silver and gold finale and the whole beach lights up.
“I wanted to be able to talk to you about it,” I say and rub at my forehead. “About something other than science.”
A succession of gold and yellow fireworks explode above our heads.
Andrew reaches his arms around my waist. I let him. It’s familiar here with his warm hands around my body.
“I’m really sorry,” I say.
He nuzzles his mouth into the nape of my neck. I turn to face him completely and we kiss so deeply that I wonder why people don’t kiss like this every chance they get. Andrew lays me down on the sand next to him.
“Andrew,” I whisper, and he pulls away. He looks in my eyes and brings his palm to my cheek. “I can’t catch my breath.”
Andrew’s warm breath tickles my ear. “Let’s swim to the moon, uh-huh,” he sings, but it’s soft. “Let’s climb through the tide . . .”
I giggle. “Okay so now that the secret’s out, why that tattoo?”
“Mike loved Morrison’s poetry,” he replies, and he twists his arm so the tattoo faces me. “It just stuck with me once I started reading it.”
“Swimming to the moon is scientifically impossible.”
“But isn’t that what makes life great? Something unexpected?” Andrew asks.
I search for an answer in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” I reply, and it’s the truth. “Everything in my life has been perfectly planned. Meticulously organized.” Until you, I want to say but don’t. “You know Jim Morrison has been dead since 1971. That’s over forty years,” I say.
“Yep,” he says and squeezes me. “He’d be in his seventies by now. Maybe I love their music so much because I can never see Jim live or read new poems. That’s what makes someone so untouchable, you know? When you know you can’t really have them.”