a little more

I now have two chapters complete.  Any feedback/criticism is most definitely welcome.

Breaking Spring

She’s holding my hand. She’s actually holding my hand.

I realize that’s not the biggest step for most seventeen-year-olds, but this was major. I had just lost my virginity, and the world was changed.

We were walking down a road I must have walked down a million times. But all of the sudden, the glisten from the moonlight on the newly wet road was amazing. The shadows from the pine trees lining the ditch were shouting their congratulations and providing the specific contour and relief that echoed my life. And through all this, Danielle was holding my hand. We’d walked home together from parties more than a handful of times in the past two years, but now, she was holding my hand, fingers interlaced. We weren’t jumping around with drunken frenzy or too-ra-looing arm in arm up the lane. We were, for once, walking on the sidewalk, and we were sharing an intimate moment. Granted it wasn’t as intimate as the moment we had just shared, and that, that wasn’t even near our heads yet. The only thing we were doing was reveling in the moment. At least, I know I was; I hope she was. That need and insecurity was fleeting though. Those fears did not last within the grasp of her four fingers and gorgeous thumb.

"So how come you don’t have to be home at twelve tonight?" When she tilted her head to ask me, I almost dove for her lips; she was breathtaking.

"My parents are in Tampa. I can’t believe they let me stay home alone, but they knew I didn’t wanna miss any baseball, and they booked the trip last year, so..."

"So, I’m staying over tonight?"

"Your parents aren’t gonna care if you don’t come home?"

"No, they will. I was just seeing what you’d say. Always the practical thinker."

"I guess I’ve been trained poorly." And I really had. I could banter back and forth with girls easily enough, but something always crept up in me when I had a chance to cut loose.

"I really would like it though, if you were able to stay at my house." At least I knew how to try to recover.

"It’s ok. We’ve got a whole week."

Somehow, that thought had not yet crossed my mind. We were on our way home from the first party of Spring Break. It was Friday night, well, Saturday morning, and that meant six more days of no school and no commitments, except baseball.

"So," she was looking so good, "Are you going to throw a rager this week?"

"No," again, poorly trained. "My parents made it vividly clear that if I did the next time I got out of the house would be fall when they dropped me off at college."

"I guess that’s ok. More alone time for us."

Is she really saying this? Oh my God, yes! I was really ready for God to strike me dead right then. My life could not get any better. Danielle McConnell was excited to spend alone time with me. She sounded excited anyway; damn, I wished she was as excited as I was picturing.

When we rounded the curve and her house came into view, I was praying we would be magically whisked miles away and have to walk every step of it back to her house. I wanted to keep the feeling of that walk home for as long as I could. The sidewalk never felt so good, and when we walked through her front yard, I was miraculously enjoying the dew of the grass on the foot-beds of my sandals. I hate sandal swamp, and I was loving every minute of this; she was amazing.

We kissed goodnight for a while. At one point when we fell back a little too far and a lot too quickly into the pillars of her stoop, I thought for sure that her parents were going to wake up and kill me, but nothing happened. Nothing could ruin that night. The cosmos must have aligned to make sure that everything worked out for us.

After we finally said goodnight, I began the walk down the cobblestone path that lead to the sidewalk, and she softly called my name.

"Tripp."

I looked back, and she was lightly leaning against a pillar. She was on the toes of her right foot with the other tracing the step of the stoop. Her head was tilted and wisps of blonde hair were lightly catching the soft breeze and falling into her majestic dark eyes. I wanted to fucking melt. "What’s up?" I questioned, in my best trying-to-be-smooth-yet-not-wake-anyone-voice.

"Call me tomorrow?"

"Most definitely."

The remainder of my walk was spent replaying the last three hours in my head. She lived close by, so it wasn’t a long walk, but I had never quite made it so effortlessly to the corner of my street from her house before that night. When I turned onto Ferncliff Lane, I crossed to the middle of the street. I normally walked down the center of the road. A streetlight snapped off directly above my head. I didn’t think much of it, and I continued down the center of the sleepy street until it was time to veer to the left and up my drive. My key hit the lock on the side door, and I enjoyed the feeling of not having to breathe in anyone’s face the moment a noise was heard in the house. My parents were loving, supportive, and paranoid. Well, I guess it’s not paranoia when what you think is happening is actually happening. I was quite the cover-up artist.

I walked up the three set flight of stairs into the kitchen and directly to the fridge. Officially not being a virgin did nothing for the beer-munchies; in fact, sex really was a workout. I grabbed a piece of leftover pizza and collapsed into the velvety cushions of the couch in the next room. Normally I would have turned on Sportscenter, but I was enjoying the way the streetlight was creeping through the window. The slants of orange light that fell across the coffee table by my feet were strangely attractive at that moment. I gobbled down the slice of pizza and enjoyed the silence of a vacant house. I had never known anything like the feeling of that night, and I knew that when I awoke the feeling would be less than it was in the near darkness of my living room at that moment.

CHAPTER 2

I woke the next morning to the obnoxious ring of my phone. Any loud noise at ten A.M. is obnoxious.

"Jesus, Jon, you’d better be in jail."

"Yeah, good morning to you too, Tripp. So what the hell? Your parents are outta town and you still go home at twelve? They aren’t gonna come home from Tampa to make sure you make curfew."

"I didn’t make curfew, and I left the party after you."

"Shit, don’t tell me you were playing nurse-maid to Danielle."

"I was with her, but I wasn’t playing nurse-maid."

"I’ve never seen someone so whipped that didn’t have a girlfriend."

"Listen asshole, you get any last night? I didn’t think so. Well, guess what? I did." So much for training. That was a mistake. Telling guys, even your best friends, about hooking up with a girl you really want to be with is not the soundest thing to do.

"Get the hell out. You did not bone Danielle McConnell."

"No, I didn’t bone her. We had sex, and it was awesome."

"Dude, fuck this. I’m coming over."

Jon must have been excited to talk to me in person. The drive from his house usually takes at least five minutes, and he tends to drive with no care or knowledge of speed limits. He made it in what must have been two minutes; I wasn’t even out of bed yet. I was planning on unveiling my news in a much more subtle and dignified way than a not-so-strategic defense of why I had not seen him out of the party. I had also apparently not locked the door when I got home the night before either because Jon was thudding up my steps and into my room before all the eye boogers were eradicated from my blurred vision.

"Tell me you weren’t lying on the phone."

"You know I wouldn’t lie about that. If Danielle found out I was spreading rumors about that kinda shit, she’d never talk to me again." I was trying so hard, but I couldn’t fight the grin crawling over my face. Poorly trained with girls and poorly trained with your friends may be opposite, but they can lead to similar ends, little or no physical contact.

"Dude, I now have a new respect for you. Even if you are grinning like a school girl." He hesitated for a moment and pretended to survey the room. "Have you thought about what Eli is gonna say? I mean, they’ve barely been broken up a month."

Oh shit. I had not thought about Eli, not for a second.

"You realize you havta see him in practice on Monday, and that’s if he misses the party tonight."

"Fuck. Until you mentioned him, I hadn’t thought about him at all. Not good."

"How could you not think about him at all? How the hell did you score this anyway?"

This was a question I had been reliving and actually wondering myself. Well, I’d been wondering it for the ten minutes I’d been part of the conscious world.

"It’s weird. I’ve been sniffin’ this girl’s ass for going on two years now, and it sorta just happened." I knew that while I was explaining this to Jon I would some how be abating the magic that allowed such a spectacular event in my life to occur, but at the same time, it was a discovery I had to make for a second time. Telling him might allow me to realize exactly what had happened as well.

"You know that line that I always spouted whenever I felt like I was finally closing the deal with her and getting the hell outta the friend-zone?"

Jon cocked his head and gave me a disapproving sideways glance. "Yes. In the grey of the day you may lose your way, but in the light of the night you’ll see what’s right. Please, please, I’m begging you," he actually got down on his knees and clasped his hands, "Don’t tell me that you’re going to have to rely on that line and that this is going to be one of those philosophical rants about the world and why ‘it just ain’t fare.’ I don’t think I can take that shit. It’s too damn early for that Tripp."

"No, man. It’s kinda like that actually worked out for me. We were hanging out at the party, and it all just flowed for me. Last night it just worked. We were playing beer pong and kicking some ass too. Then, we lost, walked away, and she made a move. It..."

"Wait. She made the first move? Danielle McConnell actually came on to you? Now I’m not sure if I can actually believe this. Not only did you ‘have sex,’- by the way, in my record, you boned her- with Danielle, but she made the first move. Unbe-fucking-lieveable."

"You gonna let me finish?"

Jon had risen from his previous genuflect to deliver his incredulous rant. He paused, walked to my computer chair, wheeled it to the corner of my bed, and leaned forward with a facade of dignified intent before calmly uttering, "Continue."

I cast Jon a very planned are-you done-yet? look and continued. "When we walked out of the kitchen and turned the corner she grabbed my hand. But not in a dominating way." When I said dominating, I thought Jon was going to drool. "It was soft; I wasn’t sure if she meant anything by it at first, but then we made eye contact. Jesus, that was it. We started making out in the hall, and before I knew it, we were in a bedroom."

"And then?" Jon couldn’t help himself, but a slight laugh and a gratuitous eyebrow pump were not what I was looking for at that moment.

"No way man. Mama didn’t raise no fool."

"Oh at least tell me how she looked!" He was pleading.

My genetics were winning.

"She looked awesome. I didn’t think I’d last a minute."

"What kinda underwear was she wearing . . . a thong . . . boy shorts?"

"No fucking way man. I tell you and everyone knows in two hours."

"I would never." Jon leaned back and feigned being hurt, but his smirk betrayed him. I couldn’t blame him. News like this was something that was hard to not share. Hell, I’d been planning on discreetly telling only my best friends when the time was right. I’d been awake for less than a half an hour and I was already failing miserably with that plan.

"I must reiterate, a new respect." He was leaning back now with his hands behind his head and a gigantic grin was breaking over his face.

"Hey asshole, no picturing it." I knew just what was dirtily filtering through his head.

"Oh no, what happens in this head is the express intellectual property of me." He was giggling, and even though he was right, my purpose had been accomplished; he’d stopped to tell me what he could and couldn’t do.

I sat up in bed, and with that action some reality hit me. "Listen man, don’t say anything to anyone. I know I’m not as tight with Eli as you are, but I don’t want him to find out on the National News; it’d be better if I told him."

"Yeah man, I know. I’ll let you get dressed. I’m sure you’ve still got half a stalk thinkin’ about last night." He sauntered out of my room and hummed the Star Spangled Banner. We’d seen a movie once where a guy claimed to get a...well, fill in the blanks.

I chucked a pile of clothes that was laying next to my bed and hit him in the back on his way through the door. Jon called out, "Uncalled for," in between his self-impressed chuckles.

Eli was a real problem. I had honestly not thought about him the night before. It all happened so fast, and I was so ecstatic that my friendship with him just wasn’t on my mental agenda. When something that you’ve waited for so long comes to life, it’s hard to think of anything but what’s happening. Even though he wasn’t my best friend, I did like him, and what was worse, he was a good guy. He hadn’t treated Danielle badly, and she had been the one who had dumped him. I started to feel like a shit, but then, the memory of what had transpired flew through the gates of my mind, and everything was okay again.

"You have shit for food," called Jon from downstairs.

"I know. I have to go shopping. Lemme finish getting dressed, and we’ll go to Frank and Scary’s."

"Awesome," Jon yelled back sarcastically, "I love heaping grease on a hangover."

Saying too much, Eli, this two-story conversation about crummy food, none of it mattered. The night’s magic had not completely vanished. Yet.

CHAPTER 1

Comments

[Jesse]

Hey matt - I got your email. Thanks very much. Hope to get to give it a good read soon