By some
unspoken mutual agreement, the only words between them were Maddie's occasional
quietly spoken directions. Justin had no idea where they were headed and he
really didn't care. Maddie was too full with all that had happened in the past
few days. Her brother had been in an accident that could have taken his life;
Maddie, not even half an hour earlier, had come dangerously close to taking a
life herself; and she knew she'd have to talk to Justin about what had happened
between them. 'My cup runneth over,' she thought ruefully.
Justin was
busy trying to figure out how they'd come to this point. He had no idea what had
happened during his run that had left Maddie so shaken. He knew Maddie well
enough now to guess that she'd tell him when she was ready. He thought back;
'Damn, this all started at the awards…that was just yesterday! Well,' he amended
after glancing at the clock on the dashboard, 'two days ago. Still…Man!'
"Park over there." Maddie's voice interrupted his musings.
In
silence, he parked the car. He pulled the key out of the ignition and, taking
his lead from her, got out of the car.
Side-by-side, they walked down a
dark, poorly lit path bordered on both sides by high shrubs. He thought he
should have felt afraid or at least claustrophobic; the night was very dark, the
moon hidden behind the clouds and they were hemmed in by foliage. But he didn't.
He felt calm, peaceful…serene.
It wasn't until they'd almost reached the
end of the path that he recognized the steady, gurgling sound he'd been hearing.
They came out of the tunnel and it seemed as if the world exploded with light
and sound. The bushes must have muted the sound of the water; it was almost as
if, by stepping off the path, someone had turned the volume up on the amazing
sight before him. He stopped, jaw open, eyes wide, awed by what he saw.
Maddie stopped with him, pleased to see that the Waterwall had the same
affect on him as it did on her. She remembered the first time she'd ever seen
it. Her dad had brought her there shortly after his marriage to Maggie when she
was still adjusting to having her and Travis as part of their family.
Looking at it, it was nearly impossible to tell how such a thing could
exist. It was a twenty-foot structure, a long rectangle. Water flowed from the
top of it and poured over the sides in thin sheets. Most of the time, the
halogen lamps that backlit the water shone a dull white. For special occasions,
colored bulbs were placed in the lamps, giving the cascading water an even more
mystical air.
Maddie led Justin over to her favorite spot beneath a
towering elm tree. They sat in silence for a long while, each lost in their own
thoughts but always aware of the other's every movement. They contemplated the
confusing state of their lives and let the water and the ambience of the place
soothe their minds.
Twenty minutes had passed before either of them
spoke. It was Justin who broke the silence.
"Why'd you call me?"
"Why'd you kiss me?" Maddie countered.
Justin pushed himself up
from where he'd been resting on his stomach. He turned away from the wall, sat
cross-legged facing Maddie. "When?"
"In New York. Carson's apartment."
"Oh." Justin thought for a moment then shrugged his shoulders. "I don't
know."
"Wrong answer," Maddie mumbled.
Justin heard. "Well,
what's the right answer?" he wanted to know, feeling a little peeved at her
attitude.
It was Maddie's turn to shrug. "I just know that 'I don't
know' ain't it."
"Look," Justin began, irritated that he had to justify
himself but at he same time understanding her need to know. He turned his head
to look at the sparkling water. "I was…I don't know, I was excited. We were
gonna be friends. We were starting over, called a truce. You weren't gonna brush
me off every time you saw me anymore."
"I never-"
Justin cut her
off with a knowing glance then looked back to the water.
"Sorry," she
murmured, looking down at the soft grass beneath her, feeling ashamed.
"Anyway, I got excited and I guess I overreacted."
Maddie drank
all this in. For once, she didn't try to analyze what he said; she didn't try to
see if there was some deeper meaning that she was supposed to get. She simply
accepted it for what it was.
Justin turned back to her. "So why'd you
call me?"
Maddie squirmed a little, knowing that she was probably about
to bare her heart and soul. She took a deep breath.
"I had cancer when I
was a kid."
She said it so casually that the full impact of it didn't
hit Justin right away. When it did, he gaped at her, not sure how to react.
"My mom was just about a perfect match for a bone marrow transplant. But
it didn't take. So I spent two and a half years doing chemo and radiation
therapy." Her eyes clouded over as she remembered. "I went into remission when I
was ten."
Justin swallowed hard. Cancer…even the word scared him.
"A few weeks ago, I thought it had come back."
Justin's swift
intake of air clued her in on how distraught he was at that. She rushed on.
"It didn't. They tell you what to look for in case it comes back…kind of
like a guideline of symptoms. So I thought it had. Turns out that I was OD'ing
on vitamins." She smiled at that. She sighed and looked around her. They were
the only people there. The water fell in its never-ending cycle. The moon still
hid behind the clouds.
Justin waited in silence. He watched her face and
knew that this, whatever it was, was something that needed to be said. He was
pretty sure that when all was said and done, he'd be okay with it, considering
what had happened between them, but he still felt nervous about it.
Maddie took a deep breath and continued. "When I thought the cancer was
back, before I had the tests done…I started thinking about my life, the things
I'd done, the things I wanted to do…the things I thought I'd never get to do."
She paused to gather her thoughts. She worried her bottom lip with her teeth for
a moment and then went on.
"And then I started to regret. That's the
worst feeling in the world, you know that?" She turned to look at him for the
first time since she'd began. But she knew that she couldn't look at him and say
the words she felt she needed to say at the same time so she looked down. Her
hands began to worry the grass beneath her.
"I wasn't regretting the
things I'd done. Of course, there's stupid stuff that I wish I'd never done but
I learned from that, y'know? The things I regretted most were the things I
hadn't done…the things I'd had a chance to do but didn't." She looked up again
and his eyes met hers. They both knew where she was headed but he made no move
to stop her. She needed to say it just as much as he needed to hear it.
"So, I decided that if I was OK, if it wasn't the cancer or even if it
was but I managed to beat it again, that I wasn't going to regret anymore." She
licked her lips and looked back to the Waterwall.
"We got home from the
doctor's office and I was just sorta sitting there, not really thinking, just
kinda taking it all in. Then Travis comes in and turns on the TV. MTV. And
y'all's faces were the first thing I saw. So I got up, went to my room and
called you."
They sat in silence. The night was still around them.
Maddie checked her watch. Quarter to five. She wasn't the least bit tired. She
stole a look at Justin from the corner of her eye. His head was turned away from
her, his eyes focused on the wall of water in front of them. He was absolutely
still; the only movement was the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he
breathed.
Maddie thought back on what she'd said. It wasn't like it was
life altering or anything. So why wasn't he saying anything?
She began
to tear small clumps of grass out of the earth. Patience was not one of her good
points. If only he'd just say something…anything!
Justin reached over
put his hand on hers. She looked down, realizing for the first time what she'd
been doing. Justin pulled back and she moved her hands to see how much damage
she'd done. She'd torn out a small circle; the brown dirt stood out against the
green grass around it. Feeling extremely guilty, she gathered the grass and
patted it back into the ground as if that would miraculously replant the stems.
She sighed. "Yeah, just kill the planet, why don't you?"
Justin
still didn't say anything. The continued silence was getting to her. She stood,
brushed off her pants and walked over to the edge of the pool that surrounded
the wall. She kneeled and ran her hand through the water. "Hmm," she grunted,
"and I can't even begin to get into what happened the other night."
Justin, who had gotten up to follow her, stood right behind her and
heard her muttered words. "You remember it?"
Maddie jumped and would
have fallen into the water if Justin hadn't grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
"Whoa, girl!"
He pulled her to her feet and they took a few steps away
from the water's edge. He looked at the water rippling in the pool for a minute
then turned to her. "I didn't mean to scare you." He paused, bit his lip and
looked away from her to repeat his question. "Do you remember it?"
Maddie licked her lips. "Not really," she admitted, knowing that she had
to tell him but wondering how. She decided to just spit it out. She took a deep
breath. "Justin."
Something in her tone alerted him. He turned to face
her.
Maddie swallowed, knowing that this confession would change
everything. "I was…I was a virgin."
Justin gaped at her. He looked kind
of silly; his eyes were bugged out, his eyebrows were arched up into his
hairline and his mouth hung open. Had this been any other time, Maddie would
have laughed. But, things being what they were, she could barely breathe.
Justin didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to think. He'd never
taken anyone's virginity before. How do you react in a situation like this? And
then he thought of how it happened and the guilt he felt increased tenfold. The
first time should be…hell, he wasn't real sure what it should be, his first time
hadn't been that great, but he knew damned well that it shouldn't be how it had
happened for Maddie. He opened his mouth to speak but no sound came out.
He ran his hands over his face. This put a whole new spin on things. He
felt as if he'd taken advantage of her. Maddie seemed so worldly, so mature and
she always had a string of guys trailing after her. How the hell was he supposed
to have known?
One part of him felt remorse so great it threatened to
crush him. But another part of him felt exhilarated; he had been her first.
Admittedly, she'd been drunk when it happened but she had willingly given
herself to a man for the first time and that man had been him. He wanted to
shout it out to the rooftops. But he couldn't. The fact remained that he was her
first. And maybe she hadn't really wanted it, maybe it had all been the alcohol.
Maybe she regretted it…
"Maddie…God…I'm-"
"Don't apologize," she
said in a low voice.
He licked his lips and looked at her, a frown
marring his features.
Relieved and not knowing why, Maddie smiled slyly.
"I don't remember much. But what I do remember…pretty damned good."
Justin's brow cleared and his frown was replaced by an unsure smile.
"Yeah?"
Maddie grinned at him. "Yeah."
"OK," Justin sighed
happily.
"So, um, since I've never done this before, obviously," Maddie
rolled her eyes at her ineptitude, "I guess what I want to know is…" She took a
deep breath and put the decision in his hands. "Where do we go from here?" She
peered at him from under her eyelashes.
Justin ducked his head and
Maddie's breath caught in her throat. He didn't want…
Then he raised his
head and she saw that his smile gotten even wider. He stepped closer and grabbed
her hand, linked his fingers through hers. "Wherever we want to."
Maddie
smiled back at him. "Yeah?"
Justin brought their linked hands to his
mouth, kissed hers, and then covered it with his other hand. "Yeah."
Feeling like she had in eighth grade when Michael Sandoval asked her to
the Eighth Grade Banquet, Maddie led Justin back to her elm tree. They sat
side-by-side and as the sun came up, the air rang with the sounds of their
conversation and laughter.
