The Boiling Point | ✔️

33 | p a t h s

SUMMER 

Over the weeks, Drew and I sneaked around in the shadows at every opportunity we had.

He'd use his key to slip into the house at midnight. I'd climb his fire escape to slip into his room. We'd give our families excuses about plans with friends, going on late night drives and parking in empty lots. Cars, closets, showers, nowhere was off-limits.

And no matter where I was with him, it was exhilarating. I didn't think I could discover anything new about myself, but he showed me how much more lay in my depths. How my entire relationship with Aaron had only scratched the surface of every element. It was truly laughable how little I knew before, how little I had experienced and felt.

But Drew unearthed all those hidden experiences, each one blooming when we touched. Each one greater than the next.

On the rare occasion, we'd drive out of Philadelphia for the day, far enough to end up in a place where we wouldn't run into anyone we knew. Where we could actually be free. Walking down the street holding hands was a different kind of exhilaration in itself.

The one time we wound up in New York and went museum-hopping, I was so desperate for the day to never end that he got us a hotel room so we could make it last as long as possible. And we did. From rolling between the sheets, taking a bath, ordering room service, and watching movies, we didn't sleep a wink that night.

My parents were fine with me "staying over at friends' houses". Ella was the one I was cautious about. She could read me better than anyone, and she noticed my consistently uplifted mood. My glow. I'd get vague about fun parties and being excited about culinary school, brushing her questions off and changing the subject as inconspicuously as I could.

At a July fourth fireworks show with both of our families, Drew took a risk and swooped me behind a tree to steal a kiss, and I just about bit his head off. On warm nights, in my bed or his, I'd lay my head on his chest in the dark. I'd hook my leg over him while his fingers stroked through my hair, and my mind would drift to the future. We never spoke about it out loud. It was a heavy cloud that came in those quiet moments.

I liked to fantasize about a version of us that was ten years older. A version who had already skipped over any obstacles. Who lived together in a little apartment and hosted dinner parties that Ella would attend, where she was happy for us. And then we'd end the night exactly how we were in the present. Being together, our bodies moving together, breathing together. Falling asleep together.

But in reality, we both knew what would happen. We'd come to the end of summer, Drew would go back to college in New York, and I'd start culinary school in Cloverbrook. And that would be it.

I didn't let that cloud consume me. By morning it would float away, and I'd get back to relishing in our arrangement. As the days passed, I was getting more confident and less cautious. It was simultaneously a good and bad thing: the fading guilt. I liked feeling uninhibited, but my conscience would dip in and out.

Sneaking around became an exciting game, and hiding from Ella became a sick thrill.

In the rooftop garden of our row house, that was where we'd sunbathe on deck chairs when we didn't go to the pool or make beach trips. When I knew Ella and Drew were hanging out up there, I'd join them in my skimpiest bikini, watching Drew lower his book to watch me rubbing in sunscreen. And Ella would continue reading, paying my seductiveness no mind while she was lost in her pages.

Or when they were slumped in front of the TV on a day too hot to function, I skipped in and offered them popsicles to cool off, settling out of view from Ella. Then I put on a show far better than the one he was getting on TV.