the missing sweater

[self-medication is a poor practice. case in point: this.]

She is tired of school –– the work, not the place. The place she loves, especially this particular place: Every day at the closing bell, she emerges from the back doors to this patch of soft, green grass. Everyone does, of course –– the buses line up along the sidewalk –– but she alone lies in the grass and stares at the sky, waiting for the bus that inevitably comes late, especially when the rain is pouring.

The year is almost over, and instead of being relieved at her prospective freedom, she is horrified at the thought of losing this place.

“June!”

It is June, she thinks. She feels cooler; the summer sun must’ve ducked behind a cloud.

“June, are you asleep?”

“What?” she asks. Her dark brown eyes open to a familiar silhouette.

“The buses are gone.”

“Damn.” June sits up and observes, yes, the buses are gone. “I guess I was asleep.”

“Do you need to get home soon? I can give you a lift,” offers the familiar silhouette, a skinny senior whose name is Joshua. Josh lives close by, and drives, and is therefore useful in addition to being stunningly handsome –– well, stunningly handsome to June, anyway.

“Would you? I’m not in a rush, but I don’t want to bug my parents.” As she stands, and her eyes adjust to the light, June observes that Josh is wearing a white collared shirt, jeans, and –– as always –– a plain silver cross. June loves the way he dresses. He dresses like he paints, crisp and cool, with long, neat lines. June met Josh in art class last fall.

“Sure.”

“It’s not too much trouble?”

“No, no. Don’t worry about it.”

Josh picks up June’s bookbag for her. She stopped complaining about this sort of behavior from him a while ago. He was brought up in rural Georgia, and has always been something of a gentleman. June cannot decide if this is annoying or endearing.

And Josh himself, of course, she can’t quite decide about. He’s a good kid –– too good for me, she imagines –– and he’s leaving to go to school in a matter of months. He’s going to Middlebury to study French and religion.

“Lead the way, Joshball.” It’s her nickname for him. He smiles whenever she says it.

He leads the way. As they walk, June’s attention is drawn to the back of his neck, below the last curl of dark brown hair. His skin is, perplexingly, tanned and freckled at the same time. June loves his skin, especially that one big freckle on his collarbone.

What a creep I am. (June is not actually a creep. She drew Joshua’s portrait in class mere days ago, and the freckle on his collarbone was hard to miss.)

It takes her a moment to notice that they’re going back into the school, not directly to Josh’s house.

“Picking something up?”

“Yeah –– backstage.” Josh is a techie for the school’s drama club. His friends generally say this is his excuse to wear black all the time.

He looks amazing in black.

“Oh dear. . . what’ve you been up to back there?” She likes to keep a sense of humor about whatever love life Josh might have. He’s single according to Facebook, but God knows what lurks backstage.

“Sweating my ass off.”

“On the couch?” The drama couch: the scene of many a sordid love affair between theater kids.

“No,” he says pointedly. “Striking set. I left my sweater back there.”

“Oh.”

The drama club is done for the year, and the theater is empty when they enter. June isn’t entirely sure what she should do with herself –– she’s not in drama club, and has never been comfortable on stage –– but, after a moment’s hesitation, follows Josh behind the curtain.

He’s looking through a pile of props, apparently for his sweater.

“Do you have any work for tomorrow?” he asks.

“Not really,” she admits. “I should be reading for stat and English, but it’s not like I actually will.”

“Right,” he says. He stands up, sweaterless.

“Can’t find it?”

“Who do you think I would have been on the couch with?” he asks suddenly. June had no idea, until now, how close he was. She can feel the edge of his breath on her cheek.

“I don’t know,” she says, feeling the blood rise to her face. Why is he doing this? ”I don’t follow your every move.”

“You must know I wouldn’t do something like that,” he says, his voice incredulous. “You’ve known me all year. I’m not the type. Am I?” He shifts his weight, and his freckled chest falls into the slit of light allowed in between the curtains. The cross that lies there shimmers; his fingertips rest on its surface.

“No,” she says, stepping back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have joked about it.”

“But who?” he asks, stepping forward out of the light to close the distance again. “Really –– I want to know. Is there some rumor?”

“No,” she stammers. “Nothing like that.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

Silence falls like a velvet curtain. June can’t see well enough to make her way out, but she feels as if Josh probably isn’t so keen on giving her a ride anymore. Neither of them are thinking about Josh’s sweater.

He speaks again without warning. “I’m glad school is almost out.”

“. . . why? You like school, right?”

“It’s a rumor mill.” Something falls next to their feet –– his messenger bag, June realizes. He’s dropped it. “I don’t like people talking about me, or people I care about.”

Another thud. Her backpack.

“Josh? . . .”

“Drama club’s over,” he says softly. His face is an inch from hers. “No one’s coming back here.”

June takes another step back, and finds her shoulders against the smooth wall of stage right.

“Josh, you just said ––”

“I’m not the type,” he agrees, this time leaving space between them. “No. I’m not the type to sleep with freshmen because I know I can, to run around sowing my wild oats because I’m a stupid hormone-driven teenaged male –– no. I’m not.”

“Then ––”

“But,” Josh interrupts, “I’m human, and as such have flaws.”

“Right,” June concedes, now uncertain. Where the hell is he going with this?

“Such flaws being shortsightedness, irrationality, et cetera.”

“We all have them.”

“You too?” She can hear the smirk in his voice.

“Well, yeah,” she admits, shrugging against the wall behind her.

“And as such you experience emotions that are troubling, illogical, and overall just a pain in your ass?”

“Sure.”

“Like jealousy?”

“Yes.” The image of a freshman girl pressing her ill-covered chest against Josh springs into June’s mind. He planted it there, unknowingly, when he assured her he would never sleep around, and now it boils inside her, she grits her teeth ––

“Like hatred?”

“Yeah,” she says, a little impatiently now.

“Like love?”

June didn’t notice him stepping closer, but now he is there, warm and moist as the summer air. She cannot move.

“Yes,” she confesses, pressing herself into the cold blue paint as if she could escape through it. Her voice trembles, and her heart pumps adrenaline through her body faster than her mind can correct it: She wants to run, but she wants to stay. She wants him, and for so long, she’s been afraid to admit it.

And do you . . . ?

His hands find June’s, and they press her wrists gently against the stage right wall.

“Then you’re going to have to forgive me,” Josh whispers, his quiet words both shocking and calming, “for my flaws –– for my love.”

June has no time to respond before his lips silence her. All the worry, all the heat bottled in her chest ripples outward, warming her from heart to fingertips. Josh’s hands slide down her arms to her waist, and she wraps her arms around his neck, playing with his hair.

The kiss breaks after an eternity –– an eternity far too short for the tastes of Josh and June.

She opens her eyes.

“Forgiven,” she whispers.