Page 56 of All That We Are Together
“What are you doing out here, babe?” Axel asked. He looked so much older…
The week before, he had turned twenty, and we had gathered in the yard to celebrate, even though he complained he was too old for that kind of party. I didn’t understand how you could betoo oldfor your birthday, and I wanted all of us to keep getting together for that kind of meal forever, even if he was ninety or more and we all had wrinkly skin.
“You here to see Dad?” I asked.
“Yeah, is he inside?” He pointed to the door.
“He’s arguing about something dumb with Oliver.” I rolled my eyes, and he laughed and rubbed my head. “Wait, stay here a bit. I need to know something.”
Axel sat down beside me on the wood floor. The wind was warm, and he was wearing a shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a palm tree print. I liked it.
“What do you want to know?”
I’d almost forgotten. I tucked away the magazine I was reading because it had something on the cover like “Three Foolproof Tricks to Kiss Him until He Has a Heart Attack.” I blushed while I looked for the right words, but then I just came out with it:
“Axel, what’s it feel like to kiss?”
“Kiss?” He looked shocked.
“Yeah. When a boy kisses a girl.”
He hesitated a moment before replying, “At your age, you shouldn’t be interested in that.”
“The other day, a friend of mine kissed a boy.”
“Well, then…your friend made a mistake. And the thing about making a mistake when you kiss is, you can’t take it back. You should only kiss a person you really love, Leah, understand?”
“Yeah. Like how I love you,” I said.
Axel grinned and looked away.
“Not like that, babe. What I mean is one day you’ll meet a person you like so much that you won’t know how to tell them what you feel without using your mouth.”
“Ugh! Gross, Axel!” I laughed.
I thought about what he said awhile as I toyed with the end of one of the braids my mother had put in that morning.
“What about you? Have you kissed lots of people?”
“Me?” Again, Axel looked surprised.
“Yeah, dummy, who else?”
His expression turned serious. I loved that about Axel, the way he seemed to believe I would understand everything he said to me. That made him different from my brother and everyone else. With him, I felt stronger. Older. When I needed an honest response to a question, I always turned to him.
“Can I tell you a secret?” I nodded right away. “I was a little like that friend of yours, and I made a lot of mistakes. That’s why I can tell you what you shouldn’t do. And you know what? I never have given a real kiss.”
I didn’t know exactly what areal kissor what afake kissmight mean. Maybe it had to do with how long they lasted, I thought, and I was about to ask him when my father came outside.
“Axel! I didn’t know you were already here. Be a good boy and come up to the studio for a moment before you take off with Oliver.”
I stretched out on the ground as they went inside and their voices trailed off. And I thought of kisses on that summer night, about how hard it was to make the right choice and about how I needed to talk to Blair about all this as soon as possible.
47
Axel
I sat down in front of the desk and looked at the painting Leah had done of our sea beneath a stormy sky. I ran my fingers over it, as I’d done before, feeling the irregular edges, the layers of paint, the mistakes she’d tried to cover up. Then I did it: I grabbed a kitchen knife and very slowly scraped the paint off one of the corners with the tip. I bent over and gasped as I saw among the dark flakes a few lighter ones, cobalt blue in color.