Midday Clouds - The Charlie Swan Story

Chapter 64 (Eclipse 23)

Sue's pinky finger felt warm linked with mine.

We'd been idly strolling down the southern section of La Push Beach, maneuvering around slippery rocks, enjoying the glimpses of afternoon sunlight on our faces, when Sue had, very subtly, slipped her pinky into my hand, linking the two small digits together.

I'd completely forgotten. The look on my face must've made it plain to see, as Sue raised her eyebrows in mock disbelief.

"Wow, Charlie, the years really have done a number on that mushy brain of yours, haven't they?"

I blushed. "Well, come on now Suze, it's been, what, two decades? You gotta gimme some grace here."

"A promise is a promise is a promise," she said. "You can't just go making a promise and then forgetting all about it! What kind of a promise is that, anyway?"

The promise Sue was referring to was one that we had made, time and time again, when we were love-drunk teenagers. To love each other forever. Yeah, it was a little sappy, sure, but we were 17. It was the first relationship either of us had ever been in. The hormones, pheromones, whatever you want to chalk it up to, they were strong as all hell, and for two kids who had never tried a hit of that particular concoction before, it was enough to knock us off our feet.

"Not a very good one," I conceded. Sue smiled, dropping the mask of disappointment.

"Naahh, I'm just messing with you," she said, keeping our pinkies locked as we made our way past the crashing ocean waves. "I will admit, there was a lot that I forgot about, too. But hanging around with you again, like this, they're all flooding back to me. It's like remembering a dream – it's been coming back in patches."

"I feel the exact same," I said. The truth was, there were a few monuments of memory that I'd never forget, and all the other memories circled in their orbit. But those monuments – our break up in the woods, Harry asking my "permission" to ask Sue out – weren't exactly the best memories to bring up.

"Do you remember Billy's parent's room?" I asked. I knew she did; we'd talked about it around a million times when we were dating.

"How could you even ask me that! Of course! I've thought about it just about every time I've been over at his place – whether I wanted to remind myself or not."

"Hah. I feel the same."

"Oh please, I'm sure I wasn't the only girl from the rez you ever kissed at Billy's."

I scratched my head for a moment, genuinely trying to think back to those teenage years.

"No, no. You were the only rez girl I ever kissed... At Billy's." I said with a smile.

"Charlie!" She dropped my pinky and hit me in the shoulder. "You little skank! Who?"

"I'm not one to kiss and tell," I said, putting my hands up as though Sue had a gun.

"Well, it better have been just a kiss. You know I'm basically half related to at least half of the single women on the rez, right? If I find out that you banged my cousin or something I swear to god-"

"Woah woah woah, who said anything about banging?" I said. I could tell that Sue was mostly kidding around, but I could also see that it had been a shock for her to learn that I'd kissed someone else in her community. I figured I'd better spill the beans.

"It was Billy's older sister, Nora. Remember her? I think she's out in Oregon now."

"You had a secret forbidden love affair with Billy's sister?" Sue asked, genuinely surprised.

"No, it wasn't anything like that. She was, what, two years older than us? She kissed me on a dare from one of her friends while we were all over at Billy's. I was maybe 15. It was just a peck," I put on a mock tone of desperation. "It meant nothing to me, Sue, I swear!"

"Okay okay, playboy. But didn't you just tell me that you hadn't kissed anyone else at Billy's? I don't want this relationship to be built on a foundation of lies, after all."

"Well that's the thing, it was technically in the forest behind Billy's place, so," I smiled at her, and her face contorted into a mixture of amusement and frustration.

"Oh you are so dead, white boy!" She said, launching herself at me and tackling me down to the soft, damp sand. I was glad to be wearing my trusty waterproof jacket. We rolled around a bit, laughing, until Sue finally got the upper hand; she had my arms pinned, and was basically sitting on my stomach, her face a few inches away from mine.

"Got you," she said with a grin.

"Oh, please, I didn't want to hurt-"

"Just admit that I got you, chief."

"I could very easily get myself out from under here if I really wanted to."

"Then do it."

"Okay I w-" But she cut off my last word, and any intention I had of wrestling her off of me, with a kiss.

Unlike at the diner, there was no one else around to be concerned about. She tasted of the salt air and chamomile tea. We kissed like we'd been starved of one another for years, decades, and in a way, we had been. She kept her hands on my arms, and slowly moved her body further down on mine, eventually sitting just below my bellybutton. I could feel the warmth of her through my shirt and her jeans, and a small part of me felt as though this was forbidden; that I was cheating on Renee, that she was cheating on Harry, that we were engaged in some taboo tryst that I wouldn't have even dared to dream of, before.

She let go of my arms, and we rolled onto our sides, so that our clothed bodies could press against each other. The sand was cold but she was warm. So warm.

"Charlie," she said, softer than I'd ever thought her voice could be. "I really, really want you right now."

"I want you too, Suze."

"I've been thinking all day – all week, really – about those memories of ours, and one that I keep coming back to is... well, it's that evening we spent in the bed of the truck. Out in Port Angeles. Do you remember?"

"Of course I remember. How could I not remember?"

"Well, it was just a really special moment for me, and I hope it was for you, and I just... I want whatever happens next for us to be special, too, you know? And it's stupid but I can't help – I can't help but feel like we're doing something wrong, that this is wrong. I know it's not, because it also feels so right, too, but the feeling is there anyway, and I'm worried that the feeling will be even worse if we were to, you know, relive that moment."

"Yeah, I know exactly how you feel."

"So as much as I want to, I think maybe we should take it slow? God, I sound like such a teenager."

"No, Sue, it's okay. I totally understand. Look, you don't owe me anything, alright? I get that what we've got going on here is, uh, it's emotionally charged, to say the least. And I don't want anyone doing anything they're not enthusiastic about," I said. I could see that Sue felt badly for trying to draw boundaries, and I wanted to make sure she knew that it was more than alright – encouraged, even.

"I am enthusiastic about us, Charlie, really. But, yeah, those feelings have been nagging at me. Even with what Harry said, over and over again, about how he was alright with whatever I decided to do after he was gone... it still feels like I'm doing something that would hurt him."

We were still huddled together on the beach, our toes pointed to the ocean, our heads to the forested mountains of the rocky Washington coast. Just two bodies underneath a wide open sky, at the unity of land and sea. I thought, then, of just how small and insignificant it all was. How we'd be gone long before the trees behind us fell to old age, or the ocean below us ended its ebbing tide.

"It's okay, Sue," I promised. "I'm just happy to be here with you, is all. Everything else can come later, or not at all. All I need right now is this."

And I held her tightly in my arms as the sounds of the crashing waves engulfed us, and she kissed me again, and it all felt so much more right than it could possibly be wrong.