Between Never and Forever by Brit Benson

6

Two weeks of silence later,there’s a tap on my window in the middle of the night.

I glance at the clock, then shoot upright and hurry over to it.

Savannah hasn’t even looked at me since that day on the track, and I haven’t tried to talk to her again. I’ve watched her like crazy, though. I don’t know what I was expecting to see when I pushed open the window, but Sav standing with her backpack jammed full at her feet doesn’t surprise me.

I stare at her for a minute, but she doesn’t make a move to climb into my room.

“Are you coming in?” I whisper, hopeful.

When she shakes her head with a small smile, my chest aches.

“You come out.”

I look over my shoulder at my door. It’s closed. The house is quiet. If I tell her no, she’ll just call me a weenie. Besides, something in my gut is telling me I shouldn’t tell her no. So, I climb out. It’s awkward, and I basically fall on my face in the dirt, making Sav cover her mouth with her hand to silence a laugh.

“Nice,” she says between giggles.

“Shut it.”

I stand up and brush off my pajama pants. I don’t know how she does this all the time. I didn’t realize it was so hard.

“Well,” Savannah says, dropping her hands to her sides. “I wanted to come say goodbye.”

I stand up straight and shake my head.

“What do you mean goodbye? You said you wouldn’t run.”

“Never said that.”

She kicks some dirt on my bare feet. When she speaks again, her voice is softer, and I know this is real.

“I can’t stay here anymore, Levi. I’m—I’m gonna loseit if I don’t get out. I’d stay if I could. I swear. But I can’t. I can’t, Levi. So, I just wanted to say bye...and...and thank you for, ya know, bein’ my friend and stuff.”

“Savannah...”

Her name leaves my mouth and trails off. There’s no use trying to talk her out of it. She’s so stubborn. She won’t listen to me.

And anyway, she’s probably right.

“Where are you going to go?” I ask instead, and she shrugs.

“I got a few ideas.” She chews on her lip for a second. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want you to tell your momma.”

I just jerk a nod, and she kicks more dirt on my feet.

“Don’t forget about me,” she whispers, and my eyes sting.

“I could never.”

I mean it. I could never forget about her.

I look her over as she stares at the ground. Her hair is loose and wild like usual, blowing in her face with even the slightest breeze, and she’s wearing a pair of jeans and a shirt that are a little too big. They look like boy’s clothes.

At first, I wonder where she got them, and then...

“Are those my clothes?” I blurt out, and she meets my eyes with a smirk.

“I’d say I was borrowin’ ‘em but you probably won’t get ‘em back.”

“How’d you—” I shake my head. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

She laughs, and then crouches down quickly and starts digging around inside the front pouch of her backpack.

“I almost forgot.”

She stands back up and holds something out to me. When I don’t reach for it, she rolls her eyes and grabs my hand, pressing something cold and rigid into my palm. When I turn my hand over to inspect it, my jaw drops and my eyes go wide.

It’s the key to my bike lock.

The bike that was stolen from my house in the middle of the night.

I look up at her and cock my head in question. She bites her lip and lowers her eyes, almost looking shy, and my throat burns.

“It’s behind the shed at The Pit,” she says to the ground.

“You found my bike?”

She scrunches her nose and kicks more dirt.

“I’m sorta the one who stole it.”

“What? Why?”

She shrugs.

“The bus was boring, and your momma wouldn’t let you ride it unless you didn’t have your bike.”

My lips twitch into a grin.

“You stole my bike so I could ride the bus with you?”

My heart races a bit, and my stomach flips when she rolls her eyes, and her cheeks turn pink with a blush.

“Shut it, Leviticus.”

I swallow a laugh, but I can’t tame my smile. When she sees it, she smiles too, and our eyes lock. The moment stretches in the darkness, our faces lit up by the moon and stars and the neighbor’s outside porch light.

And then it really hits me.

I’ll never see her again.

This is the last time I will ever see Savannah, and suddenly, I want to cry.

“You could come with me,” she says quickly, her voice cracking.

For a few seconds, I consider it. I want it. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything. But then the questions flood my brain, the reality of it all, and I shake my head no. She jerks a nod.

“Okay. Well...”

She lifts her hand to wave, her mouth in a forced, tight smile, and my body moves on impulse. I take two steps to close the distance, place my hands on her shoulders, tilt my head downward, and put my lips on hers.

They’re soft and warm, and my skin erupts in tiny goosebumps. I feel her breathe out through her nose, tickling my upper lip, and I realize that I’m kissing Savannah Shaw. And she’s kissing me back.

For a split second, anyway.

Until she shoves me backward and slugs me in the shoulder.

“Ouch,” I say with a grunt, gripping my shoulder and rubbing at the sting.

“What the hell was that?” Her hand is pressed to her mouth and her eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen them. “You just kissed me?”

I open my mouth to say something, and then close it. I shake my head a bit to clear the fuzz. I just kissed Savannah.

"Yeah,” is all I say.

“What the hell for?”

I shrug and decide to go with honesty.

“You’re leaving. I’ll never see you again. I wanted to know what it felt like. I...Well, I guess I wanted you to be my first one.”

She stares at me for a minute, eyebrows slanted, and my cheeks heat under her scrutiny. I start to feel bad. I start to regret it, even though I don’t want to, and then she smiles.

“Oh,” she says. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to ask first?”

I shake my head slowly. I didn’t know that.

“Well, go ahead.” She takes a step toward me. “Try again.”

I narrow my eyes with suspicion.

“Try what again?”

She huffs and puts her hands on her hips.

“The kiss, Leviticus. Do it the right way. If we’re gonna be each other’s firsts, we might as well do it right.”

“That’s not my name,” I mumble on instinct, but I’m already taking the last step toward her, so we’re just a few inches apart. I take a deep breath and square my shoulders.

“Close enough,” she whispers.

At first, I think she means our bodies, but then I realize she meant my name. I shake my head just a tiny bit, give her a small, exasperated smile, and then I do it.

“Savannah. Can I kiss you?”

She cocks her head to the side and lifts her eyes to the sky, tapping her chin with her index finger like she’s considering my question. I raise an eyebrow at her, making her laugh. Then she gives me a curt nod that makes my excitement spike.

“Yeah. You can kiss me, Levi.”

Slowly, with my stomach full of butterflies, I lean in and kiss her for a second time. For a moment, we just stand there, lips pressed together, and I bring my hands to her shoulders again. Her wild hair tickles my nose, but I don’t pull away. Then, I feel her mouth open the smallest bit, so I do the same.

My whole chest is on fire. My heart is racing, and I have to remind myself to breathe.

Nothing has ever felt like this.

Her breath is hot when it mixes with mine, so different from the cool night air I was just breathing, and when her tongue touches mine, my body quakes with a shiver. She glides her tongue over mine, and I feel her move closer, erasing all the space between us that was there before.

I grow bolder, moving my tongue a little more, mimicking her movements. It’s weird, warm and wet, but nice.

My fingers tighten on her shoulders. I want to keep her here. I don’t want her to leave. Not now that I know how this feels. Savannah is usually so prickly, so hard. I didn’t know she could feel so soft.

Too soon, she ends the kiss, closing her mouth and pressing her lips to mine one last time before taking a giant step back. My hands fall from her shoulders, and we stare at each other. Her chest is heaving, just like mine, and I can tell from the heat on my face that I have a matching blush, too.

“Well...” she says quietly.

“Well?”

I watch as she reaches up and brushes her lips with her fingertips, a small smile lifting her cheeks.

“Well, I guess that didn’t suck.”

“You’re such a brat, Shaw,” I joke with a scoff, and she narrows her eyes playfully.

“Better a brat than a weenie, Cooper.”

I puff out my chest and lose the smile, taking a step in her direction.

“Would a weenie have kissed you breathless?”

The sharp edge in my voice surprises even me, and when Savannah’s eyes flare and her mouth parts in shock, it stirs something deep in my stomach. She pulls her lower lip between her teeth and shrugs.

“Dunno,” she whispers. “Never been kissed before.”

My mouth twitches in a smile, triumph surging in my chest. Knowing I was her first kiss fills me with something I don’t understand. Pride or possessiveness, maybe. I’ll always be her first kiss. No one and nothing will ever change that. Doesn’t matter where she goes after this.

That kiss, her first kiss, will always belong to me.

“Savannah, I—”

“No,” she says quickly, stepping backward just as I step forward. “Don’t say anything else, okay? I gotta go. I need to go, Levi. Please.”

It’s the please that does it.

My shoulders drop and I plant my feet firmly on the ground. I nod once and suck in a breath.

“Okay.”

She smiles and takes a few steps backward, adding more distance between us.

“I’ll see ya around, Levi Cooper.”

“Will you?”

“I think so.” She purses her lips to hide her troublemaking smile. “I don’t think the universe is done with us yet.”

Her statement gives me hope. Makes me feel a little less like I’m losing something and more like I’m just loaning it out for a while.

“Wait,” I say quickly, reaching into my pocket and pulling the bike lock key back out.

I hold it up in front of me and mime an underhand toss twice before actually letting it go. Sav catches it with one hand. She looks from the key in her palm then back at me, brow raised in question.

“You can give it back when I see you next,” I say with a shrug. “Don’t forget.”

I watch her slide the key into the back pocket of my jeans—her jeans now, I guess—and her smile is bigger than I’ve ever seen it. She takes a few more steps backward.

“I could never,” she says softly, and then she turns around and disappears into the darkness.

I wait until I don’t hear her footsteps on the pavement anymore. I resist the urge to walk to the front of my house and see if I can see her down the road. Instead, I turn back to my window and attempt to climb back inside.

Once I’m finally over the window ledge, the weight in the room feels heavy. My skin prickles and I swallow around a lump in my throat. When I turn around, I find my mom staring back at me. She doesn’t even try to mask her fury, so I don’t bother to explain myself. When she reaches up and flips the light switch, dread coils in my gut.

The Bible is already lying open on my bed, and Dad’s belt is in her hand.

I grit my teeth. It’s been a while since she’s used the belt. Years. But despite the time, I know what she expects from me. I haven’t forgotten.

“Now,” she hisses.

Slowly, I walk toward her, but instead of cowering, I keep my eyes locked on hers. This time, I don’t look away until the last minute, when I have to turn around and face the Bible on the bed.

“Pants,” my mom seethes, and I obey, tugging my pajama pants down until they pool at my feet. My movements are jerky, but with anger, not fear. Then I brace my hands on the bed and set my eyes on the Bible.

It’s open to Matthew 15:4 like I knew it would be. I breathe through my nose slowly.

“Read.”

I keep my mouth shut and I don’t move. I used to think I deserved these punishments, but I can’t for the life of me understand why helping someone like Savannah should warrant this. My mother is wrong. She and my father are both wrong. I grit my teeth and say nothing.

I will not read Matthew 15:4. I won’t read it ever again.

“Read!” my mother shrieks.

When I still don’t speak, I hear her raise her arm seconds before the belt cracks on my backside. A muffled cry escapes me as I bite my tongue. I taste blood in my mouth, and my eyes sting, but I still don’t read the verse like she wants.

I stay quiet. I refuse to speak.

It doesn’t matter.

She’s going to use the belt either way.