Winger

thanksgiving

THIS TIME, I REMEMBER TO take off my belt before I walk through the metal detector at the airport, so I avoid the humiliation of a second strip search from Officer Nutgrabber.

What happened to Joey messed me up worse than anything I ever had to recover from. And I’ll be honest. It scared me to leave Pine Mountain, even if it did mean spending four days with Annie. I couldn’t sleep those nights before Thanksgiving came.

As ridiculous as it sounds, I kept thinking something terrible would happen if I left Kevin and Chas.

But I knew I was being stupid and that I had to do something to make myself get over being afraid, if I was ever going to grow up and get better.

After all, I was supposedly on a mission to do just that—to reinvent Ryan Dean West—in my junior year at Pine Mountain Academy.

Well, fuck that.

We hold hands for the entire flight. I point out the window, grinning, and say, “Remember?” I kiss her when we cross the Columbia River, and Annie smiles and says, “You are such a pervert.”

I imagine that there will never be a moment in my life when I am not in love with Annie Altman. Being back on Bainbridge Island is almost like filling my lungs up with the same air again, the air that smells so green and thick with the ocean.

We walk out on the beach in the freezing and damp cold of the evening. Her parents watch us go, standing in the open doorway. But they leave us alone.

“I’m going to be better, Annie.”

“First thing tomorrow, we’re going for a run. Even if it’s raining. You can tear your clothes off if you feel like it, and we’ll jump in the hot tub when we’re done.”

“You’re asking for the Wild Boy to return, you know.”

And Annie laughs and takes off, running down the beach. I chase after her, but she lets me catch her too easily, and we kiss right there as her parents watch us.

I know it’s kind of ridiculous, but I realize now how wrong that old pervert Mr. Wellins is. Almost nothing at all is ever about sex, unless you never grow up, that is.

It’s about love, and, maybe, not having it.

What an old, delusional idiot he is.

But what do I know?

I’m just fourteen.