Tethered by L. D. Davis

least twenty-five strong. Laughter and constant talking and shouts to one another filled the air. Whenever anyone bought any kind of food, it was instantly shared with the people around them. It wasn’t unusual to see someone’s hand in my bucket of fries or to share a soda with three other people. Many years later I would look back on times like this and wonder how I made it through my teenage years without getting mono or some other highly communicable sickness from all of the sharing we did.
    I had so much fun. I felt so alive. I felt happy. It was one of few times in my life where I can say I was one hundred percent happy. One of the other times was sleeping in the arms of a certain guy.
    The crowd started to disperse a little after midnight. Many kids had a two hour drive ahead of them and even more had curfews. The few kids that were staying at the shore headed back towards their respective shore houses, hotels and motels, including us. Sam was up waiting for us when we got in, but she went to bed soon thereafter. Emmy managed to make it another hour, but she couldn’t stop yawning, she went into the bedroom we shared and went to bed, leaving me alone in the living room with Emmet.
    All night, I was always aware that he was near, even if he wasn’t in my immediate vicinity, but I was distracted enough to not let my thoughts stray to the ice-cream incident from earlier in the day. Now sitting only a foot away from him on the couch, it was all I could think about. I thought about going to bed just so I could stop feeling awkward about it.
    Since that morning over brunch, Emmet hadn’t tried to kiss me again. He had seemingly moved on. He started dating Stella “The Mistake” Cramer and I had done my best to pretend like I didn’t care. I was nice to her and even helped her pick out Emmet’s birthday present. He treated me like he used to, like an annoying kid sister and he stopped showing up at the empty lot to board with me. He was never mean to me, but sometimes there was coolness between us that stung. That tether, however, was very much intact. I could feel him wherever I went. I knew when he was close and I knew when he wasn’t. I didn’t know if he felt it, too. I wasn’t going to ask.
    As his presence on the couch became enormous and seemed to surround me, I got up. I wasn’t tired but I sure couldn’t sit there with Emmet as if everything was normal. I almost laughed. There wasn’t anything normal between us. I started towards the bedroom I shared with Emmy but then took a detour. I grabbed a room key off of the counter and started for the door.
    “Where are you going?” Emmet asked. It was an accusation.
    “For a walk,” I said over my shoulder without looking at him. “I’m not tired.”
    “You shouldn’t go out there by yourself,” Emmet warned and I felt him closer than before. I looked back and he was walking towards me.
    “I’m going for a walk,” I said it with irritation and with a note of finality.
    I went out the door and hurried down the hall towards the bank of elevators. This time when I felt the tether contracting, I got irritated. I crossed my arms as I waited for the elevator to arrive.
    “I don’t need you to take me for a walk,” I said dryly. I knew he was standing behind me.
    “Maybe I want to go for a walk, too,” he replied.
    “Isn’t it almost time for you to call your girlfriend?” I asked, referring to his nightly phone calls to Stella.
    “She’s not my girlfriend,” he said as the elevator doors slid open. He waited for me to step on and stepped on after.
    I looked at him with a look that said “Give me a break.”
    “We broke up on last night’s phone call,” he said as he punched the button for the lobby.
    “Why?” I asked. I was genuinely curious and maybe concerned.
    “She’s going to Oklahoma. I’m going to Harvard. Long distance relationships aren’t my thing.”
    “How did she take it?”
    “She thinks we can make it work,” he said