Free Where I Want to Be by Adele Griffin Page A

will be from now on. Now the daughter left over has to be daughter enough for two.
    The thing is, I’m not sure if I’m ready to face Maine again. Last August turned out to be our last family trip, when we went up there to spend ten days at Uncle Dean and Aunt Gwen’s. I hadn’t wanted to go, and at first I rebelled in a passive protest, eating up all the minutes of my cell phone plan on rambling calls to Caleb, while Jane played pool and Ping-Pong tournaments with Dad and Uncle Dean, or annoyed Aunt Gwen by taking her little froufrou dog, Sartre, out on long mountain hikes that snarled his perfect doggy coiffure.
    But after a couple of days, Jane and I were acting like kids again. Braiding each other’s hair and making flower-chain bracelets and, in the evening, playing penny-bet poker or hearts. Or, when we felt more active, outdoor games of badminton. But those nights could get slow, too, and then I’d get antsy, throwing too much wood on the fire, or grazing for snacks in the kitchen, or reading the sexy scenes of Aunt Gwen’s romance novels. Aunt Gwen said there was an ice-cream parlor in town where kids hung out, but Jane only wanted to go to the movie theater, with family.
    “This is fun, isn’t it?” she asked me one evening as we sat in front of the fireplace, laughing at a game.
    “Sure.” I’d shrugged. It was okay in a plain-vanilla, family vacation way. The fun part was how normal Jane was acting. She was always better when it was just family, who could read her moods and knew all the things not to do or say. That night, watching Jane as she slept peacefully in the twin bed next to mine, I wondered why she couldn’t behave more like this in real life.
    She must have wondered the same about me. Without Caleb, I probably brought back memories of the kid sister Jane had liked best, too.
    But that wasn’t real life. I shouldn’t have to feel guilty about it.
    Miraculously, a few minutes and almost a dozen good-byes and I-love-yous later, I manage to hang up the phone without having to commit to the trip.
    “The parental unit is restless for a child,” I inform Caleb as I roll onto my back on the bed and stretch my arms over my head. It depresses me to imagine Mom and Dad sitting out on the deck and trading upbeat comments about the view when their hearts are sick with missing Jane.
    Caleb suddenly jumps over to the bed and in the next second is on top of me. “Watch out, my hair!” I squeak as the flats of his hands land on it anyway. “Ouchouchouch, Cay, get off! You’re worse than a puppy!”
    In response, he wriggles himself so that we’re hipboneto hipbone and toe to toe. Then he snuffles into my ear. “You smell so good, Lily-Lilliputian,” he murmurs. “All cleany, shampooy, shaving creamy girlie.”
    “Is that right?” The edge of Caleb’s nose is sharp, and his snuffling makes the hairs lift on my arms.
    “Mm-hmm.” Leisurely, he sniffs at my face, the underside of my chin and neck, then slowly back up to my mouth. “But ya know what else?” His voice is husky.
    “What?” My giggle escapes.
    “You’ll never stop tasting like—sturrr-awberries!” And then he licks me, a big, slurpy, puppy-dog lick, all the way up the side of my face.
    “Caleb, ugh!” But he’s got me keyed up and semi-breathless, and I don’t want him off me anymore. When his kisses turn serious, and soon enough they do, each one feels like it’s burning a tiny scorch mark in my skin.
    “But it’s almost eight,” I whisper eventually, reluctantly. “Georgia.”
    “Georgia,” he whispers back, “is also known as the Peach State. The capital of Georgia is Atlanta.”
    “No, no kidding. We’re late and we promised.” I nudge him halfway off as I roll out from under him.
    “Right.” Caleb lets me go and sits up slowly. “We wouldn’t want Georgia to miss any of her final five, fabulous party days. Geez, imagine if that was the biggest-deal thing you had to think about.”
    He’s as jittery