You won’t get good at it immediately.

It’s a craft you have to keep getting better.

You don’t get to Julliard, unless you practice.

If you want to get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice.

…or give them a lot of money.

Like anything else it takes ten thousand hours to get to mastery.

Just like Malcolm Gladwell says.

So write.

Fail.

Get your thoughts down.

Let it rest.

Let it marinate.

Then edit.

But don’t edit as you type,

that just slows the brain down.

Find a daily practice,

for me it’s blogging every day.

And it’s fun.

The more you write, the easier it gets. The more it is a flow, the less a worry. It’s not for school, it’s not for a grade, it’s just to get your thoughts out there.

You know they want to come out.

So keep at it. Make it a practice. And write poorly, write awfully, write with abandon and it may end up being

really

really

good.

When the crowd starts cheering I glance at the kids. They’re all just staring at the stage. “Holy shit,” Kiersten says. “This is awesome. That was incredible.”

“Why are you just now bringing us here, Will? This is so cool!” Caulder says.

I’m surprised they all seem to like it as much as they do. They’re relatively quiet the rest of the night as they watch the performers. Kiersten keeps writing in her notebook. I’m not sure what kind of notes she’s taking but I can see she’s really into it. I make a mental note to give her some of my older poems later.

“Next up, Will Cooper,” the emcee says. Everyone at the table looks at me, surprised.

“Are you doing one?” Lake says. I just smile at her and nod as I stand up and walk away from the table.

I used to get nervous when I would perform. A small part of me still does, but I think it’s more the adrenaline rush than anything. The first time I ever came here was with my father. He was really into the arts. Music, poetry, painting, reading, writing. All of it. I saw him perform here for the first time when I was fifteen. I’ve been hooked since. I hate that Caulder never got to know that side of him. I’ve kept as much of my dad’s writings as I could find, even a couple of old paintings. Someday I’ll give them all to Caulder. Someday when he's old enough to appreciate it.

I take the stage and walk up to the microphone, adjusting the height of it. My poem isn’t going to make sense to anyone besides Lake. This one’s just for her.

“My piece is called Point of Retreat,” I say into the microphone. The spotlight is bright, so I can’t see her from up here, but I have a pretty good idea she’s smiling. I don’t rush the words of the poem, I perform it slow so she can take in every word of it.

Twenty-two hours and our war begins.

Our war of limbs

and lips

and hands…

The point of retreat

Is no longer a factor

When both sides of the line

Agree to surrender

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve lost…

Or is it how many times you’ve won?

This game we’ve been playing for fifty-nine weeks

I’d say the score

is

none

to

none.

Twenty-two hours and our war begins

Our war of limbs

and lips

and hands…

The best part of finally

Not calling retreat?

The showers above us

Raining down on our feet

While the bombs are exploding and the guns fire their rounds. Before the two of us collapse to the ground. Before the battle, before the war…

You need to know

I’d go fifty-nine more.

Whatever it takes to let you win.

I’d retreat all over

and all over

and over

again.

I back away from the microphone and find the stairs. I’m not even halfway back to the booth when Lake throws her arms around my neck and kisses me. “Thank you,” she whispers in my ear.

When I slide into the booth, Caulder rolls his eyes. “You could have warned us, Will. We would have hid in the bathroom.”

“I thought it was beautiful,” Kiersten says.

It’s after nine when round two gets underway. “Come on kids, you guys have school tomorrow. We need to go,” I say. They all whine as they slide out of the booth one by one.

***

Once we get home, the kids head into the houses and Lake and I linger in the driveway, hugging. It's getting harder and harder to be separated from her at night, knowing she’s just yards away. It's become a nightly struggle not to text her and beg her to come crawl in bed with me. Now that our promise to Julia has been fulfilled, I have a feeling nothing will stop us after tomorrow night. Well, other than the fact that we're trying to set a good example for Kel and Caulder. But there's ways to sneak around that.

I slide my hands up the back of her shirt to warm them. They’re freezing. She apparently thinks so too and begins to squirm, trying to get out of my grasp.

"Your hands are freezing!" she laughs, still trying to pull away from me.

I just squeeze her tighter. "I know. That's why you need to be still so I can warm them up." I rub them against her skin, attempting to keep the mental images of tomorrow night from overtaking my thoughts at the moment. It's so distracting. I remove my hands from underneath her shirt and wrap my arms around her.

“So. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?” I ask her.

She shoots me a dirty look. “Do you want me to punch you in the face or the nuts?”

I laugh, but prepare to defend myself just in case. “My grandparents are worried the boys will get bored at their house, so they want to keep them at my house instead. The good news is, we can’t stay at your house now so I booked us two nights in a hotel in Detroit.”

“That’s not bad news. Don’t scare me like that,” she says.

"I just thought you would be a little apprehensive about seeing my grandmother. I know how you feel about her.”

She looks at me and frowns. “Don’t, Will. You know good and well it’s not how I feel about her. She hates me!”

“She doesn’t hate you,” I say. “She’s just protective of me.” I wrap my arms around her tighter and try to push the thought out of her mind by kissing her ear.

“Well, it’s your fault she hates me anyway.”

I pull back and look at her. “My fault? How is it my fault?”

She rolls her eyes. “Your graduation? You don’t remember what you said the first night I met her?”

I don’t remember. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I try to remember, but nothing comes to mind.

“Will, we were all over each other. After your graduation when we all went out to eat, you could barely talk you were kissing me so much. It was making your grandmother really uncomfortable. When she asked you how long we’d been dating, you told her eighteen hours! How do you think that made me look?”

I remember now. That dinner was really fun. It felt great not to be ethically bound from putting my hands all over her, so that's all I did all night long.

“But it’s sort of true,” I say. “We were only officially dating for eighteen hours.”

Lake hits me on the arm. “She thinks I’m a slut, Will! It’s embarrassing!”

I touch my lips against her ear again. “Not yet, you’re not,” I tease.

She pushes me away and points to herself. “You aren’t getting any more of this for twenty-four hours.” She laughs and starts to walk backwards up her driveway.

“Twenty-one,” I correct her.

She reaches the front door and turns and goes inside without so much as a goodnight kiss. What a tease! She’s not getting the upper hand tonight. I run up the driveway and open her front door and pull her back outside. I push her against the brick wall of the entryway and look her in the eyes as I press my body against hers. She’s trying to look mad, but I can see the corner of her mouth break out into a smile. Our hands interlock and I bring them above her head and press them against the wall. “Listen to me very carefully,” I whisper. I continue to look her in the eyes. She listens. She likes it when I try to intimidate her. “I don’t want you to pack a damn thing. I want you to wear exactly what you were wearing last Friday night. Do you still have that ugly shirt?”

She smiles and nods. I don’t think she could speak right now if she wanted to.

“Good. What you’re wearing when we leave tomorrow night is the only thing you’re allowed to bring. No pajamas….no extra clothes. Nothing. I want you to meet me at my house at seven o’clock tomorrow night. Do you understand?”

She nods again. Her pulse is racing against my chest and I can tell by the look in her eyes that she needs me to kiss her. My hands remain clasped with hers against the wall as I move my mouth closer to her lips. I hesitate at the last minute and decide not to kiss her. I slowly drop her hands and back away from her and make my way back to the house. When I reach my front door, I turn around and she’s still leaning against the brick in the same position. Good. I got the upper hand this time.

Friday, January 20th, 2012

Lake will never read my journal, so I should say what’s really on my mind, right? Even if she does read this, it’ll be after I’m dead when she’s sorting through my things. So technically, maybe one day she will actually read this. But it won’t matter by then, ‘cause I’ll be dead.

So, Lake…if you’re reading this…I’m sorry I’m dead.

But for right now, in this moment…I am so alive. So very much alive. Tonight is the night. It’s been worth the wait. All fifty-nine weeks of it. (Over seventy if you count from our first date)

So, I’ll just say what’s on my mind, okay?

Sex.

Sex, sex, sex. I’m having sex tonight. Making love. Butterflying. Whatever you want to call it, we’ll be doing it.

And I can’t freaking wait.

Chapter Six

I want today to be perfect, so I decide to skip school, clean the house and finalize our plans before my grandparents arrive. I can’t believe how nervous I am. Or maybe it’s excitement. I don’t know what it is; I just know I want the day to hurry the hell up.

On my way home from picking the boys up from school, we stop at the store to get a few things for dinner. We don’t have plans to leave until seven so I text my grandfather and tell them I’m cooking for them. I’m baking basagna. Julia said to wait for a good day to bake it again…and it’s definitely a good day. I’m running behind when I see their headlights through the living room window. I haven’t even showered yet and I still need to cook the breadsticks.

“Caulder, Grandma and Grandpa are here, go open the door!”

He doesn’t need to, they open the door anyway. Without knocking, of course. My grandmother walks through the door first so I walk over to her and kiss her on the cheek.

“Hi, Sweetie,” she says. “What smells so good?”

“Basagna.” I walk to my grandfather and give him a hug.