Read The Color of Heaven - 09 - The Color of Time for Free Online

about either of those things because he had an impressive academic scholarship, and my non-refundable plane ticket had already been purchased. Jenn and I would fly home Labor Day weekend, and my beloved, beautiful boyfriend would start a new life in a new city with new friends. And new girls to meet.
    That’s when I realized that all summer long, I had been floating blissfully in an innocent bubble, believing I was Ethan’s one and only true love and nothing would ever exist outside the hours we spent together. He certainly made me feel that way when he used words like “I love you” and “forever.” But with September looming on the horizon, my doubts and insecurities about our future together began to erupt in a typically teenage, volcano-like fashion.
    “I can’t believe we only have one more week,” I said to him one lazy afternoon while we lay on our towels at the lake, drying off under the hot summer sun after a refreshing swim off the dock.
    He ran his finger across my shoulder. “I know,” he gently replied. “The summer went by way too fast. I don’t even want to think about leaving you.”
    I entwined my leg around his, rested my chin on his chest and peered up at him. “Me neither. I wish there was some way around it. Another way to be together.”
    He stroked my hair, lifted his head off the towel and kissed me softly on the lips. “I could fly out to Montana and visit,” he said.
    “Really? When?”
    He thought about it for a moment, then his eyes clouded over. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to come for any of the long weekends. My dad will expect me home for those. I’d have to sneak on a flight sometime…find a way to pay cash for it. I couldn’t use my credit card.”
    “Why not?” I asked, leaning up on an elbow. “Wouldn’t your parents cover that for you? You could see Montana. I’d introduce you to my parents.”
    Ethan sat up and I was forced to roll off him. “No, they definitely wouldn’t cover it,” he replied with a clear note of bitterness.
    “Maybe if they could meet me and see how much we love each other,” I suggested, “they’d understand and help us.”
    Ethan shook his head. “No, Sylvie.”
    “Why not?” I continued to press. “And why haven’t you ever brought me home and introduced me to them? Are you ashamed of me or something?”
    Rising to his feet, he strolled to the shoreline, picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the water. “You don’t understand.”
    “No, I don’t, and that’s why I wish you’d explain it to me.”
    For a long moment he stood with his back to me, gazing out across the calm, reflective water while ducks quacked in the distance. Then he turned.
    “Fine. Here it is in a nutshell. My parents are snobs and they have high expectations for me, because I’m their only son. They don’t want me mixing with the “locals” in Portland, except for Chris of course, because he’s our neighbor and they would never be rude to his parents. They want me to marry some rich society debutante from Park Avenue and end up president of a multinational corporation, just like good old dad. A chip off the old block.”
    I swallowed uneasily as I considered all of this: Ethan’s swanky lifestyle in New York City, the private jet, the sailboat at the yacht club in Cape Elizabeth.
    “Did they ever meet Corrine?” I asked with a sinking feeling in my belly.
    Ethan returned to sit on the towel beside me. “How do you think I met her? They love Corrine. They knew her parents from Dad’s Wall Street days and have been pushing us together ever since we were kids. It’s like some kind of arranged marriage or something. Dad would have been furious with me if he knew I’d ended it with her this summer, especially since she and her parents were staying with us that weekend. Thankfully, she didn’t tell them we broke up either. She’s kind of in the same boat as me. It’s the only thing we have in common. The only thing.”
    He