SO THAT NIGHT HE
smuggles me past his parents and up the stairs to his
bedroom. And the next night. And practically every night for the past week.
And each day things seem to go just a little further, his hands wandering over
my body with just a little more freedom, like he’s testing the limits.
But this is it—the night. I decided before I even got to his house. He told
me earlier his parents are out of town at his cousin’s wedding. Perfect.
Because I can’t stand the anticipation of it anymore. It needs to just happen
already. So I can stop being scared every second we’re together. Worrying
about what it will be like, what he’ll do, how he’ll act, if he’ll hurt me. And me
—what I’ll do, how I’ll feel.
Except tonight, with my mind all made up, I’m more than scared. I’m so
terrified I’m almost unable to breathe. I think I feel a rash working up my
fingers to my hand to my wrist to my forearm to my whole body to my brain,
and, oh God, I have this bullet stuck inside of me and I might throw up.
We stand next to his bed. He moves in to kiss me.
Be normal. Be normal, Edy,
I tell myself.
Be normal
, I repeat in my head.
Now. I take a breath and pull away from his kiss. I start unbuttoning my shirt
—one, two, three, four, five, six buttons. My hands are shaking. They barely
work. God, why did I pick a button shirt, anyway? I look up. He’s staring at
my new bra. It’s lacy and purple and matches my underwear. I let the shirt fall
off my shoulders. I try, inconspicuously, to glance at my arm. It looks fine, no
rash. I’m fine. I’m fine and this is fine—I exhale—everything is fine, fine, fine.
I coax the heels of my sneakers off with my toes and nudge them to the side. I
unbutton my jeans, unzip them, slide them down over my hips, my butt, my
thighs.
I look down at my feet. Socks. You can’t have sex in socks—that’s idiotic. I
try not to tip over while I pull them off and stuff them in my shoes. The floor
feels like ice on my feet. He’s still fully dressed, just staring, making me feel
ugly and stupid.
I start thinking maybe he’s disappointed with what he sees; I know, of
course, I’m not the prettiest, not the sexiest. I feel my arms twist together in
front of my chest. I suddenly want to run. Run far and hard and fast, away
from him, myself, my life, my past, my future, everything.
He snaps out of it right away. His shirt brushes against my skin as he pulls
it up over his head and lets it fall on top of my pile of clothes. His socks pull
off with his sneakers. The space between us rapidly closing in—his hands, on
my waist so suddenly, make me flinch, no jump, no
lurch
away from him like
some kind of wild, deranged rabid animal. I stumble over my shoes and my
legs crash into the bed frame. He pulls back, looking confused. I’m so stupid.
My face burns. I want to die-hide-disappear.
“Sorry,” we both say at the same time.
“Are you okay?” He extends an arm as if to help me stabilize, but doesn’t
dare touch me again.
“I’m fine,” I snap.
He takes a step back, puts his hands in his pockets, and tries very hard not
to stare at my bra. “Listen, you don’t have to—I mean, we don’t . . . have . . .
to . . . if—”
He stops talking because I’m unbuttoning his pants. He stops thinking
because now I’m unzipping them. He stops breathing because I pull his hands
out of his pockets and put them on my waist again. And then my heart and
lungs and brain stop too because my underwear are suddenly around my
ankles and so are his and I feel his body against mine and then we’re in the
bed and our legs are tangled and things are happening so fast and his hands
are all over me and my hands are shaking and I don’t know where to put
them and I hope he doesn’t notice.
He stops kissing me. I open my eyes. He’s looking down at my naked body.
I, too, look down at my body. But all I can see is just one huge, gaping wound
that somehow seems to still hurt everywhere sometimes. I hope he doesn’t
notice that, either.
He touches my skin lightly like it’s something that should be touched
lightly, and he speaks slow when he says, “Eden, you’re really—”
“Shhh, please, please.” I stop him before he can finish. “Don’t say
anything.” Because whatever he thinks I am, I’m not. And whatever he thinks
my body is, it isn’t. My body is a torture chamber. It’s a fucking crime scene.
Hideous things have happened here, it’s nothing to talk about, nothing to
comment on, not out loud. Not ever. I won’t hear it. I can’t.
He looks at me like I’m crazy and mean and rude. “I was just gonna say
that you’re—”
And since maybe I am crazy and mean and rude, I interrupt him again, “I
know, but just don’t. Please don’t say it, whatever it is, just—”
“Fine, okay. I won’t.” He looks like maybe he thinks this has just officially
stopped being worth it.
I concentrate hard on doing this nicely. And I try not to look at his body
because his body terrifies me. But I take my arms and wrap them around his
back, my fingertips tremble against his skin, tracing outlines of bone and
muscle. I pull him down so that his chest and stomach touch mine. He kisses
me carefully, like I might be this fragile thing that needs to be handled with
caution. But it feels too nice, too sweet, too meant for someone else, someone
more like who I used to be, or rather, who I would have been.
He reaches for something from the nightstand next to his bed. I only
realize what it is when he tears the wrapper open. The sound rips through my
brain. It shakes something loose inside of me. And it’s from this shaken place
deep within that I want him to know. To know everything. I want to stop time
and tell him every moment of my life right up until this one. Because he has
no idea who I really am. I want him to know how innocent I still feel right
now, somehow. To know exactly what I’m entrusting him with. But it’s all too
much to be held in this small, urgent space.
I can’t keep my thoughts still long enough to even understand them.
My heart races dangerously fast. My skin burns. My chest tightens, my
lungs seem to go rigid. I’m not breathing quite right, I know that much. My
fingers and toes tingle. Things begin to go out of focus, then back in, and out
again. Like looking through a kaleidoscope, it makes me dizzy—the room, the
way it’s spinning—the way the world ceases to make any sense at all. I hear
this buzzing in the background, like static. Static pulsing through brain waves,
electric currents floating around in this strange place, making the air feel
nervous, activated somehow.
“You okay?” he asks softly. I nod. Of course I’m okay, of course. “Okay,”
he breathes in my mouth, as he moves in to kiss me again, stroking my face
and hair so gently. This, I’m sure, is the way he always kissed his perfectly
respectable, perfectly normal, well-adjusted ex-girlfriends—those soft,
breakable creatures that never harbored secret bullets in their guts.
He shifts his weight off of me. In all my planning and preparing and
imagining, the realness of this moment had escaped me. Just a year earlier, I
was still wearing those damn days-of-the-week underwear and now I am
lying on my back, naked in a bed, watching a guy I barely know put on a
condom. This is real. This is actually my life. And it’s happening. It’s
happening right now. No turning back. Not that I want to. There’s nothing to
turn back to—nothing good, anyway. I want to get as far away from the past
as possible, be as different from that girl as I can.
“Okay, you’re sure?”
I nod.
I’ve only been this terrified once. I can feel my heart pumping. I can feel
the blood, at first, rushing through my veins, but then I get the distinct feeling
that it’s stopped rushing, stopped pulsing, stopped coursing, and is just
seeping out, uncontained, flooding my whole body and I’ll surely be dead
soon.
I focus my eyes on this tiny crack in the ceiling. It starts in the corner by
the door and branches out like a lightning bolt, frozen in that one
nanosecond of its existence, ending directly above the center of his bed. I try
to calm myself down, try to not be afraid. I focus on him, on the way he
breathes. And then I count all the ways he is not like him, the ways this is not
like that, the ways I am not like her. And then someone switches off the
circuit breaker in my mind and everything just stops. Like wires are cut
somewhere. I am disconnected, offline. And then things fade to this still,
calm, quiet nothingness.
I’m vaguely aware when it’s over. Vaguely aware of him touching my face,
vaguely aware of words coming out of his mouth. I am alive. I did it. I’m okay.
“You were so quiet, baby,” he whispers softly.
It’s like I’ve suddenly opened my eyes, except they were already open. And
there’s that lightning bolt I’m supposed to stare at, so I do.
“I didn’t know if you . . . you know?” He runs his fingers up and down my
arm; I pull the sheet a little tighter to my body. I can’t tell if it feels good or
not.
I can sense him staring at me, waiting for me to say something, looking
hopeful. “Yeah,” I whisper, trying to sound sure of myself. I know it’s the
right thing to say. He tries to put his arm around me, I think, but I don’t
budge. I don’t move. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next.
He seems to study my face longer than feels comfortable, and then finally
says, “I don’t know . . . you seem weird or upset or something.”
“I’m not upset,” I contest immediately. Although, as I listen to the edge of
panic in my voice, I do sound upset, so I add, softer, “Really, I’m not.”
“Why are you acting like this, then?”
“Like what? What am I doing?”
“Nothing,” he says quickly.
“Then why are you getting mad at me?” I feel my heart pumping faster
again.
“No, I mean you’re doing nothing.”
“What do you want me to do?” I sit up fast, suddenly aware that he could
take something from me that I hadn’t given. And apparently I hadn’t given
something he wanted. I grope around the bed frantically for any article of my
clothing. “I don’t know what else you want from me, but—” I’m not going to
wait around to find out.
Now he sits up too. “Wait, what are you doing? Are you leaving?”
I find my bra. “Yes. Can you turn around?”
“What?” He laughs.
“Can you not watch me get dressed?” My hands are shaking. I can’t get the
clasp.
“Are you serious?” he asks, a dumbfounded grin on his mouth.
“Yes. Can you please not watch me?”
“Not watch . . . what are you talking about? Just wait. Wait a minute,
okay?” he says, placing his hand over mine, uncurling my fingers. “Just stop.
For just a second. What’s happening?” he asks, his eyes locked on mine.
I can’t say what kind of expression I must be wearing—indifference, smug
hatred, maybe.
“It’s time for me to leave,” I say, my voice sounding really flat and
unaffected. “Is that all right with you?” I can taste the meanness in my mouth
as the words pass across my lips. And I’m not even sure why.
“You’re mad?” he asks in disbelief. “You’re mad at me?”
Am I mad? Maybe, but that’s not all. I’m sad. And still scared. And
confused, because I don’t understand why I’m still scared, why I’m still sad,
why I’m angry. This was supposed to fix things. This was supposed to help.
“Wow. Well, this is just perfect, isn’t it?” he mutters to himself, smirking,
but clearly pissed. “What, are you using this against me or something?”
“What are you talking about? I’m not using anything against you!”
He crosses his arms over his stomach, looking oddly vulnerable; I pull my
knees into my chest and wrap my arms around them. “Look, I don’t—I’m not
—I don’t know what this is.” He’s stumbling over his words. “I mean, is this
like some sick game to you or something? Like some test, or something? Or is
this just what you do with guys? Because that’s really fucked up.” He’s short of
breath, his voice shaking like he’s actually upset.
“Sick game? No.” Test? Okay, maybe. “I thought I was doing you a favor,
okay?” I tell him, even though that’s a total lie.
“Doing me a favor how? By making me feel like I’m forcing you to do
something you don’t want to do?” Then he adds, quieter, “It’s more like the
other way around, if you really wanna know.”
It takes me a second to untangle the insult. “Wait, so I’m forcing you? Oh
my God, I don’t believe this!” It feels like my mind is being turned inside out,
this situation getting completely backward.
“That’s not what I’m saying, okay. I just—I mean—you act like—”
“I have somewhere to be,” I lie, interrupting him. I stand up and pull the
sheet around me, getting dressed as fast as I can. “I’m not going to sit around
for this!”
I pull my shirt on over my head as I step into my shoes. I look down at
him, sitting so still and quiet, just watching me. Then he says, not yelling, but
almost whispering, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me!” I hear the volume of my voice mounting; I
feel all my muscles going tense and heavy. “I just don’t like wondering what
you’re really thinking, what you really want from me!”
“How the f—” he starts, but then stops. “How do you think I feel?”
“Forget it!” I try to stay calm even though I’m so furious I’m shaking. I
head for the door, but turn around to look at him, feeling some kind of
pressure building up in my throat—pulsing words wanting to be screamed:
“Just fucking forget it!”
This is this first time I’ve ever said the f-word at another person, out loud
like this. As I look down at him, staring up at me like I’m insane, I feel my
eyeballs boiling in their sockets. And then his image before me begins to blur
and wrinkle like a mirage—I have to leave because the tears, I know, are on
their way. And I don’t cry in front of boys. Not anymore. Starting now.
I storm out of his room. He calls my name once, halfheartedly, like out of
obligation, not because he actually wants me to come back. I slam the door
behind me as hard as I can. I wipe at my eyes. I walk home.
The next day at school I see him walking down the hall in the midst of his
herd. So, of course, I pretend to be absorbed in finding something in the very
depths of my locker, pretend not to even notice. They’re the kind of people
who always have to be drawing attention to themselves—talking just a little
too loudly, taking up just that extra bit of space, laughing like goddamn
hyenas in that way that always makes me wonder if they’re really laughing at
me. I hate those kinds of people and yet I can’t quite force myself not to look
as they pass.
There’s no chance of salvaging the wreckage of last night. I watch him say
something to this Jock Guy he walks next to, and then Jock Guy looks at me.
Looks at me as if he’s calculating some unknown criteria in his mind. I let my
eyes meet Josh’s for just a fraction of a second. But I feel like I might die or
throw up, so I promptly return to examining the contents of my locker, trying
to remember how to breathe.
“Hey,” he says, suddenly leaning against the locker next to mine,
incredibly close. People were certainly staring now.
“Hi,” I reply, but I feel so stupid, stupid, stupid—the way I screamed at
him, the way I left. The way he sat on his bed looking at me.
We just stand in front of each other with nothing to say, both of us trying
to pretend we don’t notice the eyes of every passerby on us. I shut my locker,
forgetting the one thing I actually needed for my next class. I fidget with the
dial of my combination, spinning it around and around, unable to stop.
“So . . . ,” he finally begins, but doesn’t follow up with anything.
And more silence.
“Oh, just kiss and make up already!” Jock Guy shouts from across the hall.
Josh waves his arm at him, in a get-the-hell-out-of-here kind of way.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Look, I know you’re still mad, but—”
“What did you say to him?” I interrupt.
“What?” He turns around to look at his friend walking away. “Nothing.”
“Well, not nothing; obviously you told him something. I saw the way he
looked at me just now.”
“Eden, I didn’t say anything. Look, I’m just trying to apologize here.”
“Don’t. Don’t apologize, it’s fine, it’s just—it’s whatever.” The truth is that
I don’t want to have to apologize.
“Well, I am sorry.” He pauses, waiting for me to tell him it’s okay, waiting
for me to apologize right back. After it becomes clear I’m not going to, he
adds, “I’m not sure what for, but anyway . . . here.” He holds out a folded-up
piece of paper for me to take.
“What is it?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes; he’s getting really good at that. “It’s not anthrax. Jesus,
Eden. Just take it.”
I take it.
He walks away without another word, without so much as a glance back at
me.
Eden,
I feel bad about last night. I still don’t really know what happened,
but I’m sorry. My parents are still out of town, so if you want to come
over later, you can. I want you to, but I’ll understand if you don’t. You
could even stay over. We wouldn’t have to do anything, I promise. We
could just hang. It doesn’t matter to me. . . . I just want to see you. We
have a game tonight, but I’ll be home by eight. I hope I’ll see you
later.
J
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