Families,
Lives.
“I didn’t think so,” he says,
Relief plain in his tone.
“What does that mean?” I demand.
The animal inside me thrashes again.
“You think the artsy, photographer girl
Can’t arouse the soccer star?”
“No, it means I don’t have to beat him up.”
“Why do you care?” I’m thrilled in a weird way at the thought of
Trevor punching Harris
For sleeping with me, but
Mostly confused that Trevor cares.
“We’re not friends.
You and I aren’t…together.”
He takes a step toward me, and
I see that it’s tentative,
Giving me a chance to escape if I want to.
I hold my ground,
Neither ready to run
Nor committed to staying.
“We used to be friends,” he says.
“And we used to be together, and
I miss you.”
He threads his fingers through mine, and
The feelings I have now aren’t
In the same realm as anger,
Or frustration,
Or fear.
His hand in mine
Feels warm and safe,
Completely unlike the frantic desperation
That courses through me when I’m with Harris.
He tugs me toward his room, and
I seize,
Thinking of Rose alone in our bedroom,
My mom’s watchful eyes, and
Harris’s willingness to wipe my mind clean
Through his kisses.
“I’M NOT SLEEPING WITH YOU EITHER,”
I say,
Every muscle in my body locked.
I am not following Trevor into his bedroom.
His chuckle is low,
Sexy.
It causes warmth to slide through my body, and
Reminds me of when we used to lie
Next to the lake,
Fingers tangled,
Eyes on the clouds,
Laughing, and
Talking, and
Kissing.
I remember the way he used to look at me,
With desire,
Not so unlike Harris.
I remember how his mouth felt against mine,
Soft yet insistent,
Completely unlike Harris,
Who kisses me with too much tension and
Too many clashes of teeth.
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” Trevor says,
His feet still shuffling in the direction of his room.
“I mean, I do, but not tonight.”
“Not ever,” I say,
“Because we’re not together.
I have a boyfriend, and
He’s not you.”
I keep my feet glued to the carpet.
“You and Harris won’t last forever.”
The gentle hiss of Trevor’s voice
Sends a tremor racing underneath my skin.
“You don’t know that,” I hiss back,
Mine much more menacing.
“Oh, but I do, Wings.”
He tugs on my hand again, and
I yank my fingers out of his.
“Come on,” he pleads,
“We’re not going to my room.
How about the terrace?”
All I can ask is,
“This place has a terrace?”
“I LOVE THE STARS.”
Trevor sits beside me,
Having released his grip as soon as we stepped onto the terrace.
He hasn’t spoken in ten minutes, and
I’d just started to drift.
“Mmm,” is all I can muster.
I don’t even bother to open my eyes
To see the magnificence of the stars.
Minutes pass, but
His simple statement has pulled me from the edge of sleep.
“What were you and Jacey talking about?” I ask.
“Jacey?”
“Yeah, yesterday morning,
Before first period.
I saw you guys arguing.”
My eyes open bleary but
I have not allowed myself to look at him so openly
Since our parents got married,
Not even through the lens of my camera.
I think of what images I could capture here,
Now,
On his terrace with his face highlighted by the moon.
His jaw is pronounced and smooth;
His eyes wide and bright.
He doesn’t notice me looking,
At least for the first few seconds.
When he notices,
He lets me look, and
Search, and
Examine.
Through the shadows around his face,
I can see all the way to the bottom of him.
I don’t know what I expect to find, but
It’s not helplessness, or
Vulnerability.
My fingers itch to use a manual flash,
Adjust my shutter speed,
Set the aperature, and
Solidify who he is.
“Jacey told me I had no chance with you,”
Trevor says,
Finally tearing his eyes away from my scrutiny.
“I disagreed.”
JACEY’S RIGHT
Sits on the tip of my tongue,
Unspoken, untasted.
No matter how much I want to be with him, and
No matter how sincere his words sound,
Jacey’s right.
I want to believe he misses me,
That he would be with me if things were different.
But I can’t, because those thoughts hold too much hope, and
Hope is a painful thing.
He leans forward,
Hands on knees,
Eyes on stars.
He turns toward me
As if in slow motion.
Trevor’s hand comes closer, and
Closer, and
Closer.
I don’t move mine,
Though my brain is screaming at me.
His fingers land warm and soft on mine,
Much the way I imagine falling in love to feel.
I swallow.
Blink.
Look into the depths of his eyes, and
Breathe in the fresh linen scent of his shirt, and
Turn my face to the stars he loves.
“THEY’RE LEAVING,”
I whisper into my cell phone to Jacey on the other end of the line
As I watch my step-father’s Escalade
Back out of the driveway and
Turn toward the city.
From my second-story window
I see Trevor’s profile in the backseat with Rose,
Who loves him as though he were her real brother
Even though they don’t spend much time together.
They’ll be gone until at least mid-afternoon,
What with the drive,
The brunching, and
The shopping.
“I’ll be right there,” Jacey says,
“I’m just down the block.”
When I see her beat-up Toyota round the corner,
I grab my purse and fly down the stairs,
Past the undusted chandelier and
The dishwasher that clicks on the heavy duty cycle.
I have to pull hard on the double-front doors, and
A flash of self-loathing slices through my body,
A reminder that I want to do this.
Jacey asks anyway.
“You sure about this?”
She traces the path of the Escalade
Though we aren’t going nearly as far.
“I held hands with Trevor Youngbloo
d,” I tell her,
“He said he wants to sleep with me.
He told me you said he had no chance.”
“You held his hand?”
Jacey doesn’t answer for a minute,
Only chews her bottom lip.
“I didn’t think he had a chance…”
I swear the heat from his fingers still seeps between mine,
Like the remembered warmth of a campfire.
“It was a sort-of hand-hold,” I say.
“He took my hand and led me to this terrace
I didn’t even know existed.
We looked at stars, and
He said he missed me.”
Jacey tosses me a worried look.
“Did he say anything else?
Try anything?”
I shake my head,
Somehow feeling even more guilty for the hand-holding
Now that someone else knows.
Still, it feels good to talk it out,
The way I should’ve been able to do with
Mom.
“Well, then, how did the sleeping-with-you thing come up?”
Jacey turns into the tattoo parlor parking lot,
Parks, and
Kills the engine.
I close my eyes as if that will drown out the hateful things
I said to my mother.
“I sort of told my mom I was sleeping with Harris, and
Trevor overheard—you know he’s not even supposed to be there on my weekends?—and
He asked me about it.”
Since Jacey isn’t driving, she turns toward me,
Her brown eyes wide and curious.
“And? Are you?”
I shake my head again.
“You know I’m not into Harris like that.”
“You sure kiss him a lot for someone who’s not into him like that.”
“Kissing is different,” I say,
“It’s harmless. Everyone kisses. It’s no big deal.”
Jacey cocks her head to the side as if to say,
Yeah, right.
“It’s true,” I insist. “The value of a kiss has significantly decreased.
Just watch The Bachelor.”
I remember a time when I believed a kiss meant something.
When the joining of mouths wasn’t trivial,
Wasn’t just something that happened at the end of every date,
With every boy.
I used to think a kiss meant
Trust,
Loyalty, and
Love.
I remember a time when kissing was mysterious,
Fantastical almost.
I imagined what kissing a boy would be like, and
It always happened with someone who looked at me like I owned the stars, or
At least his heart.
He might whisper something to me to make me laugh, or
He might cup my face in his wanting hands, or
He might say my name with so much need our only option was to taste each other.
My first kiss had been with Trevor Youngblood, and
He’d done all that.
He’d created the standard that all my future kisses would be compared to, and
Since I’d only kissed Harris after him,
Harris had definitely lacked the heat, and
Passion, and
Love
That Trevor’s kiss had given me.
After that, I paid more attention to how other people kissed.
How my parents pecked in the morning,
Not a true melding of mouths, but
A quick gesture.
I witnessed the stoner girl make out with her boyfriend
Across the hall, and
Their movement was wild desperation and groping hands.
I watched Jacey kiss her Homecoming date goodnight, and
It was chaste but soft,
With the leaning of bodies and the flutter of hands.
Mason Burns is now her boyfriend, and
He still looks at her with constellations in his eyes, and
Like he’s not sure where he’s allowed to touch.
But no one kisses the way Trevor and I had,
Like we needed the other to breathe,
Like the only thing that mattered was exploring each other,
Like everything could crash,
Burn,
Die around us, and
We’d be okay, because
I was his, and
He belonged to me.
“YOU HATE THE BACHELOR,”
Jacey brings me out of my kissing-Trevor memories, and
Reminds me what we’re doing here
Parked outside Happy Valley Tattoo.
“I know,” I say,
“But that doesn’t mean kissing means something these days.”
I release my seat belt and slide from her car.
“It does,” she insists,
“And you know it.”
She takes a few steps around the car and meets me at the entrance.
“If you don’t like Harris,
You should stop kissing him.”
“I like kissing him.” I silence the part about how the kissing makes everything
I don’t want to think about
Go away.
I move to pass her, but
Jacey puts her arm on mine.
“But you don’t like him.”
She’s sort of asking, and
Sort of not.
I shake my head.
“No, I don’t really like him.”
It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud, and
Jacey’s next words are in my head before she says them.
“You should break up with him then.
It’s not fair to use him like that.”
I nod.
“After we ink, okay?
I’ll call him after we ink.”
“YOU SURE?”
The tattoo artist appraises my bared foot.
“It’s gonna hurt real bad.”
“It’s not my first one,” I defend,
Showing him my other foot.
I have a pencil-thin line around my pinky toe, and
Another around my ring toe.
He shrugs as if to say,
Your call, and
Gets his instruments ready.
I band my skin to remind myself
Of the mistakes I’ve made that I can’t repeat.
One: Watching my mother and Darren kiss
In that needful,
Careful,
Bone-melting way that suggested they craved each other.
I’d never seen my mom kiss Dad like that.
I kept the secret for far too long, and
Whenever I look at my pinky toe and see that line,
I remind myself that truth is the great equalizer.
Two: Breaking up with Trevor
Without an explanation,
A discussion, or
Anything.
After I’d done that, I felt like
I needed to plunge my own hand into my chest
Just to make sure my heart was still there,
Beating.
When I look at my ring toe,
With it’s black line of permanent ink,
I remind myself that sometimes I can’t have everything I want.
“WHAT’S THIS ONE FOR?”
Jacey asks, knowing I don’t ink myself for pleasure, and
That if my mother knew,
She’d freak out and have me sent for laser removal.
I’m careful around her,
Only wearing close-toed shoes or
Toe rings.
It helps that I only see her twice a month
For about ten minutes, and
That the lines are so thin and so far from her appraising gaze.
“Cheating,” I say.
“I am not a cheater.”
What I mean is:
I am not my mother.
I don’t know if Jacey hears that or not.
It doesn’t matter.
Every time I look at my left pinky toe,
I’ll remember.
“It wouldn’t be cheating if you broke up with Harris,” Jacey says,
Closing her eyes as the artist brings the needle closer to my foot.
She’s right, and
I close my eyes too.
I hate needles
Just like Jacey does.
But I need this reminder.
Every zing of pain tells me
Not to get too close to Trevor,
Not to keep dating Harris,
Not to be like my no-good-adulterous mom.
“HE’S HERE,”
Jacey says, her eyes suddenly fearful.
“Do you need me to stay?”
“It’s Harris,” I say,
“He’s not going to hurt me.”
Jacey purses her lips and looks over my shoulder to Harris’s car
As if she’s not sure.
We’re still sitting in the tattoo parlor parking lot.
I’ve called Harris to take me to lunch, and
My toes throb as I move my foot
Though I have them bandaged and protected in two socks and a firm sneaker.
“Call me later,” she says.
“I want to know how it goes.”
I agree and switch from her dirty excuse for a car
To Harris’s immaculate vehicle without limping.
Harris doesn’t know about the tattoos, and
I don’t want to tell him.
“Hey,” he says, leaning over the center console for a kiss.
“Hey,” I respond, pretending not to see him as I reach for my seatbelt.
“Where to?” he asks,
Recovering quickly from my rejection and
Throwing the car in reverse.
I think of my right pinky toe,
The one banded for truth.
“Harris,” I start, my voice catching on his name.
“I don’t think we should see each other any more.”
“WHY?”
Of course Harris wants to know, and
He deserves an answer.
I can’t give him the real reason, but
Only a watered-down version of it.