“I wouldn’t have to try, I would,” he cut in.
“Yeah, whatever, pu**y. You’d be crying like a baby by the time I was done with you. ” I kicked out with my heel, knocking his feet off the coffee table. “My point is, with Nell you can only hope you know she feels the same way. There’s just no telling how she’ll react. I think that’s what makes it harder to talk about with her than with me. My heart was beating so hard I was sure she could hear it when I told Becca I loved her. ”
“You told her?”
I nodded, feeling stupidly smug about it. “Yeah, man. Right after Winter Formal. ”
“Did she say it back?”
I grinned. “Yeah. ”
I think he must have caught the hints in the way I grinned. “What were you two doing when you said it to her?”
“You know that spot, up on the hill beneath the big oak, where we go to plink cans with my . 22?” He nodded. “We were up there after everybody left Ram’s Horn. ”
He lifted an eyebrow. “And?”
“It’s real nice having a truck with a bench seat. ” I knew I had a shit-eating grin on my face.
“Come on, man. Don’t hold out on me. ”
“This stays between you and me, Kyle. I’m serious. ”
“No shit. ”
“Remember the dress she was wearing for Winter Formal?”
He grinned and nodded. “She looked hot. ”
“Well, I discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra beneath it. ” My mind brought up the mental image of Becca beneath me, and I resisted the urge to shift positions. “She was wearing underwear, though. ”
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The silly grin on Kyle’s face told me he’d had a similar experience with Nell at some point. “I love those kinds of dresses. ”
“Almost as much as I love yoga pants. ”
“Whoever invented yoga pants had to have been a guy,” Kyle said.
“No shit. So you and Nell…?”
He shook his head. “Same as you. We’ve messed around, gotten pretty close, but we haven’t had sex yet. ”
“But you’re going to. ”
He nodded without looking at me. “Yeah, we will. Not sure when or where yet, but yeah. I know she wants to, and I know I do, obviously. ”
“Obviously. ” I smirked at him. “Have you gotten all her clothes off?”
He shook his head. “Not all of them all at once, no. I’ve seen all of her at one point or another, but it’s always been with other clothes on. ”
“Have you made her…you know…” I trailed off, not sure how to put it without sounding either stupid or like a tool.
Kyle wasn’t going to let me off that easy, though. He wanted to see me squirm. “Have I made her what?”
“Have you made her come?” I said it in a rush, staring at my thumbnail, knowing I was blushing like a little boy.
Kyle’s grin was equal parts shit-eating and embarrassed. “No, we haven’t gone quite that far yet. I think we’re both kind of afraid if we let it go that far, we won’t stop. ” He gave me a curious look. “Why, have you?”
I nodded, looking down at my feet. “Yeah. ”
“What was it like?” He sat forward.
“It was f**king awesome,” I said, laughing. “It was like watching her just…lose it. It was cool. ”
“How’d you…you know…get her to…make her—” He obviously couldn’t say it, which made me laugh.
“I honestly don’t know. You just touch her in the right place, and you can tell she likes it. Keep doing that, and eventually she’ll just…” I shrugged, grinning awkwardly.
“Touch her…down there?” He seemed eager and awkward. I felt odd talking about, explaining it, telling him about something I’d done and he hadn’t.
I nodded. “Yeah. ” I laughed with self-deprecation. “I honestly had no f**king clue what I was doing. I was just…trying to figure out what she liked, and then she was going crazy. ”
“Did she scream?” Kyle asked.
I could only nod, remembering. “Yeah. Pretty loud. I don’t think she meant to. Good thing we were in the middle of nowhere. ”
He lifted an eyebrow. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I asked, even though I knew exactly what Kyle was asking.
“Has she…have you—” He cut himself off and grabbed a coaster off the coffee table and hurled it at my head. “You know what I’m asking, you f**ker. ”
I laughed and swatted the coaster away. “Yeah, I know. And yeah. ” That was as much as I’d say.
“But you haven’t actually done it, though?”
I shook my head. “No. ”
“Aren’t you guys worried you’ll go too far?”
I frowned at him. “Dude, it’s…it’s not like that. It’s not something that you can just go ‘whoops, I slipped!’ You get carried away, yeah, but you can’t, like, accidentally take off all your clothes and accidentally have sex. I mean, once you start crossing physical lines, in terms of how far you go, it’s pretty much impossible to go back, though. I’ll tell you that much. ” I cracked my knuckles, and then tossed my phone in the air and caught it. “I mean, at first, just holding her hand and kissing her was exciting, right? And then once you know how awesome kissing is, you want to keep doing that. Then, once she lets you touch her a little bit, then you want to kiss her and touch her. Outside the clothes at first, right? And then once you feel her skin, it’s…touching her on the bra isn’t enough. ”
Kyle nodded his understanding. “That’s what I’m saying. You just want to keep going further. ”
“Yeah, but going from making out and, like, groping or whatever, to actually having sex? I personally don’t think you can just ‘end up’ doing that. Just my opinion. ”
The conversation drifted after that, but I could see the wheels in Kyle’s head whirling, much as they were in my own. For all that what I’d said to Kyle was true, Becca and I had been skirting the fine line between “messing around” and “having sex,” and I knew we had to either slow down or go all the way. We couldn’t keep up the balancing act much longer.
The fact was, I’d imagined what sex with Becca would be like, and I wanted it. Badly. And I was pretty damn sure she felt the same way.
* * *
Becca
I stared at the foil packet of pills in my hand, my emotions a roller-coaster within me. I’d had my cousin Maria take me to a clinic to get birth control, which was, honestly, one of the most frightening experiences of my life. Sitting in that waiting room, then sitting on the crinkly-paper-covered table/chair, getting examined…ugh. All of it taken individually wasn’t too bad, but knowing I was doing it with the intention of having sex with Jason, and knowing the doctor knew? I was so nervous I could barely breathe, barely swallow my own saliva.
Maria was a comfort, explaining what was going on, what would happen, all that—it was helpful. She was several years older than me, and was willing to take me to the clinic in secret. She told me it was best to wait till I was older, and that even birth control wasn’t one-hundred-percent effective, but she’d rather I be on the pill knowing I probably would be active anyway. She also told me not to let Jason pressure me into anything, and to come to her if I had any questions about anything.
I couldn’t tell Maria that I was putting more pressure on myself than Jason was. I knew he wanted to have sex, and I did, too. Even in my own mind it was hard to explain the way I felt about having sex with Jason. I wanted it, badly. I knew how it felt to touch him, to be touched. I knew what it felt like to have an orgasm, what it looked like when he did. I knew all this. We’d crossed every line there was, pretty much, except actual intercourse. I could easily imagine what that would be like, and I had, in fact, fantasized about it all too often. I’d even touched myself, imagining Jason above me.
We both knew where our physical relationship was going, that it was only a matter of time. So
why wait? Why keep putting it off? Why keep torturing ourselves? Jason kept telling me not to feel like we had to until we were both ready. Which…felt like pressure, to me. Unintentional pressure, but there nonetheless. And I didn’t know what to do about it. I didn’t want to disappoint him. I didn’t want him to feel like I didn’t want to be with him, but there was a sense of fear surrounding the whole thing. I was sixteen and a virgin; once I crossed that line, I couldn’t go back. It felt like the last step to growing up, to being a woman in truth. I knew I’d still be me, essentially. But how would it change me? I already felt different just from what he and I had done together.
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I pushed the first pill through the thin layer of foil and held it in the palm of my hand, a tiny yellow circle of chemicals that meant so, so much. According to the doctor at the clinic, since I’d started my period on Wednesday, I could take the pill today, Monday, and be protected right away. The doctor had given me a long, involved explanation as to why that was necessary, and how estrogen pills were different from progestin-only pills, but most of that had gone straight past me. I’d absorbed the strict warning about how important the timing was, but that was it.
I popped the pill into my mouth, washed it down with a sip of water from the bottle of Fiji on my nightstand. There, I was officially on birth control. I slid the packet of pills into the pink plastic makeup case, which was basically a compact but fit the circular packet of pills perfectly. I’d Googled how to hide birth control from your parents, and the compact case was the best solution I’d found. I tucked the compact into an inside zipper pocket of my purse and tried to calm my inner panic. I hadn’t told Jason I was getting birth control, but only because I hadn’t seen him since I’d gone. It had been a kind of last-minute trip. Maria had come over unannounced for a weekend away from college, and we’d gone shopping. Gossip about boys had turned into my relationship with Jason, which had turned into her pestering me about whether we were “active” or not. All of which led to her dragging me out of the mall and to the nearest clinic. She hadn’t taken no for an answer.
“Becca, you don’t want to be stupid about this, okay? Maybe you’re not sleeping with him yet, but you will. This way, if anything happens, you’re protected. ” Maria was very practical and matter-of-fact. “You’re only sixteen, and shouldn’t be having sex, but I was when I was your age, so I can’t talk. ”
I put in my earbuds and scrolled through my playlist on my iPod until I found something that seemed to speak to me: “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. I had my notebook open, a pen in my hand, waiting. I knew the feeling by now, the swelling in my heart and mind, the flux and flow of disconnected words inside me. I put the iPod on shuffle, closed my eyes, and waited, just listened. “We’re Going to Be Friends” by The White Stripes came on next, and god, did I love that song. I’d heard the Jack Johnson version first, and then The White Stripes version had come up on Pandora, and I’d been hooked. I still wasn’t sure who’d recorded the song first, and I didn’t care. “Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova started, and I nearly cried. I wasn’t sure why, what the rush of emotions was about, but something about that song brought everything I’d been dealing with to the fore.
My pen started moving, and I let the well of words open.
FALLING INTO US
How do I resist the gentle need in your eyes?
I don’t
I can’t
Not when that same heartdeep, soulspearing desperation is rooted within me
Tendrils of sunhot want wrapping around my soul
Like ivy up a brick wall
God, your eyes
Greener than summer grass
Greener than moss and sunlit jade
Sharper than obsidian
Gentler than clouds and feathertouch
They burn into me when we kiss
They scorch me when I score your skin with trembling fingernails
And I know, I know, I know
All too well
Where all this is going
I’ve seen it happen in my dreams
I’ve seen it play out in the steam-wreathed privacy of my shower
Where I touch my hot, shivering flesh
And imagine it’s you
Wish it was you
It’s been you
But not like we both want
And that’s where it’s going
We’re dancing on the edge of a knife
And I want to fall over
With you
But I can’t help being a little afraid
Of the adulthood lying on the other side
I’m afraid of what we can’t take back
Of giving away that last piece of my girlhood
Even to you
And yeah, I know, I love you
And yeah, I know, you love me
But yeah, I know, we’re still just kids
We’re as close to junior high as we are college
As close to twelve as we are twenty
And I don’t want to regret a thing
God, I’m so confused
And the only time I’m sure of anything
Is when you’re kissing me
And then it’s all too easy to forget
Everything but the way I feel
The way you feel so close to me
And I can’t help wondering
If that’s the smartest time to make such decisions
Exactly because I get so lost
Because it feels so much like falling
Into love
Into you and me
Being in love is scary
So much like falling
A frightening descent into
Beautiful madness
Yes, you and me
We’re
Falling into Us
And I don’t dare stop the fall
Because I need it far too much
I put the pen down and leaned back in my desk chair, staring out the window at the thick fog of skirling snow, letting the surge of words subside. “Comes and Goes (In Waves)” by Greg Laswell played in my ears, and I was grateful that the words didn’t apply, didn’t seem to be tailored to my emotions. So often, the music I listened to fit into my life, seeming like a soundtrack to my soul. I usually loved that, chose songs and artists for that reason, but with the poetry still juddering in my veins, I needed music that was just music, just sonic beauty for its own sake.
A knock on the door startled me out of my thoughts. “Who is it?”
“Ben. ”
“It’s not locked. ” I closed the notebook and stuffed it into my purse.
Ben came in and flopped onto my bed like he so often did. He didn’t light up this time, thankfully. “So what’s up with you, Becca?”
I shrugged. “Homework, school, Jason. ”
Ben grinned. “So what’s up with you and Mr. Football?”
I shot Ben a look. “We’re good. I like him. ”
“You got Mom and Dad to let you see him openly, huh?”
I smiled. “Yeah, that was all him, honestly. We got caught, so Jason basically confronted Father and made him realize if he let us see each other, he’d have more semblance of control. ”
“Pretty badass. Dad can be scary. ”
I nodded. “Not much scares Jason. ”
Ben eyed me quizzically. “You seem…better. Happy. You’re not stuttering at all. ”
I shrugged, hiding a grin. “I am. I’m happy. Jason is awesome. ”
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“So he’s to thank, then?” Ben dug in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone and flipped it between his fingers. “He’s taking care of my baby sister? He’s not pressuring you into anything, is he? I’ll kick his ass if I have to. ”
I laughed. “I love you, Benny, but you couldn’t kick his ass. And yes, he’s great. He’
s not pressuring me into anything, I promise. ” I gave my brother a stern glare. “And that’s all I’m saying to you. I’m not having that conversation with you. ”
Ben tapped his phone, and I heard the telltale sounds of Angry Birds. “Believe me, I don’t want to have that conversation, either, but you’re my baby sister, and I know Mom and Dad wouldn’t be open to talking about reality with you. All I’ll say is, be careful, okay? Please? I don’t want to see you on Teen Mom or some shit. ” He didn’t look up from his game, but I knew he was being as serious as my brother could be, in the only way he knew how.
I left my chair and slid into my customary place on my bed, against the wall with Ben on the outside. I smelled cigarettes on his shirt, but no pot or any other chemicals. I loved these moments, when Ben was happy, lucid, and sober. This was how we spent time together, how it had been since we were kids. He’d come into my room unannounced at random intervals, and we’d talk, just hang out. He’d lie on my bed and I’d lie next to him, and we’d just hang out. He only did it when he was in a good mood, though. If he was on a downswing, he’d be gone for days at a time, and when he was around, he was closed off, silent, hiding in his room with rap thumping.
I watched Ben play Angry Birds for a while before saying what was on my mind. “You don’t seem high. ”
He didn’t react right away. “I’m not,” he said.
“At all?”
He shrugged. “I’m trying to learn how to just deal with the mood swings on my own, no drugs, no meds. ”
“Do you think you’ll ever go back to college?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably not. I hate school, always have. I’m working at Belle Tire for right now. Changing oil and tires. It sucks, but it’s work, and it keeps me out of trouble. ”
“I’m glad you’re working. ”
Ben glanced at me as the next level loaded. “Why?”
“Well, like you said, it keeps you out of trouble. You know how I feel about you smoking pot. You should be on your meds, Ben. I know you don’t like them, but they do help. ”
“Are you my little sister or my mom?” He sounded disgusted.
“I just care about you. I worry about you. Sometimes…” I struggled with how to say it without insulting him. “Sometimes I feel like you don’t…care. About your future. About yourself. ”
“Sometimes I don’t. I’ll never amount to anything, Beck. ” He sounded so matter of fact, it hurt.
“Don’t say that, Ben. It’s not true. ”
“What am I good at, then? What can I do that’s worthwhile?”
I didn’t have an answer. He didn’t really have any hobbies that I knew of. “You’re a good person, Ben. You have talents. Everyone does. You just have to find yours. ”
“You sound like a goddamn guidance counselor. I don’t have any, Becca. I’m good at smoking pot. I’m good at selling it. I’m good at being a bipolar f**king mess, that’s what I’m good at. ” He clicked the top button to put the phone to sleep and shoved it angrily in his pocket.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t mean to upset you. I just meant to point out how glad I am that you’re not smoking pot. ”
“Well…I’m trying, okay? That’s the best I got. ” He stood up and took three angry steps across the room.
“Ben, wait. Don’t be mad. I-I’m sorry. ”
His shoulders slumped, and he turned back around to crouch next to the bed, his face level with mine. “I’m not mad, sis. I know you care. ” He smiled gently at me. “But you shouldn’t waste your time worrying about me. I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself. You worry about you, huh?”
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