Kiss and Repeat

by Heather Truett

  He rolled his eyes. “Some idiot with no money and no car. I can knock him out of play if I have a good enough strategy.”

  I didn’t for a minute believe Ballard could convince Sylvie to go to prom with him, but I didn’t say so again. After all, a few weeks earlier, I didn’t believe any girl would ever want to kiss me, and there I was at lunch, having a conversation about my potential girlfriend and still feeling like shit for kissing girls I didn’t even know.

  “By the way,” Ballard said when we were almost to our next class. “Party at Beckley Field Friday night. You should come. Bring Pilar.”

  I doubted I’d go to the party. I knew the kinds of things that happened there, and it wasn’t my scene. Besides, Mom had that cookout planned for Saturday. I’d need to help her get ready for it.

  As Ballard and I walked through the hall, my head was less static-filled. I had all week to figure out what I really wanted with Pilar. Since my nervous system has a mind of its own, it can be damn difficult to know how I feel.

  * * *

  After a week of daily text conversations with Pilar, I still had no idea if I wanted to be her boyfriend. I wanted to call her, but she said her parents would hear and know she was talking to a boy. They took her phone from her before dropping her off at school, and she only got it back when her homework was complete each day. I’d never known a kid my age with such strict parents.

  My older sister dropped out, Pilar texted when I pointed out the ridiculousness. Part of me even suspected she was lying. She could have a boyfriend in Dadeville she didn’t want me to find out about. Not that it mattered to me if she saw another guy at school. I wasn’t her boyfriend, right?

  I have to live in a cage to ensure my parents don’t end up with two failures for daughters. My sister got her GED and pays her own bills, but they have these really traditional ideas about girls. We have to be perfect, beautiful, smart, successful. We have to be everything to be worth anything. It is so cliché, but my little brother, Matias, gets away with murder just for being a boy.

  I wasn’t used to the kind of long, chatty text messages Pilar liked to send. Ballard and I texted on occasion, answers to homework questions, cheats for video games, news about some girl he met at a game or party … Never more than a few words at a time. Mom and Dad sent me instructions, and sometimes Erin sent silly internet memes to make me laugh.

  I didn’t have any practice with the kind of conversations Pilar wanted in any scenario, but especially when typing on a phone screen, so I booted up my MacBook and opened iMessage. At least it let me type with all ten fingers. I hated typing in general. Flexing fingers could lead to awkward typos.

  By Friday night, I was out of things to talk about, and pretty sure my Pilar attraction was entirely physical. So when Ballard texted he was picking me up for that party in the field I didn’t protest. Joan might be there, and I was curious if the crying at school meant she and Wade were seriously over this time.

  Mom was cleaning every inch of our house, because she’d decided to do the cookout as a lunch thing the next day instead of waiting till evening. It was getting dark too early already, and she wanted her guests to enjoy the beautiful weather.

  “Also, it’s supposed to rain around seven,” Dad pointed out helpfully. He fiddled with the hallway plug. “The construction guys did something to the electricity. My charger keeps shorting out.”

  “Call them,” Mom said. She poked Dad with the end of the broomstick on her way down the hall.

  “It’s too late,” Dad said.

  “Better call them late on a Friday than have our house burn because you didn’t want to disturb them.”

  “I’m going to Ballard’s,” I called after her.

  “Y’all have fun,” Mom called back.

  “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Dad said as I slipped out the front door.

  Things my dad wouldn’t do … It struck me I had no idea what those things might be or what my father was like in high school. I doubted he was a Ballard, but I couldn’t imagine he was a Stephen either. And definitely, definitely, Richard Luckie had never ever ever been a Wade.

  I jogged down the front walk and slid into the passenger seat.

  “Did you invite Pilar?”

  “No. She’s making me a little crazy,” I said. “She texts all evening, from the moment she gets her phone back until she falls asleep, telling me everything I don’t even want to know, like her best friend’s favorite food and how many times she’s already taken the ACTs.”

  “Oohh. Sounds serious, Stevie.”

  “Don’t call me Stevie.” I cringed.

  Ballard laughed and drove off, blabbering on about girls wanting to keep us in prisons. He sounded a lot like Pilar talking about her parents, honestly, and I wanted to disagree with him. He seemed like such a jerk for bouncing from one girl to another so easily, but that night my perception shifted.

  Pilar was crowding me, or thoughts of her were, even with a solid hour of driving between us. My tics had been fine on Monday, but as the week went on and her texts increased in length, my foot added a stomp to its typical kick out, and I sniffed badly enough Mom bought allergy meds just in case. Stressing over Pilar had wrecked my nerves, and I wanted to disappear into the woods and not worry about her intense feelings or the huge English project our teacher announced Thursday morning. I desperately wanted to get out of my head for a few hours.

  Way out on the edge of town, backed up to the riverbank, was Beckley Field. We called it that because the Beckley family lived in an old farmhouse on the property. Josh Beckley, Ballard’s cousin, hosted these huge parties in a clearing by the river. You had to park at the house and hike about two miles through the woods to get there, but it was worth it for the view.

  Only now we were in high school, and it was all about beer and couples having sex behind oak trees. When we were in middle school we’d camp out—Ballard, Josh, and me—and I remember how clear and bright the stars were. I could use a big wide sky and no cell phone signal for a little while.

  Even as I was thinking that, my phone buzzed in my lap.

  Hey, my parents are out tonight. You can call.

  I’m on my way to a party, I replied. I won’t have signal, but I’ll call if I get home early enough.

  There was no reply, and when we crossed the city limit I pocketed my phone and let my mind wander away from Pilar. Ballard turned the music up, the amp he’d recently installed making the whole Jeep shake. As the bass thumped through my body, I decided I would get out of my own head that night.

  I was on my way to a party, and I could figure out stuff with Pilar later. I’d heard Wade telling someone at school he was visiting his grandparents for the weekend, so the coast was clear as far as he was concerned. I could relax and not worry about being the target of some joke or another.

  “This is going to be a good night,” I said to Ballard.

  He grinned. “The best night.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The yard was packed with cars, and I spotted Josh’s parents sitting on the front porch. His mom held a wineglass and his dad was nursing a beer. Speakers played Jimmy Buffett, and I was awed by the difference between these parents and my own. Mine would never buy alcohol for me, let alone half my school.

  “Are we sure they’re real parents and not alien-controlled parental bodies?” I asked as we walked past the front steps and around the house.

  Ballard wrinkled his brow. “Sometimes I swear you’re speaking another language.”

  Once in the woods, we met up with a couple more guys making their way to the party. Jimmy Buffett faded behind us, replaced by a country song I didn’t recognize. Some people complained about the music at Josh’s parties, but in the end, we live in Alabama. Country music rules the roost.

  “How does he even get music out here?” one of the other kids asked.

  While Ballard explained the logistics of speakers and sound, I tried to mask my sniffle by humming along to the tune. Eventuall
y, we reached the field and I lost Ballard in the crowd.

  I stood there like an idiot for a while, but I remembered Josh’s old tree house and made my way around the edge of the field until I got to the river. There was a huge oak near the bank, and boards nailed to its trunk formed a ladder.

  “Stephen?”

  I turned to find Joan, her face scrunched as she checked to make sure it was me.

  “I’ve never seen you at one of Josh’s parties.” She wore a green miniskirt and ripped tights.

  “I don’t usually come,” I said. “To these parties, I mean. They’re not my thing.”

  “But you’re here now,” she pointed out.

  “I needed to get out of my house.” My foot kicked and then came the stomp.

  “I bet,” Joan said, ignoring my foot. “Living with a preacher and all.”

  My stomach tightened. I hated it when people assumed things about my family based on Mom being a pastor. “Mom’s not the problem. Mom is fine, good, perfect.”

  Joan frowned. “Okay, whatever. What’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.” I didn’t want to discuss Pilar with Joan.

  “Fine, forget I asked. I was trying to be nice.”

  As she walked away Ballard called my name and waved for me to join him. A bunch of guys were passing around a bottle of Jack Daniels, and Ballard was grinning like an idiot and telling loud stories about two girls he met over the summer.

  “What about it, Luckie?” Josh Beckley asked from his seat on a big rock beside Ballard. “You and Ballard are always together, right? Is he shitting us?”

  I laughed nervously, willing my leg to remain stationary while I was standing so close to another person. A tic right then would’ve resulted in me kicking some kid in the thigh. I hadn’t heard the start of the conversation, so I didn’t know what they were talking about, but this was Ballard, so … “He’s telling the truth. Well, he’s telling the truth ten or fifteen percent of the time.”

  The guys all guffawed and one offered me the bottle. I shook my head and watched someone else pass it around.

  “Yer jess jealous, Stephen.” Ballard was drunk again. It was happening more often. He believed being drunk helped his life-of-the-party image. It didn’t usually bother me, because I knew what it was like to desperately want acceptance.

  “I’m not jealous, Ballard.” I leaned against a tree trunk and sniffled.

  He cocked his head to the side and smirked at me. “Nah, I guess you don’t gotta be jealous, not with all the action you’re getting lately.”

  There was a chorus of oohhs and some of the guys wanted to know what action I’d gotten, but I wasn’t talking.

  “He’s got some chick from Dadeville jumping his bones in bathroom stalls,” Ballard said.

  “Shut up, Ballard.” I clenched my fists tight in my pockets.

  Ballard waggled his eyebrows and grinned bigger.

  Around me, boys howled excitedly and slapped me on the back while I protested that it wasn’t like that and glared hard at my best friend.

  “Nah, nah, he’s right, guys. It’s not like that.”

  I was relieved. Ballard was going to take it back, smooth it over. Instead, he launched into a detailed description of our “experiment,” explaining how kissing was a magic treatment for Tourette’s syndrome. After, instead of slapping me on the back in congratulations, the guys all gave me funny looks.

  Rage boiled in my toes. It always started in my toes and leveled up second by second. I knew if I didn’t get out of there fast, my head would swim and my vision would blur, and there was no telling what I would do.

  I remembered a heavy bowl of punch, streamers and balloons, the sound of glass shattering and my mother sobbing.

  I hadn’t lost it like that in a long time, and I wasn’t about to freak the fuck out in the middle of a party. If I was lucky, all of these guys were too drunk to remember what Ballard told them, but if I lost my shit and beat Ballard to a pulp, they would remember it.

  “That’s some kind of science test, the Scientific Method of Getting Lucky, right?” Josh snorted at his own joke, shoving his shoulder into mine. “Can I be your lab partner?”

  I ran.

  What the hell. I already looked like a complete idiot. Running off couldn’t make me look much dumber.

  I used to run in elementary school. Kindergarten was the worst. The tics hadn’t started, but the big emotions had. My nerves were rubbed raw before I even left the house, and something always set me off in class. If we were on the playground, I’d run for the wooden equipment in the corner and hide behind it. If we were inside, I dived under the nearest desk and covered my ears. If there was something in my hand to throw, I threw it. If there wasn’t, I’d sometimes grab a pencil or a stapler or whatever was handy at the moment.

  That night in Beckley Field, I aimed my body at the big tree I’d left earlier and slammed hard against its trunk. The anger rising to my belly, making me sick, I pulled myself up the ladder and flopped onto the tree house floor.

  Someone else was already there.

  “Stephen?” The girl aimed her phone’s light at my face.

  No effing way.

  I punched the wall, electric rage in my arms and fists.

  No effing way.

  Erin Mielke sat across from me.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “What are you doing here?” she shot back.

  “Being pissed off.” My leg jerked and I turned it into a kick, my foot thudding against the wall.

  “Here.” She held out a bottle of beer. There were a few more bottles lined up beside her.

  I took the beer. “Thanks.”

  She was the only girl I didn’t usually get nervous around, partly because she wasn’t just a girl. She was pretty, with sandy blond hair and brown eyes. She had freckles and glasses with trendy dark frames that made her look a bit like Velma from Scooby-Doo. In a good way. But she’d been my friend since before I cared about girls in that way. She was just Erin. My friend.

  “To answer your question, I came with Miles and he broke up with me about thirty minutes ago, in this tree house. But at least he left the beer.” Erin raised her bottle in a mock toast.

  I raised my bottle as well. “I came with Ballard and he made a fool out of me in front of everyone, so I came up here to keep from pulverizing his drunk ass.”

  We clinked the bottles and turned them up.

  I don’t love the taste of beer, and I don’t normally drink, because my meds mean I get drunk faster than others. It’s also just a bad decision to mix certain drugs with alcohol, but I was getting good at making bad decisions.

  I vibrated with rage and hoped to God a sip or two would cool my nerves. I wasn’t worried about Erin tattling on me. Despite our meeting with me under her desk in first grade, she’d always been pretty cool about things. Besides, if she told my mom, I could always tell her dad. We pretty much had to keep each other’s secrets.

  Not that we’d known each other’s secrets for a while. Erin didn’t hang around the same crowd Ballard did, and I only hung around Ballard. She was smart, but also a little weird. Her friends read big books and drove to Auburn to see plays at the Shakespeare Festival and hang out in museum cafés. I was a little surprised to find her nursing a beer at a high school party. She always seemed more mature than the rest of us.

  “You always date college guys,” I blurted after finishing the first beer and opening another.

  “Not always.” She shrugged. “Miles seemed different. He isn’t though.”

  We sat in the quiet, and I watched stars through the skylight. Josh’s parents went all out on the tree house when he was a kid. It had electricity too, or used to, but I didn’t flip the switch to see if the lamps still worked. There was no reason to draw attention to ourselves.

  “How’d Ballard make a fool of you?”

  I shouldn’t have told her, but I figured she’d know in a few days anyhow. Besides, the rage was cooling and
I was the tiniest bit tipsy. It didn’t take as much to get me buzzed, thanks to my fancy meds. I explained the kissing game with Sylvie and the experiment. I told her about the girls at Clara’s party.

  But I didn’t tell her about Pilar.

  Despite Ballard and Sylvie telling me I wasn’t Pilar’s boyfriend, I knew Pilar believed I was. I knew from those long text messages with all of their intimate details.

  I knew, but I didn’t want to know, because I didn’t want her to be my girlfriend, and I had no idea how to say so without hurting her feelings.

  Girls were too damn complicated.

  “So, you are kissing as many girls as you can?” Erin leaned her elbows on her knees, the glass bottle dangling from her fingertips.

  “I was. Basically.”

  “Why?”

  “To see if it would calm my tics.” I sighed. “It does, but I’m not sure it really matters after all. Do I really want to be with a girl who only likes me when I don’t look like I have Tourette’s?”

  “That’s true,” Erin says. “But if it works, that is still really cool, right?”

  “Yeah, it’s cool. I mean, I’ve wanted to stop my tics for years, and it feels sort of good, ya know? Being still.”

  “So, you needed to kiss girls to get data for this experiment?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, okay then. I’m game.”

  It took a minute for her words to register through the fog of my brain. “Wait … what?”

  “I said, I’m game. You can kiss me. For your experiment.”

  “No.” I said it instantly, no weighing pros and cons needed. I could not kiss Erin Mielke.

  “Why not?” I wasn’t sure if her voice sounded hurt or surprised.

  What I said was, “We’re friends. I don’t want to ruin that,” but what I wanted to say was, Because you used to have a crush on me forever ago and I never felt that way about you, and if I kiss you, there’s a chance I will give you the wrong idea, and besides I am done with this stupid experiment.