FOURTEEN
I checked Kip’s profile page all weekend. I kept the page minimized on the bottom of my laptop screen and pulled it up to refresh it every so often—more often, really, than I care to admit. Finally, late on Sunday afternoon, the pictures from the Ball appeared: Kip, Park, and Skeat with their arms slung around each other; Kip sweaty and manic-looking with his drink in his hand; Kip and the blonde, him holding her tight against his waist. Her name, I learned, was Betsy Kenyon.
I clicked on her profile. She was from Fairfield, Connecticut. She had two older sisters and a teacup yorkie and a fat gray father who looked too old to be her father and a pinch-faced blond mother who wore lots of twinsets. She was a swimmer. She was a third year. Her family had a place in the Bahamas. In her recent activity, she had become friends with Adam Kipling.
It was nearly midnight when I finished looking through all her pictures. My eyes burned in their sockets, and when I shut my laptop, the bluish glow of the screen still seemed to hover before me.
Even after all my investigating, there was nothing to say that something had happened—or was happening—between Kip and Betsy Kenyon. And just because he hadn’t come to the game last week—and I hadn’t heard from him since—didn’t mean I’d been forgotten. I eyed my phone, resting on my chest, and thought through my options. I could be casual: How was your weekend? I could be passive aggressive: Hey there. Remember me? I could be accusatory: So who was that girl on Friday? Or I could say what I really wanted to say: I would do anything to see you tonight.
I didn’t say any of it. As desperate as I was to see his name on my screen—to have him say something, anything to me—the fear of what I might do if he didn’t reply kept me from saying a word. That night, it didn’t seem possible to live anymore—not that I was thinking of offing myself, nothing like that, but nausea twisted my stomach and squeezed my head and every nerve of my body felt electrified, and I truly believed that any sort of disappointment could kill me right there and then, just kill me.
* * *
It was November, and everything was dying. The leaves fell from the trees, slowly at first and then all at once, chemotherapy patients losing their hair. The frost hardened the grass into something unrecognizable that crunched beneath my shoes. The sky above loomed heavy and colorless—not even gray, just devoid of color, as though it’d been disregarded. I’d experienced this change every year of my life, but still I feared it. What if this was the year the world didn’t come back to life? What if warmth was gone for good and we didn’t even know it?
However, on Wednesday morning, amidst all the gloom, I experienced a miracle. As I was heading towards the dining hall from Dale’s classroom for lunch—the rest of the day looming even more vacant and frightening than usual due to the end of lacrosse practices—I saw Kip. He took up so much of my mental life that I had nearly forgotten he was real. He was walking towards me—alone, so rare for him—with his hands in his pockets. He saw me. I froze. For a sickening moment I thought he might give me a nod and keep walking or, worse, pretend he hadn’t seen me at all, that he didn’t even know me, but he didn’t. He smiled and approached me. I tried to fight the idiotic grin that was threatening to take over my face.
“Hi there,” he called out.
I waved. “Hi.”
He came and stood right before me. Something was different about him, and it took me a moment to see it.
“Your face! It’s all … shaved.” He looked so young without his usual scruff of hair, so bare, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. My hand rose unthinkingly to touch the exposed skin, but I caught myself in time. The hand fluttered unsure between us until I managed to draw it back down.
“Yeah.” He ran his own hand over his chin. “All gone. I had some important shit going on the other day, and I had to look professional.”
“What important shit?”
“This dumb contest one of my teachers had me enter. Nothing big.”
A beat of silence followed. The air felt thick with unsaid words.
He adjusted the straps of his backpack. “Where you going now?”
“Dining hall.”
“I’ll join you.”
I gestured to the building behind us. “You weren’t headed to class?”
He shrugged. “Nah.” I wasn’t sure if that meant he didn’t have class, or if he’d simply decided he no longer wanted to attend.
We walked towards the dining hall. Our hands swung close together, our pinkies touching occasionally. He greeted people as we walked, nodding to and slapping the hands of other boys. Even the ones he didn’t directly acknowledge followed him with their eyes. I was dizzy with happiness. I felt loved by association.
“So did you go to the Ball last week?” I asked, feeling emboldened. He was slapping another boy on the back as I asked him, but he still turned to look at me.
“Yeah,” he said. “I saw you.”
“You did?”
He was grinning now. “And you saw me.”
I smiled back, caught. “I did.”
There was no one on the path before us or behind us. He wrapped his pinky around mine. “You looked beautiful.”
“Really?” All the bitterness and all the doubt of the past few days dissipated, and excuses—work, school, friends—took their place, excuses he didn’t even have to provide for me to accept. So desperate was my desire to prove myself wrong that I could have forgiven anything. Beautiful.
He looked around quickly to make sure the path was still empty and then put his mouth to my ear. “Come over tonight.”
“Why should I?”
I’d meant it as a tease, but his face slipped into an expression close to anger. “Fine. Don’t.”
“I’m kidding,” I said. Then, again, frantic, “I’m kidding!”
“So am I,” he said, and when he grinned, the brief glimpse of anger seemed like something I’d imagined.
He released my pinky and waved goodbye, headed into the dining hall. It didn’t matter to me that I had kind of thought we’d be eating lunch together; I’d be with Kip that night, and the time that passed until then no longer mattered.
* * *
I got my sandwich wrapped in wax paper so I could take it back to my room to eat. As I was leaving, I looked over to where Kip was already sitting with his friends—laughing with his mouth full of meatball sub—to see if I might catch his eye, if he might ask me to join him. He didn’t see me, but I wasn’t too disappointed, as I knew to join him and Park and Skeat wasn’t an option. How could he possibly explain a teaching apprentice, an interloper, joining their table? What could I possibly contribute to their conversation? Even the idea of unwrapping my sandwich in front of them—chicken salad with honey mustard on rye—made me feel sick with anxiety. Chicken salad wasn’t sexy. Eating, flossing, clipping my toenails—those weren’t things I wanted Kip to imagine me doing, much less see for himself. That sort of intimacy wasn’t desirable to me, and I wasn’t sure it ever would be.
As I sat in bed with my sandwich, basking in the freedom of being able to drop bits of chicken salad onto my lap and pick them up to eat with my fingers, I thought more of my interaction with Kip. If Kip had seen me at the Ball, why hadn’t he said hello? There was no rule against that. If nothing had changed, as it appeared not to have from our conversation, then why had so much time passed since I’d last been in his bed? I licked honey mustard from my fingers and resolved to ask him that night. I would find out the rules of our relationship, for once and for all, so that I could stop wondering. Then I scrubbed and re-made-up my face, settled into my bed, and waited for night to fall.
* * *
Kip didn’t text me, but I assumed since he’d asked me in person that he hadn’t felt the need to confirm. I waited until everyone went to bed before I tugged on my sneakers and headed out the door. I knocked lightly, and he grinned when he opened the door.
“You’re here,” he said.
I felt a spasm of panic. “Do you not want me—?�
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He laughed. “Relax.” He kissed my mouth and guided me into the room by my waist. “Of course I want you to be here.” He kissed me again. “I need you to be here.”
I kissed him back. We fell into his bed.
“I want to do something crazy,” he said between kisses.
“Like what?”
His erection pulsed through the fabric of his jeans and bumped against my leg impatiently. “I want to tie you up to the ceiling and fuck you upside down.”
I laughed. “What?”
“I want to fuck you in the stairwell. Or in the library.”
“Kip…?”
“I want you to dress up in some outfit. School girl or something.” He paused, thinking. His eyes were crazed and bright. “What if we made a tape?”
“A tape?”
“You know. Record ourselves doing it.” He gestured to the laptop on his desk.
I pulled back slightly. “Kip—”
He pulled me back. “I wouldn’t show it to anyone. It would just be ours.”
I shook my head. “That’s not a good idea.”
“Oh, come on.”
“No.”
He was taken aback by the forcefulness of my voice. “Fine.” Hesitantly, I kissed him, and we started kissing again. After a few minutes, he asked, “Can I at least stick it in your ass?”
I looked at him. His face was hard, a mask. The light was gone. I had the feeling once again of not recognizing the person before me. “I don’t think I want—”
He shook his head. “You know what? Forget it.” The room felt cold. We eased down our own pants and fit our bodies together. We fucked routinely, passionlessly. He came with an angry-sounding groan while I stayed silent. Afterwards, we lay shoulder to shoulder, touching only out of necessity due to the narrowness of the bed. Finally, I spoke.
“Why haven’t you talked to me?”
“What?”
“We don’t talk anymore. This is the first time we’ve hung out in almost two weeks.”
He rolled towards me onto his side. “Are you mad?”
“No, I’m not mad. I’m just trying to figure things out.” I paused. “Like, why do you keep disappearing?”
“I’m right here.”
“But you’re not. I just—I don’t know how the rules work.”
“What rules?”
“Kip!” There was no keeping the anger out of my voice anymore. “Come on. What are we doing here? I mean … what are we? Why do you like me?” I wanted a reaction. I wanted to make him angry, if only to know he felt anything at all. “Am I just a conquest? A Kaya?”
He stared at me, as though trying to register what I’d just said, and then sighed and rolled onto his back. “Imogene,” he said to the ceiling. “What the fuck.”
“What?”
“We’re just … having fun, okay?”
“But what—”
“I’m not your boyfriend. I can’t be your boyfriend, you know that.”
“I know,” I spat back, indignant, even while the words stung. I was sure he’d never had to have this conversation with Kaya. She would have known better than to think she had a future with a kid. But Kip wasn’t a kid, not anymore. Not to me.
After a minute, he took my hand in his, interlocking our fingers. “You’re a sweetheart, Imogene,” he said.
I didn’t answer. And I didn’t want to wait until he fell asleep to leave. I unlaced my fingers from his and he didn’t protest. Then I dressed and crept out the door.
I was halfway down the stairs before I began to cry. Loud, indulgent sobs racked my whole body and I crouched to the ground, powerless to stop them.
“Imogene? Is that you?”
I froze. It wasn’t Kip’s voice; it was Raj’s. I heard his footsteps coming down the hall towards the stairwell door.
“Imogene?”
His voice was a hand around my throat. I scampered up the stairs as quickly as I could, though my limbs felt like lead, and back onto the second floor. I heard the downstairs door swing open, saw the lights flick on, and then nothing. After too long a pause, the lights turned off and the door closed with a soft click. I stayed sitting on the hallway floor for nearly an hour before I’d stopped shaking enough to return to my room.
* * *
Ever since the pictures from the Ball had been posted, I’d looked at Betsy Kenyon’s profile every day. She began to feel like someone I knew—not someone I admired or even liked, but someone I understood fully nevertheless. I found her accounts on other social media sites, as none of her pages were hidden from the public. She was funny, I discovered; I hated that. I wanted her to be irredeemably stupid, a blithering idiot. She posted pictures of herself with chocolate ice cream on her face and her hair in a dirty knot on top of her head. I’m a mess! she proclaimed. I’m just like the rest of you! She was falsely self-deprecating; you know she didn’t believe what she said for a minute, and she didn’t expect you to, either.
No other pictures of her and Kip were posted. On Thursday, however, the day after Kip told me he couldn’t be my boyfriend, there was a sign. She’d posted a link to a video on her profile with the caption, Obsessed. Love good recommendations. I clicked on the link. It was “For Luna” by Rabbit Foot. And no matter how many times I’d listened to it before, that time it was more beautiful and cutting and unbearable than it ever had been.
On Thursday, Dean Harvey also called a special afternoon chapel for an “exciting announcement.” Fourth-year student Adam Kipling had placed first in the regional oratorical scholarship program and would be going on to the national competition in January. Dean Harvey proclaimed how excited we all were, and then encouraged us to rise for a round of applause. Kip was called to stand beside the dean, looking the closest to embarrassed that I had ever seen him. I sat on the side of the room, unable to stand, unable to clap, because the person who I thought I knew better than anyone, the person who a few days before had asked if he could stick his dick up my ass, was being publically celebrated for something I’d known nothing about.
* * *
Raj waited until Friday to text me. Any plans for tonight?
I had no plans, of course. I had nothing to do but to listen to the Rabbit Foot album, to look through Betsy Kenyon’s pictures, to search for clips from the oratorical contest only to find grainy cell phone videos without sound that did nothing to satisfy me. Other than Kip on Wednesday, I really hadn’t spoken to anyone all week—not even Dale, who had spent the past week barely acknowledging my presence. My bed no longer provided comfort; it was too hot, fetid even. I suddenly wanted—no, needed—to leave my bedroom, to be anywhere but there, to get out of my damned head. I suddenly felt I might tear at the walls with my fingernails if I didn’t leave that second.
I’d knocked on the wall earlier to no response; Chapin wasn’t home. A week ago, as we’d talked late into the night after the All Hallows’ Eve Ball, I’d asked her where she went so often. She said her mom lived nearby, in Eastchester. “Are you close with her?” I asked. She shook her head no. “But she’s sick,” she said as way of explanation. I knew I wasn’t to ask any further questions. With Chapin in Eastchester, I had no one to tell me what to do. The decision of what to do with Raj’s text message was mine alone to make.
None. Would you like to do something?
He did. I agreed to meet him at his room, and from there we would walk to the Mexican place we had gone to for the twins’ birthday. And as soon as the plans were solidified, I tried to quell my anxiety before it could even form. This will be good for you, I told myself. You don’t owe Raj anything. You can just be two friends getting dinner. It’s okay to not want to be alone.
I started getting ready too early, and I redid my makeup and changed my outfit twice, and when I couldn’t stand to look at myself any longer, I sat on my bed and waited. I walked to Perkins Hall slowly, and I walked under the window that I knew was Kip’s. There was no reason to lie to myself; I knew the main reason I’d made this date wa
s to have an excuse to go there, to be close to him. I wanted him to see me. I wanted to do anything I could to make him think of me.
Raj was dressed casually, wearing a crewneck sweatshirt with jeans—a choice that, like most things, made me initially relieved and then later disappointed. “You look nice,” he said. He leaned in to put his hands on my shoulders and peck my cheek. I tried not to wince. I couldn’t decide if I hoped Kip had seen the kiss, or if a witnessed kiss from Raj would induce more pity than jealousy.
“Shall we?” he said, offering his arm.
Regret overwhelmed me, but I had no choice. I gave him my arm and let him take me away from Perkins, away from Kip.
* * *
At the restaurant, Raj was embarrassingly polite. He opened the door to the restaurant for me, pulled out my chair for me, made a big show of spreading his paper napkin out on his lap. This is my second real date, I thought. I looked around, tried to gauge other people’s opinion of Raj through their eyes and, by association, their opinion of me. Aren’t we a reflection of the people we surround ourselves with, after all? Intelligence, refinement, beauty—I siphoned those qualities from others, from the Darbys and Chapins and Kips who were more intelligent and refined and beautiful than I was but chose me regardless, and I felt these qualities retracted from me when the company I chose was lacking. I cared deeply what all those people in the restaurant thought of Raj, cared deeply that being with Raj did not make it impossible for them to imagine me worthy of someone like Kip.
After we’d ordered, he laced his fingers together and leaned across the table towards me. “So. I finally got the impossible Imogene to go out on a date with me.”
Acknowledging the date while still on the date felt crass, like learning the details of your parents’ will while they’re still alive. “Hah. Yeah, I guess so.”
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