All We Left Behind

by Ingrid Sundberg

  Take it . . .

  Kurt’s wet from running. His shirt’s soaked like when he sat next to me at the party, after the swimming, when the fire was out of reach and there was nothing but silence and wetness between us.

  Wanting.

  But having nothing to say.

  Kurt clears the ball and I catch him stealing a look at me, but then he spends the next five minutes focused on the ball. Reacts. Runs.

  Their coach yells for a water break and that swiftness in him catches me off guard, because he strides right past the water cooler and heads for me.

  I straighten up, but my hair gets caught in the fence. I mess with it, my head tilted awkwardly as I try to get it unhooked, when suddenly he’s here.

  In front of me.

  Chain link between us.

  “Hey,” he says, but the word slides out of him, more like an exhale of breath than something actually said. His cleats dig into the mud and I bite my lip, trying to make my head tilt look natural. His fingers curl through the fence, and his thumb grazes the thin strip of my hair.

  “So . . .” He squints, looking to the sun, and gold light rims his lashes. “We’ve got another hour, or whatever.”

  I nod. My insides tight, watching his thumb tracing the bow of my hair.

  “You can wait here, I guess,” he says, dropping his hand. “It’ll um . . .” The whistle blows. “It’ll be a while.”

  I nod and he heads back to the field, where he runs, and stops, and slows. I unknot my hair from the metal, my fingers threaded over the thin strips of the fence where he stood. Here, where he’s told me to wait.

  After practice he showers and I stay by the field watching the sun, counting the minutes and the seconds till there’s no more chain link between us.

  He walks up, eclipsed in light, and I’m not sure I believe this is actually happening, if he’s really in front of me. The sun sets behind him and I’m glad he’s half-shadowed and I can’t see his eyes.

  If you want it—

  “Coffee?” I sputter. “Do you like coffee?”

  He frowns before nodding to the parking lot.

  “Coffee, sure,” he says, walking me to his car and opening the door.

  The seats are stained and there’s a half-eaten bag of popcorn on the floor. It makes me think of his buttery hands covered in salt. Loud music screams from the speakers when he turns the car on, angry metal music, which he quickly turns off. He drives us away from school and over the hill.

  My fingers wrap around the seat belt when we reach the stoplight at the center of town. The street is lined with unopened tourist shops, closed for the winter season, and I dig my fingernail into the nylon belt at my neck.

  He turns left.

  Orange leaves cover the pavement, blooming into a ribbon that leads past the post office, and the bed-and-breakfast, and the red oak at the edge of town.

  Right would have taken us to the coffee shop.

  The coffee shop we aren’t going to.

  My neck goes taut, because I know where we’re headed.

  After half a mile, Kurt turns off the main road and his tires dig into the mulch—soft—where the asphalt ends and the dirt road opens up. The tires spit mud and lurch us forward. Kurt cranks the gears, turning his car through the woods and winding us over the hill to the ridgetop—where people go, people like Lilith—to go and do what you do in cars like this one.

  I crack open the window to slip in some air, just enough to know I’m still breathing. Kurt wets his lips and I go hot with the idea of his mouth, his tongue. I pull my hair down and let it spill over my shoulders, hoping it might harness some of that power I’m not sure I have.

  Lilith says it hurts the first time.

  Hurts more than I could ever imagine.

  The car rattles as the road gets rougher. I roll down the window and cold rushes over me, shooting goose bumps up my arms and turning my nipples hard. I feel the heat of Kurt’s gaze and I hunch forward to loosen the fabric of my shirt, trying to hide the parts of me I can’t control.

  He reaches over and touches my elbow, softly pinching the skin, and my body clenches—only not in that bad way. It’s in this other way, where my insides go tight and something stretches, and for a second I think maybe, actually, I’ll be able to do this.

  Be gentle, I think. Like a gentleman.

  I look at Kurt and wonder if he knows my last name. I wonder if he’ll ask me my favorite color, or the name of my favorite book, or if I like chocolate more than vanilla. But the trees curl back ahead of us, exposing the ridge and sky, and I know none of those questions will matter.

  Because the road has ended.

  And his hand is already in my hair.

  He cuts the engine, and the thrum of the car rumbles out beneath us. His fingers tease my neck and I look out the window at the view. It’s breathtaking. Water stretches all the way to the horizon, ocean against dusk, and the last thread of sun dips behind the tide.

  His thumb hits my earlobe, and it’s me—turning to him, wanting what I don’t know how to ask for or take.

  I close my eyes, and for a moment I’m not inside myself. I’m not here at all. It scares me, because I know this is all happening too fast, and I want him to know my last name and my favorite subject and that I miss my mother sometimes, and that I’m not Lilith. That this isn’t easy for me.

  But I’m sure he thinks I’ve already said yes.

  “Kurt, I—”

  But his hands cup my neck and we’re kissing. His lips press against mine with a rush of breath, and he opens my mouth and finds the inside of me.

  His hands are hot, wrists at my collarbone, elbows brushing the fabric on my chest, and I don’t know what to do with him. I don’t know how to do any of this. I don’t know him.

  His mouth tugs on my lip, the bottom one, and I try to concentrate on his warmness and spit, but his hands are in my hair. He pulls me close, and hard, and against. And all I can think about are flip-flops broken between my toes, and mud, and creek water, and—

  Hands that touch.

  Hands I can’t trust.

  Kurt unhooks my bra and his fingers slide over my breasts, making me shake. Only this isn’t the good kind of tremble.

  My seat falls back with a clunk, and he’s reclined the chair. He climbs on top and I can’t keep track of his hands, his lips. He peels my shirt up, over my head, and his touch is everywhere—hot, wet—and this doesn’t feel powerful. This is small and dark as his weight digs into my hip.

  My skin shudders, my arms lifted high above my head, where they drape naked over the backrest. My hands dangle and I want to cut my hair off and get rid of this blond fanned out over the seat. The smell of barbecue and mud clogs in my throat and I don’t know how to tell him to stop.

  He’s on top of me.

  His hands are in my hair.

  I got in his car and wanted him to kiss me and—

  My body trembles as his hands slide down my front to the top of my jeans. His fingers undo my buttons and start unzipping—and I know this is it.

  Everything shudders. My insides unhook, rumbling up like an earthquake unleashed from the pit of me. My shoulders heave and I can’t stop it.

  I can’t force it down.

  There are things my body knows—

  Things it wants to scream that I can’t say.

  Things—

  Things my body has to say for me.

  Kurt

  I shift my weight and what I see makes me want to fucking die.

  Marion’s not trembling, she’s crying. And she’s not just crying, she’s crying. Like somebody died.

  “Shit, are you . . .” But I freeze. I don’t know what to do. My elbows lock and I hover over her. Not daring to move. “Um, do you . . .”

  But her whole body shakes. Her shoulders rock and that blond hair of hers falls to the side, exposing her chest. I force my eyes out the back window, cursing the fact that I’m still hard, which she must know, because I’m freaking on to
p of her.

  “Uh, do . . .” I grip the seat, panic squirming in my gut, and I see her shirt in the back. The tag sticks up and the whole thing is turned inside out, and it’s too far to reach without touching her. “Look, uh . . . here.”

  I pull my shirt off and lay it over the front of her. The crumpled fabric makes her flinch, and her eyes hollow me. Her arm wraps over her chest and I can’t shake her expression. It looks exactly like Josie’s did when we found out about Mom. Eyes puffy. Red. Like the world fell out, and it’s all my fault.

  “I’m gonna move,” I say, adjusting my weight. “I’m going to—” But I stop explaining and just do it, crawling into the driver’s seat and ignoring the fact that I simply have to touch her because there really isn’t enough room.

  She puts my shirt on and uses it like a tent to fix her bra, then looks in the back for the shirt that’s inside out. I stare through the windshield and I don’t move. I want to ask her if she’s all right. But obviously she’s not.

  If she were Josie, she’d be telling me to fuck off right now. She’d yell at me to get out of the car and leave her alone. But Marion doesn’t do any of that. She doesn’t say anything.

  Air crawls over my back from the open window and I think about the extra jersey in my practice bag. But I don’t move. I don’t dare do anything. Not till she tells me to.

  “Thanks,” she whispers, placing my shirt on the dash.

  I grab it and stretch it over my head as fast as I can. My hands shake and I need to get off this ridge. We shouldn’t be here. I throw the key in the ignition, click on my seat belt, and turn us back around. The gearshift rumbles and the trees blur as I pick up speed. The road spits rocks and dirt at me, but I don’t ease up on the gas.

  I peek over at Marion and she isn’t wearing a seat belt. She’s curled up with her arms around her knees, and I want to ask her to buckle up. But I can’t.

  There’s no way I’m asking this girl for anything.

  Marion

  Kurt guns it down the road, accidentally hitting the horn, which blasts, shaking the car and the trees. I feel like I am that sound, loud and hollow and screaming through.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. My face is wet and everything is caught in my throat. Mud in my toes.

  Creek water under my toes.

  All I can think about is that man from the barbecue with his wrinkled shirt and untidy shoes. His mouth was no longer on mine, but his hand was in my hair.

  There was a jangle of metal and buckles, and the rose hips on the other side of the creek dipped in and out of the water, halfway between holding on and drowning under.

  My toes were cold, dug into the sand.

  Metal jangled and that man’s shadow crawled over me. He stood up with me sitting beside him on the log, the taste of his tongue still in my mouth. His belt was open and the top button of his pants undone. The leather strap of his belt curled forward and the metal buckle tapped against my face as he breathed.

  His hand in my hair.

  Tangled.

  As he unzipped himself.

  “Are you all right?” It’s Kurt’s voice in the car beside me, and my hands shake as I grab the door handle beside me.

  “I’m fine,” I whisper, but I can’t bring myself to look at him because I’m not fine. “Pull over,” I say, shoving the door with my shoulder. “Please, stop the car!”

  He slams on the breaks and I spill out of his car. I gobble down breath after breath, but everything’s caught in my throat, being up here, his hands, my skin, the throbbing, all of it.

  I walk into the woods, because being in that car with him reminds me too much of my dad driving me home after the barbecue yammering on and on about what a nice time he had.

  I wasn’t listening to my father. My eyes were glued to the plate of leftovers on my lap, wrapped in tinfoil with the sharp edges poking my thighs. It smelled rotten, like pork-belly meat, slathered in barbecue sauce, caught in my throat.

  I gagged.

  Vomit burned my mouth. But I clenched my jaw tight and forced it back down.

  I opened the window for some air, but everything was sticky-meat-smell, and I chucked the entire plate into the street.

  “Jesus Christ, Marion!” Dad slammed on the brake like I threw out a child. “What are you doing?”

  The car lurched to a stop and someone honked, swerving past.

  “I’m going to be sick,” I said.

  “All right, okay.” He pulled over. “What did you eat?”

  My left flip-flop was torn, the strap snapped by the big toe.

  “Do you think it’s food poisoning, or do you have a temperature?”

  I saw his hand come toward me, but I was already yanking the door open and throwing off my seat belt. I rushed into the tall grass beside the road. My broken flip-flop tripped me and threw me to my knees.

  “Marion?” he called after me, and I pretended to throw up.

  My shoulders heaved and there was vomit in the grass and on my feet and in my hair—

  But nothing really came out.

  Kurt

  My door hangs open and there are kernels of popcorn all over the seat. Exploded from the microwave bag when I slammed on the brake. Through the door I can see Marion. Standing in the woods. Back to me.

  She stares into the dark and I don’t know what to do. All I know is this is bad. Bad like Josie scratching her legs and crying on the other end of that phone line. Crying and too far away from me. I don’t want to get out of the car, but she’s out there for so long, I don’t think she’s ever going to get back in.

  “Marion?” I say, warning her so she knows I’m coming up behind her. “It’s pretty dark. We should get going.”

  She shakes like some piece of her is broke, and I know this is something I shouldn’t see. Something private. Like Mom. Like Josie. I walk into her periphery and her eyes make me hate myself for taking her here.

  “Hey . . .” I inch closer and reach my hand out, even though the instinct is all kinds of unnatural. But this is what you do, right? You comfort people.

  “Please don’t touch me,” she snaps, and I drop the hand so fast she shudders. “I’m fine,” she whispers, but there’s no way I believe that.

  She stares into the forest, like she wants to walk into it, and more than anything I want to take her hand and tell her this is going to be okay. Even if I don’t know how it’s going to be okay. Just that it is. So she knows she’s not alone.

  But I’m not that guy.

  * * *

  The parking lot is practically empty when I pull in and slow down. There are a few cars near the gym and I’m sure one of them is hers, but I don’t ask. She hasn’t said a word, and I haven’t said a word, and I’m not going to start now.

  The car isn’t stopped when she opens the passenger door again. I slam on the brake and she shoots forward, throwing a hand out against the dash.

  “Hold on, geez,” I say. “I can take you to your—”

  “This is fine.”

  She doesn’t leave, despite the fact that everything about her says she wants to. I swallow, with the door half-open as she strains her neck to look at me.

  “Which car is your—?”

  “My last name,” she says, cutting me off.

  “What?”

  “What’s my last name?” She says it quietly, barely above a whisper, and I notice her hair is up. At some point she pinned it away and all that’s left is this raw question in her eyes.

  And for some reason I want to answer it. But . . .

  “Are you the Honda?” I say, nodding to the closest car.

  “Sure. Why not,” she says, which means it’s not, and now I really don’t know what to do. I could drive her to the Honda, even though it’s not her car. Or I could sit here and let her get out, which somehow seems worse.

  “Medford,” she says, forcing me to look at her. I expect her to smack me, but there’s this weird resign in her eyes instead. She’s not angry, which I hate, because I could d
eal with this if she were angry. Only she’s not. She’s whatever this is, with my name dead in her mouth.

  Medford.

  And I wish more than anything that, right now, I could tell her hers.

  But she already knows that I can’t.

  Marion

  Two blocks from my house I pull over and throw open the door. I can’t be in this car right now.

  Any car.

  Not even my own.

  Streetlamps slash light over the pavement, and I walk—run—up the sidewalk to my house. I don’t go inside. Instead, I head into the backyard, where a giant oak rakes a thousand branches against the sky.

  I kick off my shoes, and the leaves are too soft beneath me. The tree tall above. The scent of bark enticing me up, away from this ground. I grab a branch and pull myself to the first bough, and then the second, my feet finding the niches of the tree without looking. My feet remembering this bark, knowing its roughness and skin, carrying me higher, to where the boughs are thinner; higher, to where the leaves are wider; higher, to a place where it feels like I might be able to fly up beyond everything below me and never fall back down.

  Near the top, the wind is fierce and screaming through. My hands shake, and I grab the tree, gulping down breath after breath, despite everything that’s caught in my throat. His hands. My skin. All of it. My heart pounds from climbing this tree, showing me that this body is meant to be physical, made to move and climb and sweat and run, and I hate it for reminding me of that.

  I tuck myself into a top branch and I pull out my cell phone. I try to punch in the numbers, but they’re a blur, and I can barely grip the thing.

  Breathe. Swallow.

  My keys jangle in my pocket and I chuck them to the ground.

  “Mar-i-doodle, what’s up?” Lilith’s voice jolts me, and I realize somehow my fingers have managed to dial.