by Sarah Miller
"The very same." There's some movement downstairs, footsteps, kitchen cabinets being opened and closed. "My sister," she says, jerking her head, indicating he should move faster.
Her room isn't like Danielle's, but it reminds him of that. It's carpeted, and not with interesting carpet, just carpet. There are dumb posters on the wall left over from childhood—Christina Aguilera and a photo of the mayor, Anthony Masiello, shaking hands with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Downstairs, he hears the patter of feet and a toilet flush. This is a nice place to lose your virginity, he thinks. The TV hums up through the floorboards. Molly's bed is warm, with flannel sheets printed with daisies.
Gid lies down looking up at Molly. "You can get into bed with your clothes on if you want," Gideon says. "I could take them off for you."
She grins down at him. "Do you think you can handle that?" she says. She takes off her mismatched socks and lays them on a pile of old Seventeen magazines on a plain wooden desk. She snuggles in next to Gideon, her head rests on his shoulder. "You can take off my clothes if you tell me what you're doing here," Molly says. "And remember, you're not trying to convince me of anything. I just need to believe you."
Gid closes his eyes. "About twelve hours ago," he says, "I was going to have sex with Pilar. And I realized 1 didn't want to lose my virginity to her. I mean, I want to maybe have sex with her, or a girl like her, someday. I mean, who wouldn't? Not that you're not a girl like her. I mean, you're..."
Molly laughs and readjusts her head on his shoulder. Gid panics that his shoulders are small. But her head is pretty small. He relaxes. "I know that I was supposed to have sex with you because of the bet, and I probably wouldn't have thought of it on my own. I probably wouldn't have. But once I knew you, I liked you."
Molly looks down, the compliment making her shy.
"And I know why you were mad at me. You weren't mad because I had a bet about you. You were mad because I thought you would have a nervous breakdown if I had sex with you for any reason other than that I was madly in love with you."
Molly is shocked. She props herself up on one elbow. "How did you figure that out? I mean, that's pretty
involved."
Gid shrugs. "Partly a conversation I had with Nicholas Westerbeck's incredibly insane mother. Partly because Madison Sprague nearly captured on videotape, from the vantage point of a forty-square-foot custom closet, me
losing my virginity."
There's a knock on Molly's door. "What?" she says.
"What are you doing?" it's the little brother.
"If you go away, we'll watch Flashdance in, like, an hour."
There's the sound of feet disappearing down the hall.
"Go on," she says.
He shrugs. "If Madison weren't so clumsy, and such a drunk, I probably wouldn't be here right now. I can't lie to you. Pilar is incredibly hot. But that's all she is, or most of what she is. Which is probably why she's so hot. These are issues I will have to work out. But seriously. Do you really think we're going to have sex for a whole hour?"
Molly considers this. "Only if we do it more than once," she says, kissing both his cheeks.
All of Gideon's nervousness melts away.
"Why didn't you just wait until we got back to school?" Molly whispers as he's taking off her clothes. "And don't tell me it's because you couldn't wait another day."
Gideon laughs. "If I'd stayed in New York, I probably would have hooked up with Pilar eventually. She's very persuasive. But seriously. I...just thought this might be...a lot more fun."
They kiss for a long, long time. Gideon obviously has been kissed before but never this extensively or, it seems, this well. Molly McGarry's face and lips and hands are all a couple of degrees warmer than any skin he has ever felt, and thinking this, he lays a finger along her cheek and opens his eyes. "To me," he says, "there is no one more beautiful than you. I somehow know that you need to hear this. And, well, plus, it's really true."
The small but ever-present shadow of suspicion that resides just above Molly's left lip vanishes. When it is gone, Gideon realizes he noticed it for the first time right before it disappeared. The planes of her cheeks and forehead soften. I want to say that she looks luminous, but I think I might hate myself. Oh well, I will take that chance. She looks luminous. Oh, wow. I don't hate myself at all.
Molly smiles back at Gideon. "There is no one more beautiful to me than you either," she says. They press themselves tightly together.
So tightly, in fact, that I am not sure where to go.
happily ever after
He's been with Molly for about two months now, and Gid hasn't looked at another girl once. Pilar gave him ample opportunities to look down her shirt, but he didn't even notice. He's so enraptured with Molly—with her broad cheekbones and wide, sarcastic Irish mouth, her humor, her wit, the way she makes him feel so stupid and smart all at once—that no other girls seem to exist. At some point in the not too distant future, his attention will wander. Maybe not forever. But it will. But right now, if you told him that, he wouldn't believe you. Molly really gets him, he thinks. It's amazing. Almost miraculous. That league stuff. Well. It's not like it doesn't make any sense, but in a way, it doesn't make any sense.
He's thinking this one day as he hustles down the fire escape after one of his many illegal visits to her room. Moby-Dick is long over, now they're reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is so easy he finished it in one night, sitting on that ratty basement couch, with, of all people, Mickey Eisenberg. In Art History the other day, he said Renoir idealized girls so much it seemed like he may have hated them, and the teacher told him this was a very interesting and original point. Cullen and Nicholas are his friends, but they're not his everything. They can still be mean, but it's easier to ignore, also, much easier to retaliate.
Most important, his girlfriend is pretty and funny.
One cold January afternoon, he and Molly cross the quad together: She's headed to a yearbook meeting, he's off to play some foosball with Devon Shine. They're not overtly groping per the standards of behavior both adhere to but still pleasantly knocking hip joint, elbow, knees, and he's filled up with a sensation of happiness and perfection. He's not so in his head anymore. He feels good. Could it be that the bad part is just over, and now, it's all going to be fun from now on?
"Don't bet on it," Molly says.
"Excuse me?" Gid says.
"I said, don't bet on it," i say, and parting from him, walk quickly up the stone steps to my yearbook meeting.
I never did figure out how Gid got into my head. If I had to venture a guess, I'd go with those wacky Journal of the Zen Hut mind games Gid was playing when he and Jim Rayburn first drove onto campus. No one hates to admit this more than me, but some of that stupid hippie shit is surprisingly powerful.
The question now, of course, is how am I going to get him out?
Naturally, I was pleased to know that the first time we did it Gid thought I looked luminous. Because I totally did. Still, it was one thing when i was yearning for him, and needing to know his every move. Now that we're in love and everything is so perfect between us, well, I wouldn't mind being a little less well informed.
