Tasting Never (Never say Never)

by C. M. Stunich

  “I work at a friggin' grocery store. My life goals lie somewhere between shift leader and assistant manager.” I don't know what to say to that, so I lick my lips and listen to the sound of the ocean below us. It's calm today, much calmer than usual, and so peaceful. I close my eyes and absorb the gentle whisper of the waves on the rocks. After awhile, I hear Ty sigh, but I keep my eyes shut and don't say a word. He shifts beside me, and I think I hear him stand. Still, I don't look at him. Footsteps sound beside me, and when I open my eyes, Ty is gone.

  I watch the sun come up alone.

  6

  “Does anyone know what the bloody knife in this poem symbolizes?” the professor asks, voice tinny over the microphone she's got strapped to her face. She walks back and forth across the stage with a small clicker in her hand and smiles like she knows something that we don't. God, I hate lecture halls. Even if I was inclined to participate in the discussion (which I'm not), there's no opportunity to do so anyway. There are over two hundred people in this class and no time for personal thoughts. The professor moves to the next screen of her presentation. It's a poll with four options. She reads them aloud.

  “Number one: the destruction of the narrator's innocence. It's been speculated that the knife represents a phallic object and that the blood represents either rape or the loss of virginity.” I roll my eyes and wish I had someone to send a text to. That's all Lacey's done the entire class. She's sending her girlfriend sappy messages with little hearts and smiley faces. If I had a friend, I'd ask them why a poem can't just be a poem. Maybe there is no alternative meaning to the bloody knife in the poem? Maybe that's all it is, a bloody, fucking knife?

  “Number two: there are others in the literary world, myself included, who think that the knife is an extension of the narrator's power, that she's using a phallus shaped object to take back her destiny, to show that she won't allow her femininity to be crushed.” I open the polling app on my phone and select number two. It never hurts to agree with your professor, and besides, other than our midterm and final, this is the only way to earn credit in this class; we have to vote on these stupid ass polls.

  “Number three: the knife can be seen as a symbol of past mistakes. For example, the narrator reflects on her poor experiences as a lover. Some might say that the knife represents her lovers' bodies and the blood, her shame.” My professor scoffs at this notion and the percentage of people voting for it drops from eight percent to two. “That's quite a misogynistic take on this piece, but of course, we must consider all the possible viewpoints,” she says with a smirk.

  I lean my head back and stare up at the track lighting on the ceiling.

  It's been four days since the attack at the convenience store. My cuts are healing, but my curiosity is piqued. I wonder what happened to Ty and wish that I'd given him my number or something. The time we spent hanging out, while short, was helpful. I haven't had sex with anyone in days, and even more impressive, the night after I came home from watching the sunset, I fell asleep without crying. I'm still trying to tell myself that it was because I was so worn out, but I think it's because I found a kindred spirit and talked to him rather than used him.

  “Number four: the bloodied knife could be seen as a physical manifestation of the narrator's pain, a show of hurt and the consequences of that hurt. Line six which reads, And from where I had my start, I had gone, and thus nothing was e'er the same again, is often referenced in support of this theory. It is said that the knife could've been used to inflict some kind of wound, thus maiming or scarring the narrator.” I groan, letting the sound get lost in the murmur of the students around me. They're actually buying this crap, discussing it like it matters at all. I hate my fucking literature class. I'd much rather be in calculus. At least in that class, there's always a right answer. In this one, it's all up to the interpretation of a bunch of goons with degrees attached to their names.

  “You sure do spend a fucking arm and a leg to listen to someone talk about penises,” a voice says from beside me. I lift my head up and open my eyes to see Ty standing in the aisle with a cup of coffee in either hand and an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. “Get up,” he tells me. “You took my lighter, and I'm need of a light and someone to drink this with.” He hands me a cup of coffee and either doesn't notice the students around me grumbling in irritation or doesn't care. Professor Alma or Anna or Amy or whatever her name is keeps droning on about the symbolism of the collie dog in the poem and how its black fur represents a vagina.

  I grab my backpack and haul ass out of there, pausing for just a moment to vote on the next poll that the professor's pulled up on her screen.

  “How do you know so much about my tuition?” I ask as Ty drags me to a small stone wall in the center of the courtyard. It's just about knee high and surrounds a dry garden bed and an old tree. There's gum stuck all over it, but I sit down anyway, folding my tiny, black skirt under my thighs so that my bare skin doesn't touch any of it.

  “I looked it up online,” he explains as he holds out his hand and passes me a cigarette. “Among other things.” I take the lighter out of the side pocket on my bag and light us both up.

  “So you're stalking me now?” I ask, but I smile when I say it.

  “You stalked Noah Scott,” Ty says as he takes a drag on his cigarette and sighs like he's in heaven. They'll make you feel that way, cigarettes will, like you're in paradise while they kill your insides. I wish I could quit, but I can't make myself care enough to go through that much effort. “Over twenty grand just to talk about penises?”

  “I have a scholarship,” I say as I sip my coffee. Mmm. Still warm. “And financial aid.”

  “How?” Ty asks casually, too casually. He's fishing for information. I take a moment to consider my answer as I sweep my gaze over him. He's still just as dark, as dangerous looking as he was at the club. Even in the harsh winter sunlight, Ty looks perfect. His dark hair is lying flat today, but it's clean and it shimmers like onyx, speckled with flecks of color from the breaks in the leaves above us. His sexy lips are smiling, but his dimples aren't showing, meaning that he's probably putting on a front for me. His piercings are all different today, all silver with white-blue crystals in them. They compliment the gray T-shirt he's wearing over his bootcut blue jeans. They're tucked into big, black work boots with the laces still undone.

  I reconfirm my earlier assessment that while Ty is still hot, the ideal male specimen, that I'm not interested, not like that, not anymore. There's still a little quiver in my belly, an aching pulse down below that tells me that my body still wants him, but I don't feel that desperate frenzy to fuck like I do sometimes, that need to fill myself so that I won't be alone, even if it's just for a second. Maybe it's because Ty talks to me, treats me like a person instead of an opportunity?

  “I filled out the FAFSA and trolled the Internet for scholarships, anything to do with … ” I almost don't say it.

  “You can tell me what the hell a FAFSA is in a minute. To do with what?”

  “Dance,” I say and my voice comes out like a whisper, swirls through the air with a cluster of dried leaves. “I had some videos of myself, so I posted them wherever I could.” Ty doesn't respond until he finishes his coffee. He wrinkles the cup up in his hand and makes an impressive toss across the bricks of the courtyard. The cup hits the rim of a garbage can and slides inside.

  “Show me.”

  7

  I take Ty up to my dorm room which is weird because I've never had a guy in there, not once, not for any reason.

  “Cozy,” he says, and I can't tell if he's being facetious or if he's telling the truth. I sit down at my desk which is at the end of Lacey's bed instead of at the end of mine. We switched spots because I like to stay up late and type things, not stories or poems though, just things. Lacey says the light of the screen from this angle isn't as bad as it is from the other side. Ty understandably mistakes her bed for mine and sits down on the pink and white comforter. “You know,” he says as he
pulls open the drawer on the bedside table and peeks inside. Whatever it is that he sees in there causes him to smirk wickedly. “When I asked if you were legal, I was serious. How old are you anyway?”

  “Close that,” I snap as his hand starts to venture inside. “That's my roommate's stuff.” Ty raises his dark brows and stands up, moving over to my rumpled black and red bedspread. Apparently, he thinks it's okay to look so long as the stuff is mine and opens my drawer next. There's not much in there, so I ignore him and search for one of the videos on my laptop. Why are you showing him this? I wonder as I search through old folders looking for the last performance I ever had filmed. My final performance, the one I did right before I packed up some clothes and left my costumes and my family behind, wasn't filmed. It was for one man's eyes only. “I'm twenty-one,” I respond absently as I find the video I'm looking for.

  “Twenty-two,” Ty says as he stands up and stretches. “So that means you have, what, a year and a half of school left?”

  “Supposedly,” I say as I click the video and open it to full screen. I lean back in my chair and watch a girl who was me, but isn't anymore. That girl, the one in the turquoise top and the hip scarf, she's long dead, and there's no way to bring her back. I wonder if my mom or my sisters ever watch this video and think of me? I think of them all the time, video or no.

  Ty kneels down next to me and puts one hand on the arm of my chair and the other on my desk. His breath tickles my fingers and make them twitchy. Suddenly, I have this crazy urge to brush the hair from his forehead. What the fuck is wrong with me? I look back at the screen and try not to frown. In the recording, I'm doing my mother's homegrown version of tribal belly dance where one lead dancer cues the other girls in the group with subtle motions, telling them what move comes next. It's all improv; nothing is choreographed. It gives the dance a more organic look, like it's something from wilder times where women might've dance around campfires and worshipped goddesses whose names are like whispers on the wind.

  I'm wearing a big, black skirt that hangs so low it touches the tops of my henna patterned feet, and a scarf with big, silver tassels that swing wide arcs around me as I spin. My hair is its natural copper color in the video, not black and red like it is now. I dyed it to match my bedspread. At the time, it seemed as good an inspiration as anything. At least my comforter was always there, night after night, holding me, cradling me tight. What else could I ask for?

  “You're fucking beautiful,” Ty tells me honestly as he watches the video, brown eyes flickering across the screen, tracing my every movement. I don't blame him; I was prettier then, skinny and lithe and muscular with a flashy, blue zircon belly ring in the shape of a butterfly. Watching this video makes me remember why I don't dance anymore. I was perfect that day and even better the next. If I dance now and mess up those memories, I'll never forgive myself. I open my mouth to tell Ty this because for whatever reason, I want to spill my guys out to him, when Lacey walks in the room with a pink shopping bag on one shoulder and a blue one on the other. Her girlfriend is standing right behind her, giggling, but stops as soon as she sees Ty. Then she switches her attentions from Lacey to him.

  It's hard to resist a man like Ty McCabe, even for someone as emotionally shallow as what's-her-name.

  “Hey there,” she says, and Lacey goes from smiley to scowling, twisting her skinny lips into an angry frown. Ty doesn't respond to her right away. First, he reaches over me and wraps his big hand around mine, moving the mouse to the pause button. He clicks it and stands up suddenly.

  “Hey there yourself,” he says with a naughty smirk that bugs the hell out of me for whatever reason. “The name's Ty,” he tells her as he moves aside so that Lacey can throw her bags on her bed. She's on the verge of having a temper tantrum, but nobody notices but me. “Mind if I grab yours?”

  “Renee Foster,” she tells him with the very same smile she was using on Rick at the frat party only a few days prior. See, I told you girls like Renee want to marry guys like Rick and have kids and pretend to be happy, but they secretly want to fuck guys like Ty. I tap my fingers on my desk and feel irritated. Why, I can't guess, because he doesn't belong to me. I don't want him to belong to me. Maybe I just don't like Renee?

  “Nice to meet you, Renee,” he says with a dimpled smile and the two of them shake hands. I'm happy to see that he doesn't touch her hair or let her kiss his jaw like he did with me. “You must be Lacey's girlfriend. I've only heard good things.” Renee's face turns pasty white and she whirls on Lacey with a glare that could kill. She says nothing, but her breath huffs in and out like a wild animal. Ty and I both seem to know when it's better to stick around and when it's best to leave because we both move towards the door and around Renee at the same time.

  “That was totally uncalled for,” I hiss at him as soon as it closes behind us. Shouts echo out and down the hallways. Luckily, most people are in class right about now so there isn't a crowd around to hear.

  “What was?” Ty asks, going for a cigarette even tough there's a No Smoking sign just a few feet down from where we're standing. I stare at his perfect head, silhouetted against the white wall and for some reason, I just want to hit him. I don't know why, I just do.

  “Go away,” I tell him as I snatch the cigarette from his hand. He looks at me for a long time, just stares at me. “Get out!”

  Ty reaches out, takes the cigarette back and disappears down the hallway.

  I don't see or hear from him for a week.

  8

  I'm at a stupid, fucking party with Lacey again because I'm so mad at myself for kicking Ty out of my dorm that I can barely think about anything else. I don't have his number or e-mail or address, and he's been virtually impossible to find. I've searched Ty McCabe on just about every social networking site, plugged it into just about every search engine. All I can think is that I've driven my first and only real possibility at a friend away, and now the hunger is back, the gnawing loneliness that brings unbidden tears at night. It's whispering at me, telling me what I should do to ease that ache. If I don't obey it, sooner or later it'll turn into a scream. So I do what I do best and give into it.

  I'm hitting on a guy in a black sweater with hair that looks uncannily similar to mine – black with a red streak in the front. He's talking about how much he loves motorcycles and I'm nodding and picking lint off his sweatshirt with a smile. Lacey's standing beside me fuming because Renee won't talk to her anymore. She told me that Renee called her a damn dyke and even had the audacity to slap her. I asked Lacey if they'd ever slept together, but she wouldn't give me a straight answer. Doesn't matter anyway, I suppose, because I'm in no place to help anyone else with their love life. I don't even have one of my own.

  I slide my hands down the bright blue fabric of my dress, pleased at the way it frames my breasts but disappointed at how much it bunches around my midsection. I'm a lot curvier than I was in that belly dancing video, and it's starting to get to me. I've probably watched it a hundred times since Ty left, and I'll probably watch it a hundred more before I'm done. I feel somehow that it's not over until he sees the end, until he sees my mother make a fool of herself on the stage and set into motion the events that drove me away from my home and into the arms of the real world, emancipation, and a series of shitty jobs that almost killed me. At least I was never a whore like Ty, I think bitterly and then suddenly just feel sad for him. That empty, gaping, lonely spot in me is crying out for attention.

  “Hey, want to go somewhere?” I ask the guy in the sweater. I think his name is Jason or something, but I don't say it aloud in case I'm wrong.

  He raises his eyebrows and says, “Sure thing, beautiful.” I grit my teeth and pretend I don't hear that. I hate that term, beautiful. It's so condescending that it makes me sick.

  “Hey Never,” says this girl who I know only briefly because we have a lab together. “Your boyfriend's here.”

  “My boyfriend?” I ask as I drop Jason-or-whatever's hand and push through the pulsi
ng, vibrating throng towards Shanay. She's pointing towards something, but it's hard to see because there are people everyone, just this big, massive, thrusting, sweating wall of them. Some of them are dancing, others are halfway to a home run, and some are just singing, voices heavy with liquor and pot. I kind of hate it here, but then, I had nothing else to do tonight. I finished all the books on my to read list and felt all the emptier because of it. One contemporary romance novel after another slid down my throat until I was convinced that something was wrong with my life. Those girls always get what they want in the end. I'm envious of them. I want an ending like that, too. “Boyfriend?” I ask Shanay. She doesn't really know me, not the true me anyway, but she's aware that I do not date. Not for real.

  “The guy with the …. ” she flickers her fingers against her arms, and I know instantly what she means. The guy with the butterfly tattoos.

  “Ty is here?” I ask, not even bothering to correct her about the boyfriend thing. I'll be lucky if she can even hear me with the rap music drilling a hole in both our brains. She nods and points towards the door. I don't even thank her, just push through the bodies and the youthful euphoria that I'm surrounded by but not a part of.

  Ty is standing on the front porch with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He's wearing a red tank top that shows off his muscular shoulders and highlights the tattoos on his upper back. I see a raven, a bald eagle, a hummingbird. All of them have their wings spread in flight and expressions of complete and utter bliss on their faces. That is, if you can imagine a bird looking blissful. Whoever did Ty's tats was skilled at it.

  I touch his shoulder as I step out beside him, and he turns to look at me.

  “I'm sorry,” he says as he tries to hand the beer to me. His gold bracelets tinkle against the glass as I wave him away. I only drink when I'm at rock bottom. I'm hovering close by, sure, but I'm not there yet. If I drink, I'll only fall faster.