A Cruel Kind of Beautiful

by Michelle Hazen

  I power down on the pedals of my bike to make it over the last big hill, and I consider whether I might be a bad person. Because I’m wondering if Jacob left me anything new after his heart breaker of an ice cream present yesterday.

  My street seems longer than usual, my legs heavy from lack of sleep. I was up all night on my laptop, playing with adding keyboard effects and synth to our old songs with my bedroom door locked as if Danny might be able to hear me from clear across town.

  The last thing I can handle today is another perfect gift from Jacob, when I’m already teetering on the edge of compromising everything about the life I’ve spent a year building.

  He’s never stopped calling, and I had to set the ringer to silent to keep my fingers from itching to answer. No matter what tricks I use, though, there’s a certain feeling I get when his name appears on my screen: a hit of pure excitement and guilt all at once. Lovely and ugly and addictive as all hell.

  Yeah, I’m probably a bad person.

  Admitting that doesn’t keep me from indulging in my new favorite game, starting by looking away from my front door when I coast up to my house on my bike. The builders were too cheap to put a roof over the tiny cement stoop and its two steps, so instead they pushed it in under the main roof of the house, making a little cubbyhole set in from the outside. This means I can put away my bicycle in the garage, walk around to the front, and savor the reveal of whatever surprise he left me like I’m slowly opening a birthday present.

  Today my prize is... Christ, it’s Jacob. He sits with his back against one wall, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his head resting against the doorjamb. He doesn’t move when I come into view, and as I edge closer I realize he’s asleep.

  I hug my arms around myself, the flush of heat from my bike ride starting to give way to the damp chill in the air. Jacob is wearing a long-sleeved cotton tee shirt, and it’s late October with storm clouds throttling the sky. How is he warm enough to sleep?

  I swallow, hesitating. If I wake him up, we’ll argue. It’s inevitable, because I can’t say yes to any question he’s here to ask me. I’m not naïve: I know Andy and Jacob might not have the same reaction to my issues in bed. But even if Jacob didn’t lose confidence in his own ability to please a woman, sooner or later he’d want more from a relationship than I can give him.

  Still, I can’t leave him out here in the cold.

  “Jacob.” I almost flinch at the sound of my own voice. “Jacob, hey, wake up.”

  No response. He must be exhausted. I wonder if something went wrong with his family again, if that nebulous “something” has been keeping him too busy to sleep.

  I take a step and speak a little louder this time. “Jacob!”

  Nothing. Wow. I take a steadying breath and tell myself that touching his arm to rouse him is the only polite thing to do. I crouch down, the curve of his shoulder fitting gently into my palm, and for a second I forget I’m supposed to be waking him up. I love how warm he always is.

  It’s a stupid thing to be fond of, someone’s body temperature. You may as well get misty-eyed over their toenail shape. Except Danny’s always so hot it’s a little intense, and Jacob’s a more soothing kind of warm. Like a hot bath, or chamomile tea.

  I call his name again, and shake him a little. Even when his head lolls against the siding of the house, he doesn’t budge. Fear fists inside my chest. Is he drunk, or on some kind of drugs? I check his pulse. It’s strong and steady, so I grab both his shoulders and pull him away from the wall, half-shouting his name.

  He blinks, eyes soft and vague with sleep, but a smile spreads across his face when he sees me. “Oh, hey.”

  I let go of him and sit back on my heels, exhaling a breath that sags my shoulders just as the first drops of rain splatter the sidewalk. “Jacob, what are you doing?”

  He glances around, stretching his back with a wince. “Waiting for you. I guess I misjudged your class schedule a little bit.”

  “You were so out of it I had to take your pulse. You scared the hell out of me!”

  He reaches over and massages his right shoulder, and his eyes fall hazily toward his knees. “Sorry. I’m kind of beat. Must have dozed off. What time do you think it is?”

  “When was the last time you slept?”

  He blinks, then scrubs a hand over his face.

  "That’s what I thought you were going to say.” I push to my feet, holding a hand out to help him up.

  He unthinkingly accepts my help, and his weight nearly topples both of us. He catches me, blinking again. “Sorry.”

  I pull my keys out of my bag and open the door. “Come inside. You’re not even fit to bike right now.”

  He follows me all the way to my room before he pauses, tentatively touching a hand to the doorframe.

  “You need to sleep. And to be honest, my couch sucks.” I nod toward my bed, which is—thank God—actually made for once.

  “Jera...”

  I can’t meet his eyes. He takes a step into my room and I clear my throat, edging around him toward the door. As I grasp the doorknob, I risk one glance at him.

  Jacob searches my face. “You’ll still be here?”

  I want to tell him my answer can’t be any different when he wakes up, that we obviously can’t keep it platonic and we’re doomed to failure at anything beyond that. But he looks so tired, so I just nod and close the door softly between us.

  Shrugging off my overloaded messenger bag, I leave it in the kitchen and go out through the side entrance to the garage. Rain mists onto the pavement outside the rolled-up door, and I head out into the drizzle, scanning until I find Jacob’s bicycle propped in the bushes beside the front door. Its wheels squeak as I walk it inside so it can dry out, his handlebars much higher than my own when I prop the bikes up together.

  My drums beckon from the corner, promising me a clear head: all the emotions aching through my body cleaned out with the beat of an honest rhythm. Except I don’t want to wake Jacob. I hit the button for the garage door and go back into the house, kicking off my shoes so my steps will be quieter.

  If he’s been too busy to sleep, he probably hasn’t been getting enough to eat either. I suppose it would send all the wrong signals if I made him some soup before he left. Gluten-free, totally platonic soup.

  I fall into a chair at my kitchen table, dropping my head into my hands with a grimace. Who am I kidding? Like putting him in my bed wasn’t already sending the wrong signal? But I can’t drive him home because his bike won’t fit inside my car, so I at least need to make sure he's rested enough to safely negotiate the streets. I’ve been trying to protect both of us by staying away from him, but I think in his current state, traffic is definitely the greater danger.

  I take a deep, cleansing breath, but I can’t stop thinking about him on my porch, waiting for me for hours. The hard concrete of my stoop is so uncomfortable it would keep most people from dozing off but not Jacob. Most times I’ve seen him, he’s been riding the near edge of exhaustion from all his jobs, school, and playing quasi-parent to his little brother, too.

  He’s a shining example of everything I used to try to be, only he’s not crumbling under the pressure the way I did. If I’m around him, I don’t know how I’ll keep from slipping into my old patterns.

  I honestly don’t know what it is about me that chases guys away. If they’d stay if I were the Kama Sutra Queen, or if it has to do with me wanting to talk music longer than any of them, or maybe it comes off as clingy when I try to enjoy their hobbies. I don’t know why I can have orgasms when I’m alone but never—not once—with another person in the room. Maybe I’m just not built to connect to someone else, physically or otherwise.

  I pick at one of Granna’s old flowered placemats as the sound of the synth from last night plays through my head, jarringly out of touch with the classic chords of the guitar beneath it.

  Would it be worth it to try again instead of attempting to ignore everyone else’s opinion of me?

>   For Jacob? For Amp Records?

  Is there any way to have either of them and still hang onto the things about myself and my music that I’ve come to actually like?

  Jacob and I already have more in common than I did with most of my boyfriends, and we have the same sense of humor. Maybe with a guy like him, I wouldn’t have to make myself over into something new to keep him interested. But even if that went okay—and it’s a great big if—nothing past platonic has ever worked out for me.

  It’s not that I dislike sex: at its worst, it’s uncomfortable and lonely. At its best, it is vibratingly, achingly frustrating because I can get so worked up without ever getting the release at the end.

  Maybe I could fake it.

  The worst of the trouble with Andy started when I told him I was having a problem. It’s not like he even noticed on his own. Jacob already knows about me, but the first few times we were in bed together, I could act like I was having a hard time. Then I could pretend to have some big breakthrough and just fake all the orgasms after that.

  Girls do it all the time.

  I sigh, kicking the toe of my shoe against the linoleum. There I go again, acting like something I’m not to make a man happy. I shake my head, exhausted with the whole situation, and seeing no new solutions. My homework is waiting, and the best idea is just to distract myself from the fact that for the first time in a year, my bed’s not empty.

  Attempting to remember what I have due in the morning, I reach down to pull a notebook out of my messenger bag, and my eyes stray to a piece of paper stuck between my salt and pepper shakers.

  It crinkles between my fingers as I pluck it out, and I unfold it onto the table. It’s one of Danny’s pencil drawings of a tattoo idea, incomplete. I make a mental note to get it back to him in case he wants to put it in his book.

  I used to think the clients who used the tattoo books in Negative Images were weird. Who would go in, wanting something permanent, and not know what it was?

  Then again, I’ve seen the incredible things Danny makes to put into those books, hoping they’ll be the right thing for somebody. What if you started looking, and you found something so beautiful you could never have imagined it yourself?

  What if you didn’t want to give it up?

  I close my eyes and press the heels of my hands hard against my lids, my brain tired past the point of words. The floor creaks under my feet as I stand up and move down the hall toward my bedroom, every step closer to him one more I shouldn’t be taking.

  The door is ajar, even though I’m sure I closed it. My face softens, because of course it is: that’s what we’ve been doing all along. I close the door in his face and he pries it back open again.

  When I lay a hand on the door, its hinges creak but Jacob doesn’t stir. His ship-sized Vans lay crookedly on the floor like he laid down and barely managed to toe them off before he passed out. He’s lying on his side on top of the covers, one elbow cocked up beneath my pillow and his sock-clad feet looking strangely vulnerable against the old quilt I use as a bedspread.

  He chose the left side, and I always sleep on the right, but I refuse to read too much into that. Instead, with my chest aching, I crawl up onto the bed and lie down where I can watch him sleep. So close I could lean forward and kiss his cheek.

  Strangely, with him right in front of me, the churn of my brain quiets; the doubts and worries and endless guilt finally pausing as if his napping has declared a general holiday. The rain funnels out of the gutters and into the lawn with a soft whooshing, but it's raining so softly I can't even hear it on the roof. Just now, the quiet of my house is almost peaceful.

  I let all the air slide out of my lungs. When his scent rides in on my next indrawn breath, I let go for the first time in a long time.

  Chapter 17: Terrible Brilliance

  Jacob wakes up gently; his body still relaxed into my bed. His eyes focus on me, and a slow smile unfolds across his face.

  I keep my hands tucked beneath my cheek, and I don’t smile, don’t move. Just watch him with eyes full of everything I’m afraid I’m messing up right now, just by daring to be exactly where I want to be.

  He reaches over and touches my hair, rubbing a bit of it between his fingertips.

  “How did the meeting with the record label go?” His voice is scratchy and pitched low. “Danny told me you’ve got one interested.”

  Of course he talked to Danny. And of course Danny didn’t think to mention it.

  Jacob’s question isn’t the one I expected, but it feels right somehow. As if this is a routine that’s just been waiting for us to step back into it.

  “The meeting was...confusing. And flattering. And scary as hell.”

  He nods, his slight beard stubble catching on the cotton cover of my pillow. “Yeah.”

  “Jacob, I don’t think this will work. And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “I know,” he says.

  Those simple words dagger straight through me, fear clear and bright inside my head. Maybe he’s given up.

  It’s safer if he does, so we don’t have to suffer through all the failures that will come if he doesn’t. So why am I still afraid?

  “I miss you.” He’s lifted one of the sun-streaked pieces of my hair over his fingers, and now he smoothes his thumb down the strands. “You let me into your life for just one week and I miss you like you wouldn’t believe.”

  He lays my hair down, draping it over my wrist, and then he touches my bottom lip with one finger. Goosebumps leap at his touch.

  “If this is about sex, here’s the thing: I like sex. Every kind of sex. And I can make it unbelievably good for you.” He says it without a hint of a blush, and no trace of arrogance. The temperature of my skin rockets up.

  I swallow to combat my suddenly dry mouth. I really, really want to roll him on top of me and forget that no matter how hot he makes me, I’ll be left panting and straining and unfulfilled at the end.

  I want to pretend I don’t know better.

  “This isn’t a romance novel,” I tell Jacob. “It doesn’t work like that. You can’t just put on some Barry Manilow and call it making love, and be so gentle with me that my head explodes into a rain of fireworks. I tried all that, and it sucked.”

  I push up to sitting, my eyes darting away from him as I rub one hand down my opposite arm. I hate how ugly it makes me feel to talk about this stuff.

  “No matter how excited I get, I can’t finish. My ex tried to help me get over it, and it only made the whole thing worse for both of us.”

  “Look, I get that. I listened to that shitty voicemail he left you. But it doesn’t have to go that way, Jera. Did you know that seventy-five percent of women have trouble experiencing orgasm through vaginal sex? Only fifteen percent of women have the same trouble once additional stimulation is provided.” He sits up too. “Have you tried toys? Even just a little booster like a vibrating cock ring? What about fetishes?”

  I blink, at a loss.

  “Fetishes can be really unique, and they are often biologically based,” he explains. “Not linked to trauma or anything weird. They’re incredibly powerful. You could have an insane gummy bear fetish or something and just have no idea that's what you need to get excited. Have you read much erotica?”

  My cheeks burn and if my mouth isn’t hanging open, it’s only because I’m too shocked to move.

  “I might have done some research,” he admits.

  “Oh really? I thought I accidentally hit play on my Sexual Dysfunction for Dummies audiobook. How are you not blushing right now?”

  “Lots of stuff embarrasses me, I guess, but not sex.” He shrugs. “And it’s important to you. Of course I want to know as much as I can. Besides, I’m an engineering major. Taking things apart and figuring out how they work is kind of what we do.”

  That pulls a reluctant smile from me, because that is insanely nerdy but also sweet, and more than a little embarrassing. I don’t even want to see all the ways I’ve besmirched his browser
history.

  “Why not experiment?” His gaze drops to my lips. “I’ll try anything you’re interested in.”

  I bolt to my feet and pace across the room. “It’s not a challenge, Jacob. It’s my life, my body.”

  “I didn’t say do it right this second,” he protests. “I’m just saying, if sex is why you’re turning me down, I think we can work that out.”

  When I whip around for another lap, he’s on his feet and standing right in my way.

  “I told you before that I don’t know if I can keep up with my life and a relationship, too. There are some things I can’t change.” He catches my shoulders, his warmth comforting through my shirt. “But I want to be in your life, Jera. Whatever that takes.”

  “I—” Shit, shit, shit. “Jacob, I can’t...”

  His face brightens as he sees I’m wavering, and he says, “Then I won’t either.”

  “Wait, what?” I can’t think with his thumbs stroking my skin like this. I shake my head to clear it.

  “If you can’t orgasm, I won’t either. Then neither of us will be leaving the other one behind.”

  I laugh half-bitterly, but when he doesn’t join in, I shake my head. “Right. That sounds like a line you use to get a dumb girl into bed.”

  “Or it’s kind of brilliant. No orgasms at all, at least not when we’re together. It takes it off the table entirely, which means there’s no pressure.” He smiles down at me.

  “More likely you’ll end up all sexually frustrated and grouchy, and we’ll break up over that instead.”

  His eyes are gentle and his smile never falters. “Try me.”

  It’s like the contract with Amp: he’s offering everything I want, and that makes it so hard to remember that there’s a potentially fatal flaw at the heart of both deals.

  I want to say yes. I want to melt into his arms and let him stroke all my problems away, and I know it will just do the opposite. I cross my arms, and tell him the truth. “Look, I suck at sex, and I kind of suck at relationships, too. Every time I’m really into a guy, I try so hard to make it work that I totally forget who I am, and then he dumps me.” I rake a hand back through my hair. “Maybe it’s just something about me, because that record label says they’re crazy about our music, and they want to change everything about it. So far, I hate their ideas, and I was up all night, trying them anyway.” I blow out a breath. “It’s every guy I’ve ever dated all over again, and you—”