“Here. Here, Leigh,” Thomas says, one of his warm hands touching the outside of mine while he nudges a cool can against my palm with his other.
My eyes water as I look at him, regarding me with a mix of amusement and pride and responsibility. It’s all too much. I drop my lids and take a big drink of 7UP. It helps the sting in my chest, so I take two more, slower, and when I open my eyes again, Thomas is still looking at me.
He doesn’t say anything as I swallow a hiccup and breathe out through pursed lips. He watches, and his attention, the way his blues feel like weight, like gravity—the involvement and accountability he looks at me with—makes me feel a little crazy.
And I like it.
TWO WEEKS later, I’m back in Thomas’ room, helping Becka search for her shoe.
Today is April Fools’ day, which also happens to be her birthday. She’s turning thirteen before me, but I’m too excited to be jealous. Birthdays are always great days.
“Thomas, you stupid boy.” She kneels next to his desk, digging around.
He’s told her it’s not in here, but she’s been looking for the better part of an hour. Wherever her left Chuck Taylor is, Thomas has hidden it well this time.
“Rebecka Marie, man, come on,” the hazy-eyed hider says as he steps past where I’m standing in the doorway watching. Tossing his jacket on his unmade bed, he laughs. He’s in a good mood, but what he’s actually saying is clear: get out of my shit.
“Give me my shoe,” his sister demands.
Thomas smiles crooked at her, then over at me while she goes back to tearing his room apart. “Maybe Jameson here can help you.”
Lucky for me, Becka’s too busy double-checking under his bed to notice what he said. But that doesn’t stop my cheeks from tingling with heat. I know they’re pink, and it’s not the blush I swept across them this morning. I move my right hand under my chin, back and forth in the universal oh my gosh, shut your mouth and stop talking right freaking now motion.
Thomas’ grin breaks into a chuckle so deep my pink cheeks turn red.
“See you, strawberry blonde.” He walks by, flipping one of my low-pulled pigtails over my shoulder.
Half an hour later, Becka and I are sitting on the couch watching a Rodney Mullen documentary. We each have one shoe on, one shoe off—mine out of sympathy, and hers because she still can’t find it. While the godfather of street skating kicks a helipop heel flip on the screen, Tommy opens the front door carrying a tattered Converse All Star in one hand and two pizza boxes under her other arm.
“This was in the mailbox,” she says, dangling the shoe from its dirty string. She smiles as she drops it into her daughter’s lap. “I believe it belongs to the birthday girl.”
Thomas’ laugh carries from the kitchen.
He and Lucas join us at the table for dinner, and people start showing up afterward. Jackie arrives first, then Oliver and Smitty come together, followed by Ben and Petey. My parents come too, and the neighbors from across the street. There are no candles or singing, but there is ice cream cake and a mountain of gifts—including a massive new stereo for the birthday girl’s bedroom.
Smitty tucks a mix CD into her backpack when she’s not looking. When they’re talking without words a few minutes later, Petey sticks his finger in her cake. She’s not amused with the hole he leaves, but it’s an all-around good party.
“Thirteen is going to be awesome,” she tells me with sugar-high blue eyes. “Hurry up and get older so we can be teenagers together.”
“Hurry up, October,” I agree, raising my cup into the air while she raises hers to toast it.
“But not too quickly,” Mom chides from across the room. People laugh, and her pitch is playful, but I recognize the reluctance and preservation underneath it.
I tap my cup to Becka’s and gulp my punch, pretending I didn’t hear her.
As the sun starts to set, we ditch obnoxious older boys and boring grownups to head outside. The Castors’ backyard is wide-open green grass and new-flower blooms everywhere you look. The breeze carries the scent of cookouts and honeysuckle, and fading daylight colors everything in gold and shadows.
As night darkens around us, talking and trading jokes turns into a playful push over a punchline, and a playful push turns into tag. It doesn’t take long after that for tag to turn into hide-and-seek, and that’s a game I can play. I’m an excellent hider.
With the antique birdbath in the middle of the yard as base, Becka’s it first. She finds and catches Smitty, who catches her back. Then she finds and catches Jackie, who also catches her back. The same with me, and Oliver. Everyone she finds and catches, gets her right back. It’s her birthday after all.
Snuck down next to Tommy’s huge peony bushes, surrounded by the sweetest, floweriest smell, I can see Becka searching for us. If the sun were still out, I could probably be seen too, but the moon is only a thumbnail shape tonight. Everything is outlines.
While B edges closer to where Jackie is hiding under the deck, I rock onto the toes of my Mary Janes, ready to break for home base. I almost jump up, but the patio door slides open and catches me off guard. I crouch quickly, petals and leaves tickling my bare legs as I crane my neck to see Thomas, Petey, and Ben step outside.
They’re all laughing—really laughing. Their steps lack measure and direction, but carry aloof boldness and sway. When the wind blows, I can practically smell the smoke rolling off them.
Ben points out Becka, and all three of them chase her. Thomas catches her first, and picks her up to steal one of her shoes. She runs after him, taking her other shoe off and throwing it at his feet when she can’t catch up. Petey tags her next, and she chases him too, the grass and dirt under nothing but her socks not fazing her in the least.
“Where’s your friend?” Thomas asks, messing up his sister’s hair as he walks past her, looking around.
I tuck myself further back into the flowers as I watch him from my secretly safe distance.
“Ollie, Ollie, oxen free! I’m going to find you, Bliss!” he calls out with a smile that flashes his teeth in the thin moonlight.
While everyone else runs from their hiding places, I crouch lower as Thomas walks around. He stretches his neck and scans the perimeter, and the closer he gets, the further back I hide. My smile curves higher with each of his steps, until I have to cover my mouth with both hands to keep my giggling in.
“Am I getting warmer, L?” he asks, his black on black Converse treading closer. In three or four more steps, he’ll find me, and the thought makes my heart pound.
Popping up from the peonies, I take off as fast as I can, laughing from down in my belly as I dash right past Thomas. But I’m no match. His legs are longer than mine, and the birdbath is forever and a day away.
“Run, Bliss!” Becka shouts, grinning from ear to triple-pierced ear, jumping up and down.
It’s difficult to run in a dress, though, and harder to run because now I’m laughing too. I peek over my shoulder, and Thomas is close. Too close.
I push myself to go faster, but he reaches both hands out and picks me up by my waist. For a few seconds, I’m flying. My pulse soars and I laugh freely into the night air. Thomas grips onto my sides, spinning me while he laughs too, and the sound is deep and rich and full in my ear.
It’s over before I’m ready for it to be. I’m back on the ground on my own two feet, trying to balance as he takes his hands from my sides.
Casual and cool and stepping away, he whispers, “You’re it.”
“What did the note say?” I ask for the third time, picking at the corner of Thomas’ pillow.
Beige wool carpet is scratchy under my bare legs, and the messy ponytail at the top of my head is heavy and lopsided.
The boys share a look and Thomas sighs, frustrated with my nagging determination to know about the tasteless things Petey wrote to Kelly. I’ve been warned twice to mind my own business, but they bring it up in ways that I don’t understand in front of me. I feel like I have the
right to be in on the joke.
“Leigh, you don’t want to know …” Pete starts.
I cut him off, speaking firmly and clearly. I don’t want to sound like a child. “How do you know what I want?”
But that’s exactly how this makes me feel.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Petey says. He checks with Thomas for confirmation that he’s right: I’m too young. “How old are you anyway, like, twelve?”
Dusty nods.
“I’ll be thirteen in three months,” I argue.
“Jesus,” Thomas mumbles under his breath. “You shouldn’t be hanging with us, Bliss.”
He’s right, but this is our thing.
Our secret.
Mine and theirs.
I don’t know when it became a routine, but I’ve managed to bury better judgment and put aside warnings about boys, alcohol, drugs, and bad choices, and spend at least three summer nights a week with these guys after my best friend drifts off to dreamland.
I don’t even knock on Thomas’ door anymore. I’m allowed in.
Most of the time I’ll lie in bed while the boys pass around a bottle of stolen liquor or gather near the window that faces the backyard to smoke weed. They’ve let me play video games with them, but Thomas gets irritated with my lack of simulated-car-thieving knowledge, so my turns are few and far between.
No one mentions our late night hangouts to Rebecka. It’s an unspoken rule that stays between us.
“I’m closer to thirteen than I am to twelve. I’m not that young, and you’re not that old, so shut up.”
“I’m fifteen,” Thomas replies, smirking like he knows everything.
“You turned fifteen two weeks ago, Dusty.” I fall back into the corner between his bed frame and nightstand and hold his pillow against my chest. My eyes start to burn, but I won’t let these boys make me cry.
“What’s the matter?” Ben singsongs. His dark-brown eyes are whisky-heavy and his smile is wider than normal.
Thomas picks up the controller and starts his video game back up, ignoring me.
“What did the note say?” I ask one more time. Sweat dampens my hairline and a small drop drips down my lower back. The air conditioner is on, but there’s something about three teenage boys that makes a room hot.
Petey and Ben look at each other, like they’re actually considering revealing the truth. Thomas curses and drops his controller at his feet. He lights a cigarette and opens the window across the room. Dense white smoke bleeds out into the murky night. With some fresh air, he lets in the scent of the trees and wet grass, masking the smell of sweaty boys and booze.
“You should probably go to bed, Bliss,” he says, blowing out into the summertime air.
He smirks when I glare.
“Come on, princess pie, it’s past your bedtime,” he taunts. His normal bright blue irises are dim.
“Little girl,” the jerk adds when I don’t react to the condescending way he calls me princess pie.
It’s usually soft-spoken when he says it.
“I don’t want to,” I say, sounding exactly how he wanted me to sound: young.
Thomas turns his back to me, leaning his arms on the windowsill. His mission to torture me is accomplished.
But Ben isn’t so serious.
“Still want to know, Bliss?” he asks, backhanding Petey in the chest once he starts to protest.
I sit up and cross my legs. “Yes.”
The dip-twins come a little closer. Petey’s blonde hair falls in his eyes, and when he shakes it away, I’m reminded of a little puppy dog. The bottom of Ben’s white socks are dirty and his cheeks are flushed.
“Tell her.” Ben elbows Pete.
“You tell her.” Petey elbows Ben.
“It was your note.”
“You want her to know.”
“Kelly’s your girlfriend.”
‘“No, she isn’t.”
“That’s what she told Val.”
I hold onto Thomas’ pillow, hiding my smile in its gray case while its owner winks at me, flicking his cigarette outside.
“I’ll tell her,” he offers, shutting the window before sitting in front of me between his friends. “You can’t tell your parents, Bliss.”
“I won’t,” I answer right away.
Thomas belly laughs with his boys. “I can’t believe you want to hear this, princess.”
Feather soft.
“I won’t tell. I promise.”
“That’s good,” he says. “Your parents wouldn’t let you over anymore if they knew I was contaminating your innocent mind, L.”
“They won’t know. I’m careful with my words.”
Thomas leans forward, circling a piece of my hair around his finger. He drops the lock and places his mouth right above my left ear. With his hand on my shoulder, this boy’s breath tickles my neck. Then, carefully, he tells me what the note to Kelly said.
I’m stunned stupid and shocked.
Thomas moves away, taking in my face: big eyed and drop-jawed. All three boys burst out in laughter louder than they have all the nights we’ve been together combined.
“Wait, that happens?” I ask, totally confused.
They pause for a moment to check if I’m being serious, and then laugh even louder than before.
“You can put that there?”
“REBECKA, DO you know what a blowy is?” I sit on the front porch with my elbows on my knees and my face in my palms.
Becka skateboards on her front driveway, barefoot and dirty faced. She giggles, kick-flipping her board. “Where did you hear that from?”
“I heard it on TV,” I lie.
My best friend rolls over to me. She sits on her board and peels back the grip tape. “I don’t know. I kind of do.” Her sweaty cheeks are sort of pink. “Why?”
I shrug my shoulders, sitting down in front of Rebecka. I lean back against her chest; she moves us back and forth in small strides. “No Reason. I thought it was weird.”
“It is weird. And gross.” B wraps her arms around me, pushing us down the driveway. I pull my feet up as Becka circles her legs around my waist. We scream into the damp summer wind, holding onto each other tight. And when we get to the bottom of the hill, we walk back up and do it again.
Rebecka tries to convince me to go alone. It’s not happening.
“I have a helmet, elbow and knee pads,” she insists, blowing her bangs out of her eyes.
“Knee pads?” Thomas asks from the other side of the front screen door. “Little young, aren’t we, princess girl?”
My eyes open wide, but it’s Rebecka who screams until a bluish vein pops out on the side of her neck. “Shut up, Thomas! Go smoke a joint or something, you fucking loser.”
“Rebecka,” Tommy yells from somewhere inside of the house. “Language, please.”
I’ve been doing stuff outside with Rebecka all day—flip-flops and dirty hands weather. We went hiking through the woods, stuck our feet in ice-cold mud, and washed our faces in the stream behind the house. I’m dirty and probably smell how I look. I pull at the ends of my jean shorts and snap my bra strap back onto my shoulder as Thomas and his stupid friends join us in the driveway.
Thomas looks at my feet, shaking his head, smiling. I curl my toes, hiding the little bit of grubby.
“You have something …” he starts, licking his thumb and reaching toward my face to rub off some of the afternoon.
I smack his hand and try to get away, but he chases me to the garage, around the house, alongside the driveway, and up the front porch where he finally catches me.
“Let go. Let go,” I beg, twisting and kicking in his arms.
With my back against his chest and his left arm around my stomach, holding me close, Thomas obnoxiously licks his thumb again and rubs on a spot along my jawbone. “You’re dirty, little girl,” he jokes, scrubbing too hard.
Dusty-spit aside, he smells good. This boy smells like his dad. And he’s dressed, like he’s leaving.
B
ending out of his hold, I wipe my face off and plop down on the porch swing, tired of being chased. Thomas sits beside me, tired of chasing.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Out,” he answers.
I was kind of hoping he would stay home tonight. Disappointment must show on my face, because Thomas tickles the spot beneath my ear. “Smile, it’s a rule.”
I do. I smile.
“A rule?” I ask.
I can see the color redden his cheeks. “Yeah, rule number one is that you have to smile when I’m around.”
I use my dirty feet to rock the swing. “Fine, but I have a rule for you.”
“What is it?”
“You have to always tell me where you are,” I say.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not the same, Leigh.” Thomas uses his Chucks to move the swing.
“It’s still a rule.” I shrug. “And rule number three is that you have to follow rule number two, no matter what.”
“Fine, then rule number four is that you can’t wear another boy’s sweater.”
Oliver’s face flashes through my mind.
“But what if I’m cold? Or if I spill something on my shirt?” I ask, jokingly elbowing him in the side.
“I’m serious.”
“Okay,” I reply, dropping it.
A soft awkwardness settles between us, but it’s not completely uncomfortable. Thomas pushes the swing, and I lean my head back and close my eyes. Everything behind my eyelids turns red. The sun feels good on my skin, I extend my legs and stretch my muddy toes. Sweat forms at my hair line, but I could sleep in this warm light.
“I’m going to Valarie’s.”
I open my eyes and everything is distorted and blurry from the sun. Thomas looks at me but turns away, patting his pockets for a cigarette pack. It’s out of habit; he won’t smoke with his parents around.
An old Toyota pulls into the driveway, and Tommy comes out onto the porch holding the house phone. “It’s your mom, Bliss,” she says.
Innocents Page 8
