Lost Cause

by Callie Sparks

  I move to pull open the door after I parallel park, and he says, “Wait. Ari. I should probably apologize for that night.”

  I look at him. “What night?”

  “You know. Claire’s party. The night before . . . “

  I snort. “That was a long time ago.”

  “But you remember.”

  Of course I remember. It was the last time I saw him. Claire’s parties were always events to get worked up over—there was no telling what would happen. I remember so clearly the nostril-scalding smell of chlorine, the faint strains of some popcorn pop song lilting in through the pool shed. I remember his voice, tentative, scared. As long as you don’t mind that it’s me. “Forget it,” I mutter, throwing open the door.

  Jacy is waiting outside as we approach. Everything about her is just as light as I remember—translucent, like starlight. She’s wearing an incredibly short denim skirt and heels, plus a lace tank that shows off the rack her daddy bought her for her Sweet Sixteen. She didn’t have a problem with breast size, not like I did—but she said her natural ones were too droopy and the nipples too small. Jacy has always been all about walking perfection. It’s no wonder every male eye in a two-block radius is on her.

  Despite being the dead of summer, it’s colder on the river. She jumps up and down, shivering, which manages to make her look obscene and adorable at once. “Oh, my god, guys!” She runs up and gives me a hug, but her eyes never leave Noah. When I pull back, I realize the act is mutual. She takes his hand and squeezes it. “God, it’s so good to see you.”

  Everyone loves Jacy. She’s effervescent yet sincere, perfect yet humble. She’s always meant what she said, and she was always kind to Noah, even when the rest of the flock used to ignore, or worse, taunt him. And she may have had the Rapunzel thing going on before, but now she’s sexed it up. So it’s no wonder that Noah can’t take his eyes off of her.

  When we get inside, the beat is throbbing. I can’t help thinking of the normal modus operandi for Noah and me at a party—sitting in the corner, away from the fray. That’s probably why we navigate around tightly packed bodies, straight to an empty high-hat table near a wall. I slide onto the stool and place my wristlet in front of me, then look down to make sure my boobs aren’t popping out of my tube top. “You look hot, girl,” Jacy whisper-yells into my ear.

  I grin. “I learned from the best.” Jacy was my personal stylist. It took most of high school and every copy of Glamour and Cosmo produced over the past five years, but she finally prevailed. Even though it’s just a sequin skirt and a tube top, it’s miles above the t-shirts and shapeless gym shorts I used to wear. No matter what Noah says.

  Someone drops three bottles of Corona on the table. I look up and realize Noah’s already taken care of us. He puts his thumb in the neck of his bottle and upends it, getting the lime to sink to the bottom. He takes a swig and surveys the room, then looks at me curiously.

  It’s only then I realize I’m staring at him open-mouthed.

  “I need a shot,” I mumble.

  Without a word, Noah disappears and returns with three shot glasses. “Kamikaze.”

  I down mine without pretense. Now it’s Noah’s turn to look on in shock. He takes another swig of his beer and pushes his shot over to me. I do that one, too. Jacy finishes hers and lets out a whoop. “Who needs that fucking Gabe, anyway?”

  “Not me,” I mumble, looking at the empty shot glass. Before I know it, I have a new one in my hand. I smirk at Noah. “I’m driving.”

  He grins.

  I do that one, too. I hold the glass up to him. “Mr. Templeton, I do believe you’re trying to get me drunk.”

  He leans in and whispers, “I’m trying to pry that stick out of your ass.”

  I scowl. “What the—“

  “Go ahead, Ari-Bari. Deny that you’re in a bad mood.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. I take a swig of the beer and growl, “Stop thinking you know me. You don’t know me anymore, best friend.”

  He gives me an innocent raise of the eyebrows. A song I like starts to pulse through the speakers. I grab Jacy’s hand and pull her toward the dance floor. “We’re dancing. Come if you want.”

  He starts, “Well, I’ve never—“

  “Oh, too bad,” I cut him off. He doesn’t have to explain. Because, obviously. It’s Noah. The kid used to have trouble walking.

  I yank Jacy into the center of the floor, and I exhale with relief. Noah would never follow us here. We start to pulse with the crowd, jumping up and down and swatting off all the guys that seem to want to gyrate against us just because we’re alive and wearing short skirts. Jacy raises her arms up in the air, doing this sexy dance that makes everyone turn and stare. Then she seems to spot something she wants over my shoulder, because she starts biting her lower lip and giving this come-hither glance. I turn around to see what lucky guy she’s got in her clutches, when at the same time she launches herself at Noah, curling her arms over his shoulders and tangling her fingers in his hair. He takes a step backward before delving his tongue into her open mouth.

  I stop dancing. I watch Noah, kissing Jacy, so deeply and hungrily I should have the compulsion to look away. But I can’t. He wraps his hands around her ass and lifts her off the ground, and they’re still going at it, like they’re the only two in the room.

  Some guy wraps his hands around my waist and whispers, “What’s your name?” in my ear, but okay, Noah’s right. I’m not in the mood. The shots are starting to go right to my head. I push away and wander to the edge of the dance floor as Jacy lifts Noah’s t-shirt and her hands disappear underneath. Hadn’t I wondered what those back muscles felt like?

  No. Forget it.

  I get back to the edge of the dance floor when I hear someone say my name. I whirl, nearly losing my balance.

  Oh, no.

  Gabe is sitting at the bar.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” he says.

  I need to leave. I’m close to drunk. I can’t be here, near those dimples, because I’m at my weakest and they’ve been known to prevail when I’m feeling pretty strong. But I look back and can only see Noah. He used to disappear into a crowd, but now he’s a head taller than most people. I see Jacy’s graceful fingers, wrapped around his neck, and right then, I long, oh how I long, for those days when Noah and I used to sit safe on the sidelines, away from it all.

  Then I totter up to Gabe. God, he’s hot. “Hi,” I mutter, throwing my wristlet down at the bar.

  He motions to the bartender, who begins to set up five-six-seven-eight shots. That’s when I realize all the tall, hulking men around me must be his friends from college. They’re all Princeton athletes, likely, like him, cute and clean-cut and smelling like after-shave. They’re looking at me like sharks, and I’m their evening meal. Gabe reaches over and hands me a shot glass. “Fireball.”

  By now the stuff is going down like water. I do it, and suddenly I’m the belle of these boys’ ball. They all surround me, grinning, their eyes travelling up and down my body.

  Gabe says, “I called you a couple times.”

  I snort. More like forty. “I didn’t want to talk to you.” I turn around and smile at each of his friends in turn.

  He grabs my wrist and leans so close I can smell the beer on his breath. “Look. I told you. That . . . with Claire. It was a one-time thing.”

  I shrug like it’s no big deal and make a move to leave. “Right.”

  He pulls harder on my wrist. “Hey. Come on.” He looks around and whispers in my ear, “We can’t talk with all my bros around. Want to get out of here?”

  No. I leave with him, and there’s a good chance he screws me in his BMW. I don’t have the resolve to resist him and those damned dimples right now. I try to yank my wrist away. “No.”

  “Come on, Ari. I love you. I’m going nuts without you. We have to get past this.” He glances around. “Wait. Who’re you here with?”

  “None of your business.” I manage to pry myself free, but he
quickly clamps a hand on my shoulder.

  “Stay. Come on. Have another shot.”

  I try to pull away, but I’m not going anywhere. I start to shake my head when a voice sounds behind me.

  “I think she told you no.”

  Noah.

  He’s standing there, still holding Jacy’s hand.

  Gabe’s eyes narrow at him. “Look who it is. Our local celebrity.” He laughs. “This is none of your business, Templeton.”

  He drops Jacy’s hand. He holds his fists clenched at his sides. “She said she doesn’t want to talk to you. Leave. Her. Alone.”

  Gabe pushes off the stool and stands, the two of them standing toe-to-toe. I think he’s used to towering over people, because he does, most of the time. But now Noah is a hair taller. Realizing this, Gabe’s eyes meet Noah’s, and travel upward, to his forehead. He lets out a short laugh. “Why don’t you go fuck your mother.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, that’s right. You already did.”

  I reach in to try to pull them apart, because this’ll only end badly. Since when was Noah the type to stand up to anyone like this, especially Gabe? “Okay, guys . . .” I start.

  I exhale as Noah lets out a laugh, too, like Gabe just told the funniest joke in the world. I’m about to walk him away when Noah suddenly wrenches himself free from me and advances on Gabe, fists clenched.

  #

  On the walk to our bus after school, we were both silent.

  I knew what happened; it was all over the school. Jim had left; gone off to some other school, but just when Noah thought it was smooth sailing, an even meaner bully named Cam Blakely had moved in. This was even worse because, well . . . Cam was a girl.

  A girl with a deadly right hook. And she didn’t like anyone, but she disliked Noah most of all. She’d transferred in, looking like a roustabout on a freighter, even when wearing a skirt. Though she dressed up like a girl and wore make-up, she was tough and burly enough to make me look like Marilyn Monroe. No one got in her way unless he wanted his ass whupped. And yeah—Noah had plenty of fodder to make fun of—he talked softly, walked in a funny lope, and his ears stuck out, but the worst thing was that he was meek and defenseless. An easy target. People had laid off him, though, ever since Sarah. They felt sorry for him. But Cam came to our school, and either didn’t know, or didn’t care. She ripped open those old wounds.

  “Does it hurt really bad?” I asked him gently, surveying the purplish C that half-circled the outside of his eye.

  He shook his head and sniffled. The kid had gotten enough injuries over the years; though I’d stopped keeping score, he was the undisputed champion of my injury scale. And he’d lost a sister. He had to have a high threshold for pain by now, inside and out.

  I shrugged. “Why don’t you ask your dad to . . . I don’t know . . . show you a few punches?”

  He shook his head again.

  “Why not?”

  He clucked his tongue, annoyed. “First, my dad isn’t ever around. Second, I don’t want to fight anyone. I don’t believe in that. I just want to be left alone.”

  Walking home, up that big hill, always took the wind out of me. But it was even worse that day. We were silent, breathing hard, when he let out a low, pained moan. His pace slowed.

  “Annie’s going to . . . my mom . . .” He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

  I knew why. Annie might call the principal and make things even more embarrassing for him. She’d done that with the Jim situation, and somehow word got out that he had his mommy fighting his battles. But at least I knew she would offer him an ice pack and try to make it all better. She was on his side, after all.

  “We can go to my house, if you want.”

  He nodded, so we did. We didn’t do much. We went out to the treehouse, deep in the woods, and sat across from each other. We went through our backpacks and spread out our homework, shared a package of Ho-Hos he had left over from lunch. He helped me with my algebra. I taught him how to write his name in funky block handwriting that looked like robot-writing, right there on the wall. But pretty soon, the sun started to slip in the sky. “It’s okay. You need to show her.”

  His skinny legs were crossed in front of him, covered in scabs, like mine. He was trembling miserably in the breeze. “She thinks I’m weak,” he whispered. “They all do. And they’re right. I am.”

  I thought for a moment. “Then don’t fight. Just lift weights, right? If you lift weights and look bigger, maybe they’ll leave you alone. Ask for a set for your birthday or something. Put on some muscle, make them not want to mess with you.”

  He nodded. “Done. I’ve already started.”

  I said, “You want to meet out here tonight? It’s a nice night.”

  We hadn’t done that in a while. We did it when it was hot in the summers, but it was March. Still, it was unseasonably warm, almost sixty. All the snow had melted. I felt tired of being cooped up inside. He nodded.

  I met him out there after my parents had gone to sleep; they didn’t care, but Noah’s stepmom was a little more strict. She’d probably felt sorry for him, though, considering the day he’d had. We laid out our sleeping bags but this time, since it was cold, Noah zipped them together. He said our body heat would keep us both warm. And it worked. We didn’t touch each other, much—maybe his foot grazed mine once or twice, but that was it. And it didn’t matter—we were snug. “What did she say?” I whispered to him as we settled together in the giant bag.

  He whispered, “She said she’d kill whoever laid a hand on me.”

  Chapter Ten

  But at the time, you didn’t suspect her.

  No. Not at all. I called her mom. She was still doing things for me that a mom would do—packing me my lunch and going to my school concerts. Sometimes, at least. Sometimes she was the perfect mom, like from a movie. She wasn’t all that reliable, with anything.

  Confusing?

  Very.

  When was the first time you had intercourse?

  I’d been tubing down the river. I came home and I was shivering—it was late spring before school let out, and so cold. I ran in and she told me to strip in the foyer so I wouldn’t get mud and dirty water all over the place—we had this white carpets, you see. She sat me down in a chair, then toweled me off. I remember, she was really jealous because I’d been with a friend who was a girl. That afternoon, she was really desperate and paranoid—she accused me of ignoring her, of “diddling in the woods” with my little girlfriend, and tried to kiss me, but my father was upstairs, so I told her we shouldn’t. So she fixed me hot chocolate, something she’d never done for me before. I remember sitting in the foyer, wearing a towel around my shoulders and falling asleep there. I woke up in my bedroom, naked. She was naked, too, riding me.

  She raped you.

  I didn’t realize that. I’d spent all day in the sun so I’d been really tired. By daylight, I convinced myself it was a dream.

  Until it happened again.

  Yeah. We were on the couch watching television, and she just reached over, pulled out my dick, climbed on top of me, and started going to town. I realized I’d done it before. I felt guilty, but after you do it the first time, doing it again is not that big a step. And it felt good. Exciting. I mean . . . I didn’t . . . I couldn’t ejaculate at first, but she kept telling me that everything of mine was in prime working order. That I made her feel so good. That my dad never made her feel that way. I always felt like I was inferior—weak, you know? But she made me feel like I had some use. She used to visit my room a few times a week.

  That often.

  More, if my dad was gone. When he was away, we’d sleep in the master bedroom.

  You’d go to her bed.

  Yeah.

  So you wanted it, then.

  I wanted to feel useful.

  Did you feel bad about this?

  Of course. But my father had distanced himself even more from me, too, after Sarah. We’d go months without t
alking. Almost like he hated me. And like I said, the feeling was nearly mutual. Annie and I were the only family each other had.

  So there you were, not yet a teenager, but lovers with your stepmother, every –

  Fucking. I don’t call it being lovers, or making love. I never called it that. It was all about filling a hole, literally and figuratively. Nothing more.

  I apologize. So you were fucking your stepmother every day... did anyone suspect this?

  Nope.

  No buddies to brag to at school?

  Even if I’d had buddies, I wouldn’t have bragged about this. I realized fucking her was twisted. I was the loser at school, the outcast. Why would I give them another reason to think that?

  #

  Somehow I end up in a booth in a 24-hour diner outside of Lambertville, staring at a full plate of bacon and eggs and fighting off the urge to retch. My eyes fall close in the blinding bright light, and I wish I had a couple of toothpicks to pry them open, like cartoon characters do. I prop my elbows on the laminated table and rest my head in my hands to steady the room. The moan I let out is only partly human.

  “You okay?” It’s Noah.

  “I’ve seen better days.”

  A chuckle. “Me too.”

  I try to gain focus on his face. He’s squeezed up next to Jacy, holding a crumpled napkin to his head. His eye is definitely swollen, and so is his lip.

  Well, what do you know? This Noah is very familiar.

  Jacy says, “Well, that’s what you get when you decide to take on the entire Princeton Lacrosse team single-handedly!” She has a napkin, too, and is dabbing his knuckles.

  “I wasn’t trying to take them on, believe me. Just him.”

  “You’re so stupid,” I mutter. Doing that for me? What made him think he needed to defend my honor? We may be friends, but I don’t need him breaking his face on my account. I open my mouth to let out this long-winded speech on how he doesn’t owe me anything, but something bubbles in the back of my throat. I just say, “You used to be a pacifist.”

  He leans over and plucks more napkins out of the dispenser. “In case you didn’t notice, a lot’s changed.” Then he reaches over and grabs my bacon. “You mind?”