Lost Cause

by Callie Sparks

  “Knock yourself –“ I stop. I burp. Oh, God.

  Somehow I find the bathroom and puke the entire contents of my stomach into the bowl. It’s not the cleanest of places but I can’t give a crap—I lie on the floor with my head against the seat, as the world spins around me. This is it, I’m dying. Jacy comes in a second later and helps me get cleaned up. She gives me a stick of gum, which makes me feel better. Then she checks her phone and laughs. “Well, lovely night,” she says brightly.

  “I look like death,” I mutter, staring at my reflection in the mirror. Sunken cheeks, yellow skin, hair hanging in vomit-soaked strings around my face . . . zombies have nothing on me. “I need to sleep. Forever.”

  She snorts. “It’s ten-thirty.” She hands me a hair tie. I try to loop my hair up in it but end up dry-heaving in the sink. She takes it and scoops my hair off my shoulders for me, tying it at the nape of my neck. I study the mirror. Not much better.

  I close my eyes, and memory floods back to me. Gabe. “What happened? I mean, after Gabe and his crew ripped Noah a new one?”

  She fluffs her hair, runs her hands over her surgically-enhanced breasts. As usual, she’s perfect. “Noah held his own. Really.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s just say Gabe’s orthodontia was for naught.” She laughs.

  “Oh, my God.”

  “It was like an old west barfight,” she says. “Furniture and barware flying, people breaking glass, all of it. Until, of course, we all got kicked out. And before ten o’clock. That’s got to be a record.”

  I look at her reflection in the mirror. “We did? Great.” I shake my head. “He’s so stupid.”

  She pulls the hem of her tank down over her jean skirt and I try to follow her while walking in a semi-straight line and not hugging the walls for dear life. When we get outside, Noah is looking at me, too hard. I know he’s concerned, but I wish he’d look anywhere else right now. His bruises make him look tougher, hotter. I look. Like. Hell.

  I’m not sure why it matters. He’s Noah. He’s seen me looking in all my muddied up, early-morning, don’t-give-a-shit glory.

  He tugs on Jacy’s sleeve. “Come on. Walk you to your car.”

  He doesn’t say “I’ll walk”, or “we’ll walk”, so I fidget there, wondering if I’m welcome. I think of the way they’d been making out, oblivious to everything else on the dance floor. They’d looked perfect, like a power couple, the kind everyone watches and envies. I wonder what’s going through his head, what he wants with her.

  Then he turns at the door and raises an eyebrow at me. “Coming?”

  I stumble after them, even though I’m holding my heels in my hand and going barefoot. For once, Noah is sure-footed, and I’m the clod. The sidewalk is thin so I’m forced to walk behind them, like a third wheel. When we get to her Audi, I wonder if I should give them space, but suddenly Jacy turns around and hugs him, then me. She throws her bag through the open window and says, “I’ll call you, Ari. Maybe we can do something less violent next time.”

  When she drives away, she honks at us cheerfully.

  I look at Noah, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. We’re alone. Not like we haven’t been that many times before. But things are different. Like he said, everything’s different. So when he comes up close to me, I can’t stop my breath from coming in quick, hard bursts. I think of him kissing Jacy, out of nowhere. If he stooped, and I raised my chin, we could kiss, too.

  I chew hard on my gum and nearly swallow it. He—my best friend—is undeniably the hottest guy I’ve ever seen. He blows Gabe out of the water, I think, as I stare blearily into his eyes, wavering on my feet.

  He reaches out and swipes a lock of hair behind my ear. I look up. That look. How can he look at me that way in a way that makes me feel tingles everywhere? I must be drunk.

  “How we doing, Ari-Bari?” he whispers, and his breath is warm on my face.

  “Good,” I say, even though I’m still queasy, because it’s the only word I can think of.

  Kiss me, I think.

  Wait, no. Where did that come from?

  Then his expression changes. He draws his lips into an uneasy smile. “I know what you’re going to say,” he says. “About Gabe, I—“

  I groan, and whatever magic there was between us slips away. “You don’t know anything about me,” I lie, snarling out the words. The truth is, he can read me like a book. I want to punch myself in the face. Did he know that just then, I wanted him to kiss me? He’s Noah. Goofy Noah. Of course he doesn’t know that. The last time we attempted anything of the sort? Big disaster. “He’s not as horrible a guy as you think. He’s just jealous of you because we were so close. But he does have his sweet side. He does. You know, last year, he drove eight hours in a snowstorm to bring me soup at college when I told him I was sick. He’s got his moments. So if you did know me, you never would’ve picked a fight with him. You could’ve gotten yourself killed, idiot.”

  I look around the half-empty lot. I have no fucking clue where my car is.

  “All right, I’m sorry. I know that you’re doing everything possible to make it seem like I don’t know you anymore,” he says, putting his hand on my shoulder, trying to whirl me around. I stay firm. “But let’s see. I know the way you were looking at him. Like I didn’t see it enough in middle-school when all he did was ignore you. You were about two minutes away from going out to the parking lot and fucking him up against his douchebag Porsche in that obscene little skirt of yours, which would’ve made you feel even shittier than you do now.”

  I stare at him for a long time as I tug on the hem of my skirt. Suddenly it’s way too short. “Wrong.” Well, about the douchebag Porsche, anyway. He has a BMW. I start to wander away, aimless. “Can we go home?”

  He points out the car to me. It’s hidden behind a giant SUV. I throw open the driver’s side door, but he stops me and grabs the keys. “Friends don’t let friends . . .”

  I hand over the keys. I get in the passenger side.

  We don’t talk for a while. “I’m sorry,” he says as he drives us out of the lot. “I’m sorry I fucked things up.”

  I sigh. “I’m sorry you got hurt on my account.”

  He looks at his sore knuckles on the steering wheel, straightens his fingers and flexes them. “I’ve had worse.”

  I know he’s thinking of the worse. I try to change the subject, but the only thing I can think about was the way he’d been on the dance floor. I’d never seen Noah kissing anyone else before. I hate to say it, but he looked hot doing it. It was something you’d want to frame or put on a postcard. “Are you . . . going out with Jacy?”

  He laughs. “So a kiss means we’re betrothed?” Then he says softly, “I can’t.”

  “You can’t?”

  He smiles. “Well, your dad said it. No women. And I hear he’s brilliant.”

  I ignore the joke, confused. “So you guys . . . back there, it looked like—”

  He lets out a breath. “Ari. Look. It doesn’t even matter what your dad says. I’m not . . . relationship material. Especially not for someone like Jacy, all rainbows and sunshine Jacy. I . . .”

  “But you—“

  “I fuck. All right? That’s all I do.”

  My mouth hangs open. I never . . . The old Noah wasn’t, wouldn’t . . .

  But I’m not looking at the old Noah. Why can’t I get it through my head? Everything’s different.

  “What? Are you surprised? I doubt Jacy’s looking for a quick fuck. She’s like you. A princess, in need of a prince. You two think kissing means something, when it’s really just two organs slapping together in a way that evokes a physical and sexual response. I don’t do the prince thing. Never have. When I think of relationships, I think of fucking, because that’s all I’ve ever done, and all I know.”

  I want to cover my ears with my hands. “But—“

  “I know what girls like you want. Jacy wants me to ask her on a date, probably? I’ve never been on a da
te in my life.” My insides drop, but before I can say anything, he says, “I’ve never had a girlfriend, never will. I learned that much on the night I left.”

  My head is throbbing. “Wait. What are you talking about?”

  “You know. The night of that party.” He snorts, then jams the heels of his hands into the steering wheel. “I went back and forth, whether to go, whether to stay. But after that night, I knew I had to leave, because everything in my life was shit. I can’t believe you’re in my life again. But trust me. If I kiss you, it’ll start us on a road you don’t want to go down. So I’d appreciate if you didn’t give me those doe eyes of yours and make me want to.”

  I vise my head in between my hands. Wait. He wanted to kiss me back there? So it wasn’t just me? I try to remember what he’d said, but the car is spinning. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. My head is killing me.”

  “It’s probably better that way,” he mumbles, adjusting the air vent in the car so that cold air blows directly on my face. “People let their guards down when they’re drunk, and do stupid things. I won’t hold it against you, if you don’t hold my wanting to tear Gabe a new one against me. What can I say? I was worried. Friends do that, or so a wise person once told me.”

  I manage to swallow back the nausea in my throat. He rolls down the window and I drink in the cool air, which makes me feel better.

  “I don’t believe that you’re all about . . . that.” God, what a child I am, I can’t even say the word fuck around him. I look down at my hands in my lap. “Some people are, but not you. Gabe is, maybe.”

  “You don’t know me anymore, best friend,” he mumbles. It’s getting really annoying, him hanging on my every word just so he can repeat it back to me, using my same exact intonation, later. “Come on. He was your boyfriend for four years, and I can’t see you staying with a guy for four years just because he’s cute. You’re not that shallow. He has to have some redeeming qualities.”

  I shake my head miserably because I can’t think of a one. “Talk about doing stupid things when you’re drunk. I lost my virginity to him, you know. We’d been going out a year. I thought, knowing . . . I thought he would try to make things special. But he didn’t. We were at a party and we were both drunk and he was trying to get me to say yes, like he always did, and that one time—I was too drunk to say no. I didn’t even realize it had happened until he told me . . . so I guess it was pretty terrible. From what I can remember.”

  He winces, and I wince, too. TMI, Ari. Why don’t you just tell him about your last period, too? You are never getting drunk again.

  He says, “Fucking bastard. He didn’t know how good he had it.” He looks over at me, sucks in his lips. “Even still. I could do so much worse to you.”

  “Oh, stop it. Am I supposed to be scared? You’ll never convince me you’re anything less than a good person who got dragged into a bad situation. You’re out of it now. Make the most of it.” He seems to be considering that. I’m sobering up, now, and what we were talking about suddenly seems so frightening. Kissing Noah? God, that can’t happen. So I swallow and lie. “And I don’t want you to be my prince, Noah. Come on. That’s crazy. We’re friends. You need a friend, right?”

  He looks over at me, and a small, apologetic smile comes on his face. “I do.”

  I reach over and touch his arm. “Come on,” I say playfully. “You have to know you’ve always been my favorite.”

  I don’t know what time it is, but Peasant Street looks almost back to normal. It’s dark, and there isn’t a single car or news van in sight. He pulls into the long driveway to my house and cuts the engine. Then he looks at me for only a blink, and looks away. “Ari-Bari. My sweet little savior.”

  #

  “This is crazy,” Noah told me, stripping off his shirt and wading into the water.

  “Aw, wittle baby Noah is scared,” I said in baby-talk. I made like I was going to splash him, and he winced. Then I settled down in the tube and looked up at the canopy of bright green spring leaves. “Wet me get you a bottle.”

  Okay, the water was freezing. We’d never been in the river this early before. But it was unseasonably hot, almost ninety degrees, and my clothes had been sticking to me all weekend. My mother was like, “Take a cold shower! Put a cold washcloth on your forehead!” but I’d had enough of that. I wanted relief.

  As usual, I’d convinced Noah to be my partner-in-crime. He’d been out mowing the lawn on their riding mower, drenched in sweat and looking mad-at-the-world. That was his normal face, nowadays, ever since Sarah’s death. I knew his parents were distraught. Before my parents would have them over to dinner, or wave and chat with them in passing, but now we barely ever saw them outside. Their landscaping was already looking ragged. Noah took care of just enough maintenance so that the place wasn’t completely consumed by the forest surrounding it, but the whole house looked sad, mournful.

  He placed his tube on the surface of the water, and I tilted my head up and looked at him. It was odd for him to go shirtless—he did everything possible to cover himself up, wearing loose shirts into the water, even in the dead heat of summer. So what I saw now surprised me. It wasn’t a massive transformation, but the scrawny, almost concave chest I’d remembered seeing once or twice last year now seemed to bulge slightly. His arms had definition. He looked closer to normal than I’d ever seen. Pleasing, even.

  “What?” he asked me.

  I looked away quickly, down at my own chest. I was twelve and a half and sure that boobs and things were supposed to have graced me by now. Not fully, of course. Just a peek, a “hi, I’m here!” would’ve been nice. But I was as flat as ever. Claire had gotten her period when she was ten and would constantly grumble about it, and now Jacy and the rest of my friends had joined her in saying what a pain it was. Me? Embarrassed to admit I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about, I’d resorted to grumbling along vaguely with them. Padding a bra I totally didn’t need.

  I was glad summer was coming, because then I could hang around with Noah, flat-chested, in my boring Speedo bathing suit, and not worry about those things I was lacking.

  At least, I thought.

  Until I realized he was staring right at my chest.

  Now I wished I’d worn the t-shirt. I didn’t want to make it obvious by throwing my arms over my body, so I pushed off the muddy ground and spun away from him. He quickly followed. Suddenly the water was too cold, the sun too hot, and I wanted to go home and take my mom’s cold shower advice.

  “Summer coming up,” I said to him.

  When I looked back, he had dropped his head back, and was looking up at the sky. “Um-hum,” he mumbled.

  “You doing anything special?”

  “Naw,” he said.

  I smiled, glad. All the rest of them could have their exotic vacations. “Me neither.”

  “Eighth grade,” he said. Of course, Noah was always thinking toward school. If it wasn’t for Cam, who still taunted him from time to time, I bet he’d be sad that seventh grade was coming to an end.

  “Don’t remind me,” I moaned. Orientation had proven to me that eighth grade would be balls-hard. At least, that’s what Claire called it. They’d unceremoniously presented us with a stack of summer homework that was, as Claire declared, “bigger than my ass.” The thought of it gave me hives, even though I’d likely not start it until the last weekend in August. “I mean, that homework!”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I glared at him, knowing he’d done it already. The sucker.

  We paddled along. I liked tubing with Noah, because whenever he’d get a little too far ahead of me, he’d grab hold of something. He always tried to stay with me, pulling my tube to keep us close together. At first I thought that it was because he was afraid to get swept up in a current and end up alone on the vast river, but the more time went on, the more I liked to think he was looking out for me.

  As we came into Stockton, I noticed his teeth were chattering. What a
baby. It wasn’t that cold. “This is like, torture,” he managed. “How can you stand it?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I have ice water in my veins.”

  He looked up at the sun and said, “What time do you think it is?”

  “I don’t know. Three, maybe?”

  He started to kick toward the bank of the river. “I’ve got to get back. Annie’s probably waiting on me.”

  “Oh,” I said, kind of disappointed. I didn’t understand it. Sometimes I felt like I could have tubed all the way to the Atlantic Ocean and my parents wouldn’t wonder for a second where I’d gone. Noah’s dad seemed that way, too. But Annie? She had a leash on that kid. She really cared about him, I thought, and he wasn’t even her own son. But after losing a stepdaughter under her care, I guessed it was only natural for her to be extra cautious.

  Chapter Eleven

  So things continued like this, sneaking around your father, for . . . how long?

  It started in May . . . we did it all summer long, and into the school year—I was going into eighth grade.

  And no one knew?

  If they did know, they did nothing about it. There were a few very close calls. Like I said, this was her movie. She thrived on drama, got off on the excitement of almost getting caught. We’d go off on a walk in the woods and fuck against a tree. We’d sit down to a family meal with my dad and she’d have her foot on my crotch under the table. We’d do it in the hot tub, where neighbors could easily have seen us.

  Do you think she wanted to get caught?

  At times. The things she wanted changed from second to second.

  #

  I was finally right about something, where Noah’s concerned.

  The reporters are finally gone. Maybe they got tired of waiting for him to do something newsworthy. Peasant Street has once again been consumed by the soothing sounds of nature, allowing me to sleep like the dead. Well, after spending most of the night dry-heaving over the porcelain throne and calling in sick from work.

  When I wake, my stomach gurgles as I check my phone. It’s noon.