Endings

by Stephanie Kusiak

  Endings

  By:

  Stephanie Kusiak

  Endings.

  I’ve been thinking about them a lot. Up until this morning, I was excited about the closure that endings bring. Now, I’m not, because I don’t think I’ll ever find a neat little bow to tie on my story.

  Sitting here at my graduation between Mike Masterson and Andrew Mulley, you would think that I, Allison Michelson wouldn’t be preoccupied with endings and their convoluted existence. With a tassel interrupting the view beside me, it sits there in testament to the fact there is nothing left to do. I’ve closed the book on my high school classes and burned a few out behind John’s dad’s barn.

  Just one got burned actually, Economics.

  But honestly, I have nothing left to accomplish and no more closure to find. I’m off to college in San Diego, California, off to the big, wild world that will fill me up and wipe out this whole small town I have lived in. I should be happy for that, after all, isn’t that what everyone around me wants? Isn’t that the quintessential fantasy of every Midwestern teen? Isn’t that the perfect bow around the perfect little story of my childhood?

  I regard my friends, people I have known since I was too small to remember anything else. People I have grown up with and away from. Unlike me, many of them will be here the rest of their lives, and I don’t really know how that makes me feel. I think it makes me sad and jealous all at the same time.

  As the minutes wind down around me, as my life is inexorably thrust forward, I’m scared absolutely shitless. I’m left feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing, where just a month ago I was positively clawing the walls to escape. Now, I don’t want to leave this world I know.

  I nerve-wrack myself with that thought as Mike fiddles the zipper on his gown and between the teeth I notice he has nothing on under it. With a roll of my eyes I realize it’s going to be that kind of graduation which actually makes a lot of sense.

  My high school experience, hell my life, has been silver lined with all types of wildness and practical jokes. They weren’t played on me – God no, I’m one of the popular girls. However, if there is anything that my graduating class will take with us is the fact that we have pretty much desensitized our small town with our shenanigans.

  From naked Mike and his wild motorcycle races on Old George Road, to the moving of the principle’s car to the roof of the gym and the dying of the towns water supply red – yeah, we have pretty much screwed with everyone.

  My dad calls most of my friends hellions, and maybe he’s right. What he doesn’t know is that I’m probably the biggest one of all. I wonder what his face would look like if I had been caught after masterminding and overseeing half of the things I’ve done. Just the thought of how far it would screw into a frown sends my gaze to where I can see my reserved, blue collar dad beaming in the stands. I watch him wave, and I return the motion, posing so he can get a picture.

  Yeah, I hold my smile, he has no idea that his perfect blonde little daughter, “Straight A Ally” is just as bad as the boy about to pop up beside me.

  And though I’m not an exhibitionist like Mike, I can still appreciate a little heart racing adrenaline. It’s twice as good that I can enjoy it without being directly implicated, which I never am.

  “You’re gonna do it.” I goad softly at the debating expression Mike wears. “You said you would for four years now.”

  He laughs, deep and embarrassed. “I can’t believe I’m actually sitting here.”

  I snicker because I’m not one hundred percent sure if he means naked or graduating. It’s probably a lot of both to be honest. He gives me a crooked grin, and I return it with a well-placed hand to shade my eyes. “Well you are. So you might as well go out with a bang.”

  “Nah, that’s tonight at the dunes.” And he covertly spanks invisible booty for me, like the words aren’t enough to get his point across.

  Ah, the dunes. It wouldn’t be a summer vacation without a party there.

  Just thinking about the sandy stretch along the lake where Igloo coolers and dune buggies mark out our paradise, my eyes razor through the rest of my graduating class to the stop-gap in my perfect ending.

  I find Marissa in a heartbeat because it’s something I’ve been doing since Kindergarten. She is my best friend. Well, she was. I’m not sure what she is now. I mean, I know I love her deeply as a friend, but somewhere along the line she started to feel irritatingly like something else; something more. And though I’m honest about a lot, I’m not wholly honest about this.

  I realized things had changed when I couldn’t stop thinking about how utterly expressive her eyes were and how good her luxurious wave of brown hair smelled. Really, she is gorgeous, with her soft lilting smile and easy-going nature. I don’t know how I can function sometimes because of it. To be honest, which is rare about this topic as I said, I can’t function and our friendship has changed because of it.

  I didn’t want it to. I mean, I’ve known her since I was five. Ever since we met on the playground and pretended we were princesses, we have been attached at the hip. That is, until I had to find some space before I exploded. It is hard enough to breathe when she is in the same room, but seriously – trying to study in the same room with her, let alone the sleep overs we had, had to be stopped. Just the idea of being curled up with her like we used to be, sleeping together in the twist of my bed, makes my hands sweat and my pulse race.

  My whole life has been redefined because of what I feel now. I’ve reached a tipping point where everything is just intolerable, and I masquerade around doing the same things I did before for different reasons now. She makes me a liar by proxy, because I can’t be honest without losing her.

  I mean, I used to go to her track meets to cheer her on, but now it’s because her legs in those running shorts just go on forever. I used to go to football games to hang out with my friends, but now it’s so that I can see her face light up when we win. And school? I snicker to myself. I have literally just gone to school this year so that I have an excuse to walk her to class.

  You would think as best friends we wouldn’t need excuses to be around one another; however, as my feelings have morphed so too has my sanity. In my randomly paranoid way, I now need justification for everything because I have a huge secret I just can’t let out. A secret that I fear her and everyone else will uncover if I’m not vigilant in my ruse. I love her as way more than a friend.

  Yeah. I do.

  It’s a gut check every time I think it, and sometimes in the darkness of my bedroom I’m able to imagine what it would be like. Sex? Sure, I think about that, but more than that I think about what it would be like to marry her, have a house with her, kids. I mean, I can’t think of anything better than she and I, Marissa and Allison, best friends and everything else to the very end.

  So when Marissa sees me staring at her, she smiles and waves, because she has no idea that even now I’m imagining her and I together. I return the motion with the same automatic response as I did my father. Chagrin lighting my cheeks, I’m suddenly very hot in my gown, but the way her eyebrow arches at me, stops me from turning.

  Going tonight?

  I can read her lips as they curve and bow and make all the saliva in my mouth dry instantly. I nod and swallow. I go to turn, but again that focused gaze stops me. There is something in the draw of her eyes. Outlined as they are in eye shadow and mascara, the churning hazel that much more pronounced; it stops my heart. God, they are the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

  Good. You okay?

  I can’t look away, can’t tear my eyes from hers and when a slight flash of her teeth appear to catch her lip and pinch it, I cough. I choke on my own gusto to get air into my lungs and whip away. I muffle the thunder of my lungs as they dry
drown in desire. God, I’m such an idiot. Seriously, how is someone as smart as me just so fucking dumb about her? I could probably only make my feelings more obvious if I tattooed it on my face or put it on a blimp.

  So it only makes sense that I can feel her eyes on me. I don’t know how her gaze shoots right through me and makes my stomach knot, but it does. It melts my spine and my heart and everything I am.

  “You okay?” Mike asks heatedly. I think I’m projecting. He isn’t heated – I am. I’m heated and trembling and just – ugh. Get a grip!

  “Yeah, what’s happening?” I indicate the stage where everyone seems to be gathered, pregnant with expectation. I fix my hair, comb my hands through it and settle it on my shoulders. I bother with it until my focus on the way my cap is sitting is the most pervasive thing I feel. All I can say is, thank God for vanity.

  “They are about to end it I think. I can’t wait to take this off. It itches like hell.”

  And thank God for the principle who finally finishes the ceremony with as much pomp and circumstance as any good graduation should have. His speech delivers us fresh to a new world, one full of hope and a big, bright future. However, the whole time he prattles on, all I can think of is how can I start a new life if I still have to finish this one?

  I resist looking back over my shoulder at the pair of hazel eyes I can feel on me.

  It is easily the hardest thing I have ever done.

  However, even though I thought not looking at her a moment ago was hard, now I know I was kidding myself. This right here is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

  I’m trying not to lose my knees as all of our caps rain down around us while Marissa walks toward me unzipping her gown. It’s slow motion, and I’m totally spellbound by the way her body peels into my view. From where her legs flash between the red of the gown under the modest hem of her dress to where the form fitting waist punctuates her pelvis in a litany of exclamation points, I’m sliced to the core by the view. The sun kissed vision of her shoulders and the smooth lines of her face create a background to lips which dangle a smile. I cut myself on the barbed beauty of her and all the things I can’t have.

  “Watch this!” I think it’s Mike beside me, but I’m not sure because everything I am is pinned to the girl a breath away from me. His voice doesn’t even register on the periphery of my mind.

  Everyone is screaming and hugging. People stumble into me, and right as I think I’m going to get dragged away in a sudden fray, Marissa reaches out, grabs my hand and pulls me toward her into a bone-crushing hug.

  The heat of her body slips into my arms, and it feels so good and so utterly bad in a rush of selfishness and arousal. I don’t want it to turn me on, but it does. It makes me very aware of how her body fits against mine; how her soft hands trace around my gown and somehow find the small of my back. She buries her face into the side of my neck, and I can feel her smile. “We did it.”

  “Yeah,” I memorize this moment. I memorize the way we fit together like the puzzle pieces I wish we were. I take a deep breath of her body spray and shampoo, the first of the numbered last before I leave and close the cover on this story, on our story. The thought strikes my synapses and makes my chest burn. “We’re done.”

  She pulls back and fixes on me from beneath a thick row of lashes, “Are we really? It feels like there is still so much more to do.”

  The way she says it makes me hesitate on everything from an answer to my heart beating. It is just a moment, where her dark eyes are measured and serious, and then she is my Marissa again, all laughter and smiles and sweetness. She becomes the easy-going girl I have known since we wove daisy chains on the playground.

  “I don’t know, Ally. I think things are just starting.”

  I hang on those words and the veiled innuendo I want to hear in them. As I stare down at her wild toss of dark hair, I’m so focused on the glitter that somehow found its way into the strands, I don’t even notice the commotion as Mike screams bloody murder and his gown flutters to the grass.

  I hear the music before I see the firelight. Rascal Flatts sings an ode to summer nights as I roll off the parking lot’s pavement and trudge through the sand. My dad’s truck is rattling under my hands as I crunch along between the dunes, and I wonder how many more times I’ll make this drive. Five? Three?

  Maybe only once more before my teenage playground vanishes into high rises on the California Coast. The landscape sparkles around me like fallen snow and when I finally bounce over the little dip at the end of the well-worn trail I can see the makeshift fire pit we always claim.

  My headlights flash blindingly across a few faces that turn to me and with cups raised, I’m saluted before I’m parked. I set the brake and while the truck buzzes an alert not to forget my keys, I check my lipstick in the mirror one last time.

  I’m not a bad looking girl, not by any stretch, but there isn’t enough esteem in the universe for me to feel confident about what I’m going to do tonight. I’m going to tell her. I made the decision this afternoon while I stood under the sunlight and felt the press of Marissa against my side.

  Life is just too short to leave words unsaid.

  I remind myself of that, about how fragile life is and listen once again to the justifying monologue I’ve had running in my head for the last five hours. I use it to give me strength as I rake my hands through my long blonde strands and settle the knit hat onto my head. I snap the mirror closed before sliding from the vehicle. Blanket clutched tightly in my hand, I let it dangle from my arm as I stroll up and smiles, hugs and music drown me in the celebration of friendship.

  When I see Mike dancing on a cooler, I make my way toward him. “So, I hear you gave the audience a thrill!” I yell it over the music so he can hear me. He shakes a now fully clothed butt at me and takes a healthy gulp of what looks like cheap beer.

  Mike produces a goofy smile around the can and jumps down, only to resume his dancing as he picks me up like a rag doll and throws me over his shoulder. “Babe, you know it! Best idea ever! The ladies will be talking about it forever!” As precarious as I am on his shoulder, he still manages to cheer with a few of our friends.

  “Fuck yeah,” someone yells, and I can feel the vibrations as Mike growls a yell in salute to whoever it was.

  “Hey, Ally!”

  I cross my arms unamused when I make the connection that whoever it is talking to me knows it’s me because I’m assed over Mike’s shoulder. Not exactly how I want to be remembered. I pat his back lightly. “Okay, I’m glad you had fun Mike, but put me down. Seriously.” I warn, and he eventually complies in a drunken delayed way.

  As much as I would like to sit down and have a drink with him, I’m of a singular mind tonight, “have you seen Marissa?”

  He nods and downs the rest of his beverage. “She’s having a pop over there.” He fans his hand toward the rise of the dune behind me that spills toward the water.

  “Thanks.”

  I turn to leave and I can hear his wounded whine even before it erupts from his throat. “When am I gonna get some quality time? You’re leaving in like two months, what the hell!”

  “Later, Mike.”

  “When is later?” He calls after me, and I wave him off.

  “Tomorrow!”

  I hike the incline quickly. I have to get over it before I lose my nerve, which honestly could be any moment with how hard I can feel my hands shaking. Instead of turning around, I strangle my blanket in my fists, soaking resolve from the fibers.

  When I hit the top of the dune, I shift a little on my feet as the moonless expanse of the lake pours out before me. From the opposite shore, light skips across the rippling blackness and draws watery trails in its passing. It holds me frozen there as beats pass and my gaze falls to Marissa’s back. I know it’s her because I have the shape of her body memorized, the arch of her neck and the angle of her shoulders when she sits.

  And a large part of me hopes she can feel me somehow and that is what makes her tu
rn. She looks right at me, like she knew I would be standing right where I am. I don’t feel the breeze, but it tugs at the edges of her hair and ruffles it. It looks like an invisible hand is running through the strands. The image of it is so beautiful it makes my knees weak, makes a rock of dread build in my stomach until I think I’m going to be nauseated.

  We silently stare at one another, and I feel compelled to remember this. The way the scarce light finds its way into her eyes and lights the dark green and copper star-bursting around her pupils. How delicately her muscles shift under her skin as she moves to face me fully. “Hey.”

  Did she say something? Marissa leans back and regards me, so I’m pretty sure she did. She will always be more overt than I, more direct. “I like that outfit, but isn’t that sweater mine?”

  I stare down at myself, measuring the knit material clinging around my shoulders. It might be. I don’t remember. We have been swapping things, clothing, dreams and moments our entire lives. I honestly don’t know where she begins and I end. I don’t know if I can stand finding out.

  “Yeah, maybe,” I wedge a little tightly as I pad down to the sand where she is perched. I drop to the blanket she has spread out and casually dust the granules under my legs away. I focus on that motion as her scent envelopes me, and I close my eyes when it mixes with the lake and the sand.

  “Ally?”

  “Hmm?”

  Marissa draws her legs up and leans her arms on them. She hangs her chin there, not really looking at me. I think she is staring at my flip flop. I wait until her gaze finally traces up my calves and then further until she is staring at me.

  “How long now till you leave?”

  I lick my lips, as the question tightens my chest. She knows, so I don’t know why she wants me to say it. “Like two months.” I force a smile if for no one’s benefit but my own. “Don’t worry, I won’t take your sweater with me.”

  I try to say it as a joke, but it just kinda leaves me empty.

  “I don’t care about the sweater. It looks better on you anyway.” She shakes her head tossing her hair as she looks away. Whatever words she wants to say get caught in her throat because she just freezes with her mouth half open. Eventually, her eyes narrow and she sighs.