The Last Kid Left

by Rosecrans Baldwin

  He never touched her again.

  * * *

  To appreciate the love story of Emily Portis and Nick Toussaint Jr., the reader must grasp the burning intensity of their love. On top of that, the Girl wants it understood that to know their love means the reader must accept, particularly in the twenty-first century, that it had come to include sexual intercourse and that this should be no big deal—no matter any federal or state laws about the difference in their ages, or ridiculous ideas about her being “ruined” by her father’s abuse. After nine months together, there was sex between them, and the sex was beautiful, uniquely; sex as an expression of something more than just intercourse, she suggested. After all, they loved each other profoundly, they expressed their love intimately; it was a love both physical and emotional, everything combined.

  Because, in spite of her father and his crimes against her body and mind, Emily Portis was not a broken person, and she wanted this noted down in the plainest terms.

  Over and over, during the night in the motel, she returned to the details of their first kiss, hers and Nick’s. Lips together, the match of mouths. How the rough scrape of his chin had felt like an electric shock. She recalled the immediacy of his lips, and how, at the same moment of their first kiss, out of fear, her mind had run back quickly into the darkness of her imagination, her corral of hideous memories, her indestructible shame, and immediately thought the worst of the situation, that Nick despised her or tasted something disgusting on her breath, and he would tell everyone how she’d done everything wrong.

  The kiss was shared on a beach. It was the autumn of her sophomore year at Claymore High School. Their first meeting had been a week earlier, by accident, a slight encounter in a local restaurant. But it had been followed by a written request from Nick to see her again. At the time, she was fifteen.31 The day after the kiss, all day in school, she couldn’t concentrate, she said. She repeated his name to herself under her breath. Things he’d said to her between kisses, no one had ever said to her before. But what if he was joking? She badly wanted his kiss again, but dared not hope. And she was sure he’d kidded around about it by that point with his friends. By lunchtime she started to panic. All around the school she saw boys waiting for girls by their lockers, boys and girls holding hands. Would she ever have that? Then she ran into her best friend, Alexandra Rosenthal, between the last two periods. Alex had received a text message from Nick: “Hey u guys out at 3? need a ride?”

  What had she been wearing that day? A decent hoodie, her favorite jeans. Had she eaten anything? Candy, chocolate milk. Her last class of the day was Western Civilization. Her heart was exploding by the time the bell rang. “It was almost too good, imagining that Nick had thought about me sometime that day. That he could be thinking about me at the same exact time that I was thinking about him.” She sprinted out to the parking lot. There’d been a heat wave that week. She saw Nick’s car and her stomach jumped up and down; she wondered if he would hear it. He got out slowly, wearing the same jacket, same jeans, same boots. How cute he looked! She was dying from the frantic hope that he liked how she looked, too. And he did.

  For weeks to come, from that moment on, every minute she could outmaneuver her father was a moment to be shared with her new boyfriend, her first boyfriend. And if the moment was for some reason to be one spent out of his presence, it was a hellish ordeal. New nightmares rose from crippling doubt. Wondering if he’d lost interest, if he was kissing someone else. At first, she said, she could only interpret her emotions through fear. For his part, Nick goofed around all the time; he only expressed his feelings through jokes. But they got better at it. They talked about their thoughts. They kissed on public benches and held hands. She tried not to voice her terrors, like that he could be cheating on her, or he was about to dump her; twice she almost broke up with him, she was so convinced he wanted out. She just wanted to be good enough, pretty enough, smart enough. Most anything Nick said, even the stupidest things, she’d remember and archive, and write down in her diary to analyze for clues.32

  The third time they kissed, his hands moved across her shirt. She’d known it was coming. Her body went electric, but her mind recoiled; she felt sick to her stomach. Then he lifted up her breasts in his hands. She turned away, she didn’t know what she was feeling; she was chaos. A week later, they were kissing in the back of his car. She’d skipped cross-country practice. “At that point, I sort of didn’t think I’d ever run again,” she said. Thirty minutes into it, he lay on top of her, and she’d felt it pressed against her, his penis inside his jeans. Now she really felt nauseous, and started to panic; and she understood perfectly why she should not, if only for the sake of not scaring him, of being a good girlfriend, but she couldn’t control herself; she had an urgent compulsion to leave. There was the pressure of his hand on her skin. The pressure of the air inside the car. She had to do anything she could to stop the situation from exploding, so for another ten minutes they rolled around, and she subtly discouraged him from doing anything more, without for one second letting him doubt her fondness for him. It was excruciating. And yet somehow he was soon content to drive her home, with just a kiss. She’d pulled it off.

  Two days later, she made her move. The idea was to prevent him from making other moves first. They were in his bedroom. His mother was out. She took his penis in her mouth. It was obvious that he was genuinely shocked. In less than a minute, it was over. She went to the bathroom, returned, curled up next to him. She was so happy from relief, she offered to do it again. He laughed, turned her down, he was exhilarated; thanks to her. Then he asked where she’d learned how to do such a thing. And the room faded into other rooms. Smells into older smells. She got up, her whole body filled with an unidentified disgrace. She didn’t know what to say. She asked to be driven home. He apologized, with confusion. He said something like, “What just happened?”

  “I need to go home now,” she’d said, as carefully as she could, then went out to the front porch while he got dressed, so she couldn’t do any more damage.

  A week passed. She knew there was a good chance she’d lose him. She’d nearly destroyed the one thing in her life that gave her joy. Saturday night, once more in his car, by the beach, she was determined to make up for it. She went down on him twice. She wanted to go for a third round, and that was the big mistake; she’d pressed her luck. Because then he said he wanted to make her happy and swung around on top, moving down, kissing her hips, her legs. She allowed him, figuring she’d budge him away in a moment.

  In fact, what she remembered best from that night, what she’d enjoyed the most, had nothing to do with fooling around. It was listening to the wind off the ocean. Thinking about what other girls at school maybe were saying about her, now that she’d found a boyfriend. It was like she’d finally become one of the girls in the novels she read. Girls who had someone to love.

  Then Nick licked her through her underwear. Her blood blackened. She pushed him off lightly, but he came back, pressing for more. She squirmed away, filled with exasperation, but he misinterpreted her hastiness for excitement, for coy feigning, he followed her and got his mouth between her legs. Her final effort was to control her breathing, or try to control it, while her blood boiled, her body folded, and her mind was inundated—and out with her breath went the rest of her control and she yelled, “Just don’t.”

  A second later, Nick said, hushed, “What?”

  She hated him then; she couldn’t despise herself more. “I don’t like it,” she managed to say, louder than she wanted. “When you do that,” she added, and chewed on her knuckles.

  “You don’t have to freak out about it,” he said.

  So she apologized repeatedly, but then he also started to apologize. She hated the sound of him apologizing. And just as quickly she felt an overpowering need to fix the problem, erase it, undo this one thing permanently with a much bigger event. She knew just how, if the courage could be found.

  “Come here,” she urged. “Do y
ou have a condom?”

  He laughed, he was so surprised; he quickly recovered. Ten minutes more and the deed was done. During the act, Emily addressed herself, as if from a distant lectern, and made herself promise the following: that in the future her body would have intercourse anytime he asked, however often, intercourse again and again, never mind as many blow jobs as he could handle in the afternoons, provided that all of it combined became enough to incinerate and make Nick forget that other act as best as possible.

  Once, one month later, in the middle of sex,33 he said repeatedly in her ear, “I love you,” and it had pulled her down, back into her body, and she’d burst out crying. He’d never said it before. In that moment his voice was closer to her soul than even she was, she’d write in her diary. And so that became a pattern, too, saying the words during intercourse, until she requested him to stop, fearing the magic could die.

  Sex does not define their love, it does not doom it or validate it. It’s barely one-quarter or one-third of their connection, Emily says. But it’s important, she wants it known, that soon the authority of the need for the other person became overpowering and obsessive, for both of them. They had sex all the time. Every kind of sex except that one kind. She got to decide how often and when. But they also spent many more hours doing all manner of other intimate things together. They held hands in public. They kissed in public. They didn’t care what people thought. He started to call her “babe,” which she loved, because she was proud of what it meant, that she was his, and vice versa.

  * * *

  But briefly, to go back to their first kiss, after that night on the beach, when Emily returned home, her mother accosted her as she came through the door.34 Something about how Father was out, there’d been a big traffic accident in another county, Emily needed to sit down immediately for a serious talk.

  Instead she’d flown up the stairs. She’d never kissed anyone before, never been kissed. It came with an electrifying sense of accomplishment. Was she in love? Did it happen that quickly? Then a new thought occurred to her, preying on her insecurity. What if the kiss had been a prank? After all, who’d want to kiss her?

  And her impulsive bigheartedness, her rickety emotions, had just succumbed to this unhappy new reality when Mother rapped on her bedroom door and barged in, panting like a frightened animal, announcing, “Where’s that suitcase you had, the blue one?”

  Emily snapped at her mother to leave, but only got a hiss for a reply, that she should be quiet and hurry up, they didn’t have much time. A moment later, Mother sat down on the bed. She was wrung out by whatever mania had brought her up the stairs.

  “I spoke to one of my doctors,” she said quietly, adjusting her glasses. “He says we can stay with him. While we get on our feet.”

  Emily asked what she was talking about.

  Her mother ignored her. One hand picked up a dirty sweatshirt off the floor. “We’re going to need more money than I thought,” she said. “It’s going to take a lot of money. If you’re not willing to put in the work, then I need to know now.” She added a moment later, “This room is disgusting.”

  It was too much.

  “What are you even talking about?” she snapped.

  “We’re leaving. You and me. We’re leaving him.”

  Emily was thunderstruck, furious. All she could think about was what had taken place on the beach an hour earlier with Nick. Now her mother wanted to ruin everything, when she’d ruined so much besides.

  What if she didn’t want to leave, she asked.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Just hurry up and pack.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Of course you do.”

  They’d stood apart for a moment, staring at each other. Her mother laughed, and her laughter bounced off the walls. Emily remembered feeling shocked; she hadn’t heard her mother laugh in years. But the face around the laughter was blank, a glaring vehemence.

  A second later, her mother walked out into the hallway. “Your room is a pigsty,” she called from the stairs. “Clean it up. Tonight. I don’t want this blowing back on me.”35

  * * *

  The first person she ever told about her father’s abuse was her boyfriend. She badly regrets telling him. Especially considering, Emily pointed out, all the suffering that took place afterward, including the murders of Dr. and Mrs. Ashburn. She considers their deaths to be her fault. Her secret should have stayed hidden.

  For a long time she’d vowed to tell no one; save them the embarrassment. She never wrote about it in her diary. But her vow was broken unconsciously one night with Nick. They’d just had sex. Out of nowhere, as he woke up from a brief nap, she thought about telling him—then suddenly she was telling him. “I just started. I had no idea what I was going to say. I couldn’t stop.” She’d stared at a wall while she described the various types of intercourse her father had forced on her; the way he smelled; his congratulations the first time she had an orgasm. She took Nick right up to the night when she’d bitten his arm.

  One topic she didn’t tell Nick about, but would like included in this story, in case this article is read by any young girls who go through the same thing, was her own sense of rejection that night, revolting as it was. The unaccountable shame she felt for refusing her attacker, for attacking him back. “It’s stupid,” she said, “but I had this feeling, like, I was the one who should be punished. I’d attacked him. I was a horrible person. I’d ruined everything.”

  At which point Emily Portis abruptly stopped her account. The Journalist turned off her phone. It was nearly five in the morning. The Journalist opened the door to let in some air. In a couple of hours, the three of them planned to drive up a mountain. The Girl, Emily, looked exhausted, like a teenager who hadn’t gotten enough sleep in weeks. A long silence passed before she said anything more.

  In a steady tone, she said, “So we have an agreement.”

  The Journalist nodded.

  “I want you to know,” Emily said, “I’m never going to talk to you again.”

  * * *

  Because the month was August, the day was a Thursday, and the weather was nice, even at seven-thirty in the morning there was a line of cars, trucks, and SUVs waiting to climb the Mount Washington Auto Road, to wind their way up eight miles36 under the kitschy radiance of a summer sun.

  After the entrance fee was paid, the Boy, the Girl, and the Journalist began the climb. As promised, the Girl did not speak again to the Journalist. The Boy settled on National Public Radio, a program featuring German opera—which seemed fitting, given the alpine surroundings, the green mountain, the chalet hotels visible below.

  The mountain was basically bald. If it weren’t for the fog and clouds that swept in, the view might have been spectacular, all the way out to the coastline. There were football fields of alpine grass, lichen growing over rocks, long stretches dotted by cairns. In spots the mountain looked practically volcanic.

  At the top was a gift shop, cafeteria, a lookout tower, scientific structures, weather-measuring devices. For some reason the air buzzed with bees. They lighted on people’s windbreakers, on light-colored cars; and the noise of all their buzzing was prevalent despite the wind.37

  Then more fog started to appear, cold and damp. The sound of the bees faded. At the top of the mountain, a sign read THE HIGHEST WIND EVER OBSERVED BY MAN WAS RECORDED HERE. The Boy pointed it out to the Journalist as they walked past. He was visibly excited as he wondered aloud what it would be like to live on such a mountain. Then he asked what had happened to his girlfriend; he hadn’t seen her in a couple of minutes; he worried that she was lost in the fog. The Journalist said she’d seen her heading back toward the truck.

  “I don’t know what you’re going to do with your story,” he said a moment later. “Do you think you have enough to write about?” The Journalist said she thought so. Heavy clouds filled the sky. The weather was beginning to deteriorate. The Boy stared gravely. “You asked me what my plans are. I thought about it aga
in this morning. I want her to be happy. That’s what I want.”

  Ten minutes later the three of them were about to leave when the Boy realized he’d forgotten to buy the bumper sticker, THIS CAR CLIMBED MOUNT WASHINGTON. He climbed back up the hill toward the shop, hobbled by his limp. While they waited, his girlfriend was asked what she thought of the mountaintop. She said nothing; she had no expression on her face whatsoever. Dry lightning sparked far away. Her boyfriend returned a few minutes later. He suggested that they get going, but first put the sticker on the bumper. His girlfriend told him that sounded great, that he should do it, though quickly, she wanted to go. He countered, smiling, “You do it. It’s your truck. You’ve earned it.”

  GIRL ZERO

  On the drive home, her body grows colder, as though every cell is filled with dust, dust from the moon. She thinks about opening the door, tumbling out, a mannequin flipping down the road, head over heels at sixty miles an hour. Like the time she was high on mushrooms for the first time with Alex and almost jumped out of the car.

  Only now she may really go through with it and there won’t be any blood to see, just dust.

  And through her overwrought melancholy, Emily gazes out the window. She does feel intensely sad, she’s overwhelmed by it, her mind studies it as rapidly as it can. Trees rush by, a hymn of trees. It’s as if she’s reached a point of misery that it’s actually an achievement, to reach the end of ends, to know unhappiness so well her soul commiserates with all the suffering they pass, the stained trailers, the dogs on chains, until she takes on their suffering and wants to cry for all the pain still to be found here and elsewhere, around the globe, from racism, climate change, the fate of nations—

  And then she’s done.

  What an annoying teenager she’s become. She’s tired of such things, tired of thinking or feeling such things, just done with feeling shitty.

  She’s sick of feeling like there’s something wrong with her all the time.