by Seth King
As my heart crashes against the walls of my ribcage Stellan stops at a red light and smiles at me. “Speaking of that, come here, babe.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder, pulls me in so we’re huddled close, and lifts up his phone in front of us with his free hand.
“Why?”
“Because I want a picture with you.”
I rest my head against his shoulder and put on a small smile, feeling safer than I ever have in my life, despite everything. He plants a delicate, protective kiss on the top of my head and snaps a picture.
“Good,” he says as he beams down at the photo and then puts the phone away. “Now I can keep us in my pocket forever.”
My smile lasts the rest of the way home.
†
The remainder of the afternoon passes infuriatingly slowly, as I know it’ll be at least a day before I see Stellan again. Once I get a little time to reflect, I decide I don’t care that we had a little argument- that was sexy. The most erotic thing I’ve ever done, really. And not just because of the naughtiness of it. Every time we almost have sex, and then don’t, it makes me want him that much more, which in turn makes me even more frustrated. Regardless of these “dangers” he warns me about, I’ve never wanted anything in my life more than I want to feel him in me; to look into his eyes while he enters me; to know that our connection is real. To be honest, I don’t know how much more of this I can take before I go crazy with pent-up sexual tension, so to prevent that from happening I decide to take a shower in the downstairs bathroom, the one with the detachable showerhead.
For forty minutes.
While I dry my hair, something else nags at me. Our little moment in the car notwithstanding, why does it feel like the only time he ever really communicates with me is when he’s pleasuring me? Like, when I try to dig deep into his brain and have a real conversation with him, he shuts down and changes the subject. Then, if I piss him off or tease him, he immediately hooks up with me as a way to punish me or something, instead of actually talking it through like normal people. Not that I don’t like what he does to me, but why can’t we also just talk sometimes, like regular human beings?
My phone rings as I get dressed. It’s my friend Genevieve, who claims to have a Dunkin’ Donuts gift card that expires tomorrow and says she wants to use it to buy me a coffee and catch up, although I strongly suspect it has more to do with getting the lowdown on Stellan than anything else. She also mentions that she has something she needs to talk to me about, which sounds ominous, but I try not to let it freak me out. I’m in desperate need of some girl time since I’ve been icing out Cara ever since Stellan took over my life, and truthfully I’m not in the position to be turning down any social invites anyway, as it seems like the older I get, the smaller my circle of friends becomes. So at four thirty I head out into the humid afternoon to meet Gen.
“So how’ve you been, stranger?” she asks as we settle into a booth with our drinks, a vanilla latte for her and a huge, frozen chocolaty thing for me, of course. I can tell it’s going to storm soon, as the skies are darkening and the air is starting to smell like wet dirt, and it makes the little restaurant feel especially cozy and warm. “And thanks for not answering when I called you earlier, you slut.”
“Sorry,” I blush as I picture the moment she called me on the bench. “I was…busy.”
“I’d say you’ve been busy,” she says pointedly. “What the hell is going on with Stellan Goode?”
“Ugh, I knew you’d ask this,” I groan. All the attention regarding Stellan has been a bit flattering, I can’t lie, but I still have no idea how to describe us to anyone, and I need more time to figure things out before I can be comfortable talking about him.
“I’m not going to tell anyone or anything,” Gen tells me seriously, her raven hair shaking along with her head, “even though everyone’s been asking me about it. I just want to know because I’m jealous.”
“You are?”
“Oh, get real, honey. I’ve been creepily obsessed with Stellan since the first day I saw him, just like every other girl in this town. Something’s just…different about him. Like, he’s on a different wavelength than all the other boys our age or something. He’s like the Ryan Gosling of Durham. Nobody can stop talking about it- every girl I know wanted to deflower him, and it looks like you’re well on your way.”
“I know he’s different,” I say sadly, since any reminder of his perfection is also a reminder that he is totally out of my league, even despite his issues, and may soon realize this and walk away. I hold back the part about how he doesn’t need deflowering because he’s not a virgin. “And people are still asking you about it?” I continue. “That’s weird.”
She throws me a disbelieving stare. “Um, Taylor, you’ve finally gotten the reclusive Stellan Goode to date. That’s a big feat. And plus, I have a class with his cousin, Kane, and I heard him talking about how obsessed Stellan is with you. He said it’s almost gotten to an annoying level.”
I smile up at the ceiling, feeling lighter than air. “Really? Aw.”
“And plus,” she laughs, “I think you’ve forgotten about the whole Cara factor.”
“Ugh,” I say as I crash back down to earth. “Of course she’s telling everyone, even though we never talk anymore and she knows nothing about it. I think she’s mad at me, actually.”
“Really? Why? You guys seem so good all the time.”
“Key word: seem. It’s not like it looks. We’ve been having problems since before Stellan came along.”
“Gotcha,” she says, not wanting to pry. “So anyway, how’d you even do it? Get him to date?”
“I don’t know. You’re asking the wrong person. I have no idea how it happened. It makes no sense that the first guy to show any interest in me in ages would be the most desirable male in a ten mile radius.”
“Ten mile radius?” she asks. “More like ten state radius. And what are you even talking about, crazy? Did you not notice every guy in this place checking you out when we walked in? I know they weren’t checking out my fat ass, that’s for sure.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I don’t care, it’s no big deal,” she shrugs. “I’ve just come to accept the fact that dealing with creepers and getting stared at is just part of hanging out with you. It’s part of the bargain. So anyway, how serious are you and my dream man?”
“It’s…hard to say,” I hesitate. “Stellan’s just not like any other guy I’ve…dated, or whatever. Things are pretty complicated right now. Not in a bad way or anything,” I say to assuage the worry on her face. “I’m happy, and I like him. He can just get pretty…dark sometimes, and it can be hard to get through to him.”
She crosses her arms. “Oh, crap.”
“What?”
“I see what’s going on here. He’s another one of your projects.”
“Projects?”
“How do I explain this…” she says as she leans back in her seat. “Okay, remember at my birthday dinner freshman year, when everyone was making fun of that random foreign exchange kid for eating so disgustingly, so you sat with him and taught him better eating habits because you felt bad for him? And in that class we had together sophomore year, you sat next to this quiet loner girl every single day just because you didn’t want her to feel left out, and you wouldn’t leave her side until she found friends to sit with. That’s what you do- you find people and you help them. Fix them. And now I guess you want to fix Stellan, because helping him makes you feel good inside.”
I pause. I do my best to ignore it, but something about what Gen said makes a funny little feeling drop into my stomach.
“No, Gen,” I tell her, shaking my head, “Stellan makes me feel good inside.”
“Why, though?”
“Okay,” I say. “You know how, when you first start hanging out with a guy, you have to pretend to be someone you’re not until you feel comfortable enough in the relationship to reveal your true self? Like, you
have to hide your weirdness and act like a cool, laid-back, normal chick so you don’t expose yourself as some freak too early on and scare him away?”
She nods.
“Well, I don’t have to hide myself with Stellan. I can be my usual weird, goofy self in front of him, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. Like, I can almost trip over something and not feel bad about it, and I can let him hear my embarrassing ringtone and not want to run away out of shame. He seems to like my weirdness, actually. I mean, he hasn’t gone running and screaming yet, so I can only assume he’s not too weirded out by me. I just wish I could get closer to him, and not have him put up these walls all the time, and whatever.”
Something in her eye sparkles. “You’re in love with him, Taylor.”
I look away, my face burning. “No I’m not. It’s not like that. We’ve known each other for like two seconds. I just…I like him a lot, and I want him to break out of his shell, that’s all.”
“Ugh,” she groans, “I kind of know what you mean. Why are we always trying to be that one girl who can change a guy? Why can’t we just find people who are good already?”
I flash a devious smile. “Where’s the fun in that?”
Suddenly she blinks a few times and then leans closer. “Speaking of that, I’m totally getting ahead of myself. There is one thing I wanted to ask you. It’s kind of why I wanted come here, actually. Just because I’m crazily obsessed with Stellan doesn’t mean I don’t want you to be careful at the same time.”
She takes a deep breath. “How well do you really know Stellan? Like, he has that hot-shit reputation and all, and he’s totally gorgeous, but underneath all that, how well do you really know him?”
“Well…I don’t know. Not that well, actually. Why?”
She tilts her head, her eyes growing larger. “I had a pretty interesting talk about him with my cousin earlier today. She’s from Nashville, too- remember the really tan brunette you met at the lake last summer? Anyway, she asked what was going on with my friends, and she got all silent and weird when I mentioned Stellan. She wouldn’t tell me why she reacted like that, but it didn’t sound good. She said it was something that ‘no one talks about.’ I don’t want to scare you or anything; I’m just helping a sister out. So just Google him or something when you get home- if you don’t find anything, then it’s nothing. But her reaction kind of freaked me out.”
A chill runs up my spine in the warm restaurant. “Okay, I will.”
She shakes her head and flashes a mischievous smile. “And then, once you find out it’s nothing, like I know you will, bang the shit out of him in my honor.”
After we chat about Gen’s boy drama and whatnot for a little while I give her a hug and then collapse into my car and stare at the drizzle starting to fall on my windshield, unable to shake the uneasiness brought on by her news. What could this random cousin from Nashville know about Stellan that I don’t? Could it have something to do with this mysterious past he always alludes to, and the police report, and that glaring black hole in his Internet presence? Details are starting to swirl around in my head, trying to come together like puzzle pieces, and I don’t like it at all. Why can’t he just tell me so we can work through it, whatever it is, and I can try to help him?
As I pull out into traffic I crank up the Michelle Branch Pandora station and try to let it drown out my thoughts. For whatever reason, probably the fact that I’m about to be chucked out into the adult world like a bag of trash onto a front porch, I’ve been listening to a lot of the music of my childhood lately- vintage Britney, old Backstreet Boys and Justin Timberlake, anything that takes me back to the simple days and distracts me from the deadlines and job searches and ATM overdraft charges. I follow along to the words of All You Wanted by Michelle Branch, the steady hum of the rain against my windows serving as my only backup singer:
If you want to, I can save you, I can take you away from here…
Please can you tell me, so I can finally see, where you go when you’re gone.
The lyrics make me picture the distant look Stellan always gets in his eyes; the way he looks like his mind is a million miles away from me, dealing with problems I can’t even begin to comprehend. Where does he go when he makes that face? And how can I help him get back from there?
How can I save Stellan Goode, and what exactly does he need saving from?
When I get home I crack open a cold glass bottle of Cheerwine, my favorite brand of Carolina-style cherry soda, and then grab my iPad and settle onto the couch as I chew away at my fingernails, a habit I just recently picked up. (I wonder why.) A clap of thunder rattles the blinds, and I jump a little as I sip my soda and enter his name into Google with my free hand. Once again, nothing comes up except the sporting accomplishments and school awards from the last year or so. How can someone in this day and age have such a tiny digital footprint? I decide to open the same articles, but instead of skimming through them, I read them fully to absorb all the information I can. Something in particular catches my eye in a story about his Lacrosse team:
Shepard Stellan Goode, 21, of Durham, scored three points in the final minutes to secure the win.
For some reason this sentence stands out to me. He’d never told me Stellan wasn’t his first name – how weird. I try to move on to other stories but something keeps nagging at my brain, and so I skip back to the Lacrosse page and find the sentence again. Could his name have something to do with all this? It’s worth a try.
I type “Shepard Stellan Goode” into the search box and then hear the soda bottle I was holding shatter on the hardwood floor as the results flash onto my screen.
12
Stellan Goode
I discovered Taylor Haney was doomed while staring at a strip club.
I was driving home from the baseball park, lost in the swirling vortex of my thoughts, and as I passed through the seedy part of town between my house and Taylor’s I noticed I was pissed about something. No matter how hard I tried to lead my thoughts in a happy direction, I couldn’t. As the discomfort grew I glanced at the glowing neon sign of a strip club along the road and realized it: I was mad because I wasn’t with Taylor. I no longer wanted to spend a second without her. My happiness now depended on her, and that was a terrible thing to discover, because that meant she’s officially stuck with me- and that terrifies me to the core. Because every minute she spends with me is another minute closer to her possible death.
Truth be told, I knew this would happen. I couldn’t help falling for her. She has no idea how much she affects me. I get all warm and fuzzy whenever she pops into my mind, and I get this weird, protective feeling whenever I imagine what she’s doing, like I just want to be with her and hold her and whisper to her and protect her from the big bad world out there. I get all nervous and insecure whenever I think about her, too; worrying about whether she likes me or not, which is something I haven’t experienced in years. I even almost let it slip out that I loved her in the car earlier. Thank God I didn’t, because she surely would’ve opened the door and ran away at that stoplight, screaming that there was a psycho after her. I mean, come on- getting these kinds of feelings after knowing someone for not even a week? It’s just not normal.
I’ve even been imagining what it would be like if I wasn’t fucked up like this and we could date like a normal couple. I see pastel-hued fantasies of what it could be like: I want to take her to the fair and hold her hand while eating cotton candy and laughing about all the puking kids, the pale yellows and tangerines of the lights of the Ferris wheel twinkling behind us. I want to put my hand around her waist and walk down a beach with her on a spring break vacation in Puerto Rico, the sea foam-green water lapping at our feet and the cerulean sky stretching out beyond us. I want to sneak into a movie with her and take mini-shots of whiskey that we smuggled in her purse, smiling at each other as we swallow the amber liquid. And I want to grab her chestnut hair and hold it behind her back while I fuck her; hear her screaming my name as I plunge into her
, the white sheets rippling around us…
I think about all this as I sit at the neighborhood smoothie place in my post-workout stupor inhaling protein shakes with Kane and our friend Simon. Today was leg day, and I squatted so much weight in my attempts to tire myself in hopeful preparation of hanging out with Taylor that I nearly blew my knees out. (All the driving I have to do tonight will be torture, but it’s a small price to pay.) I rub my screaming leg muscles and sigh as the pair of girls who have been eyeing us for twenty minutes look at me again, giggle, and then turn away.
“Bro,” Simon tells me, “those chicks are basically offering themselves to you on a platter. Aren’t you gonna do anything about it?”
“Sure.”
I turn and wave at them with a big smile. They grin and wave back.
“There,” I say as I swivel back around. “I did something.”
“Wow,” he laughs, glancing at my cross necklace. “You must be really into that whole Christian thing. I don’t know what the hell I’d do if I had girls throwing themselves at me everywhere I went. Probably end up in sex rehab or something.”
“Nah, he’s got a piece of ass of his own, now,” Kane interrupts, and I throw him a dirty look. “Are you gonna miss her on your little mission tonight, Stelly Boy?”
“Yes, actually, I will. And what did you call her?”
“Come on, I’m kidding. I’m just trying to get a rise out of you.”
“Well you’re about to get a ‘rise’ of my fist directly into your face.”
He scrunches up his face at me, grabs his windbreaker from the back of his chair, rolls it up, and then swats my leg with it like it’s a towel.
“Fuck you!” I say as I push his arm away.
