Shame

by Fiona Cole

  We lay in each other’s arms in silence, each lost in our thoughts for a while longer. We didn’t have sex again, both of us too exhausted from both the physical and mental release to even try. It was an odd feeling. For me, it was almost like being in a state of shock as I lay there, trying to process what had happened between us.

  Eventually, as the numbers on the clock ticked by, we got up and got dressed before his parents returned home. Kevin asked me to stay, but I thought we both needed time alone to think. I knew I did. So, he walked me to the front door and dropped a quick kiss on my cheek.

  “Ana—” He took a deep breath. “Are we okay?”

  His question made my chest feel tight. “What do you mean?” I hadn’t considered that we wouldn’t be okay. Everything had felt so wonderful and easy, but I guess stepping through his door would leave that behind and we’d have to figure out where it left us on the other side.

  “I just . . . I . . . I just wanted to make sure we’re okay. That you’re okay.”

  The tightness increased. I wanted to stop the potential downfall from what we’d just done and relieve the pressure on my chest. So, I forced a smile and told him what I wanted to be true, whether it would be or not. “Of course we’re okay. I’m more than okay.”

  “Good.” His tense shoulders relaxed and he smiled. “Good. Call me tonight, okay?”

  “Okay.” Seeing his relief spurred mine and I was able to take a deep breath. My smile came easier, felt more natural, as I walked out the door.

  Glancing back as I crossed the lawn, he stood at the door and waved the same way he’d always done.

  Things were going to be fine.

  But they weren’t fine.

  Somehow Kevin and I had missed each other the whole weekend and had only exchanged simple messages filled with reasons to keep us apart. I saw him the first time as I walked past him in the hall at school. The bell was about to ring and all we got out was “hey” as we walked in opposite directions. But in the fleeting moment our eyes met, I saw the same questions and confusion that lay in mine.

  Were we really just busy this weekend?

  Were we avoiding each other?

  Were things going to be weird?

  Should we act differently?

  Did we mess up?

  Was it all a mistake?

  Were we not okay like I said we would be?

  Each thought was scarier than the last and the fact that I probably wasn’t alone in them hadn’t made me feel any better.

  I barely heard anything in my morning classes, listening to the questions rolling around in my head, raising my anxiety with each passing minute I went without speaking to Kevin. Why hadn’t we talked about it more? Did we really walk away from each other with a kiss and nothing else?

  Hindsight was twenty-twenty and all that.

  When we sat down at lunch, it was awkward, but well hidden beneath everyone’s excited conversations about what they’d done over the summer. Chloe spouted on about how she’d vacationed in Jamaica with her family, while Gwen shared stories about her week in London. Sean took the chance to say hey to me, and I decided for my senior year, I wanted to just let it go, and said hey back.

  I barely remembered the pain I’d felt at what Sean had done. It seemed minor when my best friend sat beside me like a stranger I didn’t know how to talk to.

  We got a few looks from the group, but of course Sean, being the loud, no-holds-barred guy he was, was the first to bring it up. “What’s up with you two? You guys fuck over the summer and now you’re no longer friends?” He laughed at his own joke even before it was over.

  I choked on my Gatorade and began laughing right along with him. Of course mine was more out of hysteria than finding it funny, but it masked my panic well. “I know, I know. Sleeping with Harding is pretty damn funny. AmIright, Gwen?”

  Gwen just rolled her eyes. “You’re an idiot, Sean.” But she was laughing too. It kind of creeped me out how incestuous the table felt. As my manic laughter died down, I became aware of how stiff Kevin was beside me. He hadn’t said anything or even moved, sitting there like the guiltiest person I’d ever seen. It wasn’t that I didn’t want people to know Kevin and I’d had sex. It was that we hadn’t even had a chance to talk about it and I didn’t want it dissected and joked about by the masses.

  Also, I didn’t want anyone to know about my sex life.

  I knocked my knee into Kevin’s to get him to react. His head jerked toward me, and he stared me down with wide eyes. I knocked his knee again and raised my eyebrows trying to convey to him to say something.

  He cleared his throat and smirked at Sean. “You’re just jealous you lost the chance, Hearst.”

  “Oohs” and “Burns” were muttered at Kevin’s comeback. Sean laughed and played along. “All right, Harding. You finally convinced me to give you a go. But I get to be big spoon.”

  “God, can I watch,” Chloe begged, her eyes glued to the guys. “All that hot man on man. Yes, please.”

  “I’d give Kevin a go,” Jane said, jumping in. “I’m sure there’s nothing funny about what he’s got going on.”

  Apparently, she’d grown a hell of a lot bolder over the summer. Or desperate.

  “All serious business over here,” Kevin agreed.

  My chest seized up at his flirtatious response. Did I have the right to be jealous? Fuck. I didn’t know. And I didn’t care. Seeing Jane drool over him and practically lay herself on a platter was starting a burn in my chest. Just watching her lick her lips at him and continue the banter made the heat rise up my neck.

  And then to see Kevin flirt back, when I was right next to him? We’d had sex just three days ago. What the hell was happening?

  My mind was spiraling downward, along with my self-esteem. I had to take subtle deep breaths to get myself under control. When I felt the heat cool, I looked around to see everyone had moved on. I glanced at Kevin out of the corner of my eye and he was talking soccer with Isaac, not at all focused on Jane.

  I felt like a fool. I knew Kevin, and I knew he would never flirt with a girl with me right next to him after what had happened. Hell, he never flirted with girls around me period.

  I also knew I needed to make time to talk to him. We had to figure out what the hell was going on.

  I tried to keep an eye out for him as I walked to the parking lot, but when I got there, his car was already gone. It wasn’t in his driveway when I got home either.

  Trying to ignore where he could have gone and all the thoughts that maybe he really was avoiding me, I walked in my house. My mom was in the kitchen with about ten paint chips, all only slightly different than the other.

  “Hey, sweetie. How was your first day of school?”

  “It was good. Same as always.”

  “Good, good. I’m thinking of painting the kitchen, but can’t decide on a color. What do you think?”

  I really didn’t care. I just wanted to go to my room and wait for Kevin to get home, but figured this was a good distraction. Brushing aside the darker colors, I left a light tan and a soft sage. “I like these two.”

  “Oh, don’t do this to me. You know I hate making decisions. Just pick one.”

  I barely held back my sigh. I hated making decisions too, yet somehow, I was the one always doing it. My mom was a perfect Susie Homemaker, as long as you told her how to do it. She made dinners and decorated rooms, but you had to suggest the menu you wanted and what style of room you thought would work best. My dad used to lay out clothes for her when they went on a date. It was archaic, but she loved it. Said she always knew she was wearing what he found attractive and that made her confident that he always wanted her.

  Apparently, it hadn’t been what he’d wanted since he’d decided on divorce. Since then, I’d become the one who made the decisions. It was exhausting. I loved my mom. She was great and loving and stern and overall, just what I needed. But I hated making decisions. I just wanted to relax and have someone make decisions for me because the
y knew me so well that they could.

  Like how Kevin had given me pleasure and exactly what I needed without asking?

  A shiver worked its way down my spine at the memory. Shaking it off, I looked at the paint chips again. “The sage’ll look good.”

  “Good choice! I knew you’d help.” She scooped up the other paint chips and tossed them into her purse. Her back was still to me when she dropped her bomb.

  “Your dad called. He said he wants you to apply to Vanderbilt.”

  “What?” I screwed up my face in confusion. “Why?”

  She continued to avoid eye contact, busying herself with something in her purse. “Because he wants to be closer to you and see you. If you go to college there, it would give you that opportunity. And Vandy is a great school.”

  “Like he wanted to see me at Christmas last year and was barely around when I was there?”

  There was no way she could have missed the bitterness of my tone. I didn’t want to leave Cincinnati. Especially to go back to Nashville. I wanted to stay close to home. To her. And to Kevin.

  “Sweetie, he tries his best,” she said, trying to defend him.

  “Well his best sucks.” I knew I sounded like a petulant child, but I was pissed that he went through her to corner me into this.

  Mom turned to me with a sad smile and brushed my hair behind my ears. “Just apply. You don’t have to make any promises. Please.”

  Just so there was no doubt about how upset I was, I made my sigh extra dramatic. “Fine,” I grumbled.

  She walked away and left me with the frustration of my dad wanting to pop in an out of my life when it pleased him. He left us. He never called. He didn’t spend the time with me when I was there. Just the thought of four years of that weighed heavy on my chest. Leaving Kevin and being alone with my dad, who hadn’t given two shits over the past few years. No, thank you.

  The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. I was swirling in a pit of anger, thinking about all the times he didn’t take the chance to see me. And the only times he had seen me was when I bent to meet his schedule. The burn behind my eyes matched the ache in my chest, and I blinked to hold back tears.

  The slam of a car door pulled me out of my pit of despair, and I rushed to the window to see Kevin walking toward his house. Fueled by the adrenaline from my anger, I raced out the front door. Any awkwardness from the past couple of days was erased as I ran toward my friend. He turned to see me just in time as I barreled into his chest, wrapping my arms around his waist.

  When his arms returned the hug, I broke. I broke because all day, I thought I’d lost this kind of comfort. I broke from the stress of my dad’s request. I broke because I was back in the haven of Kevin’s arms.

  “Hey, hey.” He held my shuddering shoulders tightly, doing his best to hold me together. “Ana, talk to me. What happened?”

  “I just need you,” I muttered into his chest.

  Kevin didn’t hesitate. “Okay. I’m here. Come on, let’s head upstairs.” He held my hand as we made our way to the bonus room and sat on the couch. “Talk to me,” he said, pushing my hair back and wiping my wet cheeks.

  I stared at him, taking a deep breath. “My dad wants me to go to college at Vanderbilt. Or at least apply.” His jaw clenched, because he understood how much that request would set me off. “I don’t want to go, Kevin.”

  He was quiet as he processed and formulated a response. Finally, he came back with the most simple and perfect response. One I’d missed in my anger. Too simple to even think about under pressure. “Then don’t go. Apply to make him happy, but don’t go. You don’t owe him anything.”

  “I know. I just hate that he even asked.”

  “Is that all? You fell apart here, and it takes a lot for you to do that. What’s going on?”

  That was my opportunity to talk about what had happened and now that I had the chance, I froze. What does one say to their friend who they’d slept with and shared dark desires with and didn’t know where they would go from there?

  I tried to keep it simple.

  “Are we okay?” I whispered not looking at him.

  He stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “Today felt off.” After that, the dam broke and words came pouring out. “We hadn’t talked all weekend and then in school it was weird, and I was jealous of the way Jane flirted with you and then I thought you were avoiding me, and then I started panicking that I’d lost you as my friend—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Ana, slow down.” His hands moved up and down my arms, soothing me. “You’ll never lose me as a friend. I’m sorry things were weird today. I just kind of shut down. I know we haven’t talked about it, but I freaked, and I started getting scared that you would tell me I was crazy, and I hesitated to call you because I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want you to tell me we weren’t friends anymore. That after having time to think about it, you’d tell me I’d scared you.”

  We both laughed at our similar confessions. “At least we both know we don’t want to lose each other’s friendship,” I said.

  “Yeah. I guess sex really complicates things.”

  “Yeah,” I answered lamely. We sat there, letting that sink in. He held my hands between us, and I watched the way his thumbs moved along the backs of my knuckles. Thinking the day through, I came to a conclusion that scared me to say aloud.

  “Kevin-”

  “Ana-”

  We laughed again, and I encouraged him to go first.

  His palms squeezed mine. “Maybe we make our friendship the most important thing. And we put everything else to the side.” His words were slow and hesitant.

  And exactly what I was going to say.

  Even so, it didn’t lessen the gut reaction to hold on to what we’d found in each other. Even when I knew it was for the best for our friendship, I still hated the idea of never having it again. Even when I didn’t want to repeat the doubt of today, it hurt.

  But I set it aside and nodded, agreeing with him.

  “I loved everything about Friday. Everything. Especially because it was with you,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “But maybe . . . maybe we don’t do it again because I’m too damn scared it will fuck up our friendship.” He swallowed. “And, Ana . . . I can’t lose you.”

  “I can’t lose you either.” I felt like I was losing a part of something special now, but losing that was better than possibly losing all of him. I wouldn’t survive.

  His heavy exhale blew my hair back from my cheeks. “Are you mad?”

  “No.” I squeezed his hands to reassure him—reassure myself. “No. I agree one hundred percent. But,” I added, wanting to keep our newfound connection open and have a safe place to talk to each other about our secret. “Let’s be there for each other. I don’t want to feel alone, and I don’t want you to feel alone in . . . in what we did. So, if we need to talk about something, we can talk to each other. We don’t have to pretend nothing ever happened.”

  His eyes swept the room, avoiding mine. Doubt crept in that maybe he struggled with this decision as much as I did. I tracked the way his Adam’s apple bobbed on a heavy swallow before he finally looked at me. “Deal.”

  Despite my doubt and reservations, my cheeks stretched into the first smile I’d had since Friday and it felt perfect. As soon as it was sorted, without missing a beat, we fell back into who we always were.

  “You want to play a PlayStation game?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. You want to get your ass kicked?”

  Chapter Ninteen

  Kevin

  “Have you started filling out college applications yet?” Ana asked.

  “Yeah. And it’s a pain.”

  “Where to?” She set her pen down and I did the same before leaning back in my chair. We’d been at the library for an hour studying for a math test and I was ready for a break.

  “UC, of course.” Pretty much everyone local applied to the University of Cincinnati. “Tha
t’s my top choice. It’s home and I like it here. What about you?”

  “Same. I want to stay close to my mom, and I can’t imagine her being without me. Which is dumb because she’s an adult—one who struggles to make decisions—but still, an adult.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “And then, of course, Vanderbilt since I’m trying to appease my parents.”

  “It would be awesome to go to school together. Both of us at UC.” Just the idea of remaining close to Ana sent a thrill through me.

  “Yes, please! Please don’t leave me to college all alone.” She flopped her head on the table, her blond hair spilling out across our books, her words muffled by the wood. “I would never survive.”

  I laughed. “Dramatic much?”

  Ana lifted her head just enough to let her hair fall aside and raised her blue eyes to mine. “Excuse me, Mr. Popular. Not everyone is skilled at making friends like you are. You’re like an all-American, everyone-wants-to-be-around-your-awesome-aura, friend-making machine.”

  “One: that’s pretty descriptive. Two: you make friends easily.”

  Ana rolled her eyes. “Because of you. You totally swooped in and introduced me to your friends. I’m pretty sure I would have been a floundering fish without you.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I argued. I made the mistake of laying my hand on hers and immediately a fire zipped up my arm and into my chest. I did my damnedest to not touch Ana any more than necessary after we’d had sex. Because, no matter how hard I tried, I still fantasized about her. She was everything I’d ever imagined and more. While I don’t regret focusing on our friendship, it doesn’t mean my body didn’t remember the most amazing moments of my life. The most freeing moment I’d had in so long.