One Lonely Degree

by C. K. Kelly Martin

  “Thanks. I didn’t know there were going to be so many people around.”

  “Me neither. But then we’re not really in a hurry to be alone, right?” It’s a funny thing to say with his bedroom door all but closed and the house empty—but he sounds serious. “There’s the whole gray-area thing.” Jersy stares at me, his hands on his knees. “Have you said anything to Audrey?”

  My jaw drops at the sound of her name. What kind of friend am I? “No.” I wrap my shaking fingers around my ponytail. “Have you?” I already know he hasn’t. She would’ve said something.

  “No. But I think we should.”

  “She’s my best friend,” I say in a low voice. “What am I supposed to tell her? That the minute she was out of the picture I swept in and stole you?” I can’t do that. I’m crazy to be here. Whatever this is, it can’t go anywhere. I’ve been in denial since the barbecue—even before that.

  “You didn’t steal me,” Jersy says indignantly. “This isn’t anybody’s fault.”

  Of course it is. “This is so shitty.” I bite my lip hard. The words aren’t strong enough, but anything I can think to say is an understatement.

  Jersy reads the feelings in my face and takes a long breath. “We can wish it happened differently all we want, but that won’t change anything, Finn.” His little finger bends as he says my name. “Audrey’s great, she is, but it’s not like being with you.” He studies his kneecaps. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “Nothing serious has happened between us,” I tell him. “We can still stop this.”

  “You can stop if you want.” Jersy’s chin drops. “I’m still breaking up with her.” He stares boldly into my eyes, waiting for me to contradict him. Then he lies back on the bed and squeezes his eyelids shut. “This is fucked already, and we haven’t even started.”

  I stare at him and feel a shiver tear through me. I don’t want to stop before we’ve started. I want the chance to find out what this could be—even if it doesn’t last past summer. “Maybe it’s better. We never have to screw it up.”

  Jersy groans across from me. “That’s such bullshit, Finn. Don’t even, okay?”

  It’s bullshit, he’s right. It’s not better; it’s just sad. I bow my head and think of Audrey. She trusts me like a sister, and I like him so much. “She’s my best friend,” I repeat. “I can’t do this, Jersy.”

  For a while he just lies there, gritting his teeth, and when he finally says “Okay,” it’s one of the saddest sounds I’ve ever heard. He sits up, his eyes back on me, and I cross over to the bed and sit next to him. My legs feel wobbly and I’m shivering like crazy. Jersy rests his hand on my thigh and leans his head in near mine. He’s waiting for me to make the next move, and I do. It’s like I don’t even have to think about it. Before I know it my lips smack into his and then his hand’s fitting itself around my ponytail, pressing against my back, stroking my arm.

  We lie down together and then I’m shivering more. My hands are on his skin, gliding up and down his back. Our tongues swirl slowly around each other. I want to lick his neck and his ears and slide my finger over his lips. I want to whisper things in my new secret voice.

  Jersy slides on top of me and kisses my neck. He fiddles with my T-shirt like it’s in the way, and I yank it over my head, feeling brave and wild. Jersy stares at my bikini top and kisses the exposed skin between my breasts. Then our mouths connect again and he’s pushing down on me, stealing my breath, wanting something else. I slow down, trying to get back to where we were just a few seconds ago, but I can’t. That place is gone.

  I tug my mouth away and say his name. He stops instantly, his face crumpling. “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah.” I hide my eyes. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It just felt like too much suddenly. I’m sorry.” I hate that I’m embarrassed.

  Jersy rolls off me and touches my shoulder. “Don’t say that. It’s okay.” He lies next to me, only our arms touching. “I don’t even know what Adam did to you and I want to kill him,” he says quietly. “I should’ve known. Whenever he was around—”

  “I don’t want to talk about him, okay?” I roll over on my side towards him. My head lands on his chest, and next thing I know we’re lying like puppies, all curved into each other, almost airtight. Jersy pulls the blanket over us and hugs me close. We’re hushed and warm and I could stay here forever, my left leg caught between his and our arms snugly around each other. “You’re falling asleep, aren’t you?” I whisper.

  “No,” Jersy says, and this time I know he’s telling the truth. He pulls his head up and gazes down at me in a way that makes my chest ache. “You can’t tell me you don’t want this.” He balances his weight on his elbow and blinks his beautiful brown lashes at me. “We can’t leave things like this.”

  “I know.” I can’t even stop looking at him. How would I say goodbye? I’m kidding myself all round. I can’t do this to Audrey, and I can’t stop. I’m doomed.

  “Talk to Audrey,” he continues. “I’ll tell her myself if you want.”

  He means it. He’ll do it himself if I give the word. He wants to try with me—despite everything.

  “I should be the one who tells her.” My voice cracks.

  “When?” Jersy’s eyes are fixed on mine, and the feel of our legs tangled together under the covers is so amazingly natural that I can’t believe it’s us. We’re warm and wonderful and right. How did this happen?

  “Tonight,” I tell him. I must be crazy, because this time I mean it too. “I’ll call her when I get home.”

  Jersy’s eyes are shining like stars. He holds my hand and smiles like everything’s going to be okay. For a minute I think I actually believe him.

  MOm anD DanIeL are in the middle of dinner when I get home. I tell Mom I ate at Jersy’s, rush up to my room, put Snow Patrol on, and lie on my unmade bed with my eyes closed. I don’t want to change out of my bikini or take down my hair. I want to stay the girl I was in Jersy’s bedroom. Then “Chocolate” comes on, and it sounds so undeniably bittersweet, so us and Audrey, that I snatch up the phone and dial before I can break and change my mind.

  “Allô?” a man’s voice says.

  Fifteen seconds later Audrey’s in my ear, happy to hear from me, killing me with every word. “I have to tell you something,” I cut in. Panic rushes through my veins, transforming me into someone I don’t recognize. I would never do this to Audrey. It’s not possible. “I’ve been seeing a lot of Jersy lately,” I go on. “Since you left and my folks split up—and things have been changing.” Dread swallows me whole, but I keep talking, spitting out clichés that I don’t know how to make sound true. “We’ve been getting closer the past few weeks. It’s like he’s really been there for me, and I know you’ll be upset but if you could just try to understand it.” I choke back the knot in my throat. “I told him about Adam and everything and …” I clutch at my T-shirt and scratch my arms. The skin on my face is stretched tighter than a drum. “I told him everything.” It’s a plea. I don’t know what else to say.

  “What’re you talking about?” Audrey asks. “What do you mean ‘getting closer’?”

  I breathe silently into the phone, shaking under my skin.

  “Oh my God,” Audrey whispers. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you’d do that.”

  “We haven’t done anything. It’s just …” I dig my fingernails into the receiver. “It’s the way I’ve been feeling. For a while now.”

  “For a while now?” Audrey repeats. “You know how I feel about him. How can you do this?” Her voice lashes out at me. “And him? Does he know how you feel?” She laughs bitterly. “He does, doesn’t he? You told him everything.”

  “Audrey, please.” Tears gush out of my eyes. “It’s been so hard with you away. You have no idea.”

  “I have no idea?” she cries. “You know exactly what this summer has been like for me, Finn! You know how terrible I felt being apart from him all this time. I can’t believe you�
�d do this. You of all people.”

  “Don’t,” I beg. “Nothing’s happened.”

  “You’re lying.”

  She’s right and I don’t protest. I swipe at my tears with one hand as I grip the receiver.

  “So what is it?” she asks. “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “No!” I cry, my voice raw.

  “Is that a lie too? Tell me the truth.” I hear her disappointment and it makes me wince. “Go on,” she urges. “The least you can do is tell me the truth.”

  So I tell her everything, stumbling over the words, and she listens quietly until there’s nothing more to hear. Thirty seconds pass in complete silence. “I’m sorry,” I rasp finally. “I’m so sorry. Say something.”

  “I don’t think I want to,” she says. “What did you think? That I was going to tell you it was all right? I’m not going to tell you that, Finn. It’s not all right and it won’t be. I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

  I’m losing her. It’s the worst thing that can happen, and I’ll do anything to stop it. “I won’t see him anymore,” I promise. “I’ll do anything you want.” I give up Jersy so easily that it breaks my heart. It’s a joke to think it ever could’ve been otherwise. He never stood a chance.

  “Too late, Finn,” Audrey says blankly. “Don’t call me again.”

  Then she’s gone and I’m pulling my hair out of my ponytail, tugging off my clothes and my swimsuit, doing my best to reverse the damage. My hair smells like Jersy’s pool, and I tear into the bathroom, climb into the shower, and coat my skin in floral soap.

  I could call Audrey back this minute, but she wouldn’t talk to me. I know the way she thinks as well as I know myself. I’ve been worse than an enemy. Nothing can change that. Probably not even giving up Jersy, but I have to try.

  I remember the day, not long after Audrey’s mom and Steven were married three years ago, that they decided to buy the house they all live in now. Audrey didn’t really want to change houses, but things weren’t the same since Steven had moved in with them anyway. Audrey and I walked over to her new place so she could check it out without them. The owners had already moved out west, and we jumped the backyard fence and sat on top of the wooden monkey bars they’d abandoned there. Our legs dangled over the sides as we sat six feet off the ground, talking about anything that came into our heads, until a gray-haired guy with a Bluetooth in his ear stared over the fence and said we shouldn’t be there.

  “She’s going to live here,” I called back to him, pointing at Audrey.

  “It doesn’t feel like I’m going to live here,” she said after he’d disappeared behind the fence again.

  It didn’t feel like it to me either, but I said, “That’s probably just because it hasn’t happened yet. You’ll have so much more room— it’s going to be way better.”

  When my parents first stopped getting along, I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but Audrey knew something was wrong with me and guessed it was about them because she could see the difference too. I wondered why they didn’t worry about me or Daniel noticing. “They’d worry about it if they thought about it,” Audrey said, and I knew what she meant, but neither of us could figure out why they wouldn’t make themselves think about it to begin with.

  And now … now I can’t stop crying. I close my eyes and tilt my head up to the shower, wishing I could take this summer back, even the best parts, if it would mean Audrey wouldn’t hate me. My eyes are pink when I come out of the bathroom, my scalp too. I smell like an English garden, and when I stumble out of bed for work the next day the aroma’s still leaking out of my pores. “You smell like an old lady,” Daniel complains in the car.

  I ignore him and face the window. I’m me but not me. I’m the girl who did this to Audrey and the one who looked on, perplexed. My boobs bounce along in my Play Country T-shirt, and I don’t even care. I don’t care about the awkwardness with Kevin. I don’t care about anything. Nishani grabs my arm halfway through the day and asks me to take break with her, but I don’t.

  I don’t care.

  When I’m back at home later, Jersy calls my cell and I tell him I can’t talk to him anymore. Simple as that. “What’d she say to you?” Jersy demands.

  I sigh into the phone and disconnect because I don’t care. I can’t.

  He calls back on the home line and I won’t pick up, so Mom has to answer it herself. She knocks on my bedroom door and swings it open before I have a chance to answer. “That’s Jersy on the phone for you,” she says irritably. Heaven forbid she should ever have to answer the telephone for herself. Isn’t that what offspring are for?

  “I don’t care,” I tell her. “Tell him not to call me anymore.”

  “What?” Mom plants her hands on her hips like some demented little teapot. “I’m not going to tell him that.”

  “Why not?” I scowl. “I’m not going to talk to him, and there’s nothing you can do that will change my mind.”

  “Finn.” Mom fixes her oh-so-concerned eyes on mine. “What’s going on with you two?”

  It’s the conversation she’s always wanted, but we’re not going to have it now. “Absolutely nothing,” I say. “That’s the whole point. He’s Audrey’s boyfriend.” Was Audrey’s boyfriend. Just like I was Audrey’s friend.

  “He’s still waiting,” Mom says, pointing to my phone.

  “I don’t care!” I shout. “Don’t you get it? I’m not going to speak to him—no matter how many times you say it.” My lungs are exploding. I fasten my arms around myself like a straitjacket, but I can’t hold it together. “You don’t understand! You never do.

  Can’t you just listen to me and do things my way for once? Would it kill you to hang up on him?” The words scald my throat, but I don’t care. I’m crying so hard that I can hardly feel anything else.

  “Honey.” Mom’s voice is tender. She pets my hair like I’m three years old. “What is all this?” She sits next to me on the bed, one arm around my shoulders, waiting for me to explain.

  Her hand in my hair makes me blubber more. It’s like I’ll never be able to stop. It’s like everything I was and everything I am. And it’s Jersy too. And Audrey and Dad. I’m losing all of them at once, and for the first time I try to tell her.

  It already hurts so much—saying it out loud doesn’t make it any worse. The truth about Adam is different. That would hurt her more than anything I’ve said so far. It’s an invisible line I can’t jump over.

  “Your dad,” Mom says firmly, “he loves you so much, Finn. He’d do anything for you and Daniel. You’re not losing him. He’d never let that happen. If you picked up the phone right now and said you needed to see him, he’d drive down here tonight. You know that.”

  “I know,” I croak.

  “And he’ll be closer come September,” she reminds me. “You can have your own room at his new place too.”

  “I know.” My nose is a snot factory on overtime. It makes the syllables come out muffled. “I just don’t want anything to change.” It already has. That’s the reason I’ve gone into a state of collapse.

  “I know,” Mom says. “You miss him.”

  I sneak a look at her as I nod. My hair’s hanging in front of my eyes, and she brushes it aside and tries to smile. “You told me there was nothing going on between you and Jersy. That’s what you said when he was here that night.”

  “I lied,” I admit, fresh pain slicing into me. “I lied to everyone except him. Audrey’s never going to forgive me.”

  “You don’t know that,” Mom says sympathetically. “This just happened—give her some time.” I stare at her with my eyes streaming, and it’s the first time that I haven’t felt like I should be hiding my tears in I don’t know how long. It makes me angry with my dad even as I sit there missing him. Does he have any idea what he’s giving up? Why does Mom have to get left behind?

  “Wouldn’t you be mad?” I ask her. “Wouldn’t you hate me?”

  Mom spreads her hand across my back. “
I’m sure she’s hurt, but you two are so close—I don’t know that I’ve ever had as close a friendship as you do with Audrey.”

  “You and dad?” I ask, because isn’t that partly what marriage is supposed to be? Before she has a chance to answer, I add, “Was it ever really like that?”

  I want her to tell me that it was, but not only that—I want it to be true.

  Mom presses her lips wistfully together as she straightens her shoulders. “I don’t think that it was ever quite like that,” she admits. “But we were in it together. We had a lot of good years.”

  I rub my eyes and nod at her. I guess the truth will have to be good enough. The doorbell rings as we’re sitting there, and Mom stares into the hall and adds, “I told the papergirl I could pay her tonight.”

  She gives me an apologetic look, and I say, “It’s okay. Go pay her.” I’m all cried out anyway. I want to sneak down to the kitchen and down a dozen Popsicles. Maybe that would smother the fire in my throat.

  “Okay. Won’t be a second.” She blinks and pats my knee. “I’ll take care of the phone too.”

  I watch her rush into the hall, but I don’t hear her pay the papergirl or get rid of Jersy; I don’t bother to listen. Then she’s back, leaning against my doorframe like we’ve had some kind of breakthrough. “Jersy’s downstairs,” she announces. “He really wants to see you.”

  My breath catches as I get up. Why can’t he leave it alone? Why do I have to do this?

  “Do you want me to tell him to go?” Mom offers.

  “I’ll tell him.” I’m already halfway there.

  Jersy’s waiting for me out on the front step, his face pale and his tan hands working their way inside his sweatshirt sleeves. I swing the door open and stare at him like he should know better than to come here. Everything has changed.

  “Okay,” he says hollowly. “Just tell me to my face.”

  “You already know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”