by Teresa Hill
“I’m fine. Just tired,” I say again. Not that she’s listening.
Damned stubborn girl.
I open my eyes and see that she has a piece of damp gauze in her hand, and she’s standing right in front of me, nudging my thighs apart so she can stand between them, way too close. I sit up straight, then have to try very hard not to back up, stool and all, to get away from her. If I do, I’ll look like an idiot, and she’ll want me to explain what’s wrong. I can’t do that, either.
So I sit here, trying not to breathe too deeply, to tense up too much, to back away from her determined efforts to patch me up. She’s trying to get all the blood off my face, and she’s concentrating hard, acting like she has to get every speck, moving slowly and gently like she’s really worried about hurting me.
Which is ridiculous, because I’m really not hurt that badly. My nose is the worst of it, and I didn’t even take a hit to it. I took Tripp down to the ground at one point and landed on his knee, nose first. It’s not broken. I know what that feels like, and I damned sure never had anybody like her to patch me up when it happened.
But I stop insisting I’m fine, because she’s being so gentle with me. Like me hurting in the smallest of ways is important. She always finds a way to surprise me, to make me want her even more. Sometimes I feel like I need to touch her, to have her touch me, more than I need to breathe. The whole damned world may be completely unfair to me, but every now and then, I get to have this beautiful, amazing girl close to me, touching me, smiling at me, laughing with me, believing in me.
How am I supposed to fight that?
I want to take the cloth out of her hands and put them on my chest instead. I want them to trace every line, touch every bit of skin. My muscles are jumping just thinking about it. I want to have my hands on her arms, stoking up and down, teasing past the barest hint of the beginning of the outer curves of her breasts. I imagine I’d be there a while, because I’ve wanted to touch them for so long, and her skin there is so soft, so sensitive that the tiniest little touch will make her tremble and moan and sink into me.
I have no idea what she’d do if I actually tried that. To keep myself from it, to save myself from doing something crazy because of how amazing it feels to have her touch me, I concentrate hard on all the reasons I can’t have her.
Her father would strangle me, for one. And it’s not that I’m afraid of him. I’d happily let him beat the crap out of me if it meant I’d get to be with her, even for a little while.
But Dana adores him, and they’re so close. I won’t cause a rift between them. As much as she loves her family and as tight as they are — and as little family as I’ve had — I can’t do that to her. Not to mention, I don’t know who she’d choose if it ever came down to it. Me or her family? And for what? What do I have to offer her? A high school romance?
We’re graduating in a year, and this girl has plans. She’s so damned smart. She wants to go to Stanford. Zach spoke at a conference there our Junior year, and he took her to show her the school. Apparently Stanford has an awesome law school, and she thinks she might want to be a lawyer. She fell in love with the place, and now she wants to go.
Fucking Stanford. About as far as she could get from here without leaving the country.
Even if she doesn’t go there, she’ll end up at one of the best colleges in the U.S. Everybody knows that. She and her mom went to a bunch of those fancy, Ivy League schools this summer to check them out. There’s no limit to what this girl can do. What she will do. I would never try to hold her back from any of that, no matter how much I want her.
Plus, it’s not just her life I’d be messing with.
There’s Julie and her marriage to Zach, her place in his family. She’s happy for once in her life. I won’t do anything to mess that up, especially after what she’s done for me in the last four years. And there’s me, needing another year to finish high school and wanting to do it here, keep things the way they are, being able to see Dana at least, to know she’s okay, if nothing else.
It all churns around in my head, every time I think about me and her, every time I get a little too close. There’s a part of me that is always looking for her, needing to get near her. We don’t have to actually be touching. My body knows exactly where she is, knows exactly how sweet she’d feel against me. It pulls me toward her, even as my mind is telling me to be smart and stay the hell away.
I’m fighting as hard as I can, fighting against myself, and right now, I can’t even be sorry about that, because she’s here, so close, acting like my split lip is of the utmost importance. She’s not touching me with anything but that damp piece of gauze. It just feels like so much more, like she practically has her whole body pressed against mine. She’s close enough for me to feel the heat of her, for me to be tingling all over, just thinking about her.
Right now, she’s concentrating so hard her lower lip spreads out over her bottom teeth and her top teeth sink into it. She does that when she’s really focusing. I have to fight not to touch it, to tell her to be careful and not hurt those gorgeous lips of hers.
I close my eyes so I don’t see, thinking that will make it easier to sit here and let her do what she’s determined to do. But then it’s like I feel everything so much more intensely, which is the last thing I need.
Her breath brushes across my face. I smell the mint soap she uses, or maybe it’s lotion. Sometimes, when I really feel like making myself crazy, I think about how she’d look with a bar of soap in her hand, running it all over her body. Then drying herself off and taking the lotion and slowly, gently rubbing it into her skin. Everywhere. Sometimes, really late at night, at my weakest point, it’s not her hands getting herself clean, working the lotion into her skin. It’s mine.
The thought blazes through me, amping up the awareness level to a painful degree.
Making it both better and worse, her fingertips land on my cheek, above the cut on my lip. The blood that’s still there is frustrating her. She pushes my cheek up and out a little to hold the lip in place as she tries again to get the blood off. She’s so close now that when she breathes out, the air from her lungs brushes past my lips, and my whole body is on fire for her.
I freeze, try not to move, try not to breathe, because I love this. I want it to never end, as much as I know I need to beg her to stop. I end up doing nothing as it goes on and on, her fingertips under my chin, tilting my face up to the light, turning my head to the side.
Normally, I don’t like to be touched. It makes me nervous. Hands on my body for the longest time meant someone was likely going to hurt me. Even now, when I’m with some girl, I try to make it about me touching her, not her touching me. It’s easier that way. But with Dana — I want her hands on me. It also makes me uneasy.
Finally, she’s done. She steps away. I can breathe again.
“Okay, time for peroxide,” she says. “This shouldn’t hurt.”
It’s all I can do not to groan as I let her do that, too, like a guy who’s both powerless and mute. To her, peroxide means me bent forward over the sink, her bent over me with a dry cloth in one hand and cap full of peroxide in the other. She pours little streams of peroxide over various cuts and catches the cold liquid with the cloth before it rolls into my mouth or my eyes or my hair.
She’s being so kind, staying so close, and there’s only so much I can take. I go into that Dana-fog, my senses overwhelmed by her. The rest of the world falls away, all the sounds, the smells, even the room we’re in. Everything is gone, except her and the way she makes me feel, and the things I want to do to her.
Finally satisfied she’s disinfected every cut, she starts bandaging them, stopping and frowning when she gets to the one on my eyelid near the corner of my eye.
“You might need stitches,” she says.
“Gonna sew me up?” I try to play this whole thing off, make a joke of it, but she frowns, like I might have actually hurt her feelings.
“I didn’t know you like Andie,” s
he says finally, looking serious.
It’s news to me. “I like Andie?”
“Everybody in the backyard at the party saw the whole thing. You took her away from Tripp. You must like her a lot to get into a fight over her.”
That’s what she thinks? That I have a thing for Andie? So much so that I’d risk getting into a fight for her? I start to tell her that’s not what happened and that I’m not into Andie. But I stop myself, because maybe that’s what I need.
Someone else.
Again.
I’ve tried to keep some distance between me and Dana. Maybe not as hard as I should have, but I have tried. It’s never really worked. Not completely. Maybe I should try again. With Andie this time.
It’s wrong, but sometimes I use other girls to keep her away. I try to make it clear to the girls that nothing serious is going to come of it, but it’s like girls can’t hear those words or can’t process them. They always end up thinking we’re into each other in this big, serious way. I break it off at the first sign a girl is starting to feel that way, but still, I hurt them.
Which makes me a jerk. I get that. I have no excuses. And I keep doing it, because it keeps Dana away. She’s not the kind of girl who’d try to take a guy away from another girl. She’d never flirt with another girl’s guy, put her hands all over him, give him anything he wants even though he’s with someone else.
Andie owes me. Maybe I can make it nothing more than a favor from her to me, that we look like we’re together. Maybe Andie will hear me, believe me, not get hurt.
Dana’s still too close, staring at me, waiting for me to say something about Andie, but I don’t. I don’t know what to say.
“You promised me you wouldn’t fight anymore,” Dana says finally.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Freshman year of high school, practically the first thing I did was get suspended over a stupid fight with some kid who gave me shit about my parents being in jail. I was still really angry back then. Fighting felt good. It felt like no one was going to get away with pushing me around. I wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.
But then, there she was, so disappointed in me and wanting so much more for me. Believing in me the way no one ever had. Thinking there was good in me. Making me want to be good. For her.
And I have been. I’ve been so damned responsible and careful, I can hardly believe it. This is the first really irresponsible thing I’ve done since that stupid fight Freshman year.
“I didn’t start the fight,” I tell her finally, because I didn’t and because I hate her thinking I broke a promise to her.
“Tripp did?” She seems surprised by that.
I nod. I might have gone into the backyard and goaded him into it, but he took the first swing.
Then I hit him.
It felt good in the moment. Always does.
But when the moment’s gone, I’m left with cuts and bruises advertising the fact that I’ve been in a fight. Julie cries, and Zach gets pissed, and people look at me again like I’m that fucked up kid who’ll never get it together and will probably end up just like my parents.
I hate that look. I’ve seen it so many times.
But the worst look is hers when she’s disappointed in me. When she lets me know she expects better from me. That she believes in me. After all I’ve put her through, all the ways I’ve disappointed her and hurt her, she still believes I can do anything, be anything I want, have any kind of life I want.
How do I resist a girl like that? It’s a miracle I’ve managed as long as I have.
“I have to go,” I say. “Maybe I can get inside without Zach or Julie seeing my face, save the big blow-up for tomorrow.”
“Do you think they’ll be really mad?”
“Don’t worry about it. I don’t think they’ll kick me out or anything like that. Even if they do, my birthday’s in three weeks. No more social services. No more legal guardian, either.”
“But you’ll still be at Zach and Julie’s. My parents have made it clear that the rule in our house is, you live under our roof, you follow our rules, no matter how old you are. I bet it’ll be the same for you.”
She’s biting her lip again, and I’m thinking about stopping her. Stopping her with my finger brushing across her lip or my mouth on hers. She mistreats that poor lip of hers terribly. I never would. I’d be so careful with her.
“Yeah. Sure.” That’s not what I’m talking about.
Truth is, I don’t have to follow a lot of rules. Just two really. 1) Don’t make Julie cry. Zach hates that, and it pisses him off. 2) Take care of my own shit, which, granted, encompasses a lot. Being in school, getting good grades, not getting into trouble, helping out around the house, something all three of us do.
It’s the easiest my life has ever been. I’d be stupid to mess it up. Which I definitely did tonight. Fighting violates both rules.
And I promised Andie I wouldn’t explain why I got into it with Tripp. Shit.
“You still look worried,” Dana says. “About the fight? It won’t be a huge deal. You know that, right?”
I’m still thinking of tasting those perfect lips of hers. I did once, last spring right after fifteen minutes of sheer hell thinking she’d been in a car accident with her mom. Once I knew she was safe, I lost it, hauled her up against me and kissed her like crazy. It was amazing. I’ve lived on the memory of that one kiss ever since.
That’s how she gets me. That’s what I’m thinking about. I’m lost in that sweet memory of her and not paying enough attention when I say, “Yeah, it’ll be fine, and even if it’s not, I’ll be okay. I’ve got some ... ”
A split second before I say anymore, I stop, but I can see by her face I already said too much. It’s her lips. That’s the problem. The sight of her teeth sinking into that pretty bottom lip of hers, and me wanting to save it, soothe it and suck on it and … I can’t think this close to her.
“Wait ... What?” she asks.
“Nothing, Dana.”
“No, it’s not nothing. When you said eighteen means no more legal guardian, no more social services—”
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to not having a bunch of social workers and judges have a say in what I do and where I live.” Which is true. Not the whole story, but true.
“You said, ‘Even if it’s not, I’ll be okay. I’ve got some ... ’ What, Peter? Money? So you can run away? Why would you be thinking about running away?”
“I’m not. Why would I run?” I’ve got it made here. Food, clothing, shelter, a job and getting to be near her, at least. That’s as good as it can get for me.
“Finish what you were going to say.” She stands there, glaring at me.
Like I said, most stubborn girl ever. The world could come tumbling down around us, and she’d still be standing there, insisting I tell her what she wants to know.
“Dana, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.” I do my best to laugh it off.
She doesn’t buy it, looks madder than ever. “You were going to say you’ve got some money, right? You’re still stashing away money?”
Aw, fuck. I’ve totally blown this.
“Why?” she asks. “What do you think is going to happen?”
I try to talk her down. “Saving money is smart. You never know why you might need it. Of course, I’m saving money. Aren’t you?”
“Yes, but for college. I have a feeling that’s not what you’re doing.”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I might go. You’re the one who’s on me the hardest about applying.”
“Peter, what’s the money for? You don’t still think there’s anything you could do to make Zach and Julie kick you out, do you?”
I glare at her, nervous energy leaving me so jittery I can barely keep still under her stubborn stare.
She doesn’t get it. She couldn’t possibly. No one’s ever going to kick her out of her house. Her place in this world is rock-solid. So is her family. Good, strong, hard-working people, all of the
m who’d do anything for her or for anybody else in her family.
Me? I’m the messed-up kid her uncle and his wife took in for a few years, out of a sense of guilt or obligation or ... I don’t even know what. To save me from a lousy group home, mostly, I think.
I was actually in one for a few days. Believe me, it sucked. I never would have lasted. I’d have taken off the first chance I got, and who knows what would have happened to me, if not for Julie. She was the only family I had that gave a damn, and I can still hardly believe she moved back to this town she used to hate for me.
I’m grateful for what she and Zach did, but I’m not their kid, and I’m capable of fucking up in so many ways. But like I said, I’ll be eighteen in three weeks. An adult. No one will have an obligation to do anything for me. I think they probably will. I’m not expecting them to tell me to pack my things and get out. But they could. One day, I might give them a good reason to do it.
And even if I don’t do something stupid, the world is crazy. It’s like disaster floats around in the sky, looking for someone to land on. I always feel like something like that’s right around the corner. Dana doesn’t get that, and I’m glad. I don’t want her to ever feel that way. But I’ll always wonder when my life is going to blow up, or I’m going to blow it up myself by getting mad or being stupid.
Probably over her.
That’s what I’ve always thought, that if I ruined my life, it would be about her, because there’s nothing I feel more strongly about than Dana. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her, especially to protect her. I wouldn’t regret a thing I did, as long as she was okay.
So, the way I see it, I’d be an idiot not to have a plan, not to be saving for the day it all turns to shit. Money is power. If have money, I’ll always have a place to stay and food to eat in an uncertain world. I’ve saved nearly every dime I’ve ever won at poker or earned working for Dana’s father and grandfather, about twelve grand. No matter what happens, I won’t end up on the streets, and I won’t go hungry.
