Ballads of Suburbia

by Stephanie Kuehnert

  Adrian rolled his eyes and slurped champagne. He offered me the bottle as the crowd inside shouted “Happy New Year!” I accepted and took a long, slow drink because that’s what you do on New Year’s, you drink champagne. But when I handed it back to Adrian, he pulled me toward him and kissed me hard on the mouth before I could even swallow. Champagne dribbled down both of our faces.

  “What the hell?” I wrenched away from him, stumbling up the last step, closer to the safety of the front door.

  He shrugged. “That’s what you do at midnight. You kiss someone.”

  “Yeah, someone you love!” I objected, wiping my sticky mouth.

  “Don’t you love me, Kara?”

  This was like a scene in our “Stories of Suburbia” script. He played the role of Bad Rebel Boy, loafing on the front porch in his black leather jacket, waiting to pounce on me, Good Girl Gone Awry, so that he could lead me further astray and fuck with my head.

  And now it was time for me to have the big flashback. I saw a summer night, me in his bedroom for the first and only time. My fingers tangled in his brown curls. The two of us stripping down. Me, stripped. Stripped of every single inhibition when I looked at him and said the “I love you” that he threw back in my face.

  I spun out of the flashback, drunk and angry. “Don’t! Just don’t.”

  If this was part of our script, something horrific would’ve happened at that moment: a car driven by another drunk teenager would careen out of control on the slippery street, skid across the snowy lawn, and hurdle into the porch, killing us.

  But my life was not the “Stories of Suburbia” script; it was more akin to a teenage soap opera à la Beverly Hills, 90210. Instead of the car wreck, Christian walked outside.

  “What’s going on here?” he asked in a low, vacant voice.

  I whirled around. “I was looking for you.”

  “But you found Adrian and kissed him.”

  “He kissed me!” I protested.

  Adrian shrugged and swigged champagne like the whole situation bored the hell out of him. This really irritated Christian.

  “She’s my girlfriend, you know. You lost her.”

  Adrian didn’t respond, but Christian seethed. He yanked me through the front door. “We need to talk.”

  I tripped up the stairs after him toward that atrocious pink bathroom where Cass had her acid freakout.

  We passed a blur of faces. Mary and Jessica grinned wickedly at me, misinterpreting the way Christian dragged me by the wrist and I whined his name.

  “Oooh, passion,” Jessica snickered.

  “Whore,” Mary spat callously as Christian slammed the bathroom door.

  “What’s going on with you and Adrian?” he snarled, releasing my wrist with such force that I lost balance and crashed into the vanity, bruising my left forearm.

  “I bumped into him accidentally.” I grasped for Christian, trying to steady myself.

  “Accidentally?” he scoffed, pushing me away.

  I plummeted into a seated position on the toilet. The fuzzy pink cover did not cushion my fall. “Why are you freaking out?” I grumbled, rubbing my sore tailbone.

  “Because I watched my father ruin every relationship he’s ever been in by cheating and I hate cheaters!” Christian jabbed his forefinger into the ring that hung from my neck, pressing so it dug into my collarbone. “I love you! I trusted you!” he screamed in my face, beer breath blasting into my nasal passages. He removed his finger from the ring and pointed over his shoulder, indicating Jessica and Mary outside the door. “Are you a whore like they say you are?”

  The rosy room spun and I wanted out. I didn’t have to take his shit. I stood dizzily, groping for the doorknob behind him. “So what if I am?”

  Christian blocked the door. “Say you’re not.”

  “Let me out.”

  Suddenly, he twisted me around, ramming my back into the door. His palms pounded against my clavicle, thumbs digging into the base of my throat. I coughed and sputtered, barely able to breathe. As I struggled against him, his mother’s ring swung back and forth on its chain. His hands crushed it into my chest again and again.

  “Say you’re not…say you’re not…” he repeated as I tugged on his arms, trying to tell him that I couldn’t say anything while being choked.

  Rage contorted Christian’s face into something completely unrecognizable-all flared nostrils, angry red skin, and gnashing teeth. Demon, I thought. The pot and champagne have conjured Cass’s acid demons.

  I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror: black eye makeup smeared down my cheeks, making me look crazed, like Cass had. Except my face was as pink as the bathroom walls. Pink going purple because the demon in Christian’s clothes continued to throttle me.

  Finally he finished his sentence, screaming, “Say you’re not in love with Adrian!” and releasing my neck so I could answer.

  “I’m not,” I gasped. “I’m not.”

  The demon dropped me to my knees so violently that they bruised despite the mauve bathroom rug. Then he was gone.

  I crawled to the toilet, hugged the bowl, and puked. Afterward, I pressed my cheek against its cool, pink porcelain lip.

  That did not really happen.

  I flung myself into the small space between the toilet and sink like Cass had done to escape her demons.

  That was not Christian.

  I put my finger through the ring that still dangled around my neck and held it up. I focused on the way the stones sparkled and thought about Christian’s soft smile under the Christmas lights when he’d given it to me.

  He wouldn’t do this. He didn’t do this.

  I rose shakily and stood in front of the mirror. I wet a Kleenex and wiped away my makeup.

  This is a bad dream or a bad trip or something. Just blot it out.

  So I went back to the party and drank until everything went black.

  11.

  I AWOKE WITH A THROBBING HEADACHE ON New Year’s Day. Pot, champagne, beer, and a couple shots of god knows what-not a good combination. It hurt so badly that it momentarily overpowered all other pain. Then the awareness sunk in that every inch of me ached. The memory of why I ached followed.

  Though much of my evening was lost in a murky fog, my conversation with Liam and encounter with Adrian stood out, and a blinding spotlight shone on my fight in the bathroom with Christian. Every word, every detail illuminated, as impossible to ignore as the irksome beam of sunlight that had battled its way through the slats of my blinds to wake me that morning. I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, nothing more than to forget, but I couldn’t.

  I sat at the edge of my bed in a T-shirt and boxers-a shirt and boxers I’d stolen from Christian, no less-and scoured my body for bruises. Red and purple splotched across my left wrist and forearm, forcing me to recall the way Christian had dragged me into the bathroom. A large, oblong mark ran along the top of my tailbone from when he’d thrown me down on the closed toilet. I stripped off my T-shirt and examined further using the nearby full-length mirror. Most dramatically marred was the stretch across my chest where his mother’s ring had left six bruises. I studied them for a long time-observing that they looked like hickeys, marks of love, not violence-before turning my attention to my arms.

  The bruises there formed a camouflage over my pink scars. I hadn’t cut since Thanksgiving; it seemed pathetic, but it was the longest I’d ever gone. And I’d done it because of Christian, because he’d been so caring. I still couldn’t equate Demon Christian of the night before with the Christian who had comforted me so many times. How could he have possibly hurt me like this?

  I numbly pressed on the bruises, poking harder and harder. Bruises were different than cutting, less satisfying because my blood was trapped beneath my skin. But cutting on top of the bruises didn’t seem smart. The bruises had their advantage; I’d have them for a while and could make myself hurt just by touching them. I had a feeling that I’d want to make myself hurt a lot.

 
I traced my very first scar. The Stacey scar. I wondered how she’d rung in the New Year. Had her boyfriends ever done anything like this and what would she do if they did? I longed for Stacey for the first time in almost a year, since I’d met Maya. I wondered if a boy was going to come between Maya and me now. Would Maya still care so much about Christian if she knew what he’d done to me? Could I still care about him after what he’d done?

  A moment from the very end of the night flashed into my mind. A slow dance to a fast song amid the thinning crowd in Shelly’s basement. It must have been around four a.m. and I was completely blitzed. Christian murmured words that sounded gentle, like the Christian I was used to, but I couldn’t actually understand him over the music. I heard “Adrian” and “flipped out” and “not me” and “we’re both sorry, right?”

  I told him, “The ring, it hurt me,” pointing at my chest.

  He held me closer, shielding me from view as he put two fingers inside the collar of my shirt and pulled it down a few inches. He quickly released the fabric and kissed my neck, little nibbles that I’d taken as apologies. He looked into my eyes and swore, “Never again. Let’s forget this happened.”

  Drunk, I’d agreed.

  Sober, I had to think about what I was doing and why.

  Part of me wanted to call Stacey and pick up where we left off in eighth grade, maybe even transfer to her school and pretend none of this had happened. But Stacey had her life now. She’d had it before I’d even gotten my own. And now my life was intertwined with Christian’s, Maya’s, and Liam’s. They were like my family. Was I ready to lose two families in one year?

  Liam had given me an out the night before, telling me I could choose Adrian. It seemed like both he and Maya expected me to do that. But I remembered what Maya screamed at me after we’d run into Adrian at Ambrosia’s: “Do you ever think about other people, Kara? Or only yourself?”

  And I remembered the look in Liam’s eyes when he told me that Christian and Maya were the only true friends he’d ever had. He’d pleaded with me not to break Christian’s heart, but he was actually asking for me not to break his.

  I was determined not to, so I buried what happened on New Year’s Eve. I would pretend none of it occurred and everything would go back to normal.

  Somehow.

  12.

  SCHOOL STARTED AGAIN IMMEDIATELY AFTER NEW Year’s, the last week of classes before finals. I played sick for the first three days, buying myself time to recover physically and emotionally. It was one thing to tell myself to pretend my fight with Christian had never happened, another to actually do it. Mom insisted I return to school on Thursday, reminding me how disappointed she’d been with the C’s on my last report card. She wanted me as prepared as possible for my finals.

  One “final” I definitely wouldn’t be passing was swimming. I had no desire to swim midwinter as it was, but with five-day-old bruises to conceal, wearing a bathing suit-even the conservatively cut, sixties-style numbers the school issued-was exceedingly inconvenient. I’d take an F if I had to and reassure Mom that gym grades didn’t count toward your GPA. I couldn’t risk exposing my bruises, especially since Cass was in my class.

  We were required to change into our gym uniforms when opting out of swimming. As I painstakingly tugged my navy blue shirt over my long underwear, the bruises on my chest aching when I lifted my arms, Cass approached. She looked as ridiculous as everyone in the standard mauve swimming getup, maybe more so because the color pink made her so uncomfortable she walked around stiff as a bodybuilder.

  Cass raised her eyebrows, asking, “Not swimming the day of the final?”

  “I’ve been out sick. Still not well enough,” I replied in a scratchy whisper, faking a sore throat.

  “That’s why you haven’t been returning my phone calls?”

  Her tone was suspicious, but I ignored it and rose to help her with her hair like I always did. Cass’s dreadlocks hung halfway down her back, a nightmare for her to cram into a swimming cap. As I twisted sections of hair into small buns, I explained, “I haven’t really been able to talk on the phone. Not even to Christian.”

  It was true; I’d pretended to be sleeping whenever he called and insisted to Liam that neither Christian nor Maya should come over because I felt so crappy.

  Cass cut right to the chase, as was her nature. “Well, I was calling because I was worried. What happened with you and Christian on New Year’s? I saw him take you upstairs. I had to herd Mary and Jessica away from the bathroom. I think they were about to put their plastic cups to the door to listen.”

  I forced a sickly sounding chuckle, but gave myself away by nervously dropping her half-coiled hair. “You didn’t stand out there and listen, did you?”

  “No, I just hung around to see if you were okay. You don’t remember us talking after you came out? You were a little incoherent. Also a little tearstained.” Concern peppered her voice.

  I searched the haze for my encounter with her. Had she been right outside the door? In Shelly’s room, where I’d retreated for shots? In the basement, where I’d danced around with my second bottle of champagne? Most important, what lie had I told her?

  “Honestly, I don’t remember. Didn’t I explain then? I can barely talk now,” I croaked, pointing at my throat.

  “You just said Christian took you in there to puke. But I talked to Adrian later and he said Christian dragged you off after seeing the two of you together. Did you and Christian fight over that?”

  I hurriedly rewound her hair. “Yeah, kind of. But it wasn’t a big deal.”

  As I snapped the bathing cap over Cass’s head, my shirtsleeve slipped upward, exposing my bruised skin. She snatched my wrist and held it between us. “That’s a big deal.”

  I tore my arm away, surveying for potential gapers, but everyone was too busy concealing their own bodily imperfections as they changed. “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Kara, if Christian’s doing this to you…”

  “He’s not.” I refused to meet Cass’s eyes, turning back to my locker as I lied, “I slipped in the snow, landed on my wrist.”

  “Are you sure that’s what happened?” Cass addressed me calmly, too much like someone with an agenda, fishing for details.

  I spun around, abandoning the sore-throat act to retort, “Are you Jessica now? On the hunt for gossip? Or did Adrian put you up to this? Well, you can tell him that Christian and I are fine. He’s not going to come between us.”

  “Kara, I was just worried about you,” Cass said, looking as serious as someone in a bathing suit and cap could. “I don’t give a shit about your relationship with Adrian. I thought I heard you and Christian fighting in the bathroom and now you have this bruised wrist-”

  “Christian and I are fine. Maybe you didn’t see us dancing together at the end of the night. But we were. Everything’s fine.”

  Cass persisted, reaching for my wrist again and asking, “When did you slip?”

  “Just drop it!” I screeched. I’d spent three days in bed trying to get my act together, so I could smile at Christian and kiss him and hold his hand like I would have to at lunch the next period. If Cass made me relive New Year’s Eve, it would all fall apart. “Don’t you have a drug-addicted boyfriend and a crazy mom to deal with? Don’t invent problems for me just to escape your own.” I shoved Cass away, pushing a little harder than I intended, causing her to bang her shoulder into the lockers.

  Two girls who wore their hair in matching, expertly disheveled buns stared at us as they exited the locker room. “Wow, and I thought you had issues,” one joked to the other.

  Tears burned in Cass’s brown eyes and I knew it wasn’t because of her shoulder. She shook off that injury, winding her arm around like she was about to throw a softball…or punch me, which I definitely would have deserved. I’d gone too far, hurting her terribly in my attempt to protect myself.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, but Cass had already started walking away, trying to look dignified in h
er pink suit with three dreadlocks still hanging out of her cap.

  I watched her go, then changed back in to my regular clothes, went to the nurse’s office, and asked to be sent home.

  13.

  I RETURNED TO SCHOOL FOR MY FIRST full day on Friday-full except for gym class. Unable to face Cass, I hid in the girls’ bathroom. Aside from that, I robotically went through the motions of my usual routine.

  I held Christian’s hand in the halls and kissed him as we parted for class. I did it quickly with my eyes partially open, so I wouldn’t imagine his hands at my throat. His touch was gentle as it had always been, though. His fingers delicately grazed the small of my back when he pulled out my chair at our lunch table or opened the car door for me as we left school.

  He drove us to Punk Rock Denny’s and I watched Maya and Liam in the rearview mirror. Maya smiled and Liam laughed hysterically as Christian did an imitation of a teacher we all loathed. I realized that no one in my family had ever been able to make Liam laugh that way. That’s why you have to make things with Christian work, I reminded myself.

  We took our regular booth in the smokiest part of the smoking section. I sat beside Christian and forced myself not to flinch when he draped his arm across my shoulders. We smoked and drank coffee for a few hours before putting in our customary dinner order: burgers for Maya and Christian, Grand Slam for Liam, and fries and a side salad for me. We talked about the usual things as we ate-how much school sucked or whatever band ruled. My participation was minimal, but no one seemed concerned, probably attributing it to me being “sick.”

  After dinner, Christian brought up Florida. He was the most obsessed with the escaping-to-Florida fantasy, always planning exactly how it could be pulled off. “We should skip finals and go to Florida,” he said. “We could live on the beach and I could play guitar for spare change. Liam could do skate tricks and Maya could draw pictures.”