The S-Word

by Chelsea Pitcher

  “Don’t you answer your phone, girl?”

  “My phone?” Yeah, my brain is still a little hazy. “Oh, I turned it off. Is everything okay?”

  “It’s fine,” Jesse says. He’s wearing all black like he’s dressed for a spy mission. It takes me a minute to realize this is the mission. Me. My house. “I just got worried,” he says.

  Worried about what? I wonder. Worried that the pain will become too great for me, or worried I’ll bulldoze over someone who can’t handle it?

  “I’m okay,” I say as he sits on my bed. “I just needed a break.”

  “That’s cool.” His voice sounds a little wounded. He pulls off his hat and his hair is all matted. “I just couldn’t sleep, and I remembered you were only a few blocks away. Sorry. Is that weird?”

  No, it’s sweet.

  But I have to be cold. I sit on the bed, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Kind of. Look, Jesse—”

  “I get it,” he says. “I’m a stalker. I’ll get out of here.”

  “No, wait.”

  “I can take a hint.” Then, because he can’t seem to go two minutes without teasing me, he sniffs. “I know when I’m not wanted.”

  “You’re wanted,” I say before I can stop myself. And since I’ve already started, I keep going. “You’re wanted too much, that’s the problem. I like you.”

  I can’t believe I’m doing this. There’s absolutely no reason to be telling him this. But he just looks at me with those dark brown eyes, taking it in.

  “I like you,” he says, poking my knee. “That’s a good thing.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean.” I feel like a six-year-old when I say “I like you.”

  You know, want to invite you under my covers like.

  I keep that one to myself.

  “I see.” He looks at the open window. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “You probably should, yeah. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, don’t be.” He stands. It happens so quickly, I feel panicked even though I told him to go. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t.” I try to hide my face. Never in the history of the world has someone blushed like I’m blushing. Still, it’s nothing compared to the tightness in my chest. “It’s totally unfair of me. I’m so sorry for doing this.”

  “You’re not doing anything.” He hovers by the bed like he’s wrestling with something. “It’s just a feeling.”

  “I know, but . . .”

  “It’s not like you tried to maul me.”

  I laugh through my hands. “Yeah. That would’ve been bad.”

  “So don’t worry about it.” My hands are covering my face so I can’t see him do it, but he swoops in and kisses my cheek. Except it’s less like a swoop and more like slow motion and his hand goes to the side of my face. His lips linger long enough to rip a shudder through me.

  He feels me shake. “You okay?”

  I lift my head slowly as if waking from a dream. “I’m fine, I just— What are you doing?”

  He shrugs, looking away. “Being friendly.”

  “Oh.” I’m watching him intently. “Okay.” My voice is very slow. Calm. But inside, my brain is bouncing off the walls . . .

  The way he finds excuses to touch me. The way he kissed my cheek just now, his lips lingering. That little winking smiley face at the bottom of his note. Like the one on the note someone gave to Lizzie. Along with a book of poems.

  Either I’m going crazy, or . . .

  “You’re not gay.”

  “Excuse me?” He steps back instantly, hands flying to his hips. But he doesn’t look mad. He actually looks kind of scared.

  “You’re not—I mean . . . are you?”

  He snorts. “Isn’t that the straight-girl fantasy?” He’s getting a bit of his attitude back. Still, his voice is trembling. “A guy who’s well dressed, well mannered, and he’s straight.”

  “You are not well mannered,” I say, going for humor, but he doesn’t seem to get that.

  Already he’s walking to the window. “I’m going to get out of your hair.”

  “Jesse, wait.” I slide off the bed.

  He doesn’t slow down.

  “Damn it, Jesse, you will come to my room one time without me chasing you away.”

  He stops, turns a little. I can tell he wants to smile but he can’t. He looks completely defeated. “Shit.”

  I touch his arm.

  I could swear the touch hurts him. He jerks away so fast. “I’m fine,” he says.

  “Yeah, seems like it.”

  He inhales slowly before sitting on the bed. He’s looking at his hands, like maybe he wants to hide behind them. “For the record, I never told you I was gay.”

  My eyes are so wide my head doesn’t feel big enough to hold them. I want to touch his arm again but I’m completely at a loss for what to do, or think, or say. Luckily, I’m quick on my feet, so I say the smartest thing possible. “Wait. What?”

  He lifts his head. “You’re right.”

  “I’m right?” I can’t help it. The smile just creeps up on me. “Are you kidding me? That’s crazy.”

  His eyes tell me I’m not helping. It’s like he’s drowning and I’m just pushing him down deeper.

  “Okay, all right, it’s not crazy,” I say, sitting next to him. “It’s fine, it’s great. I mean, either way, it’s—”

  “Not like there’s anything wrong with being not gay?”

  “Don’t make fun of me!” I punch him in the arm, lightly, just to touch him. If this is a dream, I’m making the best of it. Then again, that would involve a lot less clothing.

  Whoa there, Angie.

  “Are you sure?” I ask.

  His eyes widen and I know I just sound ridiculous.

  It only gets worse. “Are you straight?”

  He shrugs.

  “Jesse?”

  “I really don’t know.” His head just drops. “For a long time I thought I was nothing.” Then he falls silent. His hands are picking themselves apart.

  I put my hand over them. “You already started,” I say.

  “What?” He looks over at me.

  “You already started to tell me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So tell me.”

  He waits for a minute. Now he’s wringing his hands. I slip my other hand beneath his so I’m holding both of them. It’s harder for him to attack himself this way. “You want the long or the short of it?” he asks.

  “Both. I want all of it.” I don’t even hesitate.

  He exhales. I want to invite him farther onto the bed, to relax, but I don’t want to scare him. So I crawl over to my side and pat the side where he’s already sitting. I offer him half of my pillow.

  “Thanks,” he says, leaning into it.

  “Mmm-hmm.” I don’t stare at him. I don’t want to intimidate him with my gaze.

  After a minute, he starts talking. “So, the short version? Well, I never once told anyone I was gay. But I’ve been dressing different since I was a kid so people just assumed it. I got beat up a lot in junior high.” He looks at me like, You sure you want to hear this?

  I just wait.

  “Crazy thing is, when I denied being gay, they actually kicked my ass worse,” he says, shifting on the bed.

  I turn, stealing a glance at him. “They did? Why?”

  His lips twist. “It was like, if I was different, they wanted me to be different all the way. But if I wasn’t, well, then they got to ask themselves: If he likes girls and dresses like that, and I like girls too . . . It scares people to think that way.”

  “Like who you are might affect them.”

  “Exactly. Like stilettos were going to show up on their feet without their permission.” He shakes his head. “Idiots.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “That’s life, baby.”

  I close my eyes at the sound of it.

  So . . . do you like girls? I want to ask. But that’s just a little too transparent, now, isn’t
it?

  “What’s the long version?” I say instead.

  His gaze flicks to the ceiling. “A story for another day.”

  “Oh, come on!” I kick the mattress because I’m afraid to touch him. “If you leave me hanging like this, I’ll scream. Then my dad will wake up and that’ll give us a whole new set of problems.”

  “Not as relaxed as your mom?”

  “Not nearly,” I say, trying to force my body to relax. It’s hard, with him lying so close.

  “My mom’s strict too.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  He doesn’t respond. But his Adam’s apple pulses as he swallows, revealing his nervousness.

  “Is that part of the story?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says simply, still hesitating to tell me the rest. Part of me feels like I should let it go. But part of me thinks he wants me to push him, so that he can finally tell someone.

  Guess which part I want to listen to?

  I reach down, pulling the blanket over our feet. I could just shut the window but I don’t want him to feel trapped. This way, he knows I’m looking out for him without forcing anything. “You’re shivering,” I explain.

  He smiles at the gesture, pulling the blanket up to our waists. But he’s still lying on his back, facing away from me. “My mom had me when she was fifteen,” he says, very matter-of-factly, like: Don’t judge me and don’t judge her either.

  I don’t.

  “Her parents made her give me up for adoption even though she didn’t want to,” he says more softly. “But it’s not like in the movies. They throw us kids into a lottery. Couple of the cute, white babies get adopted. The rest of us go into foster hell.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It’s okay.” He shrugs, and the blanket slides off me. I tug it back playfully, trying to keep things light. He smiles. “It’s made me who I am.”

  “So when you said you were ‘usually’ the oldest kid in your house, that’s what you were talking about?”

  He nods. “I didn’t get matched up with a family until I was six.”

  “What about before then?”

  “Oh, you know. Little Orphan Annie shit. Minus the singing. And the optimism.” I touch his hand. He takes it away. “By the time you get sent to a home, you think, Finally, a family.”

  “But it wasn’t?”

  “It’s more like a can of sardines. Even the well-meaning folks have, like, five to eight kids. I’ve changed enough diapers to last a lifetime.” He laughs, but it dies off quickly. “You really do start to feel like one more mouth to feed. And I didn’t want to take food from the kids who really needed it, so I started doing research, you know? Checking out my options. I got emancipated when I was sixteen.”

  “Where did you live?”

  “Shit-hole apartment. I’d already been working a while. Then my mom came along.” His smile widens. When he’s happy, it’s the most beautiful thing. “She’d been looking for a long time but my records were kept hidden until I was on my own. So I moved in with her and that was that. Happy ending.”

  “That’s amazing.”

  “She’s amazing,” he says. “I have a brother I’d never even met.”

  I want to meet them. I honestly cannot express how much I want to meet them.

  “How old is he?” I lean in just a bit.

  “Four. He’s, like, totally out of control.” He laughs. “But really sweet.”

  “That’s sweet.”

  “I love him so much.”

  “You sound like you’re really happy.”

  “I am.”

  I wait a beat. “Then maybe I shouldn’t ask what part you’re hiding.”

  He sits up.

  Damn.

  He picks up his hat from the side of the bed. It’s black with a blue J on it. I wonder if his mom knitted it for him. “It’s nothing you couldn’t guess,” he says.

  “You can tell me.”

  He speaks to the window. “I lived with five different foster families before I moved out on my own. I’ve seen the most messed-up shit you can imagine. Not to me,” he adds, glancing back at me quickly. “But to the kids I lived with.”

  I feel like he’s lying about that last part. Liars recognize lies. But I’m not going to call him on it. “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He runs a hand through his hair. He’s holding his hat like a baby blanket and it’s seriously the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. And yes, I realize I’m using these thoughts to distract me from what he’s saying. I’m clearly no good at facing this stuff.

  He says, “It just got to the point where I didn’t want it, you know? I couldn’t imagine being . . . close with someone without it being like that. Without it being bad.”

  I go to touch his arm but hesitate. I think about the way I’ve pulled at him, and cornered him. I think about how I figured those things were okay because he was a guy, like I didn’t need to respect his space.

  I think about where I get these ideas.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again.

  He lifts his shoulders, a half shrug. “Don’t be. I probably avoided a lot of bad stuff.” He closes his eyes and I just look at him, dark hair blending with the shadows, hands clinging to his hat. “But it’s pretty messed up, you know?” He turns, catching my eye. “I never even had a crush until high school. There was this guy at my old school. He was just, I don’t know . . . He was nice to me. It made me feel good. But anytime I thought of anything more with him, I couldn’t deal with it. I always connected it to the bad things.”

  He goes quiet.

  Come on, Jesse. Don’t close off when you’ve finally started letting me in.

  “What happened?” I say after a minute.

  “I moved.” He laughs softly. “Not because of him. Because of my mom; I moved to be with her. But then it started happening again.”

  “With Gordy?”

  “Nope.”

  I watch the side of his face. My spine prickles with heat. “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, wow.” I feel stupid for not seeing it. But how could I have seen it? “Lizzie?”

  “Yeah.” He turns a bit, to face me. “I felt like a real person around her. Like I could do normal things, and still be . . .”

  Safe, I want to say, but I’m worried it might offend him. I know he’s holding things back from me. But I’m not going to force it.

  That would just prove him right about me.

  “Lizzie was great about that,” I say. “She made me feel normal too. She was the first person to get to know me before making up her mind. My life has been kind of weird. My mom has all this money, but my dad’s . . . struggling.”

  He nods. “I heard something about that.”

  “Oh really?” I smile like it’s funny that people gossip. Really I’m dreading what he’ll tell me. “What do they say?”

  He gives me this lopsided grin. “They call you white-trash royalty.”

  Wow. Ouch. But, also . . .

  “Okay, that is kind of funny. I mean, that’s the best they could come up with?”

  “They just don’t know how to deal if you don’t fit into their neat little boxes.” He bats his eyelashes, done up all prettily with liner. He’s so beautiful I want to cry. And protect him. Possibly from me.

  He’s too good for me.

  “Hey,” he says. “Where did you go?” He reaches out like he’s going to pinch me.

  I squeal. Like I’m twelve. And I don’t even care because now we’re both laughing. I realize I want to kiss him, badly, and that stirs up all kinds of conflicting emotions.

  Damn it, Angie.

  I have to retreat, just for a minute. Everything’s happening too fast. He just appeared out of nowhere, in my life and in my bedroom. On my bed.

  “Hey!” I clamber to my knees. “You’re on my bed.”

  “Yeah?” He tilts his head to the side. “So?”

  “So”—I open my hands—“I’d never have let you in here so qui
ckly if I thought you were . . . I mean . . .”

  Jesse blushes. He flat-out blushes this gorgeous red. “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” He scoots to the edge of the bed. “I can leave.”

  I catch his hand before he’s moved too far. “You’d better not.”

  He smiles. After a minute, he pulls his hand away, holding it to his cheek. I bet he can feel the heat there. I want to feel it.

  Down, girl—what is wrong with me? Now that I know it might not be wrong to like him, my mind is going wild. And my heart. My body.

  Now I’m blushing. I’m pretty sure it’s obvious.

  “You sure this is okay?” He gestures to the space between us.

  And I want to say: No, let’s shorten that space. Instead, I shrug. “Yeah. I mean, it’s not like you actually lied to me.”

  He slides a little closer. His hip touches mine.

  “I trust you,” I add. “Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.”

  “You can.” He leans in, barely, like he wants to kiss me but he isn’t sure if he should.

  I pull back.

  “Wait a second!” Yeah, I must be completely insane. But I really need to ask. “Is that why you call me Princess? Because of what people say about me?”

  He puts his hand on my lips. Touching softly, but making a barrier between us.

  It feels really, really nice.

  “Nope,” he says.

  “Why then?” I talk through his fingers.

  “There’s just something about you. Like you’re different from the rest of us. Not in a bad way. In an amazing way.”

  “Oh.” I guide his hand to my cheek. My hand lingers over his, holding him. “Okay.”

  And then, because I’m suddenly feeling very comfortable, and very safe,

  I

  Kiss

  Him.

  twenty-one

  AWEEK BEFORE LIZZIE died, a group of senior girls decided to teach her a lesson about taking off her clothes at improper times. Each time they caught her alone in the halls, they attempted to snip off a piece of her outfit. In reality, very few girls managed to snag a decent piece of fabric, but it didn’t matter much. By the end of the week, the mere snapping of scissors made Lizzie seize up in terror.

  Sometimes the threat of something can be as scary as the thing itself.

  Right now, the threat of entering the den of a child molester is all too real. I stand on the doorstep to Lizzie’s house. I’ve already knocked and now I’m just counting the seconds as they pass. I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until Mr. Hart opens the door. It whooshes out in a rush.