True Love Way

by Mary Elizabeth

  Holding my breath, I slowly slide the light blue cotton down her smooth, slim legs until she is bare, and I can absolutely see all of her.

  Refusing to breathe in case I miss something, I slowly move my trembling hand toward what I’ve never touched before. Penelope’s back arches from the mattress the moment I do, and my lungs thrash for air.

  “You can tell me to stop anytime,” I say, trying not to gasp.

  Following the directions her body and her face give me, I move my hand slower, faster, deeper … right there—too hard.

  I press my forehead against hers, and we inhale and exhale heavily with our eyes only on the other.

  Then her entire body goes stiff, and her legs close on my hand. Pen bites her bottom lip to keep from crying out. Her cheeks turn so, so red, and her skin is so, so hot. I can feel every muscle in her entire body tense as she goes higher, and higher, and higher.

  Until she finally soars and carries me with her.

  Afterward, there’s something about the light in her eyes and the bend in her smile that tells me things will never be the same.

  “I want this.”

  “Baby, are you sure?” Mom asks, eyeing the light pink shirt I hold up for her to see.

  “Yeah, it’s cute. I’ll get the yellow one, too.”

  “Cute?” she asks, dumbfounded. “Please be sure, because this was a far drive, and if we get home and you don’t—”

  “I’m not going to change my mind,” I cut her off, smiling at my choices.

  My mom holds her hands out for the clothes I would normally never wear from a store I’ve never stepped foot in before today and takes them to the register with a worried expression on her round face. There are four more bags of purchases she questioned me twice about both before and after she paid for them.

  Handing me the fifth bag, she shoves the receipt into her purse and says, “This is too stressful. Let’s eat.”

  I order a salad that I have trouble eating because my mother scrutinizes every bite, like I have an eating disorder not a brain disorder.

  “Eat all of your vegetables,” she says, waving her fork at me between bites of lasagna. “They’re good for you.”

  I pop a cherry tomato into my mouth and smile.

  The woman who brought me into this world wipes her mouth with a white cloth napkin and says, “Today has been good, right, baby? Everything’s okay?”

  Nodding my head, I push a sprout of broccoli to the side of my salad bowl and pierce my fork through a slice of cucumber.

  “It’s been great. I’m good,” I say, stabbing a chunk of avocado next.

  Suffering through silence isn’t something I have to worry about, but Mom does. For her sake, I should talk about school or maybe confide in her about the rez boy I’ve become good friends with over the last couple of years.

  I don’t because she’ll tell Dad. Considering how different he and Dillon are, they both agree the bussed in kids are trouble. Coach Finnel doesn’t mind if Joshua Dark plays on the football team, but he won’t allow a so-called criminal befriend his offspring.

  I’ve heard the rumors about Josh, but I don’t believe them.

  “How’s Dillon, honey?”

  “Good, Mom. Dillon’s good.”

  Which is the problem. The boy next door has always been too good for me, so this is my attempt to be more on his level.

  I know this might be a disaster.

  “You look beautiful, baby. It’s a nice change,” Mom says honestly, reaching across the table for my hand.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Dillon’s going to love it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Your dad, on the other hand, won’t be too happy about his only daughter growing up.”

  “She’s not allowed out of the house looking like that.”

  Crippling panic seizes my insides, leaving me utterly immobile.

  This is exactly what I was afraid of. If my dad doesn’t like it, what are Dillon and the other kids at school going to think?

  “Wayne, don’t be ridiculous,” Mom snaps, moving in between my father and me.

  From his spot on the couch, he aimlessly flips through television channels, like this isn’t terrifying for me. I’m going out on a limb, scared out of my mind, and he can’t even put the remote down to comfort me.

  “She looks like she’s eighteen, Sonya. I have enough trouble keeping that freak boy next door away from her.”

  He has no clue how hard he’s failing.

  “She’s sixteen. She looks sixteen,” Mom insists, stomping her foot.

  “That boy isn’t allowed over anymore. You’re not allowed near him, Penelope.” Dad’s mustache moves when he talks.

  I want to rip it off his face.

  Feeling like a complete failure, I turn my back on the man who refuses to show vulnerability for five minutes and run upstairs. I slam my bedroom door closed and flip on my stereo before the echoes of my parents’ argument can be heard through the walls.

  Before I crumble, I rush over to my window and shut the curtains, too embarrassed to let Dillon see what I’ve done to myself.

  It was a mistake.

  “You can’t keep this up forever, you know.” Risa holds on to my elbow, searching my eyes with ones the same color as my own. “I know you love her, but you need to start loving yourself, D.”

  With a thermos of coffee for myself and a second for Pen, I drag my feet across my lawn and then hers. Like I have a million mornings before this one, I knock on the Finnels’ front door three times before Sonya opens it, and I step into what’s become a second home to me.

  “Need a refill?” my girl’s mom asks in a chipper tone I wasn’t expecting. She carries her heavy body over to the coffee pot.

  “Not yet,” I say, taking the stairs up to Pen’s room.

  Before she’s out of sight, I look to the kitchen and catch her beaming like someone just told her the moon is made of vanilla soft serve.

  Since I was up at the window last night alone, I’ve prepared myself for the hard time Penelope’s sure to give me this morning. The episodes of depression she suffers from are more frequent lately, but her behavior leading up to and during them remains mostly the same. I can predict and handle her moods better than anyone else at this point.

  “Time to wake up, Pen. I brought coffee.” I open her door, but stop before stepping inside.

  “What do you think?” she asks.

  I think she looks like Pepper Hill.

  Standing in the center of her bedroom, she spins so I can see this new look from all angles. My girl’s dark brown hair is now an almost blonde color. Instead of leaving it long and curly like she has since I met her, it’s perfectly straight and cut a few inches below her shoulders.

  Dressed in a pair of pre-washed purple Levi’s and a white tank top, she’s going to show the entire school skin only I’ve seen until now. And instead of wearing the beat-up pair of Chucks she has for the last year, Penelope slips her feet into black flats.

  She’s beautiful, but I don’t understand.

  Her face falls. “Do you hate it, too?”

  I enter the room and kiss her cheek, stunned by the smell of fruity perfume on her skin.

  “I don’t hate it. You look pretty.”

  “You think I’m pretty?”

  “Yes, I almost don’t recognize you.”

  My girl happily presses her glossed lips to mine and takes her java from my hands.

  For a change, I sit in bed while she runs around the room, trying on a few sweaters with price tags still attached. She chooses the black cotton one and throws the others onto the closet floor. Penelope sprays hairspray in her hair and then asks me if I like the gold or silver necklace better.

  “Gold,” I say, hoping I answer correctly.

  Convinced I’ve lost my girl to this Pepper-like replica, before we leave, Pen kicks off the flats and shoves her feet into a pair of Converse, giving me hope she’s not totally changed.

  I wa
tch her the entire way to school with her new pink book bag held high on her shoulders, kicking the same rock for a block. I assumed she would eventually grow out of being a tomboy—everyone said it wouldn’t last forever—but I thought Penelope was more like Risa and less like Pepper Hill. She smells like a botanical garden and has lip gloss on her lips, and today is the first time in two years that I haven’t been the one to brush her hair.

  She’s straight out of a magazine and brand new to me.

  Maybe I feel insecure.

  Maybe I hate this.

  “Penelope, you know you’re good enough, right? You’re perfect to me no matter what you look like.”

  She turns her head; strands of hair blow across her face. “Oh, yeah?”

  I grab her wrist, stopping our stride in front of the school. I lift the sunglasses she hasn’t ditched yet, and I look into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Is that why you smoke with Pepper Hill every day behind school, because I’m good enough?”

  I leave first period ten minutes early and run down the empty hall toward Penelope’s English class. Waiting outside the door with my hands in my pockets, guilt is like lead in the pit of my stomach and panic I can’t shake creeps up and down my arms.

  The bell rings, and I’m pushed against a row of lockers behind me, where I wait for Pen to file out of class. A short girl with glasses, a tall guy with a letterman jacket, and one of the rez kids burst out the door first, followed by another twenty faces that blur together.

  “This is my locker, man,” someone says at my side.

  I move out of the way without looking, and then another passing student bumps me in the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” whoever mumbles.

  My next course is on the other side of the campus. I need to head that way now if I’m going to make it to my seat before the second bell rings. With the way school’s been going, I can’t afford to be late. My grades are up, but I’m down to one honors class.

  High school and my future goals—college and medical school—take a backseat to my broken heart and the look of betrayal that crossed Pen’s pretty blushed face after I admitted to spending time with Pepper.

  Bodies in the narrow hallway begin to disappear. Penelope still hasn’t left her class, but other students start to go inside. I wonder if she got by me or if she left school completely while I suffered through civics.

  One last student wanders out of the classroom with his nose in a book, not watching where he’s going. I grab his elbow and nearly scare him right out of his skin.

  “Is Penelope Finnel still in there?” I ask.

  He pushes a pair of wire-framed glasses up his nose and says, “Who?”

  Shoving him away, I head into the room and find her still seated in the far corner. She has her head down over her folded arms, and judging by the steady rise and fall of her breathing, she’s asleep.

  I approach the desk and kneel down beside the one who has my heart, smiling at the sound of Pen’s soft snoring.

  “Can you ask her to move? This is my seat,” some chick with a squeaky voice asks.

  I don’t bother looking up and brushing locks of hair away from the girl next door’s face. Her lips are parted, and her dark brown irises move behind her blue-veined eyelids.

  Unfolding the arms of her sunglasses so she can put them on right away, I whisper her name.

  “Wake up, baby,” I say quietly.

  Her lashes flutter at the sound of my voice.

  “Come on, Pen. We gotta go.”

  She sits up and wipes the corner of her mouth on the back of her hand with makeup she’s never worn before smeared under her sleepy eyes. She takes her shades from me and places them on her face without cleaning it away.

  We’re the only students not where we’re supposed to be, and neither one of us says a word until we pass through the school’s courtyard and stop in the middle quad. Her next class is one way, and mine is the other.

  “Want me to walk you to class?” I ask, unsure if I should touch her or not. I hook my thumbs behind the straps of my backpack instead.

  “I’m not an invalid, Dillon,” she says, turning to move away from me.

  “Why would you say that to me?” I ask, catching her wrist. I feel like I’m looking at a person I don’t know.

  She shakes her arm free from my hold and takes two steps back.

  “Maybe we should break up,” she says coldly with no expression on her face, but tears start to fall from under her purple lenses.

  Closing the space between us, I take her face between my hands and wipe her sadness away with my thumbs. I bend at the knees so we’re eye to eye, wishing she would leave the sunglasses at home for once.

  “We’re not breaking up, Pen. Not over this. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Pepper, but I swear it doesn’t mean anything.”

  She shakes her head, licking misery from her lips. “Why don’t you get that you’re too good for me?”

  “Because I’m not,” I say, pulling her against my body.

  Her arms wrap around my back, and I tilt her head back to kiss the corner of her mouth.

  “Please don’t do this,” I beg, bringing her bottom lip between my teeth before letting go and kissing her.

  It takes a moment, but her lips part and our tongues touch. Penelope’s fingers clutch onto the back of my shirt, and I slide my hands into her hair. Overwhelming need flows through my veins, heating my body until I feel like I’m going to explode. Moving my mouth down the side of her neck, I slowly push her until she backs into a wall.

  I press a kiss to the soft spot below her ear and whisper in a breathless tone, “Why don’t you get that you’re too good for me?”

  Penelope’s new look brings new attention.

  The same people who have called her weird for the last four years suddenly find her worthy enough to talk to.

  “Cute glasses,” they say as she walks down the hallway with me at her side.

  “I love your hair color,” some gush. “Where did you have it done?”

  “What brand is that lip gloss, Penelope? It seriously looks amazing on you,” Pepper says, stopping at our table during lunch.

  The bend in her smirk and the way she winks at me as she gets up and walks by raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I know it’s wrong, but I still find time during the day to sneak away with Pepper and smoke a cigarette or two between classes. I’ve even given her money to buy my own pack from the hookup she has.

  It’s the only thing I have that’s mine, and I need the temporary relief from the constant gloom of being with someone who suffers from depression.

  Soaking up the attention, full of smiles and fake laughs, Penelope entertains it all. She exchanges numbers with some of the girls in our grade and makes plans to see a movie with a group of others.

  She tosses the phone numbers away with the trash and never actually makes it to the movie theater, because once school is over and it’s just she and I, the act is up.

  I don’t know if it’s because she tries so hard during the week not to be exactly who she is, but nights are hard and weekends are nightmares. She’s not only sad anymore, she’s full of rage and impossible to handle.

  “Come on, I’ve let you see me,” unpredictable and insatiable says, trying to get her hand down my shorts.

  Pen and I escape April showers hidden inside the cave buried at the base of Castle Rock. I kiss her until my lips bleed and touch her until she shakes beneath me, clawing at my arms and sides. After we’ve spent the afternoon half-naked and attached, sleeplessness crashes into me, and all I want to do is close my eyes. Penelope’s wide-awake and begging for more.

  “Can we just hang out for a while? I didn’t get any sleep last night.” I lie back in the cool sand and run my hand through my hair.

  “Neither did I.” She scoffs.

  “Obviously,” I say, looking up at the roof of the cave.

  She throws a handful of sand at me; tiny granules fall into my hair and eyes. I sit up
, spitting beach sand out of my mouth and brushing it away from my face.

  “Why won’t you have sex with me?” she asks, throwing another handful. “Are you scared?”

  “Stop,” I say, shaking sand from my hair.

  She stands and kicks it at me before bolting out of our hiding place. It takes a moment before my eyes stop watering, and I can see again. By the time I shove our blanket and flashlights into my backpack, she’s halfway down the beach and running, so I don’t chase her.

  Part of me wants to go back into the cave and not come out until I’ve slept for twelve hours, but I force my feet to move through rain-wet sand and head home. The walk seems to take hours, and I’m barely moving by the time I approach our houses.

  “You’re not earning any of these today, boy,” Coach Finnel says. From his front porch, he holds up a small pack of chocolate peanut candies.

  I walk to the end of my lawn and ask, “Is she in there?”

  He nods once.

  Lacking the energy to fight with her anymore, I go inside as a bolt of white electricity strikes from the sky. Thunder follows, cracking hard enough to shake the ground.

  Mom comes running out of the kitchen with a dishtowel in her hand as I enter the house.

  “Were you out in this storm, Dillon?” she asks, stopping in front of me.

  “I was at Castle Rock with Pen,” I say, dropping my backpack to the floor. “We had a fight.”

  “Again?” my sister comments in a sarcastic tone from the couch behind me.

  Dad trots downstairs with his lips in a straight line and his brows scrunched together like he’s worried about something.

  “You walked home in this rain? Are you crazy?” Mom’s hazel eyes open wide.

  “His girlfriend is,” Risa sing-songs.

  Surrounded on all sides by my family, I lean back against the front door since it’s obvious they’re not going to let me upstairs.

  “Why didn’t you use the pay phone to call one of us, for heaven’s sake? Your lips are blue!” the woman who brought me into the world shouts.