Firsts

by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

  A lone tear falls onto the page. I scratch it out furiously with my pen, creating a big black blob. Then I scrawl a name for Rafe across the bottom of the page.

  The Bad Actor.

  25

  On Wednesday, I drive to school hoping Zach still wants a lunch date. We haven’t broken a Wednesday in as long as I can remember. I need this lunch date to happen. Zach is honest and thoughtful and has no ulterior motives. He is everything Rafe Lawrence is not, and I hate that Rafe Lawrence is the last person I had sex with.

  But when I enter the chemistry lab, I realize it’s not going to happen. Zach got to class early—and Zach never gets to class early. He’s always the last one to waltz in, usually right after the bell rings. Today, he is sitting in my spot, and he certainly isn’t catching up on homework. He’s whispering in Faye’s ear, with his hand sneaking up her thigh, inching toward the crease in her jeans. I know this move on Zach. This is the move Zach pulls out when he really wants to get laid.

  I stand at the door, unsure if I should make my presence known or turn around and come back later. Zach is moving one hand through Faye’s hair, pushing it behind the nape of her neck. That move is one Zach doesn’t make very often. That is the move he makes when he actually likes a girl. I remember the first time he did that to me. It was one of our first times having sex. I avoided making eye contact and made a joke, something about keeping his hands where I could see them. Faye doesn’t do that. She smiles, a megawatt smile I can see from across the room. Up close, it must render Zach powerless.

  “Mercy!” Angela comes up behind me and makes me jump about half a foot. Zach removes his hand from behind Faye’s ear and they both look at me. Faye bites her lip and looks down. Zach avoids eye contact and vacates my spot.

  “Oh,” Angela says, looking at them with wide eyes. “Sorry—didn’t mean to interrupt you guys.” She starts talking about the last assignment, how she still doesn’t understand how iodine plus ammonia is supposed to create nitrogen triiodide. I’m not really listening.

  I’m grateful that most of the class consists of Mr. Sellers rattling on and on. We’re supposed to be taking notes, but I can’t seem to focus on anything except Zach and Faye. Faye and Zach. I don’t love Zach. I had so many chances to be his girlfriend, and I never took him up on it. He has every right to whisper in Faye’s ear or even stick his tongue down her throat. I just got too comfortable with our arrangement. I never really gave much thought to what would happen if something—or somebody—got in the way of it. And just because Faye invited me to her house and maybe almost kissed me in a bathroom stall, that doesn’t mean she likes me as anything more than a friend. She’s obviously into guys, just like I am.

  I don’t know what to do once chemistry is over. I don’t want to go to my other classes, or sit in the cafeteria at lunch and possibly have to see Faye and Zach there together. I don’t want to make small talk with Angela or avoid the weirdness that bubbles up in my stomach when Charlie is around. I don’t have an appetite, and I’m suddenly very aware of the gnawing sensation in my gut.

  Loneliness.

  I’m about to blow off the rest of the day, to skip a class for the first time ever, even though the thought fills me with anxiety. I haven’t gotten my acceptance letter from MIT yet, and while the dean of admissions won’t know that I blew off a day of classes, I still don’t feel right about doing it. I walk down the hall slowly, like I’m afraid I’ll get caught.

  My breath catches in my throat when I see Faye standing at her locker. I’m hoping she hasn’t seen me, and I speed up my pace a bit, until we make eye contact in the little magnetized mirror she has on her locker door. Even without seeing her mouth I know she’s smiling.

  “Mercy,” she says, beckoning me over. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  I lean up beside her, letting my eyes shift to the contents of her locker. She hasn’t even been at Milton High very long, but her locker is already a mess of books and papers and about a thousand lip glosses. Tacked under her mirror is a bright pink Post-it note with a familiar phone number and address written on it. Mine. Zach’s is nowhere to be seen.

  Faye presses the palms of her hands together. She’s uncomfortable. “Look, nothing is going on,” she says. “We’re just friends. Zach told me you guys used to see each other a bit. I wouldn’t want to come between anything.” I sense some hesitation in her voice, something she’s not saying.

  I shift my backpack from one shoulder to the other. Faye used the past tense. You guys used to see each other. Implying used to but don’t anymore. I guess I expected too much of Zach to tell me himself. But that’s Zach. He never finishes what he starts, being the type to have a new hobby every week and a slew of unfinished projects in his wake.

  But none of this is Faye’s fault. “It’s perfectly fine,” I say, plastering on a big smile. “I’m not interested in Zach at all. There’s nothing to come between.”

  Faye shuts her locker door. “This is none of my business, but I’m not sure if I believe you. Besides, I don’t know if I’d be that into him. He’s not my usual type.”

  I know what she means. When I first met Zach, before I even started with the first-timers, I never thought he was the type of guy I would sleep with. I had only ever slept with one guy when Zach was assigned as my lab partner, and Zach was nothing like Luke. But that was ultimately what made Zach attractive to me. He was nothing like Luke. He was goofy and clumsy and passive and said sorry all of the time, even when things weren’t his fault. I didn’t know guys like him existed.

  So I thought I would conduct my own experiment outside of the classroom. I asked him to have lunch with me and brought him back to my house and waited for him to follow me up to my bedroom. He was so timid that I thought I had made a mistake, until I pressed him against the wall and kissed him and he kissed me back. He was so good at kissing that I knew he had done it before. And since he was that good at kissing, I couldn’t help but wonder what else he was good at.

  He didn’t want to go all the way that day. He wanted to take me on a real date, get to know me first. But I didn’t let him. I started taking my clothes off and watched his eyes go as wide as dinner plates and I knew I had him. He followed my lead, made me feel wanted, made me feel good. He never asked for more than I wanted to give him.

  We never did eat lunch that day, but our Wednesday lunchtime dates were solidified.

  I remember thinking, I could get used to this. And I did.

  “Well, maybe you should give him a chance.” I start walking down the hall, and she follows. I don’t know why I said it. I don’t like the idea of Faye and Zach together, and she has given me every chance to be honest with her. But maybe it’s for the best. Faye is sweet and pretty and nice and thoughtful. Everything I’m not. She would probably make Zach happy. She would be able to give him what I can’t.

  I’m deep in thought when we turn a corner and I smack right into Charlie, hard enough for my purse to fall off my shoulder and hit the ground. The impact sends its contents spewing out. Pens, tampons, my planner, keys. And of course, three condoms. A Ribbed, an Ultra Thin, and a Magnum, which Charlie picks up first, stifling a smile.

  Faye and I crouch down to collect my stuff. Of all the people I didn’t want to see the contents of my purse, Charlie would be vying for number one. I don’t want Charlie to know I carry condoms around, even though I don’t think he would say anything to Angela. We’re all allowed to have one little secret. That was what he said in the backyard. He has been over since then, clipping and pruning and digging up the garden, but I have stayed out of the backyard and watched him from my bedroom instead. I don’t want him to keep digging into my life, because he might find something he doesn’t want to know.

  Charlie hands me the condom. “Somebody’s prepared,” he says, but he’s not smiling anymore.

  Faye isn’t so subtle. “What were you planning to do today?” she says.

  “Those have just been in there forever,” I say, snatching my purse
back from her. I nod at Charlie and give him a tight-lipped smile.

  “I texted you,” he says as Faye and I keep walking. “It’s, you know, important.” He smiles again before turning the other way.

  When we’re in the home economics classroom, Faye looks at me with a furrowed brow. “Look, this is kind of a weird thing to say, but Angela’s boyfriend totally looked down your shirt when you bent over. I think he has a thing for you. And he’s texting you now?”

  I narrow my eyes. First Zach, now Faye. Just like after the dance, the text message exchange. Honestly, I’m worried about her.

  They shouldn’t be.

  “Charlie did not look down my shirt,” I snap. “And he’s texting me about something to do with Angela. Something that’s really none of your business.”

  Faye takes off her cardigan and hangs it off the back of the chair. Without it, her cleavage is on full display. If Charlie was looking at anyone, it would be her, and I really couldn’t blame him.

  “Meow,” she says, but I can tell she’s hurt. “Somebody has serious PMS. Guess I won’t ask you to borrow one of those condoms.”

  “Take them all,” I say, plucking the foil wrappers from my purse and tossing them on her binder. “Although, I’m sure Mrs. Hill has plenty she would happily give you.”

  Faye laughs. A normal person would probably shove them out of sight, but she just leaves them there, prompting some strange looks from our classmates.

  “Oh, and Faye? The correct question would have been to ask me to give one to you. Borrowing implies that you’ll give it back. Please don’t.”

  She bursts out laughing. “You’re a bitch. But I like that about you.” But the air between us bristles with things unsaid. I don’t want to think about Faye putting one of those condoms on Zach, but it’s not like I can say that, because I would sound completely nuts.

  I move into my seat beside Angela, but Angela doesn’t show up. I check my cell phone for missed messages but only see a new one from Charlie.

  I want to move up the date. Planning something special for Angela for next weekend. Meet at your place after school?

  I text back before I can say no or make him meet me somewhere at school instead. He probably wants to make sure Angela won’t run into us. Maybe she talked to him by now and he knows sex is off the agenda. Maybe he took back the lingerie.

  Sure. See you there.

  He texts back a winking smiley face, which I always thought was the flirtatious smiley—I recognize it from Zach’s side of our pre- and posthookup text message conversations, which generally veered into very graphic territory.

  Somebody plunks down beside me, but it’s not Angela. It’s Zach.

  “Shouldn’t you be sitting beside your girlfriend?” I say before I can stop myself.

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he whispers over Mrs. Hill’s rambling lecture about estrogen and ovaries. “But I do need a favor.”

  “What kind of favor?” I whisper back. “I’m guessing not a sexual one.”

  “I need you to tutor me tonight,” he says. “For real. I’m drowning, and I need help. Are you in or out?”

  A wave of relief rushes over me. I nod, suddenly feeling ten pounds lighter. Faye won’t be using those condoms on Zach tonight if he’s with me instead.

  “Come over tonight,” I say. “You, me, and my very good notes.”

  His face breaks into a smile. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he says. “You—”

  “Please don’t say I saved your life,” I whisper.

  “That’s yet to be determined,” he says with a wink.

  I face the board and suddenly remember that I’m supposed to meet Jillian after school. She has a test tomorrow, and I’m supposed to quiz her with the flash cards I made last night, all of the questions I made up to test her knowledge on stoichiometry. I message Charlie back.

  Make it an hour after school—I have tutoring first.

  My phone vibrates in my purse almost instantly.

  Sure. This won’t take all night.

  I write in the margin of my binder, where I’m supposed to be taking notes on whatever Mrs. Hill is talking about. Instead I scribble a note to Zach.

  Can you come over at seven?

  His arm hovers over the paper a long time, but when he pushes the notebook back, there are only three words. Three words and one winking smiley face.

  Seven is perfect.;)

  I’m still smiling when I meet Jillian in the chemistry room when the final bell rings. She notices.

  “You’re happy about something,” she says, after botching her second attempt at balancing redox reactions.

  I shrug. I’m thinking about Zach. Zach, who still wants my help, even though I have turned him down so many times. He keeps forgiving me.

  I wonder what else he would forgive me for.

  I glance at the giant clock on the wall before making a diagram on a scrap of graph paper. I have to meet Charlie in half an hour, but I’m not leaving until Jillian understands this. I owe her that much.

  “Just remember this,” I say, tapping my pencil against the page. “The equation has to be separated first into two half reactions. Each half reaction is balanced separately before the equations are added together to give a balanced overall reaction.”

  I draw out a formula for each half reaction. The reduction portion and the oxidation portion. All Jillian has to do is follow the formula. Why is it so hard for her, when it’s so black and white to me?

  “I guess it’s just a balancing act,” she says, rubbing her temples. “Like everything in life. Right?” She looks up at me, like she’s expecting an answer.

  “Right,” I say, even though my stomach starts to feel queasy when I say it. I feel like a total fraud. I don’t know anything about balance. I know everything about numbers, but I can’t read people to save my life. Maybe Zach is with Faye right now. Maybe when he comes to my house he’ll smell like her. Maybe when I’m done tutoring him he will be done with me, and Faye will, too. They’ll be happy together, and I’ll be on the outside, looking in.

  “You know, you’re a good teacher,” she says when we’re done, after she passes the quiz I made for her and packs up the flash cards so she can study them at home tonight. “Much better than Mr. Sellers. You could do his job way better than he does it.”

  I laugh, but it sounds empty. For some reason I think about Tommy. Why me? Why Jillian?

  “I’m going to pass this test,” she says, clutching her textbooks to her chest, as if all the wisdom in there will transfer into her. “I need a seventy in this class. And I’m going to get it, thanks to you.”

  I give her a tight-lipped smile. It hits me, how important numbers are to everybody. Jillian needs a seventy. I lost my own virginity at age thirteen. I slept with fourteen guys. Charlie wants to celebrate two years with Angela. The Bad Actor deserved less than zero.

  But the only number that’s important to me right now is seven.

  Seven is perfect.

  26

  Charlie beats me home. He’s sitting on the porch, with his backpack at his feet, smoking a cigarette. I’m not surprised that he got here first, since I’m fifteen minutes late. What’s disarming is the cigarette. Charlie is supposed to be adamantly against smoking, at least according to Angela. I wonder how many other secrets he is keeping from her.

  “You don’t smoke,” I say as I unlock the door to let us in.

  “I wanted to try it.” He stands up and hefts his bag over his shoulder.

  “Well, you can’t bring it in the house,” I say. “Kim would have a conniption. She’s strictly anti-nicotine this week. You should have caught her in her chain-smoker phase.”

  “Bummer,” Charlie says, snuffing out the cigarette with his shoe.

  I lead him into the kitchen, wishing I could shut the door on him instead. I don’t want him in my house. But I have no reason to keep him out.

  “Where’s your mom?” he says.

  “No idea. Probably P
ilates. Or maybe the bar.” I laugh bitterly and pour a glass of water. “Want anything to drink?”

  He looks at his wrist, even though he’s not wearing a watch. “Well, it must be five o’clock by now. And that means the bar’s open.”

  “You want an actual drink? Now?” I cross my arms. This isn’t like Charlie at all.

  He shrugs. “Why not now?”

  I lean over the counter on my forearms. “I thought you wanted me to help you with something you’re making Angela.”

  He leans in closer. “I do. But I was hoping to be inspired before I got started.”

  I look at his face. He appears earnest enough, with the corners of his lips curling into a small smile. Whatever he’s planning, he’s nervous about it, and I guess alcohol does take the edge off.

  And even though I want no part of his plan anymore, it’s too late to go back.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say. But Charlie reaches behind me, shoves my knee out of the way with his, and opens the cabinet where Kim keeps her liquor stash.

  “Don’t be so uptight,” he says, grabbing a bottle of something amber colored.

  “How did you know where to find that?” I say as he opens the cupboard where our glassware is stored. It’s unnerving exactly how well Charlie knows his way around this kitchen.

  “Your mom’s pretty cool. Some moms offer you lemonade after you do their yard work. Yours offers me a long island iced tea.”

  I roll my eyes. “Fine,” I say. “But let’s go upstairs.” As strange as Charlie raiding Kim’s liquor cabinet is, it would be far worse to have Kim come home and find Charlie in the kitchen. She would undoubtedly suck him into a stupid conversation and likely pepper it with sexual innuendos. Charlie’s eighteen—fully legal—so I’m sure Kim has hit on him at least once.

  “You’re the boss,” he says as we walk up the stairs. I walk quicker than usual. I know that my skirt is short and I don’t want to know if Charlie can see up it.

  When we’re in my room, I sit cross-legged in my desk chair to avoid the awkwardness that ensued when we both sat on the bed last time.