by Doyle, K. T.
The losers had found their place too—way in the back corner of the room. They hadn’t the energy to stand, what from all the pot they smoked before they got there. They chose to sacrifice their clothes to the dirt and grime that layered the gymnasium floor. None of them gave a fuck anyway; they were all high as a kite. The only thing they did give a fuck about was not giving a fuck about anything or anyone. I was surprised they were there at all.
I spied one of the girl losers, Becky, and she gave me a thumbs up. Naturally, she was wearing a black dress, ripped fish-net stockings and ankle-high Doc Martens. I smiled and waved.
Becky sat behind me in home room and for the longest time she scared the shit out of me and I was afraid to even look at her, let alone talk to her. But one day she accidently poked me in the back with a pencil and as I half-turned to look at her the squeakiest apology came out of her mouth. The high-pitched voice humanized her, made her less scary. And talking to her made me realize that the loser act was just that—an act. She wasn’t a loser at all, and she only looked scary. After many homeroom conversations with her I realized that unlike most of the losers, she gave a fuck about almost everything and everyone.
With that innocent little pencil poke we became instant pseudo-friends.
The hierarchy of cliques at my high school, from lowest to highest, went something like this: losers, geeks, artsy, artsy-but-still-somewhat-popular, semi-popular, popular.
I had friends who were losers. These were the kids who smoked weed and wore black t-shirts every day to school printed with obscure band names no one had ever heard of. I also had friends who were geeks. These were people who played a musical instrument, and especially those who were members of the marching band. And I had friends who were artsy—all the wanna-be thespians and kids on the yearbook staff.
But my associations never went higher than that. Dividing the sum total of the people I knew and hung out with into their respective cliques, and my guess is that I was considered an artsy geek.
Bobby, on the other hand, defied categories. If not for the fact that he helped jocks cheat on tests and scored for chicks all the cigarettes they cared to smoke, he would be the geek no one wanted to associate with. But Bobby’s connections saved him.
And I was saving myself for Bobby…
More fast songs played and the dance floor started filling up. Latecomers were still filing in, waiting in line to have their pictures taken.
It was about this time that I noticed a burning in my left heel. I looked down and noticed a tear in the heel of my pantyhose. The skin underneath was exposed and had turned bright pink.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
“What’s the matter?” Bobby asked.
“Stupid shoes are rubbing the back of my heel.”
“Take them off,” he suggested. “Now that we’ve had our picture taken you won’t need them.”
Bobby Fraser always had an answer or a solution for everything.
A slow song started to play. Couples made their way to the dance floor. Girls led their guys by the hand. Bobby and I looked at each other and shrugged in what-the-hell-why-not fashion.
He stepped on my feet twice before we found our rhythm. I looked around and noticed everyone else had found their rhythm too. Couples were grope dancing all around us. They were grinding their adolescent bodies together, writhing, making out like the future of the world depended on the swapping of their spit.
My left heel burned intensely and it started to throb. Both shoes were pinching my toes. It was hard to stand and keep pace with Bobby’s shuffling. Why hadn’t I broken the shoes in? I thought.
I looked around at some of the other girls’ feet. They all still wore their shoes. Not a single one of them was barefoot.
I was too entangled in Bobby’s arms, and we were spinning too quickly for me to stop and look at my aching heel. I couldn’t risk looking like a weirdo by being the only barefoot girl in the room. Besides, Bobby was too tall for me as it was.
This wasn’t how the evening was supposed to go.
I panicked. I stared at Bobby’s black tie as we spun in place and concentrated on the song. I tried to push the pain from my mind. There was only about thirty seconds to go and then I could go sit down.
Bobby went rigid and stopped moving. I looked up at him in confusion. He had a rascally look in his hazel eyes and a huge impish grin on his face. Suddenly, his tongue was in my mouth and his hands were groping my back. I squirmed in his grasp and grabbed his neck tighter as the back of my shoe dug into my aggravated, swollen heel.
I felt something burst and a sudden relief from pain. Bobby’s tongue was no longer the only moist thing I felt. Having been rubbed raw, my heel had reached its breaking point; warm droplets of blood soaked through my pantyhose and oozed down the back of my shoe.
I didn’t tell Bobby I was hurt and bleeding. I couldn’t—my mouth was busy. And my body was numb from the erotic combination of pleasure and pain. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t need to speak. The estrogen swirling in my body told him everything I needed to convey.
The song ended and we broke loose from our lip-lock.
Bobby’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s take a walk.”
It was time. This was the moment I was waiting for. It had come sooner than anticipated, but that was okay. Now I wouldn’t have to wait as long.
I didn’t have time to look at my heel or take off my shoes. Bobby grabbed my hand and pulled me to the exit door at the back of the gymnasium. As I limped behind him in pain, I looked around the room. No one was watching us; no one saw us leaving. Bobby opened the door wide enough for us to slip out, and then pushed it closed gently behind him.
The door led out to the rear parking lot. There were a few cars. To our right was a grassy area that ran the length of the back brick wall of the building. The wall ended in a dark corner where it met another brick wall.
Bobby pointed to the shadowy corner. “Back there.”
I kicked off my shoes into the grass. There was just enough light where we stood for me to see the hole in the heel of my pantyhose and a bloody scab beginning to form over the blister. Bobby walked beside me as I limped through the grass. We reached our shadowy hiding spot and I collapsed onto my back with a huff. Bobby loomed over me, a look of piteous desire on his face.
I sat up to remove my pantyhose. Bobby took off his suit jacket, threw it in the grass behind him, and crouched down next to me. Strands of hair had come loose from my hair clip and hung in my face. There was no doubt I had blades of grass stuck in the tangled mess. I must have looked so pathetic, a young, innocent girl trying to play the role of a sexy, experienced woman.
But Bobby bought it. He gently pushed me down and bore all his weight on top of me. The grass tickled the back of my bare knees and elbows. He kissed my lips and wriggled his tongue around in my mouth. I forced my dress up to my waist and opened my legs for him to sink in closer. The coldness of his belt buckle collided with the warmth of my lower abdomen. I squirmed with anxious longing. I no longer felt the pain in my heel. It had been replaced with intense desire.
He kissed my neck and exposed shoulders. His pelvis drove into me.
I un-tucked his white dress shirt and rubbed my hands up and down his long, bare back. “I love you, Bobby.” I reached down and tugged my dress up further in silent invitation. Then I started tugging at his belt.
Bobby froze and looked at me. “No, wait! Don’t!”
“What’s the matter? Don’t you have a condom?”
“No.”
“We’ll be extra careful.”
“It’s not that. It’s just, I can’t do this.”
“Can’t do what?”
He climbed off me. “I can’t have sex with you.”
I shot up. “Why not?”
“I just…can’t”
“But I was saving myself for you. For tonight.”
“I’m saving myself too,” he mumbled.
“You are? For what?”
He shrugged and started pulling tufts of grass out of the ground.
My lips were dry and cracked. I moistened them with my tongue.
“Are you scared?” I asked. “I’m scared. But we’ll do this together and then it won’t be.”
He looked at me. “I’m not scared.”
“Then what is it? What are you waiting for?”
“I just can’t,” he said.
“Why not? You love me, right?”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Tears formed and dripped down my cheeks. “Why?” I sobbed.
“I have to wait,” he said.
“For what?”
He looked me in the eyes. “Until it’s right and just in the eyes of God,” he said calmly.
“What? When the hell will that be?”
“Many years from now, once I’ve met the woman I’m meant to be with and we’ve fallen in love. I’m saving myself for the day I get married.”
My heart shattered. At that moment I felt my first pang of regret for going to the Spring Formal with Bobby Fraser, the boy who loved God over me. I knew I’d never display that photo of us together. The moment I got home it would go in the trash. And then I would tend to my wounded heel.
The bloody foot I could deal with. But how would I handle my bleeding heart?
CHAPTER 8
I.
All the trees that lined the sidewalk along Main Street were completely bare. The sun had fallen from view and the moon clung low to the horizon. Frigid December air forced its way down my throat and into my lungs.
I hate the cold. But on this day I didn’t mind it; shivering reminded me that I was still alive when everything around me was dead.
I slid off the curb and glided across the street with Kentmore Hall in my sight. I was on my way to my last private guitar lesson of the semester. Of course, I was early. It was 5:45 p.m.
Matt said he’d be late. Said he had something to do. I showed up early anyway. I needed the time alone to think. I hate the cold, but it always makes me think better.
I sat on the curb, huddled up into a ball, and trembled from the icy air. To keep my face warm, I buried my head deep and hard into the folds of my winter jacket. The streetlight buzzed above my head.
I was weary of pretending. Pretending that I was okay with whatever my relationship status was with Matt. Pretending that I wasn’t angry—at Matt for never telling me what he thought our status was, or at myself for all the times I could’ve confronted him about it and didn’t. All the pretending had made me numb. And the numbness almost had me convinced that Matt’s non-commitment didn’t matter, that I was okay with how things were, that we didn’t need titles to define our relationship.
I lifted my head to breathe fresh air into my lungs and to stretch my muscles. When I opened my eyes, Matt was standing in front of me. He was slightly out of breath. His sudden presence startled me.
“Oh, hi,” I said. I was unable to see his dark eyes in the dim light. “I thought you said you were going to be late.”
“That thing I had to do took less time than I thought,” he said.
Matt unlocked the door and ushered me inside. He started climbing the steps to the second floor but I stayed behind, staring at the kitchen door. There was no desire to go inside anymore, no invisible force willing me to figure out my place in Matt’s world. Thanks to the numbness, there hadn’t been for weeks.
We threw our coats on the floor of the practice room and retrieved our guitars from the cabinet. We sat on metal chairs opposite each other.
“Where should we start?” Matt asked, flashing his usual crooked smile.
Our eyes locked. His green eyes, usually dark and beautiful, looked like two little swamps—murky and ugly.
Suddenly, it felt like the Novocain had worn off. I realized this was our last guitar lesson of the semester, and perhaps my best and last opportunity to find out what Matt was thinking.
“I know where we should start,” I said calmly. I laid the guitar on the floor and sat forward in my seat, my elbows on my knees. “How about we start by discussing what’s going on? What do you think?” I paused and smiled. “You first.”
His eyes grew large, and then softened into a confused squint. “What do you mean?”
“You know damn well.”
He shifted in his chair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Like hell you don’t!” I threw my words at him. “We flirt, we fuck, and then that’s it?”
Matt sighed. “What do you want me to say?”
“You’re a finance major, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So tell me what’s going on because something doesn’t add up.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Answers,” I said. “The truth. What do you want from me?”
Silence.
I felt the urge to strangle the words from him. “Well?”
Nothing. Silence.
I stood to leave. “I’m not going to deal with your indifference any longer.” Leering over him, I gave him one last parting blow. “We had sex on a kitchen counter! Did you forget? Sooner or later we’re going to have to deal with that!”
I stormed out of the room and slammed the door closed behind me. The heat of angry tears quickly welled up. After descending the last step, I took a left into the kitchen.
I stood in the darkness blinking back the watery flood. A relationship with Matthew Levine would probably never work, I thought. All the anger and confusion came leaking out, one teardrop at a time. I covered my face with my hands. The kitchen echoed the sounds of my sobbing.
From up above there were muffled noises and the sound of pounding footfalls. I didn’t need to turn around to know Matt was there in the darkness with me.
I rubbed away the tears with my shirtsleeve and turned to face him. He flipped on the light and looked at me. There was a mask of terror and anger on his face and a burning fire in his eyes.
He walked up to me and words erupted from his mouth. “Of course I remember!”
I flinched. “I—”
“Want to know something, Alex?” he interrupted. He leaned in close to my face. “My girlfriend broke my heart in here.”
It took a minute for his words to register. “Oh my God. You have a girlfriend?”
“Had,” he said. “I had a girlfriend.”
“How long ago?”
“We broke up four months ago, in August, right when the semester started.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, still angry. “What happened?”
“I had an engagement ring for her,” he began.
“Wow, okay,” I said.
“I wanted to give it to her in a quiet, secluded spot. So I brought her here.” He paused.
“And?”
“She wouldn’t take it. She said there was someone else.”
“She was cheating on you?”
“We dated all four years of high school. She’d been cheating on me our entire senior year.”
I reached out to touch his arm. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…” I trailed off.
He held up a hand. “It’s fine. You didn’t know.”
I tried to make him feel better. “You’re a little young to get married, anyway.” I winced at how insensitive I sounded.
“I wanted to get married after college,” he said. “I thought Christine was the one.”
I said as little as possible, out of shock at the revelation of his secret, and because this was the most he had said to me in the three months since we’d met. I didn’t want him to lose momentum, and I wanted him to keep talking.
“Okay,” I said. “Go on.”
“Christine decided to work instead of go to college. I didn’t want her to think I was ditching her by going away to school. So I bought her a ring and when she came with my parents to help me move in, I made her a promise that I’d marry her after I graduated.”
“Romantic,” I said.
I got the sense he was done talking. But he hadn’t said anything about our relationship. What about us? That had been my original question upstairs in the practice room. What’s going on with us?
“And?” I said.
He turned to face me. “That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what you’ve been hiding? That’s your secret, your truth?”
He shrugged. “I guess so.”
“So you’re saying you’re still crazy for a stupid girl who cheated on you?”
Matt rushed toward me until he was nearly in my face. “What I’m saying is…” He exhaled forcefully and locked eyes with me. “I’m crazy for you!”
My blood ran hot and my extremities turned cold. My stomach churned. I felt that familiar tingle in my lower abdomen.
“That’s my secret,” Matt said. “Are you happy now?”
I was seeing clearly for the first time, in the space where one relationship had ended and another one began.
I should have thrown my arms around him and kissed him. I should have apologized. I should have thanked him. I should have done so many things.
Instead, I puked on his shoes.
…
Moments later we were back where we started. We sat on the floor face to face in the practice room. I fingered a strand of my hair. My guitar sat several feet away. He plucked at the strings of his.
“Sorry about your shoes,” I said.
He stopped momentarily to give me a crooked smile, that same look that always seemed to bring calm to the emotions roiled up inside me. He lowered his head and continued plucking away. “No problem.”
