The Nerdy and the Dirty

by B. T. Gottfred

So I asked, “How does it feel for you?”

  “Very good. How does it feel for you?”

  “It feels … very good … obviously … but I’m mostly feeling…” My eyes started watering. I was crying. What kind of boy cries when he has sex the first time? “I’m being socially awkward.…”

  “You’re being beautiful, Benedict.” She kissed my tears.

  “I know you told me not to change, Penelope. But you changed me. I can never go back to what I was before.”

  “You changed me too.”

  “Maybe that’s what love is,” I said, and I didn’t even know what I was saying but I said it anyway, “that someone loves you just the way you are, but love changes you for the better anyway.”

  “Oh, Benedict … that’s going to make me cry.…” And she did. I kissed her tears because that was our special thing. Then she said, “Are you close to coming?”

  “I think so,” I said, even though I hadn’t really been thinking about it.

  “Can you wait just a little bit longer?”

  “I think so.”

  “I want to come at the same time.…”

  “That would be the best thing in the history of planet earth.”

  “I’ve never done that. I want to do that with you. I want you to be my first.…”

  “That would make it the best thing in the history of the universe.” I was being dorky. I know this. That’s okay, I think.

  “But, Benedict…”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll need to use my fingers to help.… Is that okay?”

  “Of course! Why wouldn’t that be okay?”

  “Other boys might think…”

  “I’m not other boys, Penelope.”

  * * *

  She reached between our bodies, and I could see her body respond to her touch and I just had to say, “That is very, very, sexy … very sexy…”

  “I love that you think it’s sexy.…”

  “It might be too sexy because it’s going to make me…”

  “I know … two more seconds … I’m close…”

  “I can’t…”

  “One more second…” she said, and grabbed the back of my head and we locked our eyes together and …

  52

  Penelope

  We came. Together. Our eyes open.

  Then, after a bit, I pulled him down and held him against me. On top of me. And then, sometime later, after he put the condom into a plastic bag he had somehow thought to bring, he rolled over and we lay next to each other. We didn’t say much. Just stared and enjoyed staring.

  While keeping our coats beneath us, Benedict slid us both into my mom’s snow pants to keep us warm. Like a cocoon. A cocoon for our love, for our magical day. I know I hate the cheesy, fake crap. But when it’s real it’s not fake and when it’s real … it’s everything.

  So … in our safe, wonderful cocoon, we fell asleep. And slept for a long, long time.

  * * *

  If only we hadn’t, if only we could have stayed awake in that warming hut forever.

  53

  BENEDICT

  I am a very sound sleeper. This is why I set up two alarms at home, one on my phone and one on my clock.

  I didn’t wake until Penelope woke me. Only after I sat up, and saw the terror on her face, did I hear what she heard. Voices. Footsteps. Idling snowmobiles.

  The door to the warming hut swinging open. My father. My hero. Seeing me with the girl he banned me from seeing. Judging me with his eyes and with the force of a jumbo jet falling on my head.

  Behind him was her mother and mine, the bearded boathouse man behind them both.

  I heard Penelope’s mother scream first, “OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! THEY’RE NAKED! OH MY GOD! THEY’RE NAKED! OH MY GOD!”

  My father didn’t say anything to me. He didn’t need to. Whatever kind of disappointment I had been to him so far, this was a hundred times that. This was more than a fireable offense. This was, his look told me, a crime that should be punishable by death. I know I exaggerate. I know. But you don’t know my father. How my father’s brain works. And he does not exaggerate. And he wished, at that moment, that I were dead.

  Penelope’s mom pushed past my dad into the doorway. “You whore! You whore! YOU WHORE!”

  “She is a whore,” my father said, but looking at me, “and that is what my disappointment of a son deserves.” Then he turned away from me. I assumed he would never look at me again.

  Penelope’s mom now screamed at my dad. “She may be a whore, but your son is retarded! RETARDED! HE KIDNAPPED HER! I’M GOING TO SUE YOU! YEAH! MY DAUGHTER WILL PAY FOR BEING A WHORE! BUT YOU’LL PAY FOR YOUR SON BEING RETARDED!”

  * * *

  Penelope slammed the door closed. Her mother screamed for it to be opened, but my mother, who never yells, told them to give us time to get dressed.

  Penelope was shaking and she tried to look at me, she tried, but her body was shrinking before my eyes. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move or speak. I couldn’t …

  “You have to get dressed, Benedict, you have to…” she said, handing me clothes. “I’m so sorry, so sorry.…”

  I wanted to say it wasn’t her fault. Because it wasn’t. We did nothing wrong. We were two teenagers who fell in love. How could that be wrong?

  * * *

  Evil Benny, who had been so quiet for so long, said: If your father thinks what you did was wrong, then it’s wrong. Because you are nothing compared to him. You literally wouldn’t exist without him. He deserved a smart, good son. But he got you.

  * * *

  Penelope, somehow dressed, tried to put my underwear on. My paralysis eased, but instead of telling Penelope it was going to be okay, or holding her, or doing anything I wanted to do, I ripped my clothes from her hand.

  I’m sorry, I should say.

  I love you, Penelope.…

  But I only watched as she scooped up her coat and snow pants and walked out into the snow in bare feet. Her mom screamed more. Screams that cracked my skin with their force. I was still in the hut. But Penelope was feeling those screams up close. I should protect Penelope from her.

  Move, Benedict, move. I did. I tried. But by the time I got outside, the boathouse man was driving his snowmobile away, Penelope and her mom with him. Within seconds, she was gone. As if she had never been here.

  My dad said to my mom, “I’m not waiting for him. I’m not wasting another second on him. If he’s old enough to ruin his life, he is old enough to find his way back.”

  She ignored him. He got on the second snowmobile, never once looking toward me, and drove off. After he was gone, my mother picked up Penelope’s skis and poles. “I’ll walk these back. You can ski if you wish.”

  I shook my head and picked up my skis as well. She waited until I stepped beside her then started walking in the direction of the lodge.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head.

  “Then we won’t.”

  * * *

  My mother didn’t say another word on the way back. It was a long way back too, to walk through the snow trail as we did. I didn’t think much. Not in the usual way my brain likes to think about things.

  We left the skis at the top of the stairs to the boathouse. My mom then steered us toward the road where her SUV was waiting. We were going home. My actions had not only destroyed my dad’s respect for me; they’d also destroyed his vacation.

  But inside, behind the wheel, wasn’t my father. It was Elizabeth. Who is thirteen. She climbed over the console to the passenger seat as my mom got into the driver’s seat.

  Elizabeth asked the question I wanted to ask: “So we’re really leaving Dad here?”

  “He needs some time by himself,” my mom said.

  Wait, I wanted to say as my eyes turned toward Penelope’s cabin. Their car was already gone.

  “I saw them drive off, Benedict,” my sister said. “Her mom never stopped yelling the whole time.”

  * *
*

  As soon as my phone got service, I texted Penelope. I called her. I texted her. I called her. I texted her. But the calls went straight to her voice mail. My texts were never answered.

  When we stopped for gas, my mother went inside to use the restroom. Elizabeth turned back to me and said, “You’re my hero, brother.”

  I didn’t say anything back.

  * * *

  Halfway home, I finally responded to Robert’s birthday text:

  ME

  Thanks, Robert.

  He soon texted back:

  ROBERT

  Did you get a text from

  Allison Wray?

  ME

  No.

  ROBERT

  Check Facebook. She might

  have written you there. I think

  she really likes you!

  ME

  Okay.

  But I had no intention of checking Facebook for Allison’s message.

  ROBERT

  Did you ever have a chance

  to talk to Penelope?

  Honesty.

  ME

  Yes.

  I also kissed her. I also fell in love with her. I also had sex with her. I also failed her.

  ROBERT

  I heard she broke up with

  Paul. Maybe we can go on a

  double date!

  I didn’t respond.

  54

  penelope

  I never yelled back at my mom. She yelled for hours. Hours. I never yelled back. I never said anything at all.

  She had thrown my phone out the window back when we first started driving home. It probably didn’t matter. The look on Benedict’s face when he snapped his clothes from my hands in the hut … I knew. Knew he was done with me. No matter how much you say you love someone, no matter what you share, you can’t just forget about your father calling the girl a whore. You can’t forget the girl’s mother calling you retarded.

  You just can’t.

  I could forget all that stuff because I have to forget horrible stuff to survive. But a person like Benedict, even though we were so similar in a lot of ways, he wasn’t damaged like me. He didn’t need to forget. If you don’t need to forget, then it’s impossible not to remember. I don’t even … I don’t …

  I felt like I should open the door of the car and just fall out. Fall away. We were going almost seventy miles per hour. The pavement would just suck me into nothingness. Into the darkness. I could feel myself falling anyway. Could feel myself being swallowed by it. At least if I jumped from the car, the pain of the darkness would go away.

  I could take the pain.

  I could take the darkness.

  I just couldn’t take both at the same time.

  55

  BENEDICT

  By the time we got back home to Riverbend, I still had not heard from Penelope.

  * * *

  She was just lonely up there at the lake, Evil Benny said, she was lonely and you were the only one around. Do you think you’re worth seeing again when she’ll have to listen to her mother call you a retard? Do you think she ever wants to see a boy again whose father called her a whore? Use your brains, retard. She was using you and now she’s done with you.

  * * *

  I could feel my brain crumbling. My body felt cold outside and my insides were burning up. I must distract myself.

  So I texted Penelope again.

  And again she didn’t respond.

  So I signed on to Facebook. I’d write her there. But before I could, I saw the message from Allison Wray. Before I could tell myself to delete it, I read it:

  Hi, Benedict! Robert said it would be okay to write you. Hope you are having a good vacation with your family! If you have some free time when you get back, it would be really special if a cute boy showed me around Riverbend. Talk to you later! Allison

  See, retard? Evil Benny said. Your father was right. Allison Wray was the right girl for you. She even sounds like you! You two would have been a couple people would admire! You and Penelope would have been a freak show! The stoner and the Tin Man! You’re so stupid. You went and made your father hate you for no reason.

  I didn’t write Allison back. I didn’t delete her message either.

  56

  penelope

  I never opened the car door on the highway. I’m too pathetic to even kill myself.

  My mother drove straight to the church recovery center in Gladys Park.

  When she got out, still screaming as she walked around toward my door, I noticed the keys still in the ignition. I couldn’t just abandon my mom here. She’s a horrible mother, but I couldn’t. Then, as she swung open the door to grab me, she seethed, “You can stay here the rest of your life as far as I’m concerned!”

  And suddenly I could. Suddenly I had to. I jumped into the driver’s seat, put it in drive, and despite her still holding the passenger door open and her red-faced raging, I drove. She let go and the door slammed shut when it bounced off another car’s bumper.

  I went to the pizzeria. I needed my dad. Needed him to tell me my mother was nuts, that he was divorcing her, that he would protect me from her. But when I walked inside the restaurant, despite there being two tables of customers, he yelled at me the way he usually yells at her. “WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR PROBLEM? LEAVING YOUR MOTHER LIKE THAT! DRIVING LIKE A CRAZY DRIVER! I THOUGHT YOU WERE A GOOD PERSON BUT NOW I’M NOT SO SURE!”

  He took two steps toward me and he could tell I wasn’t going to stay. He could tell I was in a place I had never been. He tried to calm himself, to calm me, but it was too late. And he was too slow, too old, and I was back to the car and driving away from my dad just as fast as I drove away from my mom.

  * * *

  Where could I go …

  nowhere …

  nowhere to go …

  not home …

  nowhere …

  nowhere but back …

  back in time …

  back to who I was …

  back to being invisible …

  back to Paul …

  57

  BEN …

  It was 8:03 p.m. when we parked in the garage at home. I said the first words to my mother since breakfast: “Am I grounded?”

  “No,” she said. And for a moment, I felt I should say something to her. Something kind. But I couldn’t make myself do it. So I said:

  “Then I’m leaving.”

  * * *

  I found Penelope’s address on my phone and drove there. No intelligent things formed in my head to say to her mother or to Penelope, but I had to drive there anyway. But when I got to the house, it was dark. Not a single light was on.

  Next, because I would not cease my search for her until it was successful, I drove to her family’s pizzeria. I went to the register at the front and asked, “Do you know where Penelope is?”

  At the sound of my voice, a man, a round man with a round face and a round waist and round hands, lumbered out from the kitchen. He carried a dough roller and anger. I knew it was her father because I just knew. “Who wants to know where Penelope is? Who are you? Are you that boy she was with up at the lake?”

  “Yes.”

  He yelled, “Get out of here. You made her crazy. You made my good girl crazy. Get out of here!”

  I became a robot. I would not let him get to me. I would not leave until I found out what I came to find out. I said, in my monotone robot voice, “I want to know that she’s safe.”

  “She is crazy! She steals her mother’s car. She leaves her. She comes here. She drives off again instead of talking to me. I should call the cops on you! I’ll call the cops and they’ll arrest you!” He points the roller at me. Waves it around. He could swing it at my head. I still wouldn’t move. “Why do you just stand there?!”

  “Where did she go, Mr. Lupo?” Flat voice. No emotion. No fear.

  “Why are you talking like that? What’s wrong with you? Why you talk like that? Are you retarded like my wife says? Are you?”


  “Where did she go, Mr. Lupo?”

  “Not to you! Not to you! You make her crazy! She go home. Or she go to Paul. He’s a good boy! He’s a good man. You’re in trouble with Paul when he finds out about you making Penelope crazy! YOU ARE IN TROUBLE!” he screamed as I left.

  * * *

  As I got in my car, a tiny, frightened voice said, She wouldn’t have gone to Paul’s.

  But then Evil Benny, in a strong, confident voice—in the voice of a general, of a grown man, in a voice like my father’s—said, That’s exactly where she fucking went, you fucking retard.

  * * *

  So I found the address online and drove to Paul’s. I knew, as I drove, if I found Penelope there that Evil Benny would win. I had always been able to outthink him. I could always find a reason why he was wrong. But if he was right this time, if she was at the house of her ex-boyfriend, the house of the boy who’d beaten me up, on the night of my birthday, on the night of the day she had sex with me, on the day I fell in love … then Evil Benny would win.

  * * *

  Her mother’s car was parked on the street in front of Paul’s house.

  Evil Benny told me not to even slow down.

  So I didn’t.

  58

  penelope

  As I parked in front of Paul’s, I felt like throwing up. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, almost twelve hours, but my stomach felt poisoned. It needed to purge itself. But I couldn’t throw up my life. So I got out of the car and walked to his front door. I hadn’t knocked in years but, I don’t know, I couldn’t just walk in. We had broken up. I had fallen in love with a beautiful boy from another dimension, and now I was back on this broken plane because I had failed to be who I wanted to be. So I knocked and waited.

  His mother answered. His pretty, always perky mother. With her black hair and her nice sweaters. “Pen! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.” She pulled me into their house, my second home, and hugged me. “Paul has been driving us all mad talking about you. Thank you, thank you, thank you for forgiving him. He’s just a boy. You know boys are boys. You can’t blame them for being what they are.” I wanted to tell her she was an idiot, but I was doing exactly what she was telling me to do so really I guess that made me the fucking idiot. She hugged me again. I needed to be hugged. She never called me a whore. Paul’s dad never called me a whore. This was my real family. Maybe they’ll let me live here. I’ll marry him. I’ll marry Paul and I’ll live here and I’ll never see my parents again and I’ll never think about Benedict ever, ever again.