Not that he would have done it.
I’m scheduled to volunteer tonight, and though I’d rather just stay in and be by myself, I can’t shirk a commitment like that. It’s nice to feel needed, even though I just hand out magazines and read to kids. It keeps me together. Sort of.
Volunteer work is a challenge today. The coordinator puts me in the oncology ward, handing out chewing gum and magazines. This ward feels bizarrely familiar, with its sounds and smells, and brings back memories I’d rather not revisit too frequently. I half-expect to see the people I met while Tessa was in treatment. Some of those people are probably dead now. It’s almost surprising how little that idea bothers me, but I’ve worked so hard to numb those memories that it’s no great wonder.
The one person I do consider with genuine curiosity, though, is the guy Tessa briefly shared a room with. He was only seventeen, just barely old enough for a bed on the adult ward, and dying slowly. He had a rare disorder that caused tumors to grow indiscriminately all over his body. They pushed on his organs and nerves, causing pain and interrupting normal function. The first time I saw him he completely freaked me out. Luckily he was asleep at the time, so he didn’t witness my poor reaction. The whole left side of his face and eyelid were swollen with a massive tumor. He looked like something out of a horror movie. I avoided looking at him whenever I went to visit Tessa, because I didn’t think I could control my expression enough not to offend him.
I remember very clearly the first time I ever spoke to him, because I was terrified to do it. I was sitting by Tessa while she slept, reading a book. School was out and I had no homework left to keep me occupied. The curtains around both beds were closed, but in the silence I heard a plop and a splash, followed by a quiet, “Damn.” I peeked under the curtains and saw a juice box on the floor on its side, leaking slowly. I wasn’t sure if I should pick it up. I went out to the orderlies’ station first and grabbed a juice box off the tray to replace the dropped one. By the time I got back to the room I was antsy with nerves.
I ‘knocked’ before stepping around the curtain. That sort of threw him. He was so used to being in hospitals with no privacy and bustling nurses who had no time to knock.
“I, uh, brought you a new one.” I held up the juice box lamely.
“Thanks.” I threw the old box in the garbage and cracked open the new one for him. His hands creeped me out more than his face—they were covered with little bumps that were tumors under the skin, and he was missing two fingers that had been removed along with more troublesome growths. I tried not to flinch when I realized he needed help holding the juice box. His hands were next to useless from nerve damage.
I couldn’t help staring at him while he drank. The unusual swell of his face looked so painful, and his left eye was nearly swollen shut. His healthy eye stared right back at me.
“Your eyes are really pretty.” I turned beet red the second after I blurted that out. I wasn’t lying—he had gorgeous blue eyes with long dark lashes—only I was worried that he would take my remark the wrong way. But he just said ‘thank you’ after a moment and told me that he liked my hair. I don’t think a stranger had ever said he looked nice before.
I’m still not sure how it happened, really, since we didn’t discuss it or even talk much that first day, but for the rest of the summer, whenever I went to visit Tessa, I would visit him too. We talked of mundane things, of heavy things. He didn’t belittle my sadness and anger at what was happening to Tessa, even though he had his own heap of troubles to contend with. That was the summer I grew boobs and hips and lost my childish gangliness. He taught me how to flirt, the way we would banter back and forth with my sister asleep just a few feet away. Or at least I thought she was asleep. He was my first kiss, just days before Tessa came home to die. I told him the plan to move her and that I wouldn’t be coming around the hospital anymore. We exchanged phone numbers that neither of us would ever call, and as I hugged him goodbye he said, “What, no kiss?” To this day I’m not even sure if he was being serious or not, but I kissed him anyway. He was warm and his lips tasted like morphine and orange juice. I’m almost certain he’s dead now.
Trying not to think about that period winds me up, and when I leave the hospital I don’t go straight home: I go to the Thorpe house. Mr. Thorpe isn’t home when I get there, but there’s a light on in the living room. I let myself in and Luke looks up from the couch where he lays, watching TV.
“I didn’t know you were coming over.” He sounds pleasantly surprised. That’s good, because it didn’t exactly occur to me to call ahead.
“I had a rough day.” I drop my purse by the door, slip out of my shoes, and sit down on the couch. Luke puts a gentle hand on my shoulder and pulls me down next to him.
“Relax,” he says. “You’ve earned it.” Spooning on the couch isn’t half bad. Luke’s like a big, warm, cuddly teddy bear, and I could use one right now.
“What happened?”
“Shit shift volunteering.” And Frank is just waiting for me to crack. And Jem keeps bugging me with possessive bullshit. And Chris Elwood is a persistent pain in my ass.
…And yesterday Jem was keeping so still and only ate half a Jell-O cup at lunch, and I intended to tape a mint to his locker for after but I didn’t have any stored up to give him. And Elise looked like she was talking to herself in the car after school, but he was there, in the back seat, too sick to sit up.
I notice far more about him than I should.
“You got through it,” Luke says, and pulls me tighter against him with an arm around my waist. We spoon for a while, watching the badly dubbed made-for-TV martial arts movie Luke had on when I got here.
“You can change the channel if you like.”
“I don’t care.” Luke turns the volume down a few notches until it’s just background noise. He runs his fingers through my hair, humming softly.
“What song is that?”
“Un Canadien Errant. One of those old folk tunes, y’know?”
“Can I hear it?”
His mouth is right behind my ear, and his warm breath tickles me softly as he sings the deep, liquid words. It seems more soothing, not knowing what all the words mean. Luke’s hand slips under the front of my shirt as he sings, resting against my bare stomach. I’m not sure I like it but I’m too lazy to move his hand.
“What does it mean?” I ask when he finishes the last verse.
“It’s about exile,” he answers vaguely. I like that.
“It sounds nice.”
The hand on my belly flexes slightly, gripping the skin and releasing quickly. “You’re soft,” Luke whispers.
“Okay.” I’m not in the mood for affection or compliments.
“I can turn this off if you want,” he whispers.
“No. Leave it.” His fingers begin to trace little circles on my stomach. The largest of these go low enough to brush against the waistband of my jeans, and high enough to touch my second rib. For a second I wonder if he’s consciously doing that, but his movement is too even and calculated to be accidental. He’s trying to feel me up, testing the waters before he goes for it. I should tell him to stop. I should react in some way to put him off the idea. But I don’t. I lie there and watch this stupid movie while his hand moves around under my top.
Luke’s hand moves slowly, coming down from where it edged around my bra to rest on my lower abdomen. Slowly, like I won’t notice, he slips his little finger under the waistband of my jeans. He finds the edge of my underwear—and goes beneath it.
“Willa?” It’s weirding him out that I haven’t reacted in any way.
“Yeah, Luke?” I want to hear what brilliant argument for sex he has prepared. Luke sits up on his elbow, leaning over me to study my face. A piece of his hair falls over my forehead and he brushes it away.
I grab the lock back and twist it around my finger. The innocent look of him comforts me, even though I know he’s anything but.
Like most guys, he needs only the slig
htest invitation to bend down and kiss me. I wasn’t asking for it. I wasn’t thinking about it. But he’s warm and I feel so small next to him. It’s like curling up in a favorite blanket as he turns me toward him with the arm under my shoulders.
Luke is a very thorough kisser. He leaves no part of my lips unattended to, even if he is a little heavy-handed and forceful about it. The fingers just beyond my waistband are migrating again, moving lower.
He has no idea what he’s doing down there. I don’t think he’s going to admit it or ask directions, either, by the way he kisses me more determinedly—like I can be distracted from what’s going on elsewhere, just until he figures things out.
The couch is narrow and uncomfortable. Luke rolls on top of me for a better angle and I’m surrounded by a curtain of hair as he kisses me. He smells like Cheetos and wood shavings and he’s pressing his groin against my thigh like that on purpose.
I know the drill; how these things always go. My mind is a blank space as I reach down to his waistband and pop the button on his pants. He raises his hips slightly to give me enough room to lower the fly, and my hand slips inside. Under his boxers, between his legs. It takes only the slightest movement and pressure to make him lurch against my hand and moan into my mouth. The hand down my pants stumbles with distraction and his eyes flutter closed. I guess he’s new at this; multitasking pleasurable things takes practice.
And just like any other guy, a little moan in return is enough to remind him that his hand should be doing something back. I prefer these things without discussion. Luke has large hands, but he isn’t clumsy—just inexperienced. I think his finger slips inside me purely by accident, because he looks completely surprised.
“I’m not hurting you, am I?” So close to my face, his voice is little more than a husky whisper against my lips. I don’t want to talk, so instead of answering I stroke him more insistently and lift my hips against his hand. Luke takes the hint. Guys aren’t that stupid when it comes to sex. Millions of years of instinct trump conscious thought.
I rock back and forth in the narrow space between the couch and his hips. His finger is a nice counterpoint to move against. I’m getting close, and so is he, rubbing each other off to the cadence of fake punches and attack screams on TV. Luke’s arm tightens around the back of my shoulders, pressing our chests together. I know the harsh tone of his breathing, the absence of little whimpers that mean he’s entered the home stretch. I watch his face with a sense of detachment: eyes closed, swollen lips parted, resting his forehead against mine as he pants with pleasure.
He stops breathing just before he comes. A shudder ripples down his throat and back, and his eyes open. I’m fucking paralyzed by such openness as he looks me right in the eye and falls the fuck apart on top of me. I can’t look away. He bares himself to me in a wholly unfamiliar act of intimacy that I couldn’t have prepared myself for even if I’d known it was coming, and it makes me feel entirely exposed.
Luke’s hand brushes my hair. He places a shaky kiss on my lips and whispers, “Willa.”
I try to move too quickly and end up on the floor. I just lay there on my back with my legs still pinned under his, and decide it’s not worth it to move any farther just yet.
“Are you okay?” He reaches out to grab me but I put my hands up. Distance is good right now.
Luke hesitates, kneeling on the couch on all fours, still winded from our romp. He eases off my legs and my feet fall limply to the floor.
“Willa?”
“Shit.” I sit up. Luke looks at me unsurely. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He gives me this confused, somewhat wounded expression. God damn it, he even has sex hair right now.
“I don’t do this kind of shit with friends.” Especially not friends as un-complicated as Luke. I’ve messed up a good thing. I shouldn’t know what my friend looks like when he comes. “We’re not friends who do that. I shouldn’t have let this shit happen.”
“You didn’t let anything happen.”
“This was a one-off, okay?” Telling myself that it will never happen again alleviates some of the guilt from my broken promise to Mom and Dad—I said I was done screwing around with boys when I moved here.
Luke wipes his hand on his jeans. Oh God. His pants are still undone. So are mine. “Did you like it?” he asks a little shyly.
“This never happened.”
“Are you going to be weird now?” he says with a smirk and a scolding tone. I know that look in his eye. At first glance it’s friendly chiding, but underneath that is a firm demand for the desired response—or else.
I stand up and fasten my pants. “Don’t tell our brothers about this either.”
“I won’t,” he promises quietly. I grab my purse and shoes and prepare to leave. Luke walks me to the door and tells me to drive safely like he means the exact opposite.
“No weirdness,” he reminds me as I descend the front steps.
“Weirdness about what?”
Luke huffs, and as I drive away I can still see him in my rearview mirror, watching me with crossed arms. I don’t know what Luke thinks he can get from me, but I’m certain I’m not in a position to give it.
*
I eat a piece of leftover lasagna, blow off homework, and crawl into bed.
I can’t sleep.
I put on really angry music and count sheep and meditate and I’m still awake. I think about calling Jem and then I kick myself. This week has been horrible enough, trying to put distance between him and myself, especially because he’s so lonely and I’m a sucker for lost causes.
I shouldn’t have done that with Luke.
Done what?
Damn straight.
It’s past eleven o’clock when my cell rings. It’s Jem again, smirking up at me from the screen. And in a moment of weakness, I answer. I press the phone to my ear and listen to the static silence. It doesn’t occur to me to say anything.
His voice creeps across the line after a few seconds, shy and slightly hopeful: “Willa?”
I hang up. I shouldn’t have answered to begin with. I toss the phone to the foot of my bed and curl away from it like it’s a snake.
What the hell is the matter with me that I have such a hard time ignoring him, even when I know better than to involve myself? After a few minutes of indecision and much self-flagellation, I sit up and retrieve my phone. He gets a text message—nothing more.
Do you want music?
Yes, please.
He gets “Life Starts Now” by Three Days Grace, and I relax for the first time tonight, watching the twin glows of my phone and iPod. He only gets one song because I’m trying not to involve myself, and I text Goodnight instead of saying it over the phone.
I had a dream about you the other night.
Since when does ‘goodnight’ invite conversation? I don’t reply but he sends another text anyway.
You were accusing me of stealing your mallard duck.
I can’t help but smile at the image.
Sounds like something you’d do. Did you give it back?
Of course :)
I put my phone aside and roll over, ready for sleep. It buzzes again.
Are we okay now?
Don’t get any ideas.
Jem would take the slightest invitation to make himself entirely too welcome in my life. I can’t abide that. The borderline-insanity of being apart from him is better than the insanity of being around him. There’s no one but me to witness, this way.
Can I call you? We need to talk.
Jesus Christ, that sounds like something a boyfriend would say. My gag reflex isn’t strong enough for this.
There’s nothing to say.
There isn’t anything I want to hear, anyway. I turn off my phone for the night in the hope of sparing my last shred of sanity—if I can find that much left in the recesses of my weary brain. Somehow, I doubt it.
Thursday
In my dreams Tessa always has long hair. This time she stands in front of the mirror with
her hair undone, brushing it out before bed. My reflection doesn’t appear in the mirror, but she sees me behind her and smiles. She hands me the hairbrush.
As I brush her long hair, strands fall away in clumps, just as they did when I shaved her head. I brush until there is nothing left but her smooth scalp and the web of veins underneath.
“Do you regret it?” she asks. “Regrets are heavy things, Will.” I watch her face in the mirror as she watches me.
“You’re going to regret that boy.” She isn’t beautiful anymore, like she was when I started to brush her hair. Her skin is grey and papery and her eyes are red with burst blood vessels. Tessa grins at me and her teeth are stained with blood.
“Have you killed him, yet?” When she speaks more blood seeps from between her teeth. It drips over her lips and runs down her chin, onto the bathroom counter. A slow trickle runs from her left ear.
I tell her I never meant to hurt anybody. She chuckles at me, the same way she used to when I was little and being silly.
“Dying is easier than breathing.” She winks. “But I think you know that already.” The blood flows faster. It comes out of her nose, too, and forms a steady drip. “Still,” she turns away and makes a flippant hand gesture, “if you’re going to kill that boy, do it quick, one way or another. He’s already dying, and you know how fast a body can go.”
“I know.”
A blinding pain in the side of my head wakes me up. I rolled out of bed in my sleep and railed my head on the nightstand. Frank comes in to investigate why I’m taking the Lord’s name in vain so loudly this early in the morning.
“Are you bleeding?” he checks my scalp and says it looks okay. “You might have a bit of a bump, but you didn’t hit it hard enough to concuss yourself.”
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