And Trevor said, “Oh, I, uh…”
He didn’t want me to be his girlfriend. Oh, oh, oh, oh, but I didn’t want to lose him, so I said, “It’s okay, we don’t have to call each other ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’—”
But then HE said, “No, Carolina. I just thought you were my girlfriend probably before we even talked. I definitely want you to be my girlfriend. Will you be my girlfriend?”
“Yes,” I said, and tried to swallow my excitement before I jumped up on the couch and danced or something, and then I kissed him, and he kissed me, and gosh.
34
Trevor can’t be careful
By the time Carolina and I finished making out, our faces were red and wet with sweat and spit. It would have been gross to outside people, but to us, I think, it was great. I didn’t know what the hell to do with all my stupid smiling, so I just ignored it and hoped Carolina didn’t find me too dorky doing it.
As she put her shoes back on, I said, “It really sucks I have to wait until Monday to see you again.”
“Let’s meet tomorrow and study together,” she said the instant I was done talking.
“I love how you just say things.”
“Gosh, I’m sorry. I just say what I say sometimes without thinking.”
“No, Carolina, I really love it,” I said, scooting next to her and taking her hand in mine. I don’t even know why, but whatever. Screw it. I knew why: I didn’t want her to feel bad about herself for even one second. Not one second.
“Kendra says boys don’t like it. They like to be in control.”
“Yeah, no … I think boys that aren’t strong like to be in control, but boys that are strong, they like strong girls.” I stood up. Maybe to feel tall. Or strong. I don’t know.
“So you like strong girls?” she asked, standing up next to me, looking at me as if she really wanted to know the answer.
“I like you, and you’re like the strongest girl I’ve ever met.”
“Thanks…” But she wasn’t that excited at being the strongest girl I’ve ever met, so I said, “You’re strong with your mind and your personality, but you’re also super pretty.”
“I like when you say that,” Carolina said.
“I mean it.”
“No one—I mean, my dad and brother have, but no boy—has ever called me pretty before.”
“You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever met, Carolina.” She kissed me quick on the lips, then engulfed my body with her arms and just held on. I didn’t let go. It felt like we just stood there, silent, hugging in my basement for hours. But it was only a few minutes. Then my dad pounded on the basement door and said it was time for Carolina to go home. We got in his BMW, which I wanted Carolina to think was cool but then I didn’t and then I did again.
Her house was in the older part of town and was small, but it was nice. Maybe. I could only see it from the outside. It was one story and had only one outside light and a one-car garage behind the house. It’s sort of stupid that kids get to live in nice houses if their parents are rich and have to live in smaller houses or no houses if their parents aren’t that rich. Stupid and confusing. Whatever.
After we parked, I walked Carolina to her front door. I kissed her and hugged her good-bye. We didn’t say anything, but maybe we didn’t need to. We just knew what we had was awesome.
As I walked back to my dad’s car, I felt like my body had been chopped in half. I know how that sounds. Trust me, I’m the last person that would think he would get all gushy and strange about falling for a girl. And, crap, you know what? I have to just admit it. I loved her. If this wasn’t love, I don’t what else it could be, right? I literally felt my skin itch to run back and grab her again. My brain couldn’t stop thinking about her or imagine not being with her. It was flooded, like, really flooded, like, I could feel it gushing and overflowing with thoughts and images of her. Things she said, the way she looked at me, little things. Everything. If that’s not love, what the hell is it? Tell me! Because I don’t want to be in love! Man! Why did I do this to myself! She’s going to stop liking me or start being mean or die or hurt herself and then my life will be worse than it ever was. So much worse.
Man, please … stop, Trevor … stop thinking so much bad all the time.… Come on. Stay positive. Don’t wreck this, please.… Please, Trevor …
“Trevor,” my dad said in the driver’s seat, halfway back home.
“Yeah?” I said, but could only half listen with my brain filled with only Carolina.
“Things can go pretty fast with a first love, so just be careful. For both of you,” he said, and I hated him saying it. For one, why did he think this was love? And screw him for being right, and screw him for telling me what to do. But I didn’t say anything. I just nodded so he wouldn’t say anything more to piss me off.
What I want to know is how are you supposed to be careful when you feel like this? If I pretend I don’t want to see her every stupid second of every stupid day, then she’ll think I don’t like her and I’ll lose her or be a liar or both … so how? How can you? Because I don’t see how I can do anything but just be with her and think about her and kiss her and everything else whenever I can. If I were to try to do anything else, if I were to be “careful,” I should just kill myself because my love for Carolina was the first thing in my entire existence that felt real. And true. And worth it.
When I got home, I texted:
ME
I like you so much
Because I had to text her something. Had to. Just as I had to breathe, I had to text her something. But I didn’t want to text her “I love you” because I didn’t want to freak her out. And then I waited for her to text me back, maybe she would say I love you because Carolina is so bold like that, but she could also text me back how much she likes me or anything, even just a smiley face, but she didn’t … she didn’t text me anything.
Something was wrong. Something I said. What did I say wrong? Crap! Oh man! I thought about calling her, but I didn’t. I just sat there, staring at my phone, waiting for her to text me, but nothing came. Maybe she fell asleep. How could she sleep? No way she could sleep. She was mad at me.
All my insides scrunched up in this ugly small ball. It hurt. Real pain. Pain. No way would I ever sleep. I just thought about what I could have said wrong. What I did wrong. Everything. I did everything wrong. I got a stupid erection. So dumb. Game of Thrones? That’s a guys’ show! So much cheesy words and lame everything. And then I didn’t say anything to her when we dropped her off.
Oh man … I lost her. I lost the one person I wanted. The one person I needed. I could have gone through my entire life without anyone else but her and now I had lost her.…
35
Carolina goes to Starbucks
When I woke up, there was a text from Trevor. It said how much he liked me, and I texted back within the tiniest second ever that I liked him so much too, and then I thought about how last night was the best night of my life. Did I think last Friday was? Maybe. But last night was definitely better. My gosh. Maybe that’s what love is—maybe every new day is more incredible than the last. It was. With Trevor, it was. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is happening to me.
Trevor texted me while I was thinking about him, which was always.
TREVOR
I sent that text last night
This felt like a weird thing to text, and I started breathing fast because I don’t know why, so I texted:
ME
I just woke up or I would have
texted you back the second
I got it last night!
Then I waited, until he texted:
TREVOR
I think I like you too much
My heart stopped. STOPPED. He was going to dump me! He was afraid and he was going to dump me and never see me again, but then he texted:
TREVOR
;)
And that wink face was all my heart needed to start beating again, and then I texted back that we sh
ould meet and do homework together at two and then he said noon and I said yes, obviously.
I called Kendra and told her about last night. I wanted to tell her about how Trevor’s penis got, you know, but I didn’t want to sound like such a dork. My dad and I watched this documentary last Christmas vacation before I kicked him out about a twelve-year-old girl in New York City and how sophisticated and knowledgeable she was about sex. I was so much older than her but the way this girl talked made me think I was one hundred years younger. She could talk about blow jobs and take Facebook pictures with sexy eyes in just her bra. After watching it, I got in bed with my computer, pulled the covers over my head and looked at porn for the first time. Everyone I knew, even Peggy, had watched porn by then and would talk about it and I would just nod, like I knew what they were talking about. But, I don’t know, to be honest, I was scared. My mom had said to me, “Carrie, I can’t stop you from watching it, but once you watch it, you eventually are going to see things that disturb you and you will never be able to unwatch it.” This was the most terrifying thing my mom had ever said, it made me feel like watching pornography would alter my brain and I would be corrupted forever. But after seeing that twelve-year-old in the documentary, and feeling like such a little girl, I knew I had to grow up and watch porn even if it totally messed me up. So I did. And, so, anyway, it didn’t shock me. Not like I thought it would. Gosh, what you can see in movies and music videos and even commercials was kind of sexier anyway, it’s just these people were naked and having real sex, except they looked fake, and I don’t know, they acted so silly. They just banged and almost never kissed. The shapes, and all the penises and vaginas were definitely super weird and I had to look away and I got this sick feeling two times or maybe more, but I didn’t think my brain melted or anything. Maybe it did screw me up, but I only watched porn one other time with Peggy over the summer and we both laughed but then got uncomfortable and turned it off.
“When we were kissing,” I decided to tell Kendra, “his penis got a hard-on and pressed against my leg.”
“That means he likes you,” she said.
“Really?” I said, but already knew this.
“But don’t have sex with him yet.”
“Kendra! I’m not having sex until college.”
“Yeah, right,” she said.
“Why don’t you believe me?” I had planned this out very carefully!
“Because no one waits that long anymore except really religious people, and they only wait because they fear God will send them to hell if they don’t.”
“Well,” I said, “I’m definitely not having sex until I’m a junior, then.”
Kendra didn’t say anything, which made me think she didn’t believe me, which made me think everything I planned was going to change now that Trevor was my—yes!—boyfriend. It was scary, but I was becoming mature very fast so it wasn’t that scary. Right?
* * *
My mom drove me to Starbucks at eleven thirty-six a.m. On the way, she said, “Don’t let this boy get in the way of your schoolwork.”
“I’m going to meet him to do homework, Mom.”
“Okay, just make sure you get work done.”
“I get straight As, Mom!”
“I know.”
“Why can’t you trust me?”
“I do. But boys … love … they can make us make bad choices,” she said, and I could tell she was talking about herself, and this made me sad because I thought she was happy with Dad now, but I didn’t want to think about her being unhappy again, so I said, “Trevor and I, we’re soul mates,” and then I wish I didn’t say it. Why did I say that? Because it’s true and I wanted to say it out loud! And your mom should be the one person you can say things to!
“Carrie,” my mom said, calling me by the WRONG name, “you met him two weeks ago.”
“When you meet your soul mate, you know after two seconds! He asked me to be his girlfriend last night!”
“Just slow down.”
“I’m happy! You want me to slow down from being happy?”
“No, please don’t yell.… I just know feelings can change very fast at your age. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Trevor would never hurt me, and I would never hurt him!” I didn’t really know if Trevor would never hurt me. Maybe I did! But I would never, never, ever hurt him, I was one million percent sure, but I told my mom this because I needed her to shut up.
“Okay, okay,” my mom said, taking in deep breaths, strangling the steering wheel. She was upset. Why was she upset? She was not being supportive the first and only time I would ever fall in love! She kept talking. “Just know you can talk to me about anything. If anything ever comes up.”
“Why would I want to talk to you about Trevor if you are going to be so unsupportive, huh, Mom?”
“I’m not…” But she didn’t finish her sentence. She just drove. So I didn’t talk either. And then she stopped in front of Starbucks, and I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll find my own way home,” and I said it like a brat, but I didn’t care. I cared a little. But I didn’t apologize, I just went inside, and even though it was only eleven forty-four, Trevor was already there and he looked up, and he saw me and I saw him, and our eyes shot laser lights into each other and our bodies rose up off the ground and flew into each other’s arms, but obviously that didn’t really happen but maybe I ran toward him, or maybe he ran toward me, and I had the biggest smile ever and then we kissed and I wanted to scream, I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I AM GOING TO EXPLODE, but I didn’t say anything, I just sat down next to him at the table where he had already gotten me an iced tea, and took out my homework but as soon as I looked at it I knew it was so unimportant compared to Trevor and love and soul mates and being his GIRLFRIEND.
If I told my mom this, she would think she was right, but she was the opposite of right.
36
Trevor tries to watch a movie
Carolina and I kissed at Starbucks, but we didn’t really kiss. Not that that’s what I wanted to do. I did. But it wasn’t the only thing. I wanted to talk to her and be with her. And it was really hard being so close to her but not able to be even closer. We were like … LEGO pieces that couldn’t connect, but were meant to, and would soon, but just had to wait even though it was so obvious we should be put together. That’s a dumb metaphor. Sorry. I’m just trying to explain how much we wanted to be as close as we could be all the time.
At five, I walked her home even though it was two miles away. We didn’t mind. It meant more time to spend together, and it was nice to hold hands. When we got to her house, she invited me in. The house was dark; it didn’t have many windows and the curtains seemed to block the light even when they were open. All the furniture was older. Like it had been bought used. But it was clean, or at least vacuumed. Her dad had driven out to Northern Illinois University for his classes the next morning, but Carolina’s mom was on the couch watching television. Her hair was cut short, like a boy’s but wavy, and she was wearing pants that were too big for her and big brown glasses that might have been in style in the 1990s. She seemed really tired, like she hadn’t slept for weeks. Maybe years.
“Hi, Trevor,” she said, “I’m Mrs. Fisher.” She paused the TV and raised her hand without standing.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Fisher,” I said. Felt like a puppet. Wish I could say hello to adults with more originality.
“I’m going to show Trevor my room,” Carolina said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” her mom said. Carolina ignored her, grabbed my hand, and pulled me down a short hall.
As we walked out of the living room, I whispered, “Your mom is going to hate me.”
“No, she won’t. She’s just in a bad mood because my dad is gone for two days.”
“Are you sure?”
“She doesn’t understand how important you are,” Carolina said.
“My dad doesn’t understand how important you are to me,” I said. We both squeezed our hands tigh
ter as we entered her bedroom.
“This is my room,” she said, and she spun around in the center. It was small, about half the size of mine. It had pink carpet. On the wall were magazine pictures of girl and boy soccer players. Including David Beckham, who always made me feel ugly. Above her desk was a collage of photographs with Peggy and her that said BEST FRIENDS FOREVER. On the bed was a pink blanket and a rainbow of stuffed animals. There was one framed poster, of Stanford University, between her closet and the window.
Carolina closed the door behind us and kissed me. I kissed her back. I grabbed her. She grabbed me. And we acted like we were going to swallow each other. I couldn’t even think when we kissed. It was just so intense my brain turned off and my body took over.
There was a knock on the door, and we yanked ourselves apart. Both of us wiped our mouths dry, and Carolina opened the door. It was her mom. Of course.
She said, “Leave the door open,” turned around, and disappeared.
* * *
I walked home a little while later because when my dad was home we always had dinner at seven Sunday through Thursday. Carolina said her mom could drive me, but I didn’t want her to hate me any more than she already did.
We texted during my whole walk home so it felt like Carolina was still with me, even if only in my head.
* * *
That week at school, Carolina and I went everywhere together. We held hands. We kissed in the hall. We texted between classes. During lunch period, we spent half the time with her friends at the cafeteria table, then half the time in the hall, sitting on the floor, our sides pressed tightly against each other. She called me on Monday night, so I called her Tuesday night. Then we video chatted Wednesday, which was awesome but uncomfortable—so much pressure to look cool because we couldn’t touch each other; when we could touch each other we didn’t worry about looking cool—so we went back to texting Thursday night.
Forever for a Year Page 14
