DREAMS of 18

by A. Kent, Saffron

  “You don’t know,” he concludes finally, whatever he was trying to conclude. “Yeah, it makes sense. It’s the highway all over again. You don’t notice anything. How could you? You with your giant headphones and your nose stuck in a book. You’d sit under that tree, the one by the chemistry lab window and you’d write whatever the fuck you write in those goddamn journals. Of course, you don’t have a clue.”

  “What?”

  He shakes his head and scoffs. “Tell me something. In a class, how many times has a teacher singled you out to answer a question?”

  That is a very weird, out-of-the-blue query. I was not expecting it at all. On top of that, there’s another concern.

  How does he know this about me? About the tree and the journal and…

  I swallow when I see that he’s impatiently waiting for my answer so I reply, “I… um, I don’t know. Almost every day, I think.”

  “Every day.”

  “Almost. And that’s because teachers liked to pick on me in school. They thought I wasn’t paying attention in class.”

  Which is the truth.

  Students would ignore me, which was fine by me. But I was somehow really visible to the teachers. I think it was because I’d stare out the window or doodle in my journal while they were teaching us important life lessons or something.

  “And how many of those teachers who picked on you were men?”

  This is getting weirder by the second. But still, I indulge him. “I don’t know, most of them?”

  “How about all of them?”

  “Um, okay. So all of them. What does that matter? Men are assholes and they like to show it off.”

  “Fuck yeah, men are assholes.”

  “What’s happening? What are we even talking about?”

  His jaw goes really hard at this. So hard and tense that it makes me think that he’ll never utter another word. He’ll never tell me what’s going on and what he’s trying to get at.

  But then, he goes and says, “We’re talking about how blind you are. How you have no idea what men think and why they do the things they do.”

  When I still appear somewhat confused to him, he goes on, “Let me explain it to you, all right? Because I’m pretty sure your boozed-up mommy never explained anything to you. They single you out not because they want to pick on you, it’s because they want you to look at them. They want your attention. They want your big, brown, innocent eyes on them. They want to hear your voice. They want to look at your pretty, schoolgirl face. They want to look at your hair, your milky white skin and they want to imagine things.”

  “Imagine th-things?”

  That’s the only thing that I could think of to say and still remember to breathe.

  “Fuck yeah, imagine things. When they ask you to talk, they want to stare at your lollipop-sucking lips and imagine what else you can suck on. When they ask you to stand up, they want to stare at your teenage body and imagine how they can put their hands on it. Can they pass you by in the hallway and walk a little closer so they accidentally brush against your arm? Can they pat your back when you leave the class and feel the delicate lines of your shoulders? Can they ask you to fucking bend over and help with the papers they let slip on the floor on purpose so they can stare at your tight ass?”

  I can’t seem to catch my breath.

  I can’t.

  I can’t seem to form a single coherent thought. So again, I come up with something completely stupid and inane. “I-I don’t… I don’t think that’s true.”

  Only, all those things kinda did happen.

  I mean, not everything but some of the things. The patting, the brushing of arms. But I didn’t think they meant anything.

  He runs a savage hand through his hair. “Do they stop you after class? Do they tell you they want to help you with your grades? That they have a special project for you?”

  My nails dig into my calves as I try to think, which is proving to be impossible right now. But I still do it.

  “A few times. But I never… I never did them,” I whisper, thinking about how Mr. Gunderson, our math teacher, would tell me that he had ideas for extra credit since I was failing that class.

  Is that what he meant?

  “Yeah, that’s because somewhere deep down in your naïve little brain you knew what they wanted from you. That the special project they want you to do has nothing to do with books and papers and everything to do with how fast they can get you to do things to them. How fast can they get you to sit on their desk and spread your legs, while they try to catch a peek of what’s between your thighs. And how fast they can get you to sit on their laps so they can rub up against that ass they can’t stop thinking about.”

  Every nerve ending in my body is standing taut and feels raw and exposed. His words are like the air, brushing against the very tips of them, making me all hot and bothered.

  On the verge of melting away.

  But before I go, before I become a puddle on his couch, I ask, “Are you saying that I’m… visible?”

  “No, Violet, I’m not saying that you’re visible. I’m saying that you’re the only thing that a man sees. I’m saying that you’re a thing that drives a man to distraction. You make him forget what’s right and what’s wrong. You’re a thing so terrible and beautiful and fucking breathtaking that he can’t escape you. He can’t think of anything else, not about his job, his responsibilities, his promises, his family, nothing but you. You undo him. You make him helpless. You turn him into an animal who wants to rut. You’re a girl who makes a man go bad.”

  ***

  I walk to my room or rather the room I’m currently occupying in a daze. He’s already gone to his. He left right after he said those things to me.

  Those things that are running in my veins instead of blood and life.

  I’m so charged up with them, his words, that when I lie down on the bed, the sheets and the blankets scrape against my skin.

  They scratch and scrape so much that I have to writhe and toss and turn in the bed.

  I have to rock my hips and press my thighs together. I have to creep my hand down. I have to get it inside my panties and cup my naked core because it’s aching now.

  And I have to do all of that with his words in my ears. With his face behind my closed eyelids.

  I imagine him doing all those things to me, the things he talked about.

  I imagine him stopping me in the school hallway and asking me to bend over and I do it. I do it with all the eagerness. Then, I imagine him calling me into his office and shutting the door.

  He tells me to take a seat and I do. I sit in the chair and he stares at me from across his desk. He’s frowning, rubbing his thumb over his beard, unhappily.

  I ask him what’s wrong, Mr. Edwards?

  And he growls, get over here.

  I go over there and he motions toward the desk. I look at him all confused and he gets impatient and angry.

  He snaps, sit the fuck down.

  I obey.

  And then, he puts his hands on me. He grabs my thighs, the juicy part, the part high up, so close to my pussy that I’m touching right now.

  He spreads my legs and my spine arches up.

  He keeps his face lowered but lifts his eyes up to me and says, You don’t pay attention in class, do you? You think you’re special, Violet? Better than the rest of the students?

  “No, Mr. Edwards,” I whisper out loud, in the real world as my fingers work my slippery clit.

  I think you do. And I think I’ll teach you how to behave. And you’ll thank me for it, won’t you?

  In the real world, my back bows at his stern tone and I get super close to coming. “I will, yes.”

  What will you say?

  I think about it. Again, in the real world. I think about it as I move my hips and play with my pussy. I think about what to say to him for all the things he said to me, back on the couch. All the things about how beautiful I am. />
  How visible and breathtaking.

  You make a man go bad…

  Just as I reach that line of his whole spectacular speech, I come and I know what to say to him. To my fantasy Mr. Edwards and the one who called me beautiful tonight.

  “Thank you, Mr. Edwards.”

  He called me beautiful.

  Beautiful.

  Me?

  No, actually he called me beyond beautiful. He said that I have the power to distract a man, make him forget things. Things that are important to him.

  I feel like a butterfly this morning. Pretty and beautiful. Made and metamorphosized just by his words.

  Made into a dreamer, even.

  Because I dreamed about him last night. Not only that, I played with myself. Something that I hadn’t done in months.

  Oh God, it was so good though. So good to come like that, come on his sheets and I’m still riding the high of it that I don’t even feel embarrassed about it.

  Not at all.

  Maybe once I wake up and see him, I’ll be shy but not right now.

  Right now, I wanna dream more and I would if not for the horrible ringing of the phone.

  Jesus Christ, who’s calling me?

  I’m not even sure what time it is as I fumble around the bed, looking for my stupid phone. Keeping my eyes shut, I hit accept; I get it right on my third try and mumble, “Hello?”

  The voice on the other side makes me pop my eyes open. Not only that, it makes me spring up on the bed and pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.

  Because the voice belongs to my best friend.

  It belongs to Brian.

  Oh my God.

  “Brian?”

  “Hey, yeah. Did I… Did I wake you?”

  Oh my God, I’m hearing my best friend’s voice after ten long months. “I… Yes, you did. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t…”

  I’m trying to breathe. I’m trying to calm my heartbeats. I can’t believe what’s happening. I even take the phone away from my ear to read the display and it does say Brian.

  “Vi?”

  I put the phone back on my ear and clutch it with both hands. “You’re calling me.”

  I hear a rush of breath and it makes me almost double over with nostalgia. It means he’s either smiling or shaking his head while smiling.

  “Yeah. I am,” he says.

  “How are you calling me?”

  I think the last thing he said to me was two days after the kiss, after multiple attempts of me trying to talk to him: Please, Vi. Just leave me alone, okay? Stop calling me. Stop coming over to my house.

  That’s all.

  That’s all he said to me before he went away and never said anything up until today.

  He sighs then. “I, uh, I should’ve called way earlier than this.”

  He sounds guilty. He sounds as if it’s his fault that he didn’t call, that he didn’t want to talk to me. When I was the one responsible for everything.

  “Brian, it’s… okay. It’s okay. I know why you didn’t call. I know why you never picked up my calls, either. I know. I fucked up and –”

  “Vi, stop. Stop, okay? Just stop.”

  I do. I go silent.

  He’s breathing hard; I can hear it. He’s preparing to say something and I can only hope that I can bear it.

  God, please let me bear it.

  “Vi, I’m sorry.”

  He tells me that and I think I’ve heard it wrong.

  I think I’m hearing things.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, Vi. I’m so fucking sorry.” His voice sounds clear and low, as if he somehow moved closer to the mouthpiece and wanted me to hear it clearly.

  “For what?”

  “Fiona,” he replies and I clench my eyes shut.

  Up until he said it, I didn’t realize how much it had hurt me. How betrayed I’d felt when I found out. Brian always used to jump to my defense whenever Fiona would say something cutting to me. He used to be my champion, but overnight everything changed.

  But then again, it’s not as if I’m very innocent in all of this. I pushed him toward her.

  “You don’t have to apologize. I know why you did it. I hurt you and betrayed you, Brian, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for all of that.”

  “God, no, Vi. Listen, I’ve been a punk, all right? I’ve been a fucking asshole to you. I got so mad and Jesus, I acted out in the worst possible way. But I broke up with her. I broke up with Fiona. Not that it changes anything but yeah.”

  “You broke up with her?”

  “Yeah. It was long overdue. I was with her for all the wrong reasons.”

  I can’t deny the ease that spreads through me at this. “I’m sorry. Did she take it okay?”

  “Nah. She was shrieking. I cut the call in the middle of it.”

  Despite everything, I chuckle. “Oh my God, she’s not gonna like that.”

  “Yeah, I’ll pay for that later.”

  I chuckle again.

  He’s right. Fiona is spending her summer in Paris this year and yeah, he’s gonna pay for it when she gets back.

  A few moments later, he says, “I wanted to call you, Vi. I’ve been wanting to contact you for ages now but I didn’t know what to say after the way I behaved. I didn’t know if you wanted to talk to me or what. And when my dad asked me to call you, I freaked out on him too. And I’ve already been acting like such an asshole to him –”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I stop him, all kinds of confused.

  We’re both breathing hard now and even though I don’t want to, I still take a few seconds to calm down before launching into questions.

  “Your dad asked you to call me?”

  I hear him swallow. “Yeah, he did. He said I was punishing you and that I shouldn’t.”

  “When was that?”

  “About a week ago.”

  As soon as he says it, I know. I know exactly when. It was the day I came over to ask him to quit drinking. It was the day I cried in front of him and it felt like I shouldn’t have.

  Because it felt like he couldn’t see that.

  He couldn’t see me cry and this is what he did. He called up his son and told him to talk to me. To not punish me anymore.

  Gosh.

  I feel a tear roll down my cheek, hot and thick. “He never told me.”

  He never said anything. Not one thing.

  Why didn’t he say anything?

  Why didn’t he tell me after he did the nicest thing anyone’d ever done for me? A thing that I never even dreamed of someone doing for me. Let alone a man who hates me.

  He does, doesn’t he?

  Why am I getting more and more convinced that he doesn’t?

  “Do you guys… talk?”

  Brian’s question brings me out of my thoughts, and I fist the sheet covering my body. I fist it so hard that I’m almost sure I’m this close to tearing it apart.

  “Yeah.” I scrunch my eyes shut. “Brian, I… I looked you up on Facebook and I saw your posts about traveling and not going home this summer and I… I came to Colorado. I came to see your dad, Bri. I’m here.”

  Although, his dad is not. Today was supposed to be his first day of summer camp and from the looks of it, he’s already left while I was sleeping.

  How strange that I could never sleep back in Connecticut but here I don’t realize what’s happening around me while my eyes are closed.

  “Do you know where I am right now?” he asks, breaking the tense silence.

  I swallow. “Yeah. California.”

  He chuckles.

  Although there’s no happiness in it. It sounds broken and I feel so guilty for doing this to him again.

  Why do I keep hurting him?

  “Bri, I’m sorry. I came to apologize to your dad. I swear to you. There’s nothing between your dad and me. I –”

  “You knew where I was but instead, you wen
t to him.”

  “What?”

  I don’t understand what he means. I really don’t and before I can ask him, he speaks. “I like you, Vi.”

  I still don’t understand and maybe my silence alerts him of that because he explains, “I wanted to ask you out that night. On the night of your birthday.”

  “You wanted to ask me out?” I ask in a squeaky voice.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  He wanted to ask me out.

  Like, on a date?

  “You mean, on a date?” I ask him, out loud.

  “Yeah. On a date.”

  “But… How’s that…” I lick my lips. “How’s that possible? I thought you were always dating someone and… I… We were… We were friends.”

  “Yeah, we were. But I wanted more. I wanted to ask you out a million times but I never had the courage. You were always so busy in your own world and… When I saw you with my dad, I fucking lost it.” He sighs. “I just wanted you to see me, you know.”

  He wanted me to see him. See him.

  God, isn’t that what I used to think myself? Despite all my avoidance of him, I used to think that I wanted Mr. Edwards to see me.

  And Brian, his son, wanted the same thing from me?

  He wanted me to see him the way I wanted his dad to see me.

  Oh God.

  God.

  All the while I was waiting for his dad to see me, he was waiting for me to see him?

  I think I’m gonna… I think I’m gonna throw up.

  “I didn’t… I had no… idea.”

  He chuckles again but it’s rueful this time. “I know. I know that.”

  I press a hand to my chest, trying to smother the pain in there.

  “Brian, I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey, it’s okay. Believe me, it is,” he tries to calm me down.

  “It is?” I ask in a tear-thickened voice.

  “I don’t feel that way about you anymore, Vi.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope. I don’t, sorry. I think it was the whole moving away thing, you know. You were going somewhere else and I was going somewhere else and I just felt… sad about that, I think.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, trust me. I’m over it. I’m not in the same place.”