The End of the Innocence

by Jason Zandri

  Matthew nodded in agreement, and the pair went inside to get their burgers.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Matthew rinsed his paintbrush and roller in the work sink in the basement next to the washer and dryer. Melissa giggled at all the paint in his hair.

  “I’m so glad you find this amusing,” he said and flicked the water-soaked brush at her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice full of laughter. “I only meant to tip a little on you when you came near the ladder, not the entire tray.”

  “I should make you wash it all out,” he said.

  Melissa stopped laughing.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” Matthew said, realizing how it sounded.

  “Like I’m going to bathe you and wash your hair,” she said.

  Matthew laughed.

  Mark and Diane made their way down the basement stairs with the rest of the reusable items. Mark stepped into the light and placed a few things in the deep sink.

  “You can wash all of that out and stand them along the inside edge of the sink,” Mark said as he placed the last of the rollers. “They’ll dry out overnight. Then you can wrap them in cellophane and maybe get another use or two out of them.”

  “Tomorrow night is Friday; can I stay here?” Matthew asked.

  Mark sighed. “Look I know you’re excited.”

  “What difference does it make if it’s this weekend or next? Sooner or later it’s going to be the first weekend. Why not this one?”

  Diane turned her head, and a grin lifted her cheeks.

  “Well, if you’re going to beat me with logic,” Mark said with a smile. “A couple of things.”

  “Sure,” Matthew said.

  “With regards to the rent; it’ll be four hundred a month, but until the summer, when I expect you’ll be in here full time, I’ll only charge you a hundred dollars since you’re only going to be in here on weekends.”

  “And overnights when there’s a day off from school,” Matthew said.

  “Don’t push it,” Mark said in a stern voice, and a light frown replaced his smile. “Additionally,” he said, softening his voice. “How is Mr. Epps dealing with this?”

  Matthew stared at his father with a blank look.

  “You haven’t mentioned the apartment. I would advise you, unless you want to lose that trust you’ve built with him, not to bring Donna here alone

  until she’s cleared it with her parents. If you want to watch TV, come back to the house. We’ll let you two get comfortable in the basement rec room and leave you to your privacy there.”

  “I understand, Dad,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Well, the opportunity here. You could rent it for six hundred to a stranger. Instead, you’re cutting me a break. I appreciate it.”

  “You’re worth a couple of hundred bucks a month, sport. Not three hundred … but two works,” Mark said with a smile.

  “Missy,” Diane said. “Did you ever find the emergency spare key that I left with Mom? I need to give it back.”

  “No, we never found it. You gave it to us six years ago, or whatever, and never needed it. I guess it’s just lost.” Melissa reached into the sink to clean more of the decorating stuff.

  Diane turned to Matthew. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “Eh … no big deal. My dad has a spare at home for the doors if I need them. If it’s lost, it’s lost; it can’t be used if it’s gone.”

  Diane smiled and nodded.

  Mark looked at his watch and turned to Matthew, “I’m going to head home with Diane; it’s a little after eight, and I want to shower up and rest in front of the TV before I go to bed.”

  “Okay, Dad, I can finish up here.”

  “Missy, can you help him clean up before you go back to Mom’s?” Diane asked.

  “Oh …” she said in a whimsical tone. “Then I have to walk that whole long way to next door to retire for the evening!”

  “In all seriousness,” Matthew said. “You’ve helped plenty today. If you have other things you want to do, I understand.”

  “Fine,” Melissa said, still in a silly voice. “Use a girl for her painting skills and kick her to the curb when you’re done with her. I see what kind of man you are.” Melissa let out an exaggerated huff and stomped away.

  Matthew looked over at Diane. “I think she breathed in paint fumes.”

  Diane laughed. “She’s overtired; she gets silly when she’s overtired.”

  “Yeah,” Matthew said smiling. “I know.”

  Mark and Diane turned and started to walk away.

  “Diane,” Matthew called out.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for leaving me all the furniture, pots and pans, and stuff. It saved me a lot of startup money.”

  “It’s no trouble; I’d rather have the things be used than have to store them all in your father’s basement.”

  “Our basement,” Mark said.

  “Our basement and likely remain unused until they were thrown out.”

  “I know, but I wanted to thank you just the same.”

  Diane nodded, then wrapped her arm around into Mark’s elbow, and the two of them headed up the cellar stairs.

  Matthew shook his head while he listened to Melissa goof around upstairs, and then he returned to cleaning out the paintbrushes and pans.

  ***

  Karen walked past Melissa’s bedroom and leaned in the doorway. “I have to work tomorrow, so I’m going to bed.”

  “At nine-thirty?” Melissa asked, turning to look at the time on her alarm clock.

  Karen shrugged and nodded.

  “Good night, Mom.” Melissa watched her mother walk from the doorway.

  She didn’t move until she heard her bedroom door click shut. Melissa stared at the wall, which separated her bedroom with Diane’s old room in the apartment that now belonged to Matthew.

  She opened her desk drawer, lifted the contents out, and removed the tray along the bottom. From under the tray, she took a key and headed out of her room. In the front living room, she paused to look outside. Matthew’s van wasn’t parked out front. Melissa turned and headed to the back door of the apartment, then opened it quietly and stepped outside onto the cement platform. The frigid January wind blew at her nightgown, and her body responded to the cold. She walked over to Matthew’s door and unlocked it with the spare key.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Melissa walked into the diner and looked around. Carrie stood in a booth and waved her over.

  “Can you believe it?” Alecia said. “Mid-terms are done, and here we are, a couple of weeks later, kicking off February vacation.”

  “I know,” Melissa said while she shrugged out of her heavy winter coat and hung it up. “Spring break, prom, senior skip day, finals, graduation …

  it’s coming so fast.”

  “So.” Carrie looked at Melissa. “You were looking to apply to a few colleges out west …”

  “Yeah. Sort of a pipe dream for me,” she said in a flat voice. “I always wanted to go out west and see that part of the country. Heck, I always wanted to see any part of the country; we never went on a vacation out of state. The most we’ve ever done was go to the shore for a few days. It’s all we could afford. For those same reasons, unless I can get enough from student loans, I’ll likely be going to Southern or UCONN.”

  Alecia nodded and glanced at Carrie, but neither responded. Melissa looked over at the two of them. Melissa stared at her menu and said, “I know you’re both going to go wherever you’re accepted; your families are better off than mine and can either afford the costs outright, or you’ll have a better chance at getting and paying the loans. It’s okay.”

  The waitress came over, took their orders, and then stepped away.

  Carrie changed the subject, “So, what have you decided to do regarding Matthew?”

  “I don’t know,” Melissa said. “I’m so confused. If I wait to say anything, I might not get my chance. If I
try to get in the middle of things, that might not work out so well either.”

  “You know,” Alecia said. “You weren’t too happy when Chris skipped out on you for Jenny. She drove a wedge between the two of you to get him.

  It worked and, quite frankly, you’re better off without him; he’s a jerk. That being said, she got what she wanted. None of us talk to her anymore because of that move, but we weren’t likely to talk to her after senior year anyway.”

  “What are you saying?” Carrie asked.

  Melissa looked over at Alecia, who paused while the waitress set their drinks down and walked away.

  “Are you prepared to have Donna and, likely, Marie not talk to you anymore if you do this?” Alecia said.

  “I guess I hadn’t thought about it.” Melissa chewed her lip. “I mean, I barely interact with Marie unless she’s around with Donna, which honestly, is less now that Matthew and Donna are dating. I see her when all of us get together as a group, and I doubt we’re going to do many beach runs this upcoming summer. I see her a little at the cross-town games if she goes. I guess Donna is the bigger issue. I think I’d feel guiltier. I’ve gotten to know her lately because of my time interacting with her with Matthew. She’s nice.”

  “So, basically, you’re saying if you do something underhanded to get Matthew away from her, she doesn’t deserve it,” Carrie said.

  “No, she wouldn’t,” Melissa said quietly. “That’s my struggle. Do I try to wait for what is truly ‘my chance’ or do I take aggressive action?”

  “Being honest here,” Carrie said. “You’ve had chances and let them slip by. There’s a lot less justification for you to do something underhanded now, simply because of that.”

  “I know.” Melissa nodded. “I’ll most probably not do anything. I’ll just live to regret it, I guess. And I’ve judged Chris for cheating with me on Jenny, and then ending up with her. If I do that, and Matthew goes along with it, that makes him no better or different. If he’s willing to do that with me, then if another opportunity came along, he might be just as willing to do that to me.”

  “It seems like that might already be the case; Liz is in play. Maybe Matthew isn’t as noble as you make him out to be,” Carrie said. “I mean, I like him, he’s nice, polite, and seems like a gentleman on the surface—”

  “What? What do you mean, Liz is in play?” Melissa said in a raised voice.

  Alecia moved forward, leaned on the table, and lowered her voice.

  “Janice Priestly, Marie’s friend, knows Robert, the guy that lives up the street from me. Well, they were all together for a party at Tyler Mill, as cold as it’s been, and Janice said that Liz has been ‘un-Liz-like,’ as he put it. She basically went off the social radar a little after Homecoming and into Christmas. Then I guess around that time, Matthew was over at her house.”

  “What?” Melissa asked.

  Carrie nodded while Alecia said, “His red van is conspicuous; it was right out front of her house.”

  “Matthew and I talk about everything; even hard-to-talk-about stuff. He never mentioned going over there,” Melissa said. “Maybe it was a short stop for something?”

  “His van was there for a long while. Janice went out on a date; she left her

  place, drove by, and saw his van. When she got home, after the movie and something to eat, it was still there. That has to be what, three to four hours?”

  Carrie said.

  “Well, after that and the start of the new year, Liz was back to being pushy, demanding, and bitchy Liz; until a couple of weeks ago,” Alecia said.

  “What happened a couple of weeks ago?” Melissa asked.

  “Right after mid-terms, Liz went back into subdued mode. And Matthew was seen at the house again. Something is going on there,” Alecia said.

  Carrie leaned in. “Do you think Donna knows?”

  “I doubt it. Because of the history and all the tension—most of which Liz created—they don’t talk much anymore. Donna and Marie went their way, and Liz went the other. I can’t believe Donna would be good with Matthew even making a friendly stop over there, especially without her knowing about it.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Alecia asked.

  “I don’t know.” Melissa twirled her drink from side to side. “I’ll have to figure something out. Before I consider anything of a personal nature for myself, I need to try to figure out what’s going on.”

  “What will you do?” Carrie asked.

  “I’ll have to get some time alone with Matthew. Maybe at his place or after work.”

  “His place,” Alecia said with a grin. “Careful where that might lead.”

  “Ha, ha; we just talked about that,” Melissa said with a frown. “I don’t want to go there, in general, I guess. I don’t want ever to know.”

  “Know what?” Carrie asked.

  “That I could cheat with someone; knowing they were with someone else, and willfully do something that I know I shouldn’t. I like to believe I’m a better person than that and wouldn’t do something like that. I also wouldn’t want to know that I could steal someone away from their partner. That the person I thought was everything, was actually less than that.”

  The girls said nothing further to one another. Shortly after, the waitress arrived with their food.

  ***

  When Melissa heard the brakes on the van squeal as Matthew brought it to a stop, she turned toward her bedroom window, and then looked over at her alarm clock and straightened out her long pull over t-shirt. She glanced at her clothes from the day and debated changing back into them.

  His van door closed, and Melissa hustled over to the window. She opened it and called out to him while the cold winter air hit her skin. “Matthew? Are you in or out for the evening?”

  “In; Donna has an early day tomorrow.” He held a medium-sized brown grocery bag.

  “Can I stop over? It’s been a while since just the two of us had a chance to chat.”

  Matthew looked into his bag and then over to her.

  Melissa held his gaze while he stared at her. A charge washed over her the longer he looked. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “It’s perfect,” he said, smiling. “Come on over.”

  “Let me change first,” she said.

  “Come over like that, it’s fine,” he said with a grin. “I’ll go through to the back and open up the kitchen door.”

  Melissa nodded, nervous all of a sudden. Unsure what to make of his comments, she pulled her head back inside and closed the window. Over her long shirt, she touched herself lightly. No bra, so she looked around for one.

  Then she stopped and, instead, looked around for sweat pants because, other than the shirt, she didn’t have on anything else besides panties.

  The light shone on her long dress mirror, and Melissa walked toward it, then reached over for the hairbrush on her desk. She spent several minutes combing out her hair. Once she finished fixing it, she went to her closet, pulled out a long winter jacket, and put it on.

  In a matter of minutes, she stood at Matthew’s backdoor, which he’d left ajar. She opened the storm door and pushed open the wooden door.

  “Matthew?” she called out, stepping into his kitchen.

  “I’m in here,” Matthew said from the living room.

  A faint, flickering of light came from that direction. Melissa closed the door behind her and stepped through the kitchen.

  She found Matthew on the couch. Several lit candles sat on the coffee table, and the grocery bag he’d carried now lay tipped over next to them. She looked away when he stood up in only his boxer briefs.

  “I’m sorry,” she said and turned back toward the kitchen. “I didn’t know

  …”

  “Know what? That I wanted you? That I’ve been waiting for the day to get you alone so I could touch you?” Matthew came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her body, and parted her coat open. Then, he peeled the long

  jacket off her.

/>   “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to make presumptions or to lead you on.”

  “Didn’t you?” He brought his arms and hands back around her, touched her stomach, and then went lower. “You lean out the window on an incredibly cold night with a flimsy long t-shirt on—one I can see right through and down into when you’re bent over like you were in the window.”

  Matthew stepped forward and into her. She gasped as she could feel everything through the little clothing they wore, which was thin and revealing.

  “You come over with your hair all straightened out, and you didn’t change.” He brought a hand up, moved her hair away from her neck, and kissed it lightly. “You have no bra on, and almost nothing separating your body from mine.” His hot breath spilled over her shoulder. He leaned into her more to punctuate his statement. “And that was exactly what you wanted.

  Exactly what you hoped for tonight.”

  Melissa spun around and kissed him passionately. Matthew pulled her into him hard, and she let out a moan. She took her hands and grabbed both sides of his face while she kissed him, and he responded by holding her tighter with one hand while moving the other down, across her breasts, and over her stomach.

  Melissa broke her kiss and let her breath out in a pant when his hand went over her panties and down into them.

  Her knees became weak, and Matthew lowered her down to the carpet then lay on top of her.

  “Melissa,” he said into her ear as he bore down on her.

  “Yes.” She gasped for air.

  “Melissa.” His warm breath kissed her neck.

  Melissa couldn’t respond.

  “Melissa!” Karen called out sharply.

  Melissa awoke, startled, and looked up.

  “You fell asleep on the couch,” her mother said, heading out of the room.

  “Shut down the television and go to bed.”

  “Okay,” Melissa called back, still disoriented.

  Once her mother left the room, she sat up.

  “I don’t even want to ask you what you were dreaming about,” Karen said, popping her head around the corner with the smallest grin.