Very Lefreak

by Rachel Cohn

  “What was that?” Lavinia asked her.

  “What was what?” Very said.

  “You. Being so hostile to me. Then turning around to make out with some guy. Just to prove how hot you are, I’m sure. We know, Very. You don’t need to pull that act.”

  “Are you jealous?” Very asked.

  “As if,” Lavinia said.

  “How come you never told me you were gay?” Very accused.

  “Because you always assumed it to be so!” Lavinia said, her voice rising.

  “How long have you known?” Very asked.

  “I’ve always known,” Lavinia said. “I just didn’t fully accept that about myself, or feel ready to get out there, till recently.”

  “You’re on a date, aren’t you?”

  “People our age don’t date, Very. It’s casual. It’s hanging out. It’s—Wait a minute, why am I defending myself to you? Why do you care? Why can’t you just be happy for me, especially since you were caught up in a gross display of affection with some dude in there?”

  “He’s nothing!” Very exclaimed.

  Very didn’t understand this angry energy erupting so violently from her heart. Because really, Lavinia had a point. Why did Very care so much about Lavinia being out on a not-really date?

  “If he’s nothing,” Lavinia said, once again matching Very’s belligerent tone, “why were you doing something like that in there with him?”

  “I don’t think you should date that Annie,” Very deflected.

  “I don’t think you should make out with some guy just to prove how hot you are. This isn’t about me.”

  “It is about you!” Very said, and suddenly she lurched forward, pressing Lavinia against the brick alley wall. She didn’t know what the hell she was doing, but her lips had to touch Lavinia’s. She leaned in to meet Lavinia, and their mouths joined for a kiss that was angry, and surprised, and gorgeous, until Lavinia shoved Very off.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Lavinia said. “I can taste him on you.”

  Very didn’t care. It was like an out-of-body experience, this need for her lips to touch Lavinia’s. She couldn’t be held accountable. She leaned in again, this time more tenderly, her lips softly touching Lavinia’s, as her hands reached around to trace into the outline of Lavinia’s back. And this time, Lavinia dropped her guard, and not only let the kiss happen, but encouraged it, let it go deeper, and longer, reaching her hand around Very’s neck to pull Very closer to her.

  Very had been privy to more than her share of romantic kisses, but this kiss, now, with Lavinia, this kiss she knew to be different from all those past nothings. This kiss felt like the only one that had ever mattered.

  But, then, Lavinia turned her head to stop the kiss. She softly pushed Very’s body away, keeping it from pressing into hers. Still, Very kept Lavinia trapped in place, extending her arms on either side of Lavinia’s shoulders to the wall behind her.

  “What?” Very whispered.

  “I can’t do this,” Lavinia said.

  “Are you scared because I’m a girl and now it’s real?” Very ventured.

  “No. I’m scared to care about someone so determined to hurt herself.” Lavinia wriggled herself out from under Very’s arms and ran away, back inside the coffeehouse.

  But I’m changing, Very thought. Or trying to. Lavinia didn’t even give me a chance to explain.

  Not that Very really could have explained, had Lavinia given her the chance. Very didn’t understand what had just happened. She had no idea what had taken over her. She’d only known that she had to kiss Lavinia, and right away, before that Monster got any closer to Lavinia. And without a doubt, Very knew that the kiss she’d shared with Lavinia was the most meaningful one she’d ever experienced. Ever ever ever. It was for sure the best kiss in the whole history of Reintegration Night, and possibly the best Most Unexpected Kiss in the history of the entire world. Never, ever had there been a more beautiful girl to share it with than Lavinia.

  But Very also knew she couldn’t put herself through it all again: the hope, followed by the rejection.

  Fuckfuckfuckfuck, Very realized, as tears welled in her eyes. This was not fantasy. This was love.

  CHAPTER 34

  Very had to come clean to Keisha. Not about Lavinia—that situation was too much to even start dealing with on her next-to-last day before leaving ESCAPE, and obviously that whole thing was doomed and headed only toward epic disaster if Very tried to pursue it further. She had to tell Keisha about El Virus / Vikram.

  Since he was a footnote, Very gave Keisha only the generalized, one-sided Wikipedia account, about their online meeting and subsequent message exchange, and about finding one another here at ESCAPE, now. Very didn’t bother with any of the details that would have required CliffsNotes analysis. Keisha didn’t need to know about the boob pictures, or the erotic-vampire story exchanges, or, most especially, about the pathetic neediness that had fueled Very LeFreak’s online relationship with El Virus.

  “Why do you think you neglected to mention this before our last session together?” Keisha asked Very. Vikram had never been Keisha’s patient, so their discussion was free of that conflict.

  “You tell me, please. I’m tired.”

  “You’re not tired. If anything, I think you’re more invigorated than ever.”

  “I’m not. I’m lazy. Incapable. I’ll probably self-destruct immediately when I return to the outside.”

  “Do you really have so little faith in yourself?” Keisha asked. When Very didn’t respond, Keisha kindly didn’t answer her own question with another question again. Instead, she told Very, “I have faith in you. That you’ve come clean about this experience, even at this late stage, shows me you really do want to learn and grow and move on.”

  “But what if I don’t?” Very asked. “Vikram’s pretty damn cute. I’d maybe just rather, you know, wait for him to break out of here again and just be with him and, like, live off his application-development profits. He’s got a lot of money socked away! Being with him could make the whole transition so much easier.”

  “Really? Have you asked yourself whether Vikram really wants to change and do better, as you seem to be asking of yourself?”

  “Rich people don’t have to do better,” Very pronounced. “It all gets taken care of for them.”

  “I doubt that,” Keisha said. “Vikram’s been here four times now. Have his problems gone away because his parents can afford to keep sending him here, or have they gotten worse, because he seems to use money to buy temporary solutions that only sabotage his long-term prospects? Just because a person can pay rent or his student loans or not worry about the next paycheck doesn’t make him immune to problems.”

  “It should,” Very said. Then she added, “I might just leave today instead of wait for tomorrow. I’m done here.”

  “Where will you go? I thought your aunt was arriving tomorrow to attend your graduation and to take you back to New Haven with her.”

  “I’ll make sure someone calls her to tell her not to come. If I’m all empowered and shit, I think I ought to leave right away. Before Vikram tempts me any more. I’m in the danger zone, Keisha. I totally want to be really naughty with Vikram. Really naughty.”

  “How naughty?”

  “Depraved naughty. Sex and machines and tuning out the world and just being together with our stuff and our orgasms, probably. I want to run away with him. But if I leave now, ahead of schedule, I’ll save us both from that temptation. I’ll hitchhike my way out and not look back.”

  “Safety concerns of hitchhiking aside for the moment, you don’t think you can survive the Vikram temptation even one more day?”

  Very shrugged. “No.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “No.”

  “Then stay for me,” Keisha proposed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, you’ve worked so hard and come so far. It will be my honor to watch you graduate tomorrow. Please do not depr
ive me and your aunt of that. I feel confident this temptation you think you feel is just anxiety about leaving.”

  The anxiety, Very knew, had nothing to do with leaving, and everything to do with Lavinia. But that unexpected situation had to be hopeless. It had been a crazy moment, that was all. Even if Very did entertain the notion that she possibly had deeper feelings for Lavinia than she’d realized, the reality was that no way would someone as together as Lavinia ever want a girl as fucked-up as Very. Right?

  Keisha added, “And even if you think you want to run away with Vikram, at least for pragmatism’s sake, wait another day. If you ever hope to be readmitted to Columbia, you’ll need to show that you officially graduated from this program. Ride out the anxiety if only to get that graduation certificate.”

  “Okay.” Very sighed. “I’ll stay another day.” Even though every basic instinct in me right now wants to prove how fucked-up I am. Where the hell is that box? I want to force it wide open. “But I’m going to lock myself in my room as soon as I leave your office, and no goodbye campfire parties tonight, or final crafts projects on Jones’s porch tomorrow morning. I’m staying away from temptation. At least until tomorrow.”

  “Good girl,” Keisha said.

  Very returned to her cabin. She was going to shutter herself inside so she could stay true to her vow to Keisha. If she could make it through the next twenty-four hours without succumbing to what she knew she wanted to do—bolt—maybe she’d be all right after all. Pandora’s box would stay shut this time. Should stay shut.

  Alone on her bed, bouncing on it in great agitation, Very decided to pack her belongings. That activity hardly took up any time. Next, she opened up the frame of the 12 Steps needlepoint that hung over the desk in her cabin. She took a Sharpie pen from the desk drawer and inserted the word “fuck” into the needlepoint at amusing places.

  Step 2—Came to believe that a fucking Power greater than fucking ourselves could restore us to sanity.

  Step 10—Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Sorry, mothuhfuckah. I was wrong, yo.

  Stay busy, stay busy. Stay out of trouble, for only one more day.

  She could do it.

  Very skipped dinner, wanting to steer clear of any temptation she might find in the dining hall, in the form of Vikram. She bolted her cabin door before going to bed, as a final defense against him. She willed herself to sleep at eight that evening.

  But Vikram just had to pry that box open.

  At eight-thirty, the smell of freshly baked cookies coming from her half-open cabin window awoke her. Very looked out the window. Dammit! Vikram stood outside, holding out a plate of cookies to her.

  “Go away!” Very said. “Please?”

  “You missed dinner. I thought you might be hungry,” he said.

  That just proved it. Vikram was a provider. A goodfella.

  She opened her window all the way to let him in. So what about that stupid box? For cookies, she’d sell out her own soul.

  Vikram stepped inside the window and passed her the plate of cookies. “They’re the vegan cookies. Sorry. But they’re still pretty tasty. My last batch at ESCAPE, I guess.”

  “What do you mean?” Very asked, biting into a dark-chocolate munch of delicious.

  “I’m kicked out. For good. Jones reported me for leaving the grounds on Reintegration Night. And for fraternizing. Interestingly, he didn’t report that I’d fraternized with you. Just that I had engaged in behavior that showed I wasn’t serious about the program. Again.”

  “So what will you do now?” Very asked.

  “My parents are arriving tomorrow morning. But I can’t deal with that scene one more time. All the crying and screaming and blah blah blah. I’m hitching a ride out tonight.”

  “How?”

  “There’s a boat coming to pick me up at our secret-cove spot.” Vikram took the iPhone from underneath the elastic band of his shorts and waved it in the air. “I arranged it this afternoon. Just came here to tell you goodbye. We’ll find each other again, on the outside, later. Right? We have to. We’re kind of the same person. You’re like the female version of me. Don’t you think?”

  “I guess,” Very said. She didn’t think she liked the idea of a male version of her. She didn’t think she wanted to be the female version of anyone but herself.

  Very felt bad for Vikram. He looked so defeated. Should she go down on him, to make him feel better? And make herself feel … more like herself?

  Vikram sat down on her bed and made himself comfortable. He patted the empty space next to him, inviting her in for a cuddle.

  Danger. Danger.

  Fuck it.

  Very lay down on the bed and skipped over the cuddle, grinding her body directly into his as her mouth found his for some serious hard-core tongue-and-mouth action.

  They had to consummate this already, before it was too late. As a final goodbye. Very would do anything not to let her mind indulge the fantasy she really wanted.

  But what Very really wanted refused to be held at bay. Very couldn’t get the picture of Lavinia out of her head as her mouth kissed Vikram. His kiss felt haunted, and wrong. It was giving her a headache.

  Very removed her hand from the equatorial point on his body that it had reached and pushed Vikram away from her. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Fuck!” Vikram said, breathing heavily. “You’re torturing me with this hot-cold act. What the hell do you want?” He beat his head into the pillow on her bed.

  “I don’t know!” Very said.

  Vikram jumped out of bed, shaking with anger. “Well, figure it the fuck out!” He tried to storm out of her door, but it was bolted shut, and that was just awkward, so he retreated back out the window, and was gone.

  Go back to sleep, Very, she told herself. That never happened. You’re almost there.

  Vikram returned, however, soon enough. Calmed down, and at her window once again. Through it, he whispered, “Hey. You. So I’ve given it some thought. Since it seems the only way to get you is to marry you, why don’t we just elope? You, me, leave together, tonight? The boat’s coming in twenty minutes. Are you in? Adventure awaits. All you have to do is say yes.”

  Welcome back, Pandora! It’s official now!

  The world outside, it really was too much. What Very truly wanted she’d never have. Very needed someone to provide the path for her. Do the work for her. Vikram was nutty, but fun, and he’d get the job done. At least in the short term. She’d worry about the long term later. The sex would probably be all right. The adventure would be awesome and perhaps terrifying, but she’d worry about that later, too.

  “Will you do the cooking?” Very asked. She hated to cook, preferred to be served.

  “You bet,” Vikram said.

  Very said, “Okay, then. I’m in. Let’s do it.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Vikram did not do things on a small scale. If Very hadn’t realized this about him before, she surely realized it when the small powerboat that came to retrieve them from the secret cove at ESCAPE turned out merely to serve as an usher. The man operating the powerboat took Very and Vikram to a spot out in the lake where the water was deeper, and where a large tourist ferryboat idled, awaiting their arrival. The man helped Vikram and Very climb the ladder to the big boat, and as if that wasn’t terrifying enough, when they set foot on the larger boat, Very saw only a small crew on board. No tourists to be found there. Vikram had chartered a whole freaking ship that could hold hundreds of people for the sole purpose of whisking him—and, at the last minute, Very—away from ESCAPE. The ferry would take them to the New York side of Lake Champlain, where, Vikram told Very, a car would be waiting to whisk them to Albany, where they’d get on a plane bound for Vegas.

  “Will we be married by an Elvis impersonator?” Very asked him.

  “I was thinking more Liberace,” Vikram said.

  They sat alone together at a window table inside the
ferry, which was warmer than the deck outdoors. A candle had been placed on their table, and the gorgeous night view of the lake, along with the ferry’s gentle motion, might have been considered romantic. But Vikram was not interested in courting Very at that moment. He was too consumed with planning their wedding from his iPhone—booking flights, and a hotel, and Googling to find the most over-the-top impersonator wedding minister available the next night, and mumbling, “Awesome! Awesome!” at every sequined Liberace impersonator site he found, yet not bothering to share the images with Very.

  Frankly, Very wasn’t sure she even needed to show up for their wedding. Planning and executing the adventure from a remote ferryboat seemed to be companionship enough for Vikram. She didn’t need to be there. The longer she sat in silence watching Vikram, who was tapping away, the more time she had to realize …

  WHAT THE FUCK HAD SHE DONE?

  Very had left ESCAPE with nothing besides her wallet. No luggage. According to Vikram, she didn’t need anything but the clothes on her back. That was part of the adventure. Buying all new stuff, starting over. She didn’t say goodbye to Jones or Keisha, or even leave them a note saying goodbye and thank you. No time for the niceties, Vikram had said. Very hadn’t yet had the courage to call Aunt Esther to tell her not to bother going to ESCAPE tomorrow for Very’s graduation, which obviously now would not happen. Nor would the possibility of Very’s ever going back to Columbia, or finding Lavinia again, either, so long as Very remained on this boat.

  Since Vikram didn’t seem to need her participation to arrange their whole future together or whatever, Very left him and walked upstairs to the captain’s deck. The ferryboat captain was a real Aargh! kind of guy, Very could tell. He wore the blue captain’s jacket, and was holding the steering wheel or whatever that thingamajig was as he looked out over the vast expanse of water and charted their destinies, Very surmised.

  “Um, excuse me, sir?” Very said to him as she entered the deck.