by Tempest Phan
“My dad wants me to accept the Stanford offer. I’m leaning toward staying here.”
He slowly nodded, jutting his lips out as he began to drum his fingers to the singular beat playing in his head.
“Ok, ok. So, this Jon . . .” he said suddenly, his quiet voice softer than usual.
I don’t know why, but I quickly blurted out, “We’re not really serious. We’ve only been going out for two months.” To my horror, the words kept tumbling out, “And don’t worry. I haven’t slept with him. In fact, I haven’t slept with anyone!”
There was an awkward, prolonged silence as I watched him weigh his words carefully. Finally, he said, “Sweetheart, it isn’t any of my business. You should do . . . whatever you want.”
I blushed and then said, “Yeah. I guess that’s the thing. He clearly wants to, I don’t necessarily feel the same way. Like I said. I’m not sure about him.”
He looked at me, dead serious. “Then don’t do it. Never do what another boy wants you to do, unless it’s what you want.”
I nodded. “Unless it’s what I want. Yeah, I guess I’ve never really wanted it. With anyone. So here I am!” I laughed awkwardly. Maybe, suddenly there was someone I desperately did want it with.
He smiled at me, a gentle smile that reached all the way to his blue eyes.
“And you, Mr. Mortensen. Have you ever done it?” I asked flippantly, a blush creeping up my cheeks again.
He laughed, his head thrown back. His eyes were twinkling. “A gentleman never tells.” He winked at me.
I smiled back. “You’ve clearly had your fair share. How is it?” I asked, not letting go.
He smiled. “God, baby girl, are you seriously asking me to tell you about all the sex I’ve had?”
I started to giggle uncontrollably. “All the sex you’ve had! Shit, Dame. How much exactly have you had?”
I continued laughing as he smiled and made his way to me, bending down to tickle me. “Brat!” He laughed as I began howling—his fingers hitting my most ticklish spots, which, clearly, hadn’t changed in the last five years.
“Stop! Damien! Stop! I’m dying,” I sputtered out. He laughed and stopped immediately.
“See, you say stop, and I stop. That’s how it works, baby. Don’t let Jonny Goody Pants get into yours . . .” A pause. “Unless you want him to.”
I smiled up at him. Something flashed in his eyes. I wasn’t going to let this go. “Ok Dame. But tell me. How is it?”
His face was inches from mine, and I could feel his warm breath on my skin. “It feels very, very good, and with the right person, I’m sure it can feel downright . . . devastating.”
“With the right person?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been with the right girl.” His baby blues locked with mine.
Then he got up to check on the quiche, and I was left marveling at his broad back, and the prickling of something in my heart.
Bella
I sat next to Jon in silence as he drove me home, my hands gripping each side of the black leather seat. I felt vaguely nauseated by that little pine tree, some redundant bullshit called “new car smell” which he insisted on hanging from the rear-view mirror of his brand new car.
Neither one of us spoke, and I hoped he’d keep it that way. My thoughts turned to Dame. I had only caught a glimpse of him once today, after first period. I’d been at my locker when he’d walked up silently behind me. He’d gently put his hand on my shoulder and whispered boo! in my ear, making me scream and jump up before falling into him as we both laughed.
That was it. I hadn’t seen him since.
How was it possible to miss someone like that? It had only been a week since he’d stormed back into my life, so how could he suddenly feel indispensable, as if his very presence were the connective tissue to my soul?
Jon sighed, an unwelcome interruption. I didn’t respond. He pulled into my driveway. The car had barely come to a stop when I jumped out, wanting to get away to the solitude of my room, secretly hoping Jon would take the hint and leave me alone so I could FaceTime Damien.
But subtlety had never been his strong suit, and so Jon followed me in. I guess there was going to be no way around it.
I almost ran into my dad.
“Daddy! I thought your trip got extended a whole week!” I threw out as he rubbed his hand over his face.
He looked at me, paused and then said, “Where’s the rest of your skirt?”
Jon laughed as he stepped up behind me. “I was just telling her the same thing the other day.”
I turned to glare at him. Unbelievable. I didn’t expect my boyfriend to talk back to my father, but the least he could do was to not jump in on the whole humiliation train.
What a stark contrast to my Damien, who’d defended me without a second of hesitation. My heart constricted.
But here I was.
Jon smiled at me, oblivious to my simmering anger. “Hi, Mr. Davenport,” he said cheerfully.
Kiss up.
My dad simply smiled at him before disappearing into his study, closing the glass doors behind him.
I walked on ahead and up the stairs, sensing that Jon was following me. I wished he’d go home already. I stepped into my bedroom, Jon right behind me.
My turn to sigh. “Jon, listen, I have a ton of homework tonight. You should go.”
He looked at me, squinted an eye and said, “S’okay, hot stuff. I can just hang here with you while you do it. I’ve missed you,” he said, pulling me into his arms and bending down to kiss me. I pushed up against him. God, how I hated the feel of his dry lips on mine, the harsh smell of whatever expensive cologne or aftershave he wore. I hated it all.
So what am I still doing with him?
“What’s wrong, Bella?”
“Please, Jon. I just need to focus. And I can’t do that when you’re here.”
He let out a breath, patted his perfectly combed hair down, as if a single strand could ever escape all that hair product. “Ok. I’ll call you tonight?”
I nodded, gently pushing him out the door.
I didn’t even wait to hear the chime of our front door as it opened and closed. I immediately dialed Dame. He picked up right away.
“Hey baby girl,” he whispered, smiling at me.
I smiled back. God, how I’d missed him today.
“Hey Dame. Whatcha doing?”
He shrugged, the movement making his long bangs drop over his eye. He brushed them away with impatient fingers. I noticed he was lying down, propped up on a couple of pillows.
“Just chilling.”
It was so good to see him, and I just kept smiling. Neither one of us said anything. We just looked at each other through our phones, until I sighed and said, “I have to do my calc homework. It’s going to take me all night because I don’t get it. Blurgh. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“I can help,” he said, as he sat up. And just like that, Damien James Mortensen spent the next two hours showing me how to work partial derivatives, in the process underscoring what I already knew—there was so much more to my boy of whispers, all of it carefully layered and hidden from the world.
Damien
“Dame, are you going to homecoming?” A month had flown by, and suddenly, we were weeks away from what some considered a peak high school experience. We were sitting in my car, parked at the lake. She shifted a bit, wrapping the hoodie I’d just handed her more tightly around her. I reached out and turned the heat on at full blast, not caring that it was uncomfortably hot for me. She smiled her thanks. Baby girl was always cold.
It was raining hard, the kind of beating rain playing staccato with sun breaks that you can only find in the Pacific Northwest. And somehow, it was so beautiful being in my beat-up Chevy with her, listening to the drops fall around us.
“Yeah, I guess,” I responded, even though I hated that kind of social shit. Felt awkward to go to these things, to stand in the corner and watch and be watched. Up until a couple of months
ago, I wouldn’t have given two shits about some all-consuming teen event. But Bella seemed to, and whatever made her happy was ultimately a-fucking-ok with me, too. I turned to look at her. She looked adorable swaddled in my too-large sweater.
“I suppose you’re going with Jon?”
“Yup.” She started to laugh. “It was so lame how he asked me, by the way . . . I was so embarrassed.”
“Yeah. I heard.” Something about renting out a billboard and rose petals that led all the way to him and said billboard. The guy didn’t do things halfway.
She laughed again, shaking her head. “God, it was so ridiculous, Dame. We’re talking homecoming here, not a proposal! I almost said no just to annoy him as much as he’d annoyed me.”
I playfully bumped her cute little nose with the tip of my index finger. “But then you took pity on the poor guy.”
“That’s right!”
I sighed. And before I could reel in those damned words, I said, “Gotta hand it to him, though. That’s how you ask the most beautiful girl in school.”
She sucked in her breath. “You think I’m beautiful?” she asked softly. I turned my face away.
She reached out and gently touched my cheek, her fingers caressing my face with feather lightness, before forcing me to look at her again.
My heart stopped for a second, then two, and I cleared the frog in my throat before meeting her eyes. “What do you think?”
She didn’t respond.
I turned my head away again. “Of course I do. Of course you are. The most beautiful girl I’ll ever meet.”
She inhaled sharply and when I chanced a glance, something in her eyes terrified me, made my heart crawl up through my throat. I couldn’t let this happen.
“Damien,” she whispered again and dropped her eyes.
I knew where this was going. And suddenly, those warning bells in my head, always a constant, started to go off even more loudly.
I wasn’t the type of guy who dumped his bullshit on others. And there was so much bullshit in my life at this moment. So. Much. I couldn’t do this right now. Not with how things were playing out back at my house. Not with how things were playing out at hers. Her dad would lose his shit, and I couldn’t be that guy.
She continued, placing a hand on my arm, breaking the silence. “Dame, if there’s something between us—”
I wouldn’t let her finish, “Baby . . . You are beautiful. From your gorgeous face to your gorgeous soul. Beautiful inside out. So incredibly beautiful my heart hurts and I lose my breath. Yes,” I went on, slowly reaching out to tuck a strand of her silken black hair behind her ear, before leaning back against my headrest again and closing my eyes. “Yes. You are the most beautiful girl I’ll ever meet. But . . . but I don’t see you in that way . . . You’re like a sister to me.” No matter that none of what I’d just said made any sense. No matter that I kept contradicting myself. No matter that she was the furthest thing from a sister, not with crazy, dirty, dirty thoughts suddenly startling me in the middle of the night. No, not like a sister at all. But if I said that she was like one enough times, I’d convince myself, wouldn’t I?
She looked at me again, and I saw hurt and confusion in her eyes.
“I cannot want you, Bella. I cannot allow myself to fall for you, want you in that way. I cannot.” I let out a sigh and whispered, “And you cannot either.”
She looked away before I could decipher the look in her eyes. The awkward silence stretched on.
“Ok,” she said finally. And then, in a barely audible whisper, more likely for herself than for me, I think she might have murmured, “But I think maybe it’s too late.”
I pretended not to hear her, but my heart tumbled to my feet.
***
That exchange was still on my mind when, the following week, I found myself driving Bella to the mall to help her pick out a dress. Rachel had apparently flaked out on her. It hadn’t taken a genius to realize that Bella wasn’t truly friends with anyone in her crowd. None of these relationships extended beyond the superficiality of our town’s beautiful, rich kids all hanging out together. I’d never seen her in a one-on-one with any of them, except with Jon, and one-on-one was how my baby girl would have preferred most interactions. No wonder we totally got each other. And now, the closest of these “friends” had ditched her at the last possible minute.
So here I was. It should have been torture, this whole shopping trip, but strangely, it wasn’t. The fact is, I loved spending time with her. We could be sitting together simply watching paint dry—or rain fall—and it would be a blast simply because she’d be by my side. We walked into the Nordstrom’s and headed straight for their formal wear section. I stood next to her as she looked through racks of gowns, each more spectacular than the last. Suddenly, a simple white chiffon sheath caught her eyes. She grabbed it, and held it out in front of herself, trying to decide whether it looked right. The white brought out the creaminess of her skin and the dark jet of her ebony hair.
“Dame?”
I nodded.
“Too bride-like?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if you like it, baby girl.” She beamed that perfect smile at me, and I felt my knees grow weak. A saleswoman saw us and made her way over, clearly not quite sure what to make of this tall, tattooed, menacing man in her gown section. She smiled at us nonetheless.
“That would look gorgeous on you, sweetie,” she said. “Hi, I’m Laura. Can I start a room for you?”
Bella smiled back and handed her the dress. She pivoted and picked two more, one covered in black sequins and another in black silk. I just watched, completely overwhelmed by the volume of choices. “And these too!” She followed the saleswoman into the dressing area.
“Come, Mr. Mortensen.” She turned to me and smiled. “I want to know what you think.”
What I think? She could wear a fucking paper bag and be the most glorious creature in any room. Whoa! Chill, asshole.
And so I said nothing and followed her awkwardly.
She went into one of the dressing rooms as I sat in one of the plush armchairs by the large floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the lobby. A few moments later, she came out, barefoot, wearing the chiffon which streamed down into a puddle of white at her feet. I forgot how to breathe.
“What do you think?” She laughed, spinning around in front of me, her arms raised to give me a better view of the dress before curtsying.
I cleared the frog in my throat. “Yes, this one,” I whispered, hoping to God my eyes, my face, didn’t give anything away.
She laughed. “Right? It’s perfect!” And she spun around to head back to the dressing room.
Yes, perfect. Absolutely perfect. And sure, the dress, too.
Laura was staring at me, smiling. “Your girlfriend is beautiful.”
“We’re just friends,” I responded.
Laura’s lips formed a surprised oh, and before she could apologize, I held up a hand and said, “It’s ok.”
“Well, I just thought, you know, the way you were both . . . The way you look at her—”
“Totally ok.”
I turned back toward the dressing room, as a beaming Bella came out. “Not even going to bother trying the other ones,” she said. “Let’s get this and then go, Dame.”
We headed toward the cash register, and she proceeded to purchase the dress. I looked around. There was jewelry underneath the case, including a silver locket in the shape of a heart.
Laura looked at me and said, “Beautiful, isn’t it? And when you flash a light on it and aim it toward a wall, the words I love you come up in a hundred different languages. We can even engrave the locket.”
I nodded nonchalantly, and Bella looked at me. She smiled and turned back to Laura, handing over her dad’s credit card.
“Let’s go dump this in the car and grab a bite. I’m hungry,” she said.
After a stop at our new favorite sandwich place, I drove her home. As I made my way back to my rambler, speeding thr
ough the long, lonely stretch of twisting roads, I thought back to what she’d almost asked me on that rainy day.
If there’s something between us . . .
No.
There couldn’t be. I pulled to a stop in front of my house and barely made it to my room. I threw myself on my bed, shivering, my body unable to contain the sudden ache in my veins. I felt the familiar panic and knew what was awaiting me. It would be another sleepless night.
I laid in the dark, wide awake. The abyss was yawning beneath my feet, and I looked into its depths. My heart was in agony, pounding, cold sweat breaking over me. Tonight, I would tumble down its throat again.
It’s all your fault. All your fault. The dark voices were unrelenting, taunting me, as they always did. Spinning their ropes of hate and blame around sharp echoes of all the things I’d done wrong. All your fault. All your fault. Worthless bastard. She’s gone, and it was all your fault.
No, no. I shook my head at the emptiness. No, no.
But the voices carried on, terrible in their judgment. I’d failed. I’d failed her. I opened my mouth to let out an anguished, silent scream. Worthless. Why couldn’t it have been me?
Damien
A week after my latest breakdown, I sat on the bleachers all the way to the back, not paying attention to the game. Apparently, the Royals had a shitty football team. They hadn’t won a single game all season and were now getting killed at their own homecoming.
Jonny boy wasn’t looking too good out there either.
Their cheerleaders are super cute, though, I thought as Bella did a couple of backflips. And coming out here just to watch her was worth it.
Later, as I walked into the ballroom, Negative’s Jealous Sky was blaring from the speakers. I spotted her right away. In a sea of black and red dresses, she was the only one wearing white. The chiffon, that light, airy thing, fell softly over her slim body and clung in all the right places. Her dark hair was styled in simple long, loose coils tumbling down her back. My heart caught as it always did when I saw her. She outshone even the glittering crystal diadem on her crown. How fitting that she was the Royals’ homecoming queen.