Meant to Be

by Julie Halpern

  From Lish:

  Had such a good time with you yesterday. Need to talk about something but can wait if you’re out with Luke.

  I text Lish back:

  Here to talk if you need.

  She doesn’t immediately reply, so I read the next message from Uncle Jim.

  Buy your plane tickets yet?

  I smile giddily at the pure reality of Australia, but admittedly panic at it, too.

  Lastly, a new message from Luke:

  B there soon. Save a spot on the grass 4 me.

  “Ignore the B and 4. Ignore the B and 4,” I repeat to myself. The grass portion of the text was cute, right?

  I text back Uncle Jim:

  Nope. Maybe you can help me figure out how? Never actually booked a plane ticket or, you know, owned a credit card.

  After I hit send, I begin a search on my phone for flights to Australia. Until I realize that, besides not having any semblance of a date chosen, I have no idea where I’d even land. Is there an airport in Melbourne? I know there’s an amusement park with a terrifying giant clown head entryway, but I don’t know anything about where it is or where I’d want to live. As long as I’ve had the fantasy of moving to Australia, I haven’t exactly done any research about actually living there. Was that because I’m lazy? Because I never truly believed the dream would be realized? Or was there a subconscious part of me that didn’t want to go?

  I’m jerked away from my meaningful life analysis by a bothersome sucking on my neck. I rock my head back, hard enough that I hear a crack and Luke yell, “Shit!”

  Turning around, I watch Luke stumble with his hands clamped to his face.

  “I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were there!” I tend to him, trying to get a look at the spot where I’ve just head-butted him.

  He moves his hands away from his nose, and nothing looks off. “It’s not bleeding,” I assure him. Luke holds the bridge of his nose and gingerly moves it side to side. “I think it’s okay. Remind me to never get on your bad side,” he chuckles. I think what a perfect segue that would be into his drippy texts, but it seems easier to pretend they never existed. Like I’ve been trying all summer to do with Empties. And failing.

  “You’ve gotten a lot done,” Luke says as he walks along the wall and looks at my painting.

  “Yeah. It’s easier to do when there are no distractions.” I realize when I say this that it’s a total dig, but instead of hearing a negative Luke takes it as a throwback to one of our pervier, less-clothed painting adventures. I know this because his hand is now rubbing my lower back. I glance around quickly to see if Brian’s still there. He is not, and I am both grateful that he’s not leering at us and bummed that he’s not an excuse to stop. Maybe if we talk …

  “Guess what?” I say excitedly, turning to face Luke without physical contact. “My uncle is going to buy my plane ticket to Australia!”

  Luke looks at me with a scrunched brow. “When are you going?”

  “When the summer is over, I guess. It’ll be a good time to go. Our fall, their spring.”

  “That’s really soon.” His brow remains scrunchy.

  “Not that soon. You’ll be in school anyway. Why do you look like that?” I ask.

  “Like what?” he retorts defensively.

  “Like you’re not happy for me.”

  “I’m not not happy for you. I’m unhappy for me.” He offers this line so earnestly, I actually feel bad for the guy. His hair flops pathetically over one eye, the hazel reflecting gold and green in the setting sun, his lips tense and pouty at the same time. I don’t know what to say.

  So, dammit, I kiss him.

  He returns the kiss, and in that kiss I feel every needy and frantic emotion he has for me. It’s intoxicating and terrifying to think someone likes me this much. I attempt to match his kisses, if not with sentiment at least in enthusiasm. I want to be able to separate my body completely: to enjoy sex with this lovely boy as merely physical pleasure, to forget for this moment that we have both uncertainty and commitments laid out ahead of us.

  He grips my face passionately, his hands moving from my cheek to my chin to my shoulder. He’s at my hips next, then my back. We feel so exposed, having seen Brian only an hour ago.

  “Wait,” I protest. “I think there are still some people on shift.” Luke looks at me with heavy lids. Without speaking, he holds my hand and tugs me toward the Devil’s Dinghies tunnel.

  From the grass, there is a ledge leading into and through the tunnel. The ledge is only a couple of feet wide, and Luke barely fits as he sidesteps into the dark and cool tunnel. I follow him intrigued; Haunted Hollow has numerous gory legends of murder and suicide, but amid the tales of death are those of lurid trysts on every ride possible. As sinister and seedy as an old amusement park can be, there is also a sense of romance. One of the reasons I am drawn to them.

  The darkness within the tunnel is not complete, due to the exit lights and the pink glow of the sky outside. I watch as Luke’s lithe body carefully settles itself into a boat. He offers his hand, and I reach toward the boat with my toes until my gym shoe rests flat on the floor. Steadying myself on Luke’s shoulder, I drag my other leg aboard. The ratio of Luke’s body to the size of the dinghy seat is comical, and doesn’t leave any room for me. Luke remedies this immediately by pulling me down to straddle him. Already I can feel how excited he is through his shorts. The position and placement hits me in a spot that gets me excited, too. I try to shut off my brain, even the part cheerleading me on. “Yay!” it chants, “This is what you want!”

  I rock onto him, and we exhale together. Kissing him feels more natural now, less greedy on his part and more approving on mine. Luke lifts my shirt over my head, and I reciprocate, quickly unsnapping my bra and flinging it to land precariously on the ledge. The last thing I want is my sizable bra ending up scooped out of the Devil’s Dinghies river by Brian and his handy-dandy net. In an instant Luke’s mouth is on one breast, then the other. I want this portion of the show to last, but I quickly find us again transitioning to the naked part of our evening. Maybe my mom was right, and we’ll never slow ourselves down enough not to have sex. That said, we are at a semistaffed amusement park, and the prospect of getting caught speeds the need along. I take a moment to stand up and drop both my shorts and underwear in one motion. Luke shucks off his shorts, then sits back down, bare ass on the small wooden bench seat. I try not to focus on the humor, kids sitting where Luke’s butt has been or hearing my mom’s voice in my head. Slow down, Agatha.

  “Shit!” I say. “My backpack is out there, and so are the condoms.” I can’t hear you, Mom! Stop telling me what to do!

  “I put one in my wallet,” Luke breathes into my skin as he peppers me with wet kisses. Deftly he continues his assault while fishing a condom out of his wallet in his scrunched-up pants. I help Luke roll it on, and soon I’m on top of him, moving carefully as to not upset the boat too much. The angle, the proximity of my breasts to his mouth, and the danger of getting caught accelerate every sensation. The boat jostles, water sloshing below us. Luke grunts, “I’m…” And, finally, so am I. There we are, coming together. Or at least at the same time.

  Our bodies and the boat steady, and I gingerly stand up, using Luke’s head for balance. Luke leans up to kiss me and continues to hold me close by my waist. Physiologically? Yowza. But emotionally? I still feel so unsatisfied.

  I want to get dressed, very aware of my nakedness on a carnival ride, when Luke whispers in my ear, “I love you.”

  It’s as though a phantasmagoric force knocks me backward, and I fall out of the boat and into the shallow ride water.

  “Holy shit!” he cries. “Are you okay?” I’m grossed out that my naked vagina may currently be ingesting carny water, but at least it saved me from having to find an answer to Luke’s declaration. Perhaps I can even play like I didn’t hear it.

  Luke effortlessly yanks me out by my armpits, the way I do to the children on my ride. Back on the ledge, I s
truggle to pull my clothes over my wet body. It’s uncomfortable for sure, but not as uncomfortable as having to confront the inevitable fact that, even though the third time was indeed a charm, an orgasm did not change a damned thing.

  I do not love Luke Jacobs.

  The words I love you from his mouth literally propelled me away from him.

  Today was indeed a slippery kind of day.

  CHAPTER 31

  Glazed in front of my computer, I stuff my face with gummy candies Uncle Jim ordered from Germany. You can buy the exact same items at your local Walgreens, but Uncle Jim swears they taste better direct from the source. They probably cost a shitload, too, so I hope he won’t mind that I’ve downed an entire bag of fake raspberries and am now working my way through the peaches. There must be some weird correlation between me stressing and mutated fruit.

  Lish hasn’t answered any of my texts, so I try calling. No response. I hope everything’s okay. What if Travis decided to leave her because he doesn’t think they’re as compatible as she does? Or what if she decided that she’s done with this MTB bullshit and instead wants to go to Australia with me? I wish she would answer. She needs to help me figure out what to do about this Luke predicament I’ve gotten myself into. The scientists who said that thing about girls being more obsessed with guys after sex apparently had the conclusion backward. Having sex with Luke has turned him into an “I love you”–spurting, PDA-obsessed, gag-reflex-triggering text monster.

  And he was so pretty.

  I obviously have to end this. I can’t hang out with him again and be seduced into becoming his girlfriend. Granted, there isn’t much summer left before he goes off to college and I to Australia (I should probably get on those plane tickets). Plus, I’m about due for my period, which is a stellar excuse for just about anything where guys are concerned. It could be really awkward having to see Luke at work after breaking up–ish with him, though. As wussy as it makes me, I decide to hold off on the “breakup” until we’re closer to the end of the summer. A month isn’t very long. In the meantime I concoct a list of excuses for not hanging out:

  1) The period excuse—the only gift my period brings.

  2) My mom needs me—maybe to grocery shop. Or clean the house. Or paint the house.

  3) Lish is having a crisis—which may or may not be true. I’m voting for not, but no one asked me.

  This is not a very thorough list.

  My phone cackles, and I dive for it, assuming it’s a message from Lish. Alas, it’s Luke.

  Loved how wet you were earlier.…

  From falling into the river, that is.

  Ugh, ugh, and ugh.

  My pesky chest itch flares up, and I take it as a sign to do some light stalking of Hendrix Cutter. Nothing new is up on his page. I stare at his My Girl picture. (Why does my stomach hurt all of a sudden? Must be all that German candy.) She looks pretty, with her annoyingly golden hair and twinkly blue eyes. It’s a drawing, of course, so they’re probably exaggerated. Braids. So cute. Or quirky. Or artsy. I wonder what Hendrix looks like. Is he big and brawny like Luke? Short and pudgy? Light skin? Dark skin? No skin? Does he have all his limbs?

  I slide open my desk drawer and pull out a drawing pad and graphite pencil. Portraiture has never been my strongest medium, but I make an attempt at imagining Hendrix Cutter.

  Instinctively I touch my hand to the letters on my chest. They’re warm and bumpy, and the gesture is calming. Until I realize the gesture is calming and whisk my hand away. Minutes later I come up with a drawing that looks vaguely like a police sketch artist version of a man. If this man has two shadily uneven eyes and a questionably drawn nose. Damn, noses are hard.

  I shut the sketchbook, and stare at my computer screen. I know I shouldn’t, but I open a search engine. Why does it have to be so easy? I didn’t want to want to see him, and yet I have no control anymore with which to stop myself. I type Hendrix Cutter into the box. My finger hovers dramatically over the return key, just like in a scene from the Lifetime MTB movie A Name Is Forever. That movie sucked, by the way.

  I hit enter.

  At the exact second my phone rings. My initial reaction is a groan. “Luke’s calling me now?” But I quickly see Lish’s name on my screen.

  “Hey!” I answer the Viddle with relief. “I was worried about you.”

  “Yeah, sorry. I was charging my phone in Travis’s car, and I forgot it was in there.” Lish seems calm, collected, not at all in crisis. This is good.

  “So what’s going on?” I press, trying my best not to look at my computer screen where a small number of links and several images appear in the results. I’m so tempted to click, to possibly see the face of my MTB, when Lish announces, “I’m pregnant, Aggy.”

  My mouse-clicking finger drops, as do my mouth and stomach.

  I can’t think of anything to say, so I sit in silence with the phone frozen in my hand.

  “You there?” Lish checks. She doesn’t look like she’s crying.

  “I’m here,” I answer, even though she can plainly see me. “Holy fuck, Lish. I thought you were on the pill.”

  “I am. But I was stupid and only just started right before we were doing it. So I guess it didn’t take. I was supposed to wait a cycle, I think. I didn’t really listen at the gynecologist because I was thinking about Travis coming, and then, ha-ha, Travis came.” I think Lish was implying humor, but I’m not finding any. “Get it? Came? Like with a penis. In my vagina. You love those words.”

  “Lish! How can you be so chill about this? You are fucking pregnant! How did you not know how the pill works? Aren’t you working for a pharmaceutical company?” I yell and leave no room for an answer. “What the fuck are you going to do?” Few things fill me with more terror than the concept of having a human growing inside me. Like a parasite in a horror movie. I’m not saying I don’t want kids of my own someday, but hell to the no do I want one in there anytime soon.

  “Travis and I talked—”

  “What the hell does Travis have to do with this?” I’m shouting into my phone. The gummy candies are very unhappy in my tummy. “Besides putting you in this state in the first place!”

  “He’s the father, Aggy! Can you calm down? You’re hurting my ears.”

  “Oh, I’m hurting your ears. What about what this baby is going to do to your vagina? That is not going to feel good.”

  “I’m sorry I ever brought up my vagina. Geez. Just listen, Aggy. Can you listen?”

  I huff around my bedroom for a minute while Rugburn attempts to dodge me, then manage to compose myself as I collapse onto my bed. “I’m calm. Ish,” I report.

  “Good. Travis and I talked, and we’ve decided to get married.” Lish sports an extra-enthusiastic plastic grin.

  Is it possible to faint while lying on a bed? I look at my phone to double-check that I’m talking to Lish.

  “Hello?” the person says. It’s her.

  “Uhh…” is about all I can muster, while my stomach gurgles angrily.

  “Yep. We’re getting married,” she chuckles nervously. “And we’re going to have a baby.” She only sounds half as maniacal as my stomach feels. Why the fucking hell balls is she getting married?

  I finally summon my voice. “You know, you don’t have to get married. Or have a baby. You do have choices.”

  “I know. And these are my choices.” She purses her lips resolutely. “I love Travis. He is my meant-to-be, after all.”

  I try to argue that point with a “Lish,” but she argues right back.

  “I’m sorry that you don’t get it, Aggy, but I know this is right. I feel it. In my heart and my head.”

  “And your uterus,” I add grumpily.

  “Yes, Aggy, in my uterus. There’s a little me and Travis in there. For some reason that doesn’t disgust me. It makes me feel ridiculously, uncontrollably happy,” she gushes.

  “Aren’t you scared?” I ask.

  “Well, yeah, but isn’t that part of what you’re always
talking about? The unknown? Just because something bigger than us brought Travis and I together doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be new and terrifying things. I’m beyond excited. A husband. A baby. This is going to be my life,” she muses.

  It is painfully difficult to be happy for Lish. I can’t help but feel she’s throwing what life she had away for some cliché prescription for love.

  When I’m still mute a minute later, Lish breaks the silence. “If you don’t have anything else to say, I’m going to go. We can talk after you’ve processed this. But don’t be mad at me, okay?”

  I nod at the phone, then sheepishly answer, “Okay.” Lish says good-bye and hangs up.

  I curl into a ball on the bed. On this occasion, Rugburn acts like a normal cat and settles in next to me. Maybe it’s not these new life choices that are as bothersome to me—although fuck all, it’s crazy—as the fact that if her life has an MTB, a husband, and a baby, where the hell do I fit in?

  I glance at my computer screen, and it blinks to sleep. Not wanting to move, so do I.

  CHAPTER 32

  I oversleep by half an hour and rush to work in a dirty Haunted Hollow t-shirt and a pair of shorts that are normally reserved for around the house due to an unfortunate incident with a pair of scissors. Other girls may feel comfortable with shorts barely covering their asses, but I’ve always enjoyed the sensation of not having my labia touch public seating areas. The shorts will have to do because I can’t find anything else without making me risk a scolding from Sam Hain. I spend the majority of the half-hour car ride digging denim out of my crotch. Chalk one up for having to stand all day.

  As I walk into work, I’m painfully aware of my thighs rubbing together. How do people wear these things? I feel like I’m in my underwear. I may as well be. As if on cue, I walk past Adam sitting on a bench. I silently pray that I don’t officially get my period today of all days.

  “Looking good, Aggy!” he calls.

  I stop and turn around. Did he just? I stride toward him, my thighs applauding me, and say, “You aren’t allowed to say that anymore, remember?”