All We Left Behind

by Ingrid Sundberg

  Alive.

  Kurt

  We run out of the water and all of me is pain.

  The sky blazes red and Marion shivers with her whole body. She’s three steps to my right. Hair snaked over her face. Eyes wild with salt and sting. It makes me laugh.

  Wind tears past us and I know we can’t stay out in this chill. But the rush, the clarity, makes the pain seem inconsequential.

  This must be what Mom drank to find.

  Marion cuts across the sand and steps in front of me. She backpedals before stopping and there’s boldness in her eyes. Her clothes are wet and I can’t think straight.

  I pull her against me and her mouth tastes like salt. Her hands snake over my chest and I groan, wanting her. She shivers, pulling me close, and I know I have to get her off this beach. There’s no way I’m laying her down in the sand.

  I pick her up, and her jean-soaked legs wrap around my waist. Somehow, I make it to her car and I lay her down in the backseat. She moans, body arching, and her mouth finds mine. She feels so small in my arms. Delicate, in a way that makes me not want this to go too fast. But she reaches inside my pants.

  I press into her and begin unbuckling. Her jeans are so wet they’re hard to remove. Our feet scraping against each other and covered in sand.

  I pull back and look at her. Blond hair is splayed over the seat cushion, wet and dark as seaweed. She looks straight at me, her eyes dark, and sits up. She pulls her shirt up over her head and leans forward, kissing me lightly.

  She unhooks her bra and lies back, under me.

  We’ve been like this before.

  In my car.

  “Are you—” I start, but she pulls me into a kiss, peeling down my pants.

  I throb and want—

  But I shouldn’t.

  Not with this girl. Not after the disaster in my car, with her shaking. And no matter how much I want to pretend this doesn’t mean anything, I already know that it does. And fuck, I hate that I want it more because it does.

  Her hands are all over me and her body seems to want this. Mine certainly does. And this would already be done if—

  I pull back and find my coat. It’s wedged between the armrest and the floor. I rummage through the pockets for a condom. I find one inside the first sleeve, but pretend to look in all the other pockets—just in case she needs a minute, to decide, or . . .

  I look back and she’s shivering. Instinct puts my mouth on hers again, and that tremble becomes a quaking in both of us.

  I want this.

  I want this in a way I didn’t know I could want it.

  I put my lips to her ear because I have to ask.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I say.

  “Yes,” she says, and her hands dig into my back when I enter her. Her throat releases a sharp gasp of breath, and even though I knew she hadn’t done this before, it still surprises me.

  I slow and move to the sound of the ocean.

  I slow till all I hear is the crest of her breath.

  Marion

  Kurt’s body is an ocean.

  He feels too good and salt raw and is made of sweat and sliding. My body reacts without permission, stretching at his tenderness as his hips dip.

  Rose hips.

  In and out of the stream.

  And there’s too much tenderness. His hands make everything quiver, down to the deep. Down to the dark.

  I need this to go faster. Faster, where the way we fit is friction and heat, and none of this tenderness can touch me. Not when I can hear the water—in my ears, in my head—as big as the whole Atlantic. As small as rose hips under the stream.

  I bite his shoulder to drive away the smell of meat and gravy.

  I bite his shoulder because I don’t want to admit this feels good, even though it comes with water and mud.

  I dig my fingers into his shoulders because I don’t know how this can possibly be both. Both vulnerable and dark. Both fear and heat. Both wanting him and fearing him and feeling the creek water surface—

  Climbing up over my ankles—

  Squishing down between my toes.

  * * *

  He holds me after.

  We lie in the back of my car, limbs scrunched against each other, wet jeans bunched at our ankles. The arches of my feet press into the damp of his pants and the sky has gone dark.

  We don’t really fit in this space.

  After what seems like too long, I sit up and wriggle back into my jeans. There’s sand all over my legs, caught between the skin and fabric, where it will just have to stay.

  I open the side door and climb out, letting him get cleaned up without me.

  It hurts down there.

  Not a horrific pain. Not like I’d imagined it from what Lilith said. More like a dull ache, deep inside.

  The water is black now and it’s hard to see the line that separates the ocean from the sky. The horizon’s completely dissolved. All I know for sure is that we’ve passed over a threshold and all I can hear are waves rolling over in the dark.

  “Hey,” he says, behind me, and there are footsteps before his hand brushes my arm.

  It’s gentle. And yet I fear what gentleness brings.

  “Is everything all right?” he asks.

  I turn in the dark and find his cheek, kissing the ridge of his stubble, which smells of salt. It’s hard to see, but being this close to him, I can tell he’s shirtless.

  I put two fingers on his shoulder, running them over the smoothness of his muscle. It’s not done with desire, but as a question. Like this is a new way in which I’m allowed to ask.

  “I took it off before we went in the water,” he says, nodding to the beach swallowed in black.

  “Right.” I remove my hand. “Should we look for—”

  “I’ll wear my coat,” he says, and I’m grateful.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask, heading for the car, and I hear him mumble something that sounds like agreement. We both get in the Nissan and I steer us back to town. My stomach grumbles, but I know I won’t eat a thing. There’s no way I could keep anything down.

  Kurt

  I expect Marion to take us to a fast food joint. Instead we wind up a hill and stop in front of a large colonial house.

  Her home.

  “Um . . .” I press my hands into my jeans. “Are your parents here?”

  She looks at a car in the driveway, hidden under a cover. Which means it’s expensive.

  “My dad works in the city,” she says, killing the ignition. “He’s never home till late.”

  The sun is set. It seems pretty late to me. “There’s this fry place by KFC,” I start, but she’s already getting out. “Shouldn’t we get my car? Or dry clothes?”

  “Don’t worry about it.” She heads for a side door. “I’m sure you’ll fit into something of my dad’s.”

  Her dad’s!

  I zip up my jacket and get out of the car, my pants wet and incriminating.

  Her house is fancy on the inside. All wood beams and stainless steel. It looks like a museum. I listen for her parents. Or siblings. Or anyone. But everything’s all quiet and just so.

  She leads me upstairs, which is at least lived in, and her hair hangs wet over her shoulders. I like her hair wet like that. It’s private. More relaxed. Not like the girl I see at school trying to be perfect.

  She stops in the doorway of what must be her father’s bedroom and I see where that perfection comes from. Everything in the room is straight lines and silver knobs. There’s even a pair of socks folded at the end of the bed. Just breathing makes me think I’m disturbing it.

  “Your dad gonna be okay with this?” I ask as she rummages through the dresser. “You don’t have a brother or . . . ?”

  “I’m an only child,” she says, pulling out a dry shirt, then going through the next drawer.

  I look at the family photos on the wall. All the pictures are of Marion and a man with trimmed black hair, who must be her father. There’s no one else.


  “Where’s your mom?” I say without thinking, and she hesitates before laying a pair of pants on top of the shirt.

  “Europe,” she says, walking to the photos and biting a nail. “Spain, I think. I don’t really know anymore. I haven’t seen her since I was three.”

  “Ever?”

  She shrugs. “Yeah, ever.”

  It’s weird how calm she is about this. “You mean she could be dead, and you wouldn’t even know?” She nods and looks at a photo of her father. “And that doesn’t piss you off?”

  She adjusts the frame, hanging it straight.

  “You can’t miss what you don’t know,” she says, walking back to the dresser. She runs her hand against the wallpaper as she goes, her finger finding a groove in the wall. Her nail digs into the lip where the paper is torn like she’s trying to chip away the paint. Only, I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.

  “That’s bullshit,” I say, and she turns sharply. “Didn’t you ever wonder what it was like to have a mom? I mean, you have a mom out there somewhere. Mine’s fucking dead.”

  She stares at me and doesn’t move.

  I adjust the zipper on my coat, suddenly hot. Afraid of what I just admitted, and how it came out so shitty.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to lay that on you,” I say. “It’s none of my business, I—”

  “Of course I wonder what it’s like to have a mom,” she says quietly, walking back to me. She brushes wet hair from my face and leaves her fingers hovering at the edge of my cheek. “I guess . . .” Her eyes go distant, looking through me. “You can’t stop someone from leaving you. I mean, I was three, it’s not like I could do anything. If someone wants to leave behind their three-year-old, well . . .”

  Her voice gets ragged and the sadness in her eyes guts me.

  “Hey.” I pull her to me, but she puts her hands on my chest, her elbows bent between us so I can’t get close.

  “You can’t miss what doesn’t want you,” she says, looking down. “I mean, there are people who are here, people who—”

  “Fuck that! Yes, you can,” I say, maybe too forceful, and I hate how much this hurts in my chest. “Trust me, you can miss everything that doesn’t want you.”

  I wrap her close and kiss her, letting that pain meld this space between us. Her arms find their way around me and our lips fuse like, maybe, if we just keep kissing, it will show us the way through this.

  “I’m sorry about your mom,” she whispers against my lips, and I kiss her words away, because this ache is too big. My fingers clutch the wet fabric of her shirt, then spread over her back to hold her against me.

  “It would’ve been different,” she says quietly, and it’s more like we’re hugging now, not wanting to let anything go. “If she was here and it wasn’t just my dad . . .” She kisses me, breathless. “I mean . . . maybe she would have—”

  But then she stops and grips me so hard I think she’s trying to force together all the parts that are broken.

  I kiss her. I kiss her because I don’t know how else to make that pain go away. It isn’t a lustful kiss. It’s something else. Something sad. Something like music, that speaks when there aren’t any words.

  “Marion?” A male voice comes from behind us and panic shoots through me. I pull away from her and the separation is staggering. We both feel it.

  I fumble my way backward and look out the doorway.

  “Excuse me?” There’s a medium-sized man in a suit glaring at me in the hall. “Who are you?”

  It’s the man from the photos.

  “Uh . . .” I step back and yank at the ends of my jacket as if the motion will hide the fact that I’m not wearing a shirt underneath.

  God, from his angle it must look like I’m—

  “Dad.” Marion steps in front of me holding her father’s clothes. Her shirt is still wet, and from behind, the fabric shows all the way through to her bra.

  He isn’t looking at her.

  “This is Kurt,” Marion says, sliding her arm around my waist, and I’m sure she’s about to say the word “boyfriend,” but instead she stares at her father without explaining why we’re wet or standing in his bedroom with his clothes in her hand.

  My pants stick to my thighs, itching with sand. He glares at me, but the silence is weird. Something passes between them, like she’s waiting for him to ask what’s going on. And she might actually tell him, if he did.

  “Medford,” I say, stepping out of Marion’s grip. “Kurt Medford, sir.” I extend him my hand. “I’m your daughter’s, uh—friend.”

  He doesn’t shake my hand.

  “We were on the pier,” I say, needing to explain this wet thing. I drop the hand and jam it into my pocket. “We, uh—”

  He totally wants to punch my face in.

  “It was a stupid dare,” Marion says, walking to my side. “You know Lilith.”

  For the first time he looks at her.

  “Lean over the side, Mar-i-doodle,” Marion says, pretending to talk in Lilith’s voice. “See how far you can go.” Marion laughs like she’s actually remembering this. “And yeah, we fell in.” She looks at me like it was something special and for a second I almost believe that’s what happened. Though what did happen was—

  “Where’s Lilith?” he asks, searching me.

  “At home,” Marion explains. “We dropped her off at the bottom of the hill. Call her if you want.” She holds up her father’s clothes. “Is it okay if Kurt borrows these? He just needs to change and then I’ll take him home.”

  “You don’t have a car?” He scowls at me.

  “We took mine,” Marion says, and his eyes narrow.

  “I don’t need the clothes, sir,” I say. “I’m fine in—”

  “The bathroom is that way,” he says sternly, nodding down the hall.

  “Really, I don’t—”

  “Please, Mr. Medford, get changed!”

  Mr. Medford? Damn, this isn’t good! And from the way he looks at Marion, I think he’d do anything to get me out of here.

  “Uh, yes, sir,” I say, grabbing the clothes even though I don’t want to. I hesitate and check Marion. I don’t want to leave her if this is going to blow up in her face.

  “We’ll just be a minute, Kurt,” she says, looking at her father.

  I nod and head for the bathroom, but a few steps down the hall I look back and a shiver crawls through me.

  I think Marion wanted to get caught.

  Marion

  I hear the door of the bathroom click shut and I wait to see what my father will say.

  He stares at me, his eyes sad and stern, trying to decide what to do.

  He swallows and doesn’t move, and I wonder if he can smell Kurt on me. If sex has a stench that men can taste in the air. Like creek water and meat.

  What would he do if he knew?

  I stand my ground and dare him to put together what is staring him in the face.

  It’s not hard to see.

  Me, in this wet shirt that clings to my chest.

  Kurt, all muscle and soaked jeans, in that bathroom getting undressed.

  “That boy,” my father says finally. “That boy is just your friend?”

  I almost laugh.

  I want to say:

  “No, that boy is definitely not just my friend. That boy is the one I fantasize about before I go to bed. That boy is the one who took me down to the beach and opened my legs.”

  I want to scream at him not to ignore this. I want him to be the parent I need and not treat this like my yellow skirt that was so easily kicked under the bed.

  “Yes,” I say. “He’s just a friend.”

  My father nods, clutching his briefcase before walking past me into his room, which is straight and perfect and full of orderly things, simple pretty things that come from catalogs and make his life look a certain way. Our life.

  “You know, Marion,” he says, putting his briefcase on the bed and rubbing the latch like he might say more.

 
I feel far away. Like I’m on the other side of that stream but he’s looking at the water instead of at me. He’s left me alone on that log with that man.

  “I trust you,” he says.

  Of course he does.

  His eyes jet to the hall where Kurt might return at any moment and we both look at that empty doorway.

  It’s all negative space.

  * * *

  The purple sky is salted with stars. There aren’t any streetlamps on the road, and without them everything is indigo shadow and pavement. Kurt sits in my passenger seat and I can’t believe my father let me drive him back to school for his car. But that’s the thing . . .

  My father trusts me.

  The smell of sweat rolls in from the backseat, and I hear the crash of water in my ears. Rolling waves, yearning, and all the things that are new to me. How softness can ache out the past I regret. How skin has a language made of quietness and breath. How Kurt’s body is an ocean and it capsizes me.

  I don’t know if there’s a surface or if I’m supposed to learn how to breathe underwater. I only know that there’s an underness. A space below, where there’s nothing but uncertainty, and I’m not sure who I am anymore.

  I turn my wheels into the parking lot and I don’t know what sleeping with Kurt makes me. For Lilith, sex is alchemy, gold power and hot. But as I pull the car to a stop and Kurt looks in my direction, I feel that hollow space and what has been lost. That single word that no longer defines me.

  Virgin.

  And I’m naked without it.

  Kurt

  The entire parking lot is empty when Marion pulls into the school, and for a second I think I might sleep in my car tonight. I don’t want to see Josie or Dad and have them ruin this. This day was like something outside of my life.

  Something better.

  I lean over and kiss Marion’s ear. Her hair smells of salt water and I want to cut the headlights and take her into the backseat again. I slide my hand around her waist, but her body stiffens.