Breathless

by Jennifer Niven

  I think, Maybe it does always end the same, but I want to believe it doesn’t. I want to believe it’s a lot more than just the chasing and the catching.

  I say, “Don’t you think it’s possible to be you with someone else?”

  She lets out this cynical-sounding laugh. “No, Mainlander. I don’t. My friends, my mom—they all become versions of themselves. Like, fun-house versions. No thanks.”

  And in spite of my broken home and all I’m going through, I feel sorry for her. She doesn’t seem to believe in anything, and maybe—just maybe—I still do.

  Wednesday tugs at one long braid and then fixes her eyes on me again. “What about you? You ever been laid before?”

  Jared shakes his head. “Don’t feel like you have to answer her.”

  I watch Grady as he chats up one of the inn guests, a lady in her thirties. I watch as the fireworks explode and then die over the water. I think about making up a story, something elaborate and erotic. Possibly even breaking out Shane Waller and my near sex in a barn.

  But everyone else is being honest, including New Claude, which is why I say, “Almost. There’s a boy back in Ohio.” I don’t mention that I barely think about Wyatt Jones now.

  Wednesday says, “My sister believes it doesn’t technically count as sex unless it’s a penis and a vagina. Like, if she does anal, she’s still a virgin.”

  Emory stares at her. “So then, according to her, nothing counts except hetero sex?”

  “I’m just telling you what she believes. Don’t get pissed at me.”

  “Man, that is some bullshit. Bull. Shit.”

  I say, “My best friend is a lesbian, and she’s in love. And I don’t think she’d agree that the sex she’s having with her girlfriend doesn’t count.” I suddenly feel protective. Like, lift-the-car-off-the-baby protective. Not just of Saz, but of Yvonne. Of both of them. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as technically. It’s about who you’re with and how you feel. Sex is sex. Love is love. I don’t need some stupid 1950s construct to tell me what it is or isn’t. However it happens, whatever it looks like, I think you know in here”—I tap the space over my heart—“if you’re still a virgin or not.”

  Wednesday sits forward. “It’s like crossing this invisible threshold that only you see. You decide it. I decide it. We decide it.”

  “Uh. Yeah.”

  She says, “I agree.”

  “What?”

  “I agree with you.”

  We sit blinking at each other, stunned into silence because we feel the same way.

  Jared clinks my bottle with his. “I’ll drink to that.”

  And I think, I’m glad they’re here. It makes me miss Saz a little less and also more. I suddenly want to call her and apologize for not asking more about Yvonne, and more about how Saz is feeling, how it’s going. She hasn’t been the greatest friend lately, but I haven’t either.

  Emory and Wednesday tap their bottles to ours. She says, “God, we’re profound.”

  Mom finds me then to tell me she’s heading back to the house. When I offer to go with her, she says, “No, stay with your friends. It’s good to see you having fun. Just be home by one o’clock at the latest.”

  The conversation turns from sex to the SDS, or Secret Drawer Society.

  “Have you been in the Blackwood Suite at the inn?” Emory asks me.

  “No.”

  “There’s this ancient monster of a desk that takes up most of the room, and it has a kind of hidden compartment. People have been leaving notes in there since forever. Like, as far back as the start of the inn. There’s love notes, stories about their stay, the island turtles, hurricanes. Things like that.”

  Jared takes a drink, wipes his mouth. “The love ones are pretty cool. There’s a guest staying in that room now, but we can show you when the room turns over. I’ve written a couple letters. To my grandfather. To my friend Rashid, the one who died. But I’ve also written some to me. Like: ‘Dear Jared, you need to remember that life is short, so make the most of every second.’ ”

  Wednesday draws circles in the sand with a shell. “We all have. ‘Dear Wednesday, don’t be so hard on yourself. If you don’t love you, no one else will.’ When I first got here, I wrote one to my family because I couldn’t tell them where I was or why I left.”

  Their voices rise and fall, reminding me of road trips with my parents when I was little, sitting in the back seat, staring out the window or reading, listening but not listening to them as they talked, close but far away. I stare across the blackness of the ocean toward the lights in the distance from some unknown island, thinking about what I would write to myself or maybe to Miah.

  What if I just found his house tonight and slipped into his bed and surprised him? I imagine it. His skin. My skin. Naked. Hot. Him. Him. Him. This boy who knows me so well already and likes me anyway, in spite of myself. I touch my arm and it’s on fire at the thought of him.

  Five minutes later, he appears, a dark figure walking across the sand. I don’t need to see his face to know it’s him. I already know his walk and the way he moves. Without a word, he holds out a hand to me, and my blood starts pumping and my heart starts racing just like I’m waking up from a long sleep. Wednesday leans over to say something in Jared’s ear, and then they’re both watching us. Emory offers Miah a beer.

  “Nah, I’m good, man,” he says. Then, to me: “Want to get out of here, Captain?”

  “Yes.”

  DAY 6

  (PART TWO)

  We drive north to a quiet strand of beach, where we walk and talk and watch for turtles. I wait for him to take my hand or kiss me, but he doesn’t. I tell myself it’s okay, we can just be friends. There’s no time for anything else, anyway, with both of us leaving. We’re two ships passing on a long summer night, and I’m the one deciding that, not him. As we head over the dunes and back to the truck, I actually slug him in the arm like we’re old buddies.

  “You okay there, Captain?”

  “Grand.” Grand?

  On the way back south again, we approach the bright blue shotgun house, the one with the rocking chairs on the porch. Miah slows, one hand on the gearshift, the other on the wheel. It’s the way his hand hangs there, so casual, so languid. Or maybe it’s just him.

  “Do you want to come in for a minute?” The truck engine idles.

  “Is that yours?”

  “No, I thought we’d break in.”

  “In that case, sure.” Yes yes yes.

  Like that, my entire body is on alert. If I go in, anything might happen. I try not to think beyond right now. I concentrate on getting out of the truck, on walking up to the house, on going up the steps, on waiting for him to push open the door, on following him inside.

  The house itself is small. A single light is on, sitting on a table opposite the fireplace. As I look around, I decide it’s like the inside of his truck—filled with treasures. Animal skulls of various sizes, bones and shells. Black-and-white photographs of more bones and shells, the Rosecroft ruins, the dunes, turtle tracks, the ocean. If I were designing a place for Jeremiah Crew to live, it would look just like this. A bright blue house. A cabinet of curiosities. Shelves overflowing with books. Maps and old cameras and relics everywhere. Everything a skeleton of some sort.

  “Was all this here when you moved in?”

  “Some of it. I’ve added a few things. Made it my own.”

  I pick up an animal skull. “It’s a lot of nature.”

  He laughs. I set the skull down and perch on the edge of the sofa, forcing my mind to focus, to not get ahead of itself, to not picture the two of us naked in his bed, which is exactly what it wants to do. I watch as he pulls two sodas out of the fridge.

  I look up at the walls, at the framed pictures. My eyes rest on a shot of the ruins, stark against a brooding sky. “Did you ta
ke the photos?”

  He glances up at the walls. “It depends on whether you like them or not.”

  “They’re haunting.” They are a mix of raw and beautiful, dark and light.

  “Then, yes, I did.”

  “You could sell them.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Bram was the one who got me into it. He gave me the camera and said, I swear to God, ‘Maybe this will help you see things other than yourself.’ ” Miah sets our sodas down in front of me. “He also gave me this house. Well, he and Shirley let me stay here during summers. I’d been through Outward Bound so many times, they eventually offered me a job. Living here is one of the perks.” He’s across the room again, sorting through a collection of records that are stacked beside a turntable. “Part of what I do is lead Outward Bound groups that come to the island, clearing trails, marking turtle nests, anything that gets people outside and working. Same kind of shit I did when I first came here.”

  “What happens when summer’s over?”

  “I join the space program.”

  “I thought it was the CIA.”

  “It’s actually both.” He sets a stack of records on the turntable. “NASA and the CIA were like, ‘We need you. Name your price.’ ” He sinks onto the couch next to me as the first record drops. But there’s something heavy in his voice. “Let’s not talk about that while I’ve got you here. In my house.”

  He leans in. Kisses me. Before I can get lost in him, I pull back.

  “You okay, Captain?”

  “Do you have anything stronger than water?” It’s not about needing a drink to feel braver; it’s about wanting to stop time—or at least slow it down—so that I can savor every moment.

  He arches an eyebrow. “There’s vodka in the freezer that’s about a hundred years old. Courtesy of Bram and Shirley, but I keep it around for guests.”

  “Thanks.”

  I start to get up, but he says, “I’ll get it for you. I’m not completely unchivalrous.”

  I watch as he goes into the kitchen, opens the freezer, pulls out the vodka, pours me two fingers’ worth. I want to tell him to fill it up—maybe I need to feel a little braver after all—but I don’t want to seem like a lush.

  When he’s back, I say, “Aren’t you having some?”

  “I’ve done enough drinking in my life. I stopped at fourteen. I stopped everything at fourteen.” He hands me the glass, drapes his arm on the back of the couch, and looks me straight in the eye. “Well, not everything.”

  Our eyes stay locked as I set the glass down without taking a drink. At the same exact moment, we reach for each other.

  He kisses me.

  I kiss him.

  My blood and my heart are pumping again, so strong and hard that I wonder if my body can hold them. He touches my face, and then his hand wanders south. And that’s it. Yes yes yes. Suddenly I’m the bravest person in the world.

  I climb on top of him so that I’m straddling his lap, and I can feel him through his shorts as we kiss harder and harder. And now we’re lying down, me on top of him, and I have to pull away for a moment because it’s too much and my heart is going to burst. We’re both making these heavy breathing sounds as we try to fill our lungs, and I can hear my heart slamming against my chest as if it’s trying to break out of there.

  He throws the pillows on the floor to make more room for us. Kisses me again. Wraps his arms around me tight. Rolls me over so that I’m under him, and we somehow manage to stay on the couch. We lock eyes, and then he moves in, and everything is blurred, and his lips are on mine, and the only thing that exists is his mouth and his skin and the fine, tight muscles of his back under my hands.

  I kiss him until we go boomeranging into the danger zone, the one barricaded and police-taped and littered with smoke bombs and alarm bells and CAUTION signs. The one that makes my brain go numb and keeps me from thinking about anything else. I ignore the voice in my head that’s shouting, This is actually going to happen. I can feel myself close to the edge, and now the couch is on fire and the entire back of me, head to toe, is burning, but I don’t care. He senses it and I can feel him shift a little, but I won’t let him go. So now we’re both burning up right here on this sofa.

  But this time I don’t stop. Not even as he’s telling me he’s STD-free, only safe sex practiced here. Not even as he says, “Are you sure? Remember—four weeks. That’s it. Less than that now.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Yes.”

  “I’m kidding, but not, Captain. I won’t go any further without your consent.”

  This throws me because I don’t remember Shane ever asking me for my blessing. I can say no, and we can stop right here.

  “Yes,” I say again. “You have it. As long as I have your consent too.”

  And I can tell by the look on his face that this throws him. “Yes,” he says, very low. “God, yes.”

  To prove to myself and him that I’m sure, that this is one thousand percent what I want, I pull his shirt off, kiss his neck, his shoulder, his chest. He groans a little and then he’s pulling off my dress, the red-and-white one I bought last July 4. I’m braless, in underwear, and he’s still in his shorts. I reach for these next, and when I can’t get them off him, he helps, and he’s not wearing underwear at all, so he’s completely naked, and now I can really look at him because I think maybe it’s expected or maybe I finally want to know, and there’s this little trail of gold hair on his chest that leads all the way down.

  I fight the urge to cover myself with my hands. Instead I let him kiss my breasts, and while I’ve technically gone this far with a boy, right now it feels so much further.

  Next my panties come off, all at once, both legs at the same time, and he’s looking at my body, and I resist the urge to grab the blanket on the back of the couch and cover up. I let him look at me, but not for long, because I’m kissing him, and his hands are in what’s left of my hair, and then he’s rolling on his side and fishing around in the pocket of his shorts for something.

  He’s getting a condom.

  When he rolls back toward me, condom in hand, I go, “Wow. You’re confident.”

  “Not confident. Hopeful. Although, hello.” He waves at his body and gives me this cheesy grin. And then his face shifts into a genuine smile, and I can’t help it, I kiss the dimples on either side of his mouth, and then he’s kissing my throat, and just when I think my body might explode like a firework, it happens.

  I’m in my body and out of it at the same time. Even as it’s happening, there’s a part of me narrating everything for myself: Now he’s opening the condom packet. Now he’s putting the condom on.

  My head is taking over, and I just want it to shut the hell up and let my body be in charge.

  Now you can feel him. Now he’s putting the condom in.

  There’s the surprise of him inside me, even though I’m expecting it. It’s like my fifth-grade birthday party, when everyone hid in my bedroom, and I knew they were going to surprise me because Saz told me ahead of time, but I still freaked out when they started screaming and running at me.

  He goes, “Are you okay, Captain?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  My mind tells my body to stop thinking about my fifth-grade birthday party and move, for God’s sake, so I move. But I feel like the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, all jerky and stiff. And suddenly I’m thinking about The Wizard of Oz, a movie I don’t even like, and now I’m thinking about thinking about The Wizard of Oz so much that I almost forget to narrate what’s happening.

  Now you can feel him—all of him. And there’s the surprise again. Not pain, necessarily, but the surprise of my body registering something entirely new. I actually suck in air. A loud, gasping, hiccupping sound that makes him stop what he’s doing and look at me funny. Before he can ask what the hell that was or change his mind about ever wanting to
have sex with me, I kiss him. I wonder if I’m bleeding all over his couch, if my mythical hymen has actually broken. Even if it hasn’t, and even if it’s the most awkward, terrible sex that has ever been had on this planet, I know that technically this counts. This counts. Even though virginity is a heteronormative, patriarchal construct…

  Now he’s moving on top of you.

  And you are moving with him even though you don’t know how.

  Please, please, please shut up, brain.

  And then, by some miracle…my mind goes quiet. And my body takes over. It’s as if it knows something I don’t, as if my body and his know each other and understand each other, as if they’re meant to move together like this.

  But then, suddenly, we’re done. Which means he’s done. And this is another surprising thing—the fact that the ending seems to depend on him. I almost tell him, Hey, I need more. I’m not done. But I don’t say anything.

  And just like that, in a single moment, all those years of waiting are over.

  * * *

  —

  Afterward, he rolls off me and we lie, me on my back, him on his side, squished onto this couch, which suddenly seems much smaller than it was moments ago, staring up at the mobile of skulls, which teeters and sways a little, the hollowed-out sounds of bone hitting bone.

  He takes my hand. “When did that get there?” And somehow I know he is talking about the ceiling, which until fifteen seconds ago was shrouded in smoke from the fire we created, and beyond that a sky of stars. The brightest stars.

  “I don’t know.”

  I lie there, the sofa cooling beneath me, feeling my heart settle back into place like a good little organ. I think about how six days ago I didn’t know he could do a handstand and kiss me like no one else, and tonight I know everything about him.

  I lost my virginity, and yet I tell myself I didn’t lose anything. This is my body. I’m the only one in it; I got to choose what happened. I knew what I was doing. I decided where and when to have sex. Just like I will decide my life. No more waiting for other people to decide things for me. I’m writing it right now.