Psych Major Syndrome
Page 9
I wasn’t so sure that I wanted this to be some kind of rite-of-passage thing, but a small thrill still went through me at the very idea of sleeping over. “What about the bed situation?” I said, more to gauge his reaction than anything else.
“Well,” he said, giving me a sideways smirk. “Maybe we’ll just have to get a little closer, won’t we?”
“I would love to,” I said, smiling up at him. Before I knew it, he leaned down and pressed his lips passionately on mine. I kissed him back, trying to put all my feelings into that fusion of our mouths, as though somehow my lips could tell him something I couldn’t put into words.
I’m not sure if it worked, though. Eventually he pulled back, and instead of commenting on the messages of love he had just received via the kiss, he took his shirt off and threw it on the sand. “Let’s go for a swim,” he suggested.
Andrew dove into the water before I could reply, but I was still reeling from the thought of spending the night with him. He could have suggested we get dental work done and I probably would have blindly followed him at this point. I slipped out of my jean shorts and T-shirt to the boy-cut bikini I wore underneath, wading out to meet him.
We swam for a bit—mostly Andrew did, since I have a thing about putting my head underwater. I saw Jaws a few too many times as a kid, and so it’s hard for me to swim under-water without having my eyes open. And chlorine wreaks enough havoc, but salt water is the worst. At one point Andrew dunked me under, ignoring my squealing protests, and I sputtered as I broke the surface.
“What was that for?” I choked.
Andrew shrugged. “You need to have some fun, Leigh. You’re always so neurotic.”
Okay, so maybe I’m a little uptight. On the first day of Intro Psych, we took the Myers-Briggs personality test. I scored really far on the Judging side, which means I prefer schedules and lists and plans. But I’m also the girl who never starts a paper until the last minute and who drives a car that makes no pretense of reliability. If there’s anyone in the relationship who’s uptight, it’s gotta be Andrew.
I didn’t call him on it, though. We had been having such a good time up to that point that I really didn’t see the need to start a childish argument. “Let’s head in,” I said instead.
The sun had almost completely set, and dusk settled in as Andrew and I strolled up the beach. I heard talk of a bonfire, and a few of Joanna’s surfer friends were gathering up driftwood and piling it on the sand. Nathan and Sydney were nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Nathan?” I asked.
Andrew glanced idly around before shaking his head. “Probably just off somewhere. How would I know?”
I should have just let it go at that, but something made me press on. “He was talking with Sydney earlier, and now I don’t see either one of them,” I said. “Isn’t he still with Heather?”
“Christ, I don’t know.” Andrew turned to me with an exasperated sigh. “It’s not like I’m filming a friggin’ biopic on the kid. Why do you care, anyway?”
I didn’t care. But I didn’t think there was anything so wrong with wanting to keep tabs on the people I had to drive home.
Ami ran over from where she had been chatting with several very cute, shirtless surfers. “Oh my God,” she breathed. “Those guys over there are so fine. Dumb, but fine. Do you know what one of them said when I mentioned Anne Frank?”
“What?”
Ami dropped her voice to a beach-bum baritone. “He said, ‘Isn’t she the one who makes those crazy folders? Those panda bears always freaked me out, man.’” She chuckled. “Can you believe that? He actually thought that Anne Frank was Lisa Frank!”
This was coming from Ami, who has had many such moments herself in just the short time I’ve known her. Once she asked if Portuguese was just a dialect of Spanish. This was particularly disconcerting, considering Ami’s last name is Gutierrez, she speaks fluent Spanish, and she visits extended family in Nicaragua every year. So you’d think she should know.
“Why were you discussing Anne Frank, anyway?” I asked. Not the usual topic of conversation for a kooky artist and a bunch of surfers at a beach party.
“I was just trying to figure out what she did when she…you know…” Ami looked at me expectantly, as though I could read her mind. But as much as it would thrill my parents, telepathy has never been one of my talents. It didn’t work in the first grade when I hoped to figure out what my teacher could possibly be thinking with those polyester pantsuits, and it wouldn’t work now.
“No…what?” Went on dates with Peter? That’s what I used to wonder about when I read the diary in eighth grade. I’m sure they just hung out in his room a lot. Trying to hook up in the secret annex must have been harder than beating the last level of Donkey Kong. And that’s pretty hard.
“Had her period.” Ami laughed. “Like, did she have to use towels? Because that would be totally gross.”
I was speechless for a few moments. “You have the weirdest pickup lines,” I finally said.
Andrew snorted. Whether it was at Ami, me, or the fact that this conversation was even happening, I couldn’t tell. “I’m going to go help with the bonfire,” he said, and walked away.
I waited until he was out of earshot, and even then I lowered my voice and leaned in to make sure no one but Ami could hear my next words. “Andrew asked me to spend the night tonight.”
Ami’s eyebrows shot up. “He did, huh?”
Her tone made me wary. “Yeah. He did.”
“So you’re going to?”
When your boyfriend of a year asks you (after multiple false starts, which Ami and I had totally analyzed to death) to spend the night with him, you don’t exactly say no. “Of course,” I said, but I could hear the defensiveness creep into my voice.
“Do you really think that’s such a good idea?”
“Um…yes?”
Ami took me by the shoulder, steering me farther away from the party, even though we were already isolated. “You realize that if you spend the night over there, you’re probably going to…you know.”
Okay, this time it didn’t take a mind reader. It was only the same thought that had been circling in my head like a vulture over a fresh carcass from the moment Andrew brought up the subject. “Would that be so bad?” I asked. “It’s not like I’m hooking up with some random guy. I mean, this is Andrew we’re talking about.”
Ami nodded slowly. “Right…Andrew. Do you really think it’s going to be special with him?”
I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. “Look,” I said, getting angrier now. “I am fully aware that you and Andrew are not going to form a mutual admiration society anytime soon. But he’s my boyfriend, and if we decide to take this step, I think it’s our decision and you need to respect that.”
“Dios mío,” Ami muttered, a clear sign I wasn’t the only one getting agitated. “All I’m trying to say is…doesn’t it ever bother you, the way he treats you? And why do you think sex will make it any different?”
Of course I had known we were talking about sex. But for some reason hearing the actual word made it seem so much more immediate, and I felt my heart start to race. Was it from excitement? Or fear?
“There’s nothing wrong with the way Andrew treats me,” I said. So we didn’t exactly have the five to one ratio of positive to negative interactions in the relationship recommended by marriage therapists. But it was probably at least two to one. Maybe even three to one if he wasn’t stressed about his schoolwork.
Ami rolled her eyes. “That’s what Tina Turner said about Ike,” she said, “and at least she got roses when he was being a jerk.”
That was so unfair. “Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
“I wish I could be.” Ami sighed. “Believe me, I really wish I could.”
“Well, don’t hurt yourself trying,” I said. I spun on my heel—a little awkwardly, since we were standing in incredibly soft sand—and stalked toward the bonfire, which was in full force now.
For some reason, it reminded me of the rare times that my parents would crack down and tell me to clean my room. Usually I would bring a book in there and sit cross-legged on the floor amid the mess, reading. When my mother would poke her head in to check on my progress, I would always spring up guiltily and throw the book under the bed. There were times when I knew she had probably been standing in the doorway for thirty seconds before I, totally immersed in my book, was even aware that she was there. But still I would chuck my book across the room and start shuffling papers, as if it might actually fool her.
It was just Ami’s comments that were getting to me, I told myself. They were making me paranoid and oversensitive, and creating trouble where there was none. My relationship with Andrew was not only solid, it was actually moving forward. Finally.
“What’s Ami’s problem?” Andrew asked, glancing back at Ami, who was still standing huffily apart from everyone else. He snickered. “Did someone break it to her that she might have to write a paper with legitimate sources, and not just ones from the Internet?”
Normally I just would have reeled off a lie to explain away the situation, but at that moment I saw two silhouettes walking toward the fire. I squinted into the distance, pretty sure that the two figures were Nathan and Sydney. Were they holding hands? The way they blurred together in the shadows, it was impossible to tell.
The two silhouettes came upon the circle of people surrounding the fire, and I saw that it was them. Unlike everyone else, Nathan hadn’t bothered to wear a swimsuit. Instead, he had on his usual uniform of jeans and a band T-shirt, this time Radiohead. They weren’t holding hands, but Nathan laughed at something Sydney said as they found a place on the sand across from Andrew and me. Then Nathan pulled one leg up to his chest, linking his hands casually around his knee as his eyes scanned the crowd.
I realized I was staring and tried to look away, but Nathan’s gaze stopped on me, and the smile faded from his face. Seriously, if looks could kill.
Okay, so Nathan hated me. What else was new? And Ami was mad at me—she’d get over it. If not tonight, then by graduation for sure.
At least I had Andrew. I snuggled closer to him, and he casually draped his arm around my shoulders. “I love you,” I said.
He looked down at me, and for a second I was afraid he wasn’t going to say it back. It wasn’t the first time I’d told him I loved him, but there was an extra edge to my voice this time that would have been hard to miss. But then he smiled. “I love you, too.”
I didn’t care what Ami said. Tonight was going to be perfect.
INTIMACY v. ISOLATION: A crisis during young adulthood over finding love and settling down. If this crisis is not favorably resolved, the young adult will begin to avoid commitment, resulting in alienation from others.
ANDREW and I drove back to his apartment in silence. When I told Ami we were leaving, she said she would just catch a ride with Joanna back to campus. I wanted to remind her not to accept a ride with one of the surfer guys—no matter how cute they were. I wanted to laugh with her about Sydney, whose ass was now demonstrating the ancient water-sand conundrum after she toppled over in those tall heels.
Mostly, I wanted to talk to Ami about the possibly huge implications of the night to come without her talking me out of it or telling me anything I didn’t want to hear. But if the pinched look on her face was anything to go by, I was on my own with this one.
I had also pretty much stranded Nathan at the beach. Andrew had been in such a hurry to leave, and the last thing I wanted to do was bother Nathan while he was with Sydney. So Andrew and I just left. I’ve never done anything like that before. And even though I was sure Sydney would be more than thrilled to give him a ride, it was still a crappy thing to do.
“That was a good party,” Andrew commented, interrupting my thoughts, and I started.
“It was,” I agreed after a pause. “We should do stuff like that more often.”
Andrew grunted noncommittally.
“Not like all the time or anything,” I clarified. “And of course school will come first.” When Andrew made that sound, it usually had something to do with worrying about his six-course load.
“Maybe.”
Those two syllables hung in the air for a few minutes. It was dark, and I was driving, so I couldn’t really look at his face to see what he was thinking. “Andrew?”
“Yeah?” he asked absently.
I really wanted to ask where he saw our relationship going, or if he thought we could make it through the whole four years together. But it just seemed like a really awkward time to bring it up. So I just said the first thing that popped into my head.
“Is it true that Nathan’s dad died?”
“Yeah,” Andrew said. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason. I just heard something about it, and I guess I wondered.”
For a few minutes it didn’t seem like Andrew was going to say anything else, but then he spoke again. “This kid in my theory of knowledge class actually went to high school with Nathan,” he said. “Apparently, everyone thought Nathan was really weird, because he only took a morning off for the funeral. That was it. He came back that afternoon, like nothing had happened.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well. People deal with grief in different ways, I guess.”
“Obviously,” Andrew said. “Pete was in Nathan’s biology class, and one day, like a month after the funeral, Nathan just put his head down and started to cry. And not just a little bit. He was sobbing. Pete said it was really embarrassing.”
I totally bought Nathan the unfeeling robot, but this was a new image of him. I didn’t have a whole lot of time to think about it, though, as we reached the suites parking lot and the same anxieties about tonight came rushing back. As I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed out of Gretchen, I was still formulating the approach I would take to have a serious conversation with Andrew about our relationship. And by the time Andrew unlocked his front door and guided me inside, my heart was pounding, my palms felt sweaty, and I still couldn’t form the words I wanted to say.
Nathan’s guitar was leaning against the couch, and I brushed my fingers gently against the smooth wood. “You know, I’ve always wanted to learn to play guitar,” I said, fully aware that a babble was coming on but powerless to stop it. “When I was younger I played violin—I wasn’t bad, either, if you consider being able to play Minuet in A Minor a musical tour de force. But the teacher was always on everyone’s case, saying, ‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink,’ and I was, like, well, ‘a group is only as good as its leader—’”
Andrew cut me off. “Leigh, I know about your eighth-grade orchestra days, remember? I didn’t ask you over here to talk about that,” he said, in an attempt, I think, to sound sexy.
I knew that, of course. What wasn’t so clear to me was why he had invited me. As much as I’d agonized over why he hadn’t asked up to this point (we were still settling in, his classes were crazy, and I know his mom gave him a speech about how she’s not paying for him to live in sin), I was questioning why he’d done so now.
We had been together for over a year, after all, and since coming to college, we’d had all the freedom in the world to do what we wanted. And yet, months had gone by without Andrew even hinting that he would like me to spend the night. I’d told myself it was for the best, since I toss and turn for hours before I fall asleep under the best conditions, and even more if I have to sleep in the same bed with another person. When I was nine I visited my cousin, and we had to share her water bed. It had been one of the most excruciating nights of my life.
“So why did you, exactly?” I asked.
Andrew crossed over to me, bringing a hand up to cup my cheek. “C
ome on, Leigh,” he said. “You know why.”
He started to kiss me, and all questions flew from my head as I leaned into him, my eyes fluttering closed. Andrew’s kisses always make me feel like I’m taking a warm bath, one of those where your whole body relaxes and you feel yourself just sinking into it. I could taste the slight tang of the beer he’d sipped earlier, and even though I don’t really like beer, it tasted kind of good on his lips.
In one deft motion, Andrew slipped the thin T-shirt I was wearing over my head, leaving me standing in my jeans and bikini top.
“What about—” I started to protest, but Andrew cut me off.
“He won’t be home for hours,” he said, “and even if he walks in, who cares?”
For a second I had the uneasy feeling that Andrew almost wanted Nathan to walk in, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. “I care,” I said, pulling back from him. “Let’s just move this into your room, okay?”
Andrew sighed, but he took my hand and guided me back to his room. There were a few awkward moments while I stood, still in my bikini top and totally conscious of the smell of salt water that clung to it, as he cleared his bed of papers and books. In a romance novel, he would have taken his arm and swept everything off in one passionate arc, but I really couldn’t see Andrew ever doing something like that. Instead he scooped up the books, stacking them neatly by the bed, and shuffled all the papers together. One caught his attention and he stopped to read it before I cleared my throat.
“Right,” he said, and tossed the papers on his desk before reaching to take me in his arms again. I pressed against him, both of us standing while we kissed, until Andrew eased me back onto the bed. I felt his hand go to the button on my jeans, and I stiffened.
“Wait,” I tried to say, but it came out sounding more like mmph as Andrew’s lips crushed mine. For some reason I kept thinking about that last mentoring program, and the many questions the girls had asked. What about abortion?
Andrew slid the zipper down, and I tore my mouth from his. “Wait,” I said, squirming beneath him, and then finally, “Andrew, wait!”