Where I End and You Begin

by Preston Norton

  Imogen rolled her head back and sighed. “You are way too adorable for your own good.”

  • •

  Imogen enlisted the help of Mrs. Klutz to do her makeup. Mrs. Klutz was basically a shorter, more diva version of Imogen. Imogen got her height from her dad, who was one nightmare short of the Slender Man. (He worked for the IRS. I had no idea what he did, but I imagined him as an agent/collector of sorts, visiting the tax-delinquent with a briefcase in one hand and a scythe in the other.)

  Mrs. Klutz asked what my shoe size was. It was seven. (Thank god I was curious and had looked inside Wynonna’s burgundy boots this morning.) Mrs. Klutz squealed with delight, told me we were the same size, and said I could borrow a pair of her heels.

  Mrs. Klutz’s shoe closet was the Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory of shoe closets.

  Under any other circumstance, I might have been reluctant to try on another pair of heels. But right here, right now, I was a kid in a candy store. Shit, I was Charlie Bucket!

  For the longest time, I just looked. There were a lot of shoes, and the concept of “making a decision” was just a little bit overwhelming.

  And then I saw them.

  They were blue. Probably the exact same denim blue as my dress—which might have seemed like an incredible coincidence, except that Mrs. Klutz had damn near a billion shoes, so statistically speaking, it made sense. The meat of the shoe was a thick, lacy design, like the pattern of butterfly wings, slowly engulfing the foot. The heel, itself, was daunting—long, powerful, and deadly, jutting downward like the Sword of Damocles.

  I put them on.

  I felt long, powerful, and deadly. I also felt a bit like Cinderella. Like, if Cinderella had magical powers, conquered Disneytopia, and ruled with an iron fist as the Mistress of All Evil.

  I spent the next half hour practicing walking in them—back and forth, back and forth—in the Klutzes’ master bedroom until I wasn’t a complete idiot in them. I only stopped when I heard Imogen calling.

  “Wynonna! Wynonna, where are you?”

  I exited the master bedroom, smooth and calculated, as Mistresses of All Evil should. Our paths met in the hallway.

  “Ooh, nice kicks,” said Imogen.

  I was too busy plunging down the seemingly infinite abyss where people fall when they fall in love.

  Imogen was wearing a long white floral-patterned summer dress that tied around the neck and draped down her like a flowery waterfall, all the way to her ankles. Taking her height into consideration, it was a very long dress. Her hair was straightened into elegant sandy curtains, her makeup was subtle and stunning, and her perfume was disorienting in the best way possible.

  “Wow,” I finally managed to say. “You look…”

  Brilliant. Gorgeous. Sensational. Ravishing. Devastating.

  “…good,” I said.

  No amount of makeup could hide the fact that she was blushing. Hard-core.

  “Semiformal my ass,” I said, when I could finally do words. “You look like Cate Blanchett.”

  Imogen wrung her hands bashfully. “Thanks, Wynonna.”

  • •

  The plan was to pick up Wynezra and Holden at Holden’s house. We arrived at the Durden residence at exactly seven p.m., just as Imogen had foretold. The “boys” answered the door together, which was kind of cute, if not a little weird.

  Wynezra and Holden didn’t clean up too bad themselves. Wynezra was wearing a dark blazer, sleeves rolled halfway up the forearms, over a plain white V-neck, and probably the nicest pair of jeans I owned. My out-of-control mop of hair was even combed into something vaguely Jonas Brothers. Holden had a fresh haircut, was wearing a checkered dress shirt tucked into a pair of formfitting khakis, and smelled like way too much cologne, but at least he was trying. It was probably the nicest either of us had ever looked, which was kind of sad.

  Wynezra definitely noticed when it came to Holden. She was incredibly stiff and kept stealing glances at him.

  Holden, meanwhile, was too busy noticing me to notice.

  “You look pretty,” said Holden. And then, as if realizing how awkward that sounded, followed it up with, “Uh, pretty good,” which was definitely worse.

  “Aw, thanks,” I said. And then, realizing I should probably compliment him too, said, “Your cologne is very…musky.”

  Wynezra was staring at Holden’s ass in those khakis—then snapped upright when the prevailing silence started to ring like a red flag.

  “Damn, girl,” she said to Imogen. “You look fine.”

  My eyeballs practically popped out of my head. I shot Wynezra a “Tone it the fuck down” look.

  “D’aww, shucks,” said Imogen. She punched Wynezra playfully in the shoulder and said, “You look pretty spiffy yourself.”

  Welp. Now that the awkwardness had reached critical, we all moseyed silently out to Imogen’s car.

  “You four have fun!” said Principal Durden, who until this point had been silently spying on us around the corner of the kitchen. She followed us out to the doorway and perched there like an excited, anxious, helicopter-parenting vulture. “I love you, Holden. Remember to take your indigestion medicine.”

  “Oh my god,” said Holden, between his teeth.

  “I’ll make sure he takes it, Mrs. D!” said Wynezra, cheerfully.

  Holden opened the back door of Imogen’s car. And then he stood there. It took me a second to realize he was opening it for me.

  “Oh,” I said. “Thank you.”

  I climbed in, he shut the door, and started walking around to the other side. Wynezra apparently hadn’t coordinated the chivalrous door-opening scheme with Holden, though, because she was already in the passenger seat, and Imogen was walking around to the driver’s side.

  Wynezra, not even turning around to look at me, said, “If we haven’t swapped by the time the movie starts, should I make a move on Imogen? Yes or no?”

  You have to understand that Wynezra asked this in a window of mere seconds. Maybe a mere second. I had no time to ask what “make a move” meant. I had no time to consider the consequences. I only had time to utter one single-syllable word.

  All I could think of was Imogen getting “a move” from some semblance of Ezra, and that sounded amazing.

  “Yes,” I said.

  Imogen and Holden entered their doors at exactly the same time.

  “Let’s get this girl some Fat Patties!” I screamed, to divert attention from the fact that I was having a mental breakdown.

  But in that moment, it was a good mental breakdown. Probably the best sort of mental breakdown. Like that moment on a roller coaster when the nose tips downward, and you plunge, and the momentum flings your heart into your esophagus, and you throw your arms into the air and think, I am going to die, but it’s okay because this is also probably the greatest moment of your life.

  “You haven’t touched your Big Fat Patty.”

  I loved Fat Patties. Let me start there. With that said, there were two things I hadn’t taken into consideration: 1) Wynonna’s stomach was significantly smaller than mine, and 2) I was sick with anticipation over Wynezra “making a move” on Imogen.

  So, in my state of disintegration, I ordered my usual: the Big Fat Patty.

  The Big Fat Patty was a force to be reckoned with. It was a pure monster of a burger—truly insurmountable unless you were a teenage boy with a metabolism like the Indy 500 and an affinity for masochistic behavior.

  “I think my eyes were bigger than my stomach,” I said.

  “I’ll say,” said Imogen. “You always order the Lasso Patty.”

  “Yeah, weird,” said Wynezra, who was munching on the fries that came with her Lasso Patty.

  Once it became painfully clear that I wasn’t going to conquer even a fraction of this Burgerzilla, I asked for a to-go box.

  We picked up, and it was off to the AMC 8.

  At the concessions, we somehow agreed on ordering two large drinks with four straws (even though I felt extremely g
ermy about the inevitable backwash situation) and also two large popcorns and two M&M’S. We then dumped the M&M’S into the popcorn. We may have been teenagers, but we were wise beyond our years and knew the ways of the world.

  As we claimed our seats in the theater, Imogen sat next to Wynezra, who sat next to Holden, who sat next to me. We sat quietly—perhaps a little too quietly—through the previews, and then the theater went just a little bit darker and quieter.

  The first thing to appear on-screen was the cut, bloody, and bruised face of Jane Jenkins—the “final girl” of the past three Splatter films. She had a red security blanket wrapped around her shoulders and was being escorted by a pair of medics. In the background was the burning wreckage of the Terrorland theme park—the setting of Splatter III: Land of Terror. Police were attempting to fend off the hordes of reporters arriving on the scene, holding out microphones, shouting out a blur of questions.

  One reporter—a determined young woman with curly red hair—found a gap in the police barrier and broke through.

  “Is it true that Buddy Borden is dead?” she asked.

  Buddy Borden was the mutant killer of the past three Splatter films. He wore a splatter mask—a real thing worn by British tank operators in World War I—in which the top half was leather, with a series of shutter-like slits over the eyeholes, and the bottom half was chain mail. Buddy also happened to be Jane’s biological father, although we didn’t learn that until Splatter II: Buddy’s Back.

  “He better be dead,” said Jane. “I decapitated him with a fucking roller coaster.”

  The screen went black, and screeching string instruments filled the silence, and the title—Splatter IV: The Reckoning—literally splattered across the screen.

  “God, these movies are so terrible,” I said. “I love it.”

  “Whoever picked this movie out,” said Wynezra, “I hate you.”

  “I thought you loved these movies,” said Holden.

  Wynezra gave a manic, uneasy laugh. “Yeah. Right. Just kidding, guys. I’m so stoked.”

  “Shhh,” said a person sitting behind us.

  The screen opened to a beautiful college campus—“one year later”—where Jane had made a cast of all-new friends (again), the lot of whom would undoubtedly die (again): the Super Sweet New Boyfriend, the Plucky New Best Friend, the Dude Bro Tool Bag whom the Plucky New Best Friend totally wanted to shag (at least one of whom would die during said shagging), and the Nerdy Comic Relief with Superior Knowledge of Horror Movie Tropes who—in a weird, meta sort of way—had become the tropey-est trope of all.

  Seeing as it was the anniversary of Buddy Borden’s death, the five friends decided to revisit the cabin at Camp Skudakumooch—setting of the original Splatter—where the evil known as Buddy Borden was born. Surely this was not a terribly fatal idea.

  Jane Jenkins and Plucky New Best Friend were in their dorm room, packing up for the weekend getaway, when Plucky New Best Friend said:

  “You know, Jane, when you and Liam got together so fast after…you know…Terrorland…I was a little worried. But I feel like you two are really good for each other.”

  “I feel like he’s helped me heal,” said Jane. “His mom’s in a psychiatric hospital for murdering his dad, and my biological dad was a radiation-mutated psycho killer who murdered my mom, my dad who I thought was my real dad, three of my best friends in the whole world, two boyfriends, one guy I was really into, and…so many others, I can’t even handle counting.”

  “You’re doing a good job so far,” I said.

  “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” said the eponymous Shusher behind us.

  “Do you think he’s going to…you know?” Plucky New Best Friend made a circle with her thumb and index finger, and then pushed her ring finger in and out of it. “Put a ring on it?”

  “What? No!” said Jane, in a way that indicated she totally wanted a ring on it. “I mean, maybe. We’ve, you know, talked.”

  “Interesting. Because I heard that just yesterday, he and Chuck went to…” Plucky New Best Friend leaned forward. “Jared.”

  “I sure hope Jared paid for that advertisement,” I said.

  “Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” said Shusher.

  Wynezra whipped around. “Do you mind? Your shushing is easily the loudest thing in this whole theater.”

  “Shh,” said Shusher.

  Wynezra’s head rotated, like she was scanning the theater. “There’s two open seats in the very back, Imogen. Do you wanna sit there instead?”

  She then gave a subtle sideways nod in my and Holden’s direction, and winked at Imogen.

  “Um,” said Imogen, seeming to pick up on the hint. “Yeah?” And then she started nodding. “Yeah, sure.”

  “See you guys after the movie,” said Wynezra, and she gave another wink, and it was definitely meant for both Holden and me.

  “Shh—” Shusher started.

  “SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” said Wynezra, throwing her entire body—my body—into it. She then straightened, adjusted her blazer with a sharp tug, and she and Imogen weaved out of the aisle and moved to the back of the theater.

  It was just me and Holden and the armrest between us. Thank god for the Dr Pepper in the cup holder.

  Holden took a long sip of the Dr Pepper, then—very sneakily—swapped hands and set it in the opposite cup holder.

  Okay. Well. This was happening.

  “Can I have a drink?” I said—even though I really wanted nothing to do with the Dr Pepper. All I could think of was the accumulated backwash over the past fifteen minutes.

  Holden nodded, slightly embarrassed, and handed over the drink. I took the smallest sip I could get away with, then set it back in the cup holder between us.

  Your move, Durden. Wynonna “Hard-to-Get” Jones is in the house.

  Holden resolved to set his entire arm on the armrest, regardless. His hand was wrapped around the Dr Pepper as some sort of excuse. Then his grip lessened, ever so slightly. Then he sat completely upright in his seat, and his arm rotated just enough to allow his hand to fall open, palm facing the ceiling. His fingers gaped upward, like the teeth of a Venus flytrap.

  I sighed inwardly. I knew what I had to do. Wynonna was making “a move” with Imogen. I could only assume she expected as much effort on my end.

  I grabbed Holden’s hand.

  There was nothing soft or subtle about it. I grabbed it like a TV remote—simultaneously purposeful and lazy and just a little bit exasperated. Holden immediately tensed. Then his fingers interlocked with mine.

  Then his palm started sweating.

  Wow. Holding hands really was the worst. Was this a universal thing? Or was it just something girls had to suffer through?

  “Do you really think Liam’s going to propose?” said Jane.

  “If he does, Jane, he’ll be dead in the morning,” I said.

  In my peripheral, I saw Holden lean in my direction and look at me. I honestly thought he was going to whisper something to me, so I looked at him.

  Then he kissed me.

  Whoa.

  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

  Full disclosure: This was my first kiss. (Thanks a ton, bro.) So I literally had no context in which to evaluate what was going on here. To his credit, Holden’s lips were surprisingly soft, and his breath even smelled vaguely minty. After the initial impact of our lips, however, he started moving his mouth an awful lot, like he was trying to eat something that wasn’t dispensing properly out of my mouth.

  He pulled away when he realized I wasn’t kissing back. I must have looked a little bit terrified, because he reared back like he had made a fatal miscalculation, and even let go of my hand.

  “Are you okay?” he said. “Did you not want…”

  He couldn’t even finish the sentence, he was so mortified.

  “No, it was great,” I lied. Then, to fill in the awkward silence, I said, “Thank you.”

  “Oh,” he said. “You’re welcome.”

  I was abou
t to turn back to the movie, but he leaned in to kiss me again. He didn’t hold anything back this time. I quietly submitted to my fate and attempted to kiss him back. His hand touched my cheek, and it actually felt pretty good. And then his hand massaged into my hair, and wow, that felt even better!

  Then his free hand grabbed my very bare—very exposed—leg, and I felt a twinge of panic.

  His hand drifted onto my inner thigh, and glided up—very, very up.

  Holy fuck.

  I bolted up from my seat.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to…I have to use the…”

  I was searching for the word “bathroom,” but it wasn’t coming to me. So I squeezed through the aisle as fast as I could, and power-walked frantically for the exit.

  It was only as I was passing the last row of seats that I saw them—Imogen and Ezra. Except Ezra was sucking on Imogen’s neck, and Imogen’s head was rolled back, and her mouth was open, and her eyes were wild with euphoria.

  And then her eyes dropped, and she saw me.

  I ran out of the theater.

  I veered into the alcove that led into the restrooms, and there I stared Robert Frost–esquely at two paths, one leading to the men’s restroom, and one leading to the women’s, and that’s when I started crying.

  I barreled into the women’s restroom, passed a woman who shot me a concerned glance, locked myself in the far-back-corner stall, and collapsed on the toilet seat.

  I wasn’t even sure what I was specifically crying about. It could have easily been the way Holden was touching me, but it also could have been the way I felt this body reacting—churning in a very sexual way that was both familiar and alien—or it could have been that I had my first kiss with my best friend whom I had nothing but platonic feelings for, or it could have been that Wynezra was “making a move” on Imogen, and deep down, I didn’t want that. Because even though she was wearing my body, it was still her inside, and it would be her experience, not mine.

  I completely fell apart at that point—choking, sobbing, dying.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “O-o-o-occupied,” I said between choking sobs.