Not After Everything

by Michelle Levy

  After the most elaborate and expensive wedding ceremony I will ever attend, I follow Henry around so he can switch lenses at will. Right now he’s in the middle of the dance floor shooting the couple.

  I find myself watching Jordyn. She doesn’t look like she’s having fun. I have the sudden urge to put my camera to use, when a young guy who was in the wedding party sidles up to her. She’s shooting pictures of the cake. I click off some shots as the guy flirts with her until she’s finally smiling. I want to hug him for it. And I’m getting it on film! I have actual proof that she can smile! Then another guy, the first guy’s friend, joins them. He’s a little more ambitious with his flirting. He finds ways to touch her with the ol’ “Can I see your camera?” trick.

  Henry switches his lens once again and asks me to tell Jordyn to take a break.

  I slowly move to where she’s talking to the guys. She’s still smiling, but I can tell the second guy’s bugging the shit out of her.

  Her face lights up when she sees me. “Hey.”

  “I’ve been ordered to tell you to take a break,” I say.

  “Great.” She hands me the camera and takes the first guy’s hand, leading him onto the dance floor, leaving guy number two holding his dick.

  “She your sister or something?” guy number two asks.

  “Clearly,” I say.

  “Oh. Cool. Well, your sister’s totally hot.” He obviously doesn’t get sarcasm, or that she’s half Malaysian and I am unmistakably not.

  I follow his gaze to where Jordyn’s dancing and flirting and laughing. She really is beautiful. I hold up the camera she handed me and take a few candids of her and the guy dancing. Was she always this beautiful? I have to talk her into ditching the vampire look for good. She’d have guys lining up around the block. But then I’d have to really start bulking up again in order to ward off the assholes.

  Henry waves me back over and, this time, he switches cameras and lenses. I wonder what the difference is.

  Jordyn taps my shoulder.

  “You want your camera back?” I offer her the bag on my shoulder with a grin, wondering when she’ll see the shots I took of her.

  “Sure, but, actually, do you want to get some air?”

  “After you.”

  The grounds are landscaped to perfection. The focal point is the pergola that I’m sure is used in the outdoor ceremonies. Off to the side is a little man-made waterfall with stone benches surrounding it.

  “Why’d you stop dancing with that guy? You looked like you were having fun,” I say.

  “Did I? I’m not even sure I know what that looks like myself.”

  “Yeah. You were, like, smiling and everything. It was scary.” I sit on the wall next to the waterfall.

  She shoves me playfully, sitting herself. “Mike’s pretty cool, we used to kind of hang out or whatever but . . .” She kicks her feet out and in, out and in. They don’t quite touch the ground. It’s adorable.

  “But?”

  “He always asked me not to look how I normally look when we did stuff where he might run into his friends.”

  “Henry thinks you do that to keep from getting close to people.”

  She stares at me, her expression unreadable. Is she going to hit me? Scream at me?

  “Well, then why the hell didn’t it work on you?” she says with an intensity that cuts me.

  “I’m not trying to be a dick,” I say. “I’d just really like to understand you.”

  She takes a deep breath. Stares at her still-kicking feet for a long second. “Okay, fine. It started when I came back from summer break between sixth and seventh grade with boobs. I’d always been happy being a wallflower, but suddenly some of the boys started talking to me. Flirting, even, not that I really knew how to interpret it. Some of the popular girls, one in particular, Jenna McCoy, did not like it. She spread rumors about how I was easy, as if a twelve-year-old could be easy. She and some of the other girls would corner me in the hallways and write ‘slut’ on my clothes or sometimes on my skin with permanent marker—I’m pretty sure Sheila got the idea for my jacket from someone who went to my middle school.”

  “Shit.” That makes what Sheila did so much worse.

  “Yeah. My mom tried to talk to the teachers and the principal about it, but they didn’t do much. And Jenna didn’t let up until everyone hated me, or feared her too much not to at least pretend to hate me. It was brutal.

  “Then one day at lunch, I found myself staring at the goth kids and I thought they looked like they just didn’t give a shit, you know? So I went out and bought some makeup and a billowy black shirt that covered my boobs and tried it out the next day. Something else came with the makeup and the clothes, something I didn’t expect.” She smiles. “Balls.”

  I laugh. “Balls, huh?”

  “Yep.” Then her face goes serious again. “When Jenna finally realized I was me one day at lunch, it was more slut-shaming humiliation. But this time I didn’t let her get away with it. I threw my tray down, shoved her up against the wall, and got right in her face, swearing I would kill her if she didn’t leave me the fuck alone. I think she believed me too, because she did.”

  Jordyn’s quiet. I wait.

  “I thought about ditching the look when high school started,” she says, “because Jenna was going to a different school and I wouldn’t have to worry about her anymore, but . . . I don’t know. Maybe I do use it as a way to keep people at arm’s length. It’s worked pretty well, until you.”

  I smile and roll my eyes. “I’m really sorry we lost touch. I would have set them all straight. Even that Jenna McCoy.”

  She bumps my shoulder with hers.

  When I turn to smile at her, I notice she’s covered in goose bumps. “Shit. I’m such a dick. Here.” I pull off my jacket. I think she’ll say no because she’s such an I-can-take-care-of-myself kind of girl, but instead she pulls it tightly around her shoulders.

  “Thanks.” We’re quiet again awhile after that. Then she says, “I read this study that said twenty percent of all suicides don’t leave a note.”

  I nod. “I know the one. My shrink brings it up constantly.”

  “That’s really messed up.”

  “What, that I have a shrink?”

  She swats at me. “The twenty percent thing, asshole.” She’s smiling again.

  “Yes, yes it is. It would have been nice to have some kind of explanation, since it basically came out of nowhere.”

  “She really didn’t give any indication at all?”

  “Not a goddamn thing. She didn’t even seem depressed that day. She used to be depressed when I was younger. She thought she hid it from me, telling me she was sick, but I figured it out by about junior high. Though it was never so bad that I thought she’d resort to suicide. And with all the good things that were happening for me last year, she’d been happier than I’d ever seen. We had a lot of fun those months leading up. And she was business as usual right up until I left for practice that morning.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow.” Now her feet have stopped kicking. I’m such an idiot. I should have realized she was cold. “Should we head back in? I’m sure Henry probably needs to switch lenses for the thousandth time tonight.”

  She gets up and takes my jacket from her shoulders.

  “You really look beautiful tonight, you know.” I take my jacket from her hands.

  She stands there, not looking me in the eyes for more than a second at a time.

  “What? It’s true. I’m being completely sincere. I, Tyler Blackwell, think you, Jordyn Smith, look quite beautiful without all that shit on your face. But if you feel like you still need it, I promise I won’t bring it up again. Shall we?” I hold out my elbow in a gentlemanly fashion, bracing myself for her to slap it away, but she surprises me and takes it.

  I glance down
at her to be met with a somewhat reluctant and embarrassed smile.

  “I’ll take your opinion under advisement,” she mumbles.

  As we walk back into the reception, I smile to myself. Maybe I’ve managed to get through to her. But I doubt it.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Jordyn is absent from work the next day. I find myself wishing she were here. Henry’s in an unusually bad mood, so I don’t dare ask why she isn’t. But I’m feeling kind of off.

  On my way to the bathroom between retouches, I catch Henry arguing into his cell. I make out something about Jordyn doing something he’s less than thrilled with. As horrible as it is, I’m kind of happy about that—not that he’s mad at Jordyn, but that they don’t have an absolutely perfect relationship.

  With Henry’s mood, I don’t want him to catch me doing something not work related, so I figure I can’t take too long to calm myself down. I’m not even sure why I’m so worked up. Maybe I have, like, a Pavlovian response to anger. I splash some cold water on my face and run my wet fingers through my hair, reminding myself that I need this job and that Henry’s not my dad and that he would never act like him in a million years.

  I open the door to find a very unhappy Henry. “Did you encourage her to rekindle things with that ex of hers?”

  “What?” I’m getting a bit of a Deliverance vibe off him. I back into the bathroom.

  He follows me in. “I saw you two talking at the wedding and then next thing she’s dancing with that Mike kid.”

  How is this my fault? I try to recall our conversation last night, but the walls are closing in and the piss smell of the toilet is making me want to vomit and Henry looks like he’s about to rip my head off. Henry is not like Dad. Henry is not like Dad.

  His phone rings. I think about using the distraction to get the fuck out of here, but once he realizes it’s Jordyn on the other end, he stands in the doorway deliberately trapping me.

  “Where the hell were you? Your mother was a wreck all night thinking something happened to you.”

  Henry glares at me as he listens to her response. I feel like I’m on trial for something I have no idea I’ve done.

  “Aslan called us. Said you didn’t come home.”

  His glare intensifies as he listens.

  “He is. And he didn’t bother saying anything to me about that. He has some serious explaining to do, if you ask me.”

  I swallow the golf ball in my throat.

  “This ain’t over,” Henry says into the phone before thrusting it at my chest, about knocking the wind out of me. He storms out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

  I stare at the phone until I hear Jordyn on the other end telling me to pick it up.

  “Um?”

  “I’m so sorry, Tyler! I’m so, so, so sorry!”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I told Henry I was with you last night. Will you please, please, please go with it? I’ll owe you.”

  “Are you fucking crazy? He already went on a rant about your ex. I’m not telling him you were with me last night.”

  “Not like that. I told my mom that I had a little champagne at the reception and that you were taking me home and I begged you not to take me to my dad’s house because I didn’t want him to see me drunk, so I stayed at your house to sleep it off.”

  “And this will make them hate me less, how?”

  “Please, Tyler?”

  “I need this job, Jordyn.”

  “I swear my mom will calm Henry down. It’ll be fine. I’ll even tell them Mike tried to make me go home with him, but you intervened, and you can be the hero. Please?”

  Of course I’m going to help her, but I’ll make her sweat a little first.

  “Please?” Her voice has taken on a tone of desperation I didn’t think she was capable of.

  “Fine.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank—”

  “One condition.”

  “Anything.”

  “Tell me where you really were,” I tease.

  “Shut up.” I can practically hear her turn red.

  “You little slut.”

  “Really? You’re going to call me a slut?” She’s back to normal.

  “I hope you at least—”

  “I’m not an idiot. Of course we used condoms.”

  “Good for you. But what I was going to say is, I hope you at least enjoyed yourself.” My face is starting to hurt from smiling.

  “I, um, well, it’s really none of your business, but yes I did enjoy myself.” I can all but feel the heat from her blush through the phone and it’s killing me. I am loving this. Oh, how the tables have turned. “At least, I enjoyed myself until this morning when I remembered how things used to be.”

  “Well, you want to know something really messed up?”

  “Of course.”

  “I . . . I really miss you here.”

  She goes silent.

  “Henry’s really fucking scary when he’s angry!”

  “Oh, god. Tyler, I really, really owe you. I’m taking you to dinner. Someplace nice. Your choice.”

  “It’s a date.”

  She’s silent again.

  “Don’t be so literal,” I say. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow. And I’ll start making a list of places I’ve always wanted to try but didn’t have the money.”

  “Thanks again.” She hangs up.

  “Anytime,” I say to myself.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I wait for Jordyn at lunch in the usual spot on Monday—we’re cooling it on the carpooling since I have a tendency to take off without warning these days. When she rounds the corner and her face isn’t caked in all her usual makeup, my stomach drops. She didn’t do that because of me, did she?

  “Hey,” is all I’m able to manage. She’s still wearing heavy eye makeup and dark lipstick, but at least her natural skin is on display and not covered in that powdery white chalk stuff.

  “You look disappointed. You didn’t think I’d listen to you, and now you’re annoyed that I did?” She tucks her shiny black hair behind one ear.

  “No. It’s that I—I’m just surprised you did listen. I mean, who am I to tell you to change what you’re doing?” I set my pizza slice down on the bench. My appetite is gone.

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I did this for me. You helped, maybe, a little. The other night— Well, not all people suck as much as Jenna McCoy, okay?” She sits across from me and lifts her slice to her mouth.

  “You look good,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes and takes a bite of her pizza.

  • • •

  After school Friday, I take Captain for a long run through the greenbelts. I thought about heading for the Red Rocks path, but it gets dark so early now. The paths here are nearer civilization, so the chances of encountering a mountain lion are less likely.

  It’s not until I hear someone calling my name that I realize I’m not far from Jordyn’s house.

  I slow my pace and head up the path toward the street.

  “You stalking me?” she asks.

  “You wish.”

  “Who’s this?”

  Captain jumps up on her, tail wagging like crazy, and of course he’s smiling. I expect her to freak that he’s showing his teeth, but she gets down and allows him to lick her all over her face. It’s only then that I realize she’s not wearing any makeup. Like, at all. No eyeliner. No lipstick. And she’s never looked better. She’s wearing jeans and a hoodie under her coat. She’s beautiful. How can she cover all that up? What the hell am I thinking? This is Jordyn. She’s my friend. My only friend. I can’t screw that up.

  “He’s smiling,” she says, snapping me out of my stupidity.

  “That’s what I always say. Most people think he’s threatening, though. His teeth.�
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  “Nah, he’s a good boy. Aren’t you?” Captain licks her face again. “What’s his name?”

  “Captain Jack Sparrow, but we call him Captain.”

  “Jack Sparrow didn’t have an eye patch. Did he, Captain?” Her adorable puppy-talk voice is killing me, it’s so cute.

  “Mom liked Johnny Depp, so that’s the pirate we went with.”

  “It suits him,” she says, sitting on the ground so Captain can worm his way onto her lap. He sits facing me but he looks back and kisses at her every two seconds. She laughs each time. And when she laughs, she’s even more beautiful. What is wrong with me?

  “Where are you off to?” If she says a date, it might kill me. In fact the idea of that asshat ex of hers getting to have sex with her last week is killing me.

  She’s waiting for me to say something.

  “Sorry, what? I was distracted.”

  “I’m going to the animal clinic—the shelter where I volunteer. They just took in a hoarder’s loot. There were like fifty cats or something ridiculous like that. They’ve had to put a bunch down because of feline leukemia, but they need me to help out with the ones that are healthy. I get to de-flea and de-worm. What can I say? I lead a glamorous life.”

  Shit. Why is she so freaking perfect?

  This is not going to end well.

  I have to stop this line of thinking.

  I’m staring. She notices I’m staring. And we hold eye contact for an uncomfortable length of time. Shit. I just know she can tell I’m into her. Now she’ll be all awkward, and I’ve ruined my, like, one friendship. And I didn’t even get to have sex with her.

  “I gotta run. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she says, pulling her keys from her pocket. She leans down and gives Captain a good scratch and a kiss on the head. “And just so your human doesn’t get jealous,” she says to Captain as she reaches up and kisses me on the cheek. And it’s the best cheek kiss in the history of cheek kisses. Closer to my lips than a normal cheek kiss and also a bit more lingering. Talk about mixed messages. I am so totally screwed.

  I run for another hour, trying to stop picturing Jordyn beneath me, sweaty and naked. When that doesn’t work, I head for the shower. I’m pretty sure it’s just that I haven’t gotten laid in a while. It’s just that she’s a girl, a not unattractive girl, who’s showing interest. Nothing more. I just need to get laid. I’ll call Ali Heart-over-the-i after my shower. But I don’t want Ali, I want Jordyn.