Last Train to Babylon

by Charlee Fam

  94

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.” Ally shook her head, a huge grin splashed across her face, loving every moment of our eyes on her. “But then he killed himself. Like, who would say something like that? It’s probably not even true.”

  “Probably some desperate slut,” Rachel cut in. “Like some people need to get a fucking life.” She shot another glance over at the seniors who had clearly already forgotten about her.

  “Most of the time, it’s not even true,” Ally said matter-of-factly, like she was declaring there was no Easter Bunny.

  “I mean I think it’s mostly bullshit,” Rachel said. “But Diane’s friend said she knew this girl who was raped at college in like a parking garage or something.”

  Ally’s face suddenly went all horrified. “I mean yeah. That’s legit. But whoever said that about Max and Jay, I mean, she must have known them, right? So it couldn’t have been real rape.”

  I HAVE ABOUT a million and one regrets. It’s hard to prioritize them. I can’t lay them all out in a neat little binder to go back to for reference on days I’m feeling particularly nostalgic. It doesn’t work like that. Instead, they’re all jumbled up in an awful knot, tangled together in my head, and when I think about them, I feel like I’m stroking out. I see spots, and all the blood rushes out of my face, right down into the pit of my chest.

  I think that’s technically the definition of anxiety. At least that’s my definition. To me, anxiety is when my mind betrays my body, like I’m about to collapse in on myself. It starts in my chest, I get a dizzy feeling behind my eyes, my hands tingle. But when I think back to certain moments in my life, it’s this conversation that sits on my tongue, an acrid, putrid taste; and I’m still waiting to spit out the words.

  95

  It’s probably not even true. Get a fucking life.

  I remember the conversation. I remember standing there, listening, appalled as the words flowed from their overglossed lips, nodding their heads at each other, sick smiles splashed across their faux-bronzed faces. I remember that guilty twist of my stomach, before I really knew what it had meant to feel guilty, and I listened, but I didn’t say anything. Instead, I just stared down at my Jungle Juice.

  I hear it reverberating through my veins as if from a megaphone.

  It doesn’t count. It isn’t real. Desperate slut.

  I HAD CONSIDERED telling the girls about Adam, but the conversation about Max and Jason and the mystery accusation sort of stole the show. Though, knowing Rachel, she’d be more shocked to know that I’d been walking to school every day with the Younger Sullivan than that his older brother was accused of some sort of assault.

  I didn’t expect to see Adam at the party. I felt like he didn’t even really exist outside of our walks. It had only been a week, but I still never saw him in school, in the halls, in any classes. It was like he’d escort me to the main doors and then dissolve, just dissolve until 6 A.M. the following day, where he would be waiting like a loyal puppy—blue hoodie, empty backpack slung over one shoulder, and a halfhearted wave.

  96

  It was only when I left the dock to refill my drink that I saw him. He was standing next to the keg, talking to a sophomore guy. The sophomore talked with his hands, and only after seeing this interaction did I notice something about Adam. He never spoke with his hands, and it seemed so bizarre to me. I hadn’t noticed when it had just been the two of us on our walk, but I saw it then, the way his hands hung limp at his sides, the way he spoke with an elegant grace. Adam had a calm energy about him, the kind that didn’t warrant unnecessary gestures. I squinted in his direction. He looked taller. He nodded at me. I waved and walked away, toward the inside of the house.

  I caught my reflection in the sliding glass doors while I shouldered my way back from the bathroom. My lips, teeth, and tongue were neon red. I stuck my tongue out to examine my reflection when I felt someone behind me.

  “Nice mouth, Glass,” he said. I spun around, and Adam stood there, his hands in his jean pockets. His shoulders were broad, but he was still skinny, scrawny even, like he hadn’t grown into his limbs yet.

  “So you do know my name?” We had walked together all week, but I couldn’t remember ever telling him my name, and I couldn’t remember him ever using it.

  “Of course I do,” he said. “You think I just walk random girls to school and don’t even know their names? What kind of guy do you take me for?”

  I opened my mouth to speak but let out a dumb laugh instead. I fidgeted with the cup in my hand.

  “So you like that stuff?” he asked, nodding toward my newly refilled drink. He seemed ignited by the alcohol, in control, and handsome up close—something I hadn’t noticed about him until that moment.

  97

  “It’s not terrible, but it would be better out of a mason jar.” I lifted the red cup toward him and immediately felt like an idiot for referencing mason jars.

  “Mason jars, huh?” he said. “That could get expensive, especially with a bunch of clumsy freshmen who can’t hold their liquor.” He flexed his jaw and then let up with this crooked grin. “I mean can’t you just see shattered glass everywhere?” As he said it, he pulled his hands out of his pockets and flung them outward, knocking my plastic cup to the ground. The glowing red juice splattered up off the cement, leaving pink stains on the bottom of his jeans. He didn’t flinch, just kept on grinning, his arms still extended at his sides.

  “Shit,” I said, leaning down to pick up my cup and assess the damage to his jeans. His one hand gesture of the night, and of course he spills my drink everywhere. Overcompensating much? I wanted to say, but instead I just stared at the ground and began to apologize for the mess he made.

  “Why are you sorry?” he deadpanned. “I did it on purpose. You know, to prove a point.” I sucked in air through my nostrils, and a part of me wished I still had some of the drink left, so I could throw it in his face. I noticed then how white his teeth were. Maybe I only noticed against the contrast of his red-stained lips.

  “Your jeans, though,” I said. “They’re ruined.” No one else at the party seemed to notice our dramatic spillage.

  “Don’t worry about it, Glass,” he said. “You know, you have crazy green eyes. Has anyone ever told you that?”

  I shrugged. “Haven’t heard that, no,” I lied. He was still holding eye contact, his own gray eyes wide.

  98

  “So, don’t you want to find your friends?” he asked, after several uncomfortable seconds of nothing.

  I didn’t, I said, and so we walked toward the waterfront. His lanky arms swung in sync with his legs. We stopped at a metal swing set nestled on the asphalt behind a row of covered-up boats.

  He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a single Camel Light, and held it out toward me.

  I shook my head. “No. Thanks. I don’t smoke.”

  He cocked his head at me. “Well, neither do I,” he said. “I saw you smoking with your friend, so I just assumed.” He seemed relieved.

  “Sorry,” I said. “That was Rachel’s. I was only taking a drag.”

  “Well, it’s too bad, because I paid Jason three dollars for this thing.” He held it up and flicked it into the water. The water rippled, and the cigarette lay, a limp, wet thing.

  My lips went numb, and I started to feel the Jungle Juice flowing through me.

  “So, Miss Glass,” Adam said. “What’s your favorite movie?”

  “What’s my favorite movie?” I looked at him, not really sure how to answer, not even sure if I had a favorite movie. “Is that what you ask all the girls?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Well, what is it?”

  “What’s your favorite movie?” I asked.

  “Do you always answer a question with a question?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Do you?”

  He flashed his teeth. “My favorite movie is Homeward Bound.”

  99

  “Like the dogs?” I asked, trying to hold back my laugh.r />
  “And the cat. Don’t forget about the cat.” He looked so serious, and it was making me anxious. I needed him to smile, to laugh, something. “Sassy,” he said. “Remember?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I can respect that.” He squinted one eye at me, like he was taking aim. “The Breakfast Club,” I said. “That’s my favorite movie.”

  He nodded. “I can respect that.”

  “What do you hate?” he asked. We were standing a few feet apart, neither of us knowing what to do with our hands.

  “What do you mean what do I hate? What kind of question is that?” I said.

  “There you go again with the questions,” he said. “What do you hate? Who do you hate? There’s got to be one thing or one person who you just can’t stand.” He gritted his teeth and scrunched up his face.

  I took my hair out of the ponytail and ran my fingers through.

  “Anne Hathaway,” I said. “I hate Anne Hathaway. I don’t know what it is. But there’s something about her I can’t get behind.”

  “Who’s Anne Hathaway?” he asked. “Does she go to our school?” I shook my head and let out a dry, raspy laugh.

  “No. She was in that movie The Princess Diaries. Rachel made me see it. It was pretty awful.”

  Adam nodded, stifling a smile. “Can’t say that I’ve seen that one. But, God, you’re pretentious.”

  “And you?” I asked.

  “And me, what?” he said.

  100

  “What do you hate?”

  “I don’t hate anything,” he said. “I’m not a psychopath.” He spun around and walked over toward the swing. I stood with my hands across my chest. “What do you love?”

  I sucked in a breath and realized I had no idea how to answer that. I loved my family, even if I made it a point not to tell them. I loved my friends. I loved the beach. But none of those things seemed like the right answer, so I said the first thing that came to mind: “Mason jars.”

  “Mason jars,” he repeated. “What is with you and mason jars? God, you’re weird.”

  I shrugged. I’d been begging Karen to switch out our drinking glasses for mason jars, but she refused. She said it was trashy.

  “Everything is better in a mason jar,” I said. “Seriously, think about it. You go to a restaurant, and you order a lemonade or an iced tea, and it comes in a mason jar. How excited are you?”

  He half laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Glass. I still think it’s weird. Maybe you should consider changing your last name to Mason—you know instead of Glass.” He shifted his gaze toward his pink-stained jeans.

  “You know, I wasn’t really expecting you to be like this,” I said. The September air was still around us. Everything was still but the soft ripples in the canal.

  “Be like what? Charming? Dapper?” He ran his finger over the chain and looked the swing up and down, assessing his next move.

  “So talkative,” I said. “You’re usually so quiet.”

  101

  “I’m not a morning person.” His voice seemed to trail off as he looked up toward the metal pole, and then he looked at me, his gray eyes flickered with a cold, hard stare, and then just as quickly, the intensity dissipated and he was staring back up at the pole. I felt a chill, and not the romantic, gushy kind when a boy looks at a girl for the first time.

  “Favorite show?” he asked. I was beginning to think he’d memorized a list of first-date questions before he’d left his house that night.

  “Current or of all time?”

  “Of all time.”

  “Friends,” I said. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” he said. “But Seinfeld is better.” He hopped up onto the swing. “Obviously,” he said again. His sneakers pressed against the seat, and his arms stretched up toward the chains. “Sorry,” he said, “but Friends isn’t funny.”

  “I don’t really think Seinfeld is funny.”

  “You just don’t get the humor,” he said, buckling his knees and picking up speed.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You see,” he said. “You have to be intelligent to appreciate the humor in Seinfeld. Friends? That’s mindless humor for dumb people. Like yourself. It’s not realistic. Those apartments? Please. Don’t they have jobs?” Before I could protest, or even register the fact that he just called me dumb, he swung through the air, let go of the chains, and landed hard on his feet, right in front of me.

  “Okay,” I said, pushing my hands into his chest. “Now who’s being pretentious?”

  102

  “One more question,” he said. “How do you take your coffee?”

  “Guess,” I said. He stood close. Too close. His shaggy black hair fell over his cold, gray eyes. He smelled like fruit punch and laundry detergent, and he rested his hand under my chin, and the first thing I noticed were his clean and perfectly clipped fingernails. I could hear my mother’s voice pounding in my head as the seconds ticked away between us. Clean fingernails and clean ears. Those are the first things to always look for.

  His hand stayed under my chin, and he brushed his thumb over my bottom lip, back and forth. He leaned in. I closed my eyes and braced myself for the kiss, my second kiss. I could feel his face close to mine, and then he leaned in once more and blew an icy breath into my ear. I could still feel his cool breath on my face when Rachel came barreling around the corner.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you, slut,” she slurred, and swung her hips from side to side as she walked toward us. She’s been rehearsing that line in her head since the moment she realized I’d snuck off. I could just tell. She still held an overflowing Solo cup, and the neon-red liquid sloshed over the top as she stumbled toward us. She stopped in her tracks when she realized I wasn’t alone. “Oh, hi,” she said, peering through the darkness at Adam. The cool, confident Adam I’d just been talking to dissolved once again, and he nodded awkwardly at Rachel before making an abrupt exit back to the party.

  I put my hands over my face to hide my smirk from Rachel.

  “Um, what the fuck was that?” she asked, slapping me in the small of my shoulder. “Were you making out with the Younger Sullivan?” Her mouth hung open, waiting for my response.

  103

  “No. We were not making out. We were talking.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, her eyes wide.

  “I swear. But I’m not saying we wouldn’t have if you hadn’t just come barging in here, you ho.”

  “Does he know you made out with his dead brother?” The look of sheer excitement on her face was disturbing to say the least.

  “Um, no. It didn’t come up.” I shot her a what the hell is wrong with you look, and she shrugged. “And I don’t anticipate it ever coming up.”

  ON MONDAY, THINGS went back to normal—shy Adam with his sagging backpack and blue hoodie. Only this time, he had a coffee in each hand when I met him at the corner.

  “Splash of skim, sprinkle of cinnamon,” he said, handing me the paper cup.

  “How—” I started, but he cut me off.

  “Since you were so sketchy about your coffee preference, I went ahead and guessed. Was I close?”

  “Except for the cinnamon,” I said. “I don’t usually do that.”

  “Well, try it,” he said. “I think you’ll like it. And I take mine with cream, sugar, and cinnamon,” he said. “FYI.” He smiled, and the warm scent tangled between us. It was at that moment I began associating the smell of coffee and cinnamon with Adam Sullivan.

  104

  BY OCTOBER, I’D transformed into a morning person. I found myself looking forward to our walks and our coffees and just being. We didn’t talk about much, just about the leaves, and classes, and what we’d watched on television the night before. But there was something about falling into step with Adam that got me out of bed each morning and gave me something to look forward to. I couldn’t pinpoint it, and I still wasn’t sure if I could see him as anything but the Younger Sullivan, but there was something about his
serious face, and every time he cracked a smile around me, I’d claim it as a small victory.

  Adam did actually smell like coffee, it wasn’t just that I’d come to associate him with it. Coffee and cinnamon. And even though I started to drink the same concoction every day, it was his scent, not mine. It clung to him, and not like coffee breath either, but like the sweet smell of a freshly brewed pot emanating from his striped blue-and-gray sweater. I wanted to wrap myself in him. He looked cold, but warm, all at once. I walked beside him and sipped my coffee. The autumn wind swept dried leaves at our feet.

  And then one late, gray October morning, he didn’t show up. I waited ten minutes and then went on my way. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been counting on him to start my day.

  And for the rest of that week, he was MIA.

  “WHY THE FACE?” Rachel said. She fell into step with me on the way to first period. She wore flip-flops and a denim miniskirt that crept dangerously close to her crotch. It was almost November.

  105

  “Nothing,” I said. “Just haven’t had coffee yet.” She eyed me, jutted her arm through my elbow, and segued into our plans for the weekend. Jason Dowd was having a Halloween party.

  “I’m going as a slutty pirate,” she said. “You should come as my slutty parrot.”

  I pulled my elbow out from her grip.

  “Come on, Aub. It’s our first Halloween as high schoolers.” She pouted.

  I mumbled, “We’ll see,” and walked into class, leaving her out in the hall.

  I LEFT MY house on Friday morning in a particularly sour mood. I’d overslept, I was late, and Karen was nagging me about the Halloween party that night.

  “It’s a senior party, Aubrey, I don’t know,” she said.

  “So? Marc’s going,” I said. “You let me go to First Friday.”

  “Yeah, but that’s different. That’s tradition, like a rite of passage. Don’t push it,” she said.

  I barreled around the corner with my head down, still reeling over Karen’s sudden shift in parenting practices, and nearly body-slammed Adam. He stood on the sidewalk in a skeleton zip-up hoodie, with two coffees, and a shit-eating grin on his face.