Innocents

by Mary Elizabeth

  I wish I could ride with Becka this morning, in Thomas’ backseat, but my parents would never allow it. Asking would raise issues I’m not ready to bring up.

  Maybe next year.

  I shake off what I want and can’t have before I head downstairs. Mom’s waiting with an egg white omelet and a white rose. Dad comes in as we’re finishing breakfast and kisses her head first, then mine.

  Mom hugs me. “Have a good first day, Bliss.”

  I kiss her cheek and tuck the rose into the loops on the front of my backpack. “Thanks, Mom.”

  When we pull up to Newport High, there are groups of kids waiting outside the doors, but no one I recognize.

  Shades on, I walk around the building I’ve never been in and find a sunshiny spot on the sidewalk to wait for my girl. She texts me a minute before the bell rings.

  Don’t go in without me!

  The bell rings, but there’s no way I’m entering without her. I soak up the late summer sun rays while I wait, and a few minutes later the old Audi Quattro turns into the back lot. Rebecka gets out of the front seat with her long, blonde hair pin-straight and her lips candy apple red.

  “Nice dress, princess girl.” She laughs as she gets closer. I tap-heel-tap across the concrete to meet her halfway. Her brother still hasn’t gotten out of the car.

  “Nice lips, punk baby.”

  Over Becka’s shoulder, the Audi’s driver’s side door opens. Thomas gets out with sunglasses that match mine, only his are probably covering a hangover, or high eyes.

  Becka hooks her arm through my elbow, and we head inside. I hope her brother looks at me before the door closes. I wore this stupid dress for him.

  BETWEEN CLASSES, the hallways are packed. People are loud and inattentive, and it reminds me of what Thomas said, about how you can get lost.

  I kind of keep an eye out for him, but watching my footing in the crowd is a more immediate priority. The only familiar face I catch is Oliver’s, but in all the commotion all he gets to say is, “Hey.”

  I smile and say, “Hey,” but that’s it.

  I’M LUCKY enough to at least have lunch with Jackie. We walk together to the cafeteria, and when we get into line, I spy Ben smiling high and talking low to a group of giggling girls. He doesn’t look up as we pass, and his two best friends aren’t with him.

  Nobody comes by and steals my milk.

  AFTER LUNCH, I head to the third floor for French. With every step up, I regret my foreign language choice a little more.

  I knew when Becka said, “Que pasa with that? Who takes French?” that I made the unpopular choice. There will probably be all of five people in the class, and the chances of me knowing any of them are slim to zero.

  But French sounds so pretty.

  Blowing my halfhearted regret out, I hug my binder closer to my chest and open the classroom door. What I see once I’m inside confuses and shocks me.

  I wish I had my snow boots.

  I could take them off and throw them at her perfect fucking face.

  “Hey, holy shit—hi, little sister!” Valarie waves. A girl I don’t recognize sits next to her, but Valarie’s the only one who looks at me.

  Every cell in my body repels her. Even from halfway across the room, I can feel it.

  “Hi,” I offer, looking around at the six other students. “I thought this was a freshmen level class.”

  “It is. I took Spanish last year. I wanted to switch.” She tucks strands of black behind her triple pierced ears.

  I push scratch marks and kisses, and every awful, stupid, sick touch I’ve ever seen her lay on Thomas out of my mind.

  “Why?” I ask, detached.

  Valarie shrugs, batting her purple-glittered lash-lids slow and showy, like she’s caught up in some kind of romance. “French is the language of love, right?” She sighs dreamily. “L’amour.”

  She’s a nightmare.

  “C’mon, come sit with me,” she insists, taking her backpack out of the seat on her other side.

  I would rather chew glass.

  “Leighlee belle-fille,” some sweet voice behind me speaks up, saving me.

  I turn to find Daisy Howard, self-proclaimed weirdo extraordinaire, in purple tights and a brown jumper dress. From tortoise shell glasses, she looks at me with huge, hopeful hazel eyes. “Parlez-vous francaise?”

  I wonder if she can see my grateful relief. I don’t really know Daisy, but I’ve never been happier at the prospect of getting to.

  “Un petit peu.” I smile and hold my thumb half an inch from my index fingertip to show a little bit. Daisy smiles with total sincerity. Glancing my goodbye to Valarie, I sit down a few seats over, next to my new friend.

  When class starts, Valarie’s presence is easy to ignore, but when the bell rings, I’m slammed with it all over again. Her phone is in her hand as she walks out into the hall.

  “Later, little sis.” She beams, sure to make eye contact again.

  I don’t want to look into her eyes, but I do. And because I refuse to let her dishearten me, I say it, too. “See ya.”

  It’s not enough that she’s in Thomas’ world. Now she’s in mine too.

  AS I’M finally approaching my locker at the end of the day, Petey walks by and messes up my curls. There’s a tall, skinny boy with him that I don’t recognize but feel like I should. Between their playing around and all the commotion, the taller boy steps on my toes.

  Pressing my lips together to keep my cries down—because, ow—I breathe out through my nose.

  “Sorry,” the skinny, sort of familiar boy mumbles over his shoulder as they pass.

  My locker sticks on the first try.

  And the second.

  I hit it with the heel of my hand.

  On my third try, I realize I’m using last year’s combination. When I turn the right numbers around, the door opens. With a long exhale, I pack up and scan the emptying hallway for a friendly face. When I don’t see one, I turn back to my locker to check that I have everything.

  I don’t.

  On the floor of my metal book closet, folded unevenly, is a piece of notebook paper with torn spiral edges. Looking around before bending carefully and picking it up, I glance around one more time before I unfold it.

  It probably shouldn’t make everything better.

  But it does.

  No name is signed to the note, but there doesn’t need to be. I recognize the sharp script-scratch from secret Christmas and birthday gifts with Leighlee Bliss written on them.

  Biting my lip to keep from smiling entirely too obviously, I stare down at the words written only and totally for me.

  You look good enough to eat, princess pie.

  THE LONGER I’m in high school, the more I feel like we’re all right back in junior high.

  The boys are just as obnoxious, and Becka and I are little sisters again. The treatment is the same. The difference is the sight and the sound.

  All of the boys are filling out. Petey, Ben, and Thomas are taller and broader-shouldered by the day. Their hands look stronger and their laughs sound deeper.

  It’s weird watching Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber interact with girls. Kelly wears Pete’s flat-billed snapback, and he flips up the back of her cheer skirt in the halls. It’s obvious they’re together, even if they don’t hold hands.

  Ben’s a different story. I’ve seen him hold hands with Heather. And Elise. And Sofia. And Zoe. Last week, Benny boy had his arms around April and her best friend Holly—one on either side of himself—and neither of them seemed to mind.

  Thomas is still their hotheaded leader. He stands the tallest, but he stands alone. He wouldn’t be caught dead with his arm around a girl or with a smaller, softer hand in his. Not in the hallways. Not where everyone can see, but that in no way means he isn’t every bit as much of a dog as Ben is. Or even more attached to one girl than Petey is. Thomas gets the whole cake, the ice cream, and gets to eat it all, too.

  I know this.

  I’m in th
e girl’s restroom right now, knowing this for a fact.

  And it’s torture.

  “I told my mom it was cramps, but … like, oh my God. I couldn’t even walk.”

  “I thought he was with Valarie?”

  I hear Clarissa, the girl who couldn’t walk, scoff. Behind my screwed-shut eyes, I can picture her rolling hers.

  “Apparently Valarie isn’t doing it for him.”

  I can hear her pride at being chosen to be used, and I don’t know how to handle it. Valarie is one thing, but this …

  I feel stuck and mangled, and broken-hurt. I’m angry enough to put my fist through the stall wall, and at the same time I feel jealousy that makes me want to crawl in a hole and disappear.

  “Val’s fucking broken in. She probably can’t even feel him when they do it.”

  I cover my mouth with both hands to keep from crying out loud.

  “I don’t know how anybody couldn’t. Even Valarie.” Clarissa drags from her cigarette. “Dusty’s got something crazy pent up inside him.”

  “Rissa!”

  Her friend mock-chastises her. They laugh like they should stop talking, but they don’t, and my heart kicks me from the inside.

  “What?” Her cigarette smoke-wrapped innocence sounds exactly like what it is: cheap and fake. “It’s not like I told you how big his dick is. I’m just saying.”

  Across the bathroom floor, Clarissa shifts her feet and stretches her legs a little.

  “Like, I still feel him …”

  This can’t be real.

  I want to break through the door and tear at her. I want to shrink into nothingness. I want to find Thomas and scream at the top of my lungs, because how can he not know? How can he not understand how horrible this is for me?

  Tears slip down my cheeks, collecting along my hands while Clarissa and her friend laugh between drags.

  “Are you going to Casper’s on Friday?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.”

  “Thomas might be there.”

  “Exactly.”

  I can’t take it.

  Girls talk and a lot of girls lie—I know this because I’m a lying girl—but I’m better than this. Even if everything this girl is saying is true, I’m still better than her and Valarie because I’m not deceived.

  I love Thomas with my eyes wide open.

  Just as well as I know the sound of his heart, I know that sex doesn’t equal love or respect. I know this prudent, adoring side of Dusty that no one else even thinks he’s capable of, and I know as well that there’s nothing I can do to stop him from being him.

  Love is figuring out how to deal, and the trick is to keep moving, keep breathing.

  I’m a liar, but I refuse to be the crying girl hiding in a bathroom stall.

  Exhaling through pursed lips, I rub my tears from my cheeks. My knees shake as I stand, but I force them to work. I square my shoulders and chin-up and open the door. I leave helplessness behind and look Clarissa right in her defiled, deluded, sucked-in and used-up eyes. I give her a smooth smile and head to the sink to roll on lip gloss like none of this means anything, because I know Thomas and I are a breathing, aching, love-twisting contradiction.

  I know that no matter what I hear or say, or how absent he is or who he’s been with, this is what we do: endure and subsist between stolen hours. We’re wholly irreconcilable and impossibly necessary. Everything else is meanwhile, insignificant. All of this is irrelevant and time-biding until we can just be us.

  A single heart beating discrepancy.

  Equal parts absurd, off-limits, and inevitable.

  The snow stops, but the winds in the middle of January are brutal. Becka’s dressed the part in an oversized lumberjack hat with floppy-furry ears, waiting for me on the porch swing. When Mom and I pull into the Castors’ driveway, my girl waves and gives me the biggest smile. She can hardly contain her excitement.

  Rebecka and Smitty almost had sex last night.

  “Oh my gosh, L,” she says, beaming. My mom disappears down the street and Becka claps her mittened hands together before taking mine as I climb the porch steps. “Oh my fucking gosh, come on!”

  We’re barely through the door, and I’m not moving fast enough. She’s kicked her Chucks off and reaches for my right boot while I’m taking off my left.

  “Morning, Bliss.” Tommy yawns on her way to the kitchen in a silky white robe. While her daughter’s fighting with me over my boot and rushing me out of my coat, she starts brewing coffee. The scent of hazelnut and vanilla fills the house, and I love it.

  “You guys want some breakfast?” Tommy asks.

  “No,” Rebecka answers, dismissing her completely. The second I hang my coat on the rack, B grabs my hand. “Come on, slow poke.”

  Seeing her tickled boy-crazy is a trip. She hasn’t been this pumped about anything since landing her first inward heel flip a few months ago.

  “I can’t … Just wait—” She stops abruptly, almost running into her brother at the bottom of the stairs. “Move it, Dusty.”

  Thomas’ tired smile and hardly open eyes awaken my butterflies, but Becka doesn’t give us a chance to linger. While she takes steps with unconquerable swiftness, I share a quicker glance with my boy. His dreamy blues flirt and make my pulse flutter, and it’s more than we’re allowed, but not close to enough.

  In Rebecka’s room with the door closed behind us, she turns her stereo on way up and jumps onto her bed. I think about dangerous knobs, but there are no hard corners here.

  “Tell me.” I jump up with her. “Tell me everything.”

  Rebecka grins and stretches out the neck of her black shirt, exposing skin. “Voilà.”

  The top of her shoulder to the base of her throat is dotted with misshapen purplish-red hickies. My eyes open wide, and then I’m up, yanking her shirt down further to get a closer look. I think about the way Dusty drags his teeth over my chest sometimes, but this is different. These are deep pink kiss-blossoms made only with lips and tongue and love.

  “Not even the half of it,” she says, touching her lips. Baby blue eyes brighten before she closes them and exhales with measured slowness. “Not. Even. Half.”

  I sit back on my calves and start to ask, “Did you see his …?”

  Crazy in love shakes her head and opens her eyes. She actually blushes. “Not really. I felt it, though.”

  I can’t imagine.

  She plays it cool, tucking jump-messy blonde hair behind her left ear and adjusting her hat. “I kind of, sort of … let him finger me a little.”

  My eyes go from wide to insanely wide.

  “Okay, a lot.”

  “Becka,” I say from behind my hands while she covers her face with both of hers, melting into titters and flutters.

  “I saw stars, Bliss.” She giggles. Like a girl. “Best first orgasm ever.”

  I fall back on my bottom, stunned, but not really. They’re dating. They’re in love. They’re legit. I’m not so much shocked as envious.

  “It’s like Christmastime,” she continues. “It’s like all the lights, and warm cookies, and hot-hot chocolate, and surprises, and snowflakes on your eyelashes, and that feeling when you first get home, when you go from being so cold to so warm—and love, all around, everywhere.”

  She talks fast and I’m following her as best as I can, but my thoughts drift to Thomas and what he won’t give me.

  “It’s like Christmas spreads through your whole body, heart, and soul, and then it bursts open like the Fourth of July in your chest. And your belly. And your fingers. And toes.”

  She tickles my sock-covered toe tips and sighs the happiest, absolutely most relaxed sounding sigh ever. “It’s like fireworks. Everywhere.”

  I smile with her, but I can’t follow where she’s gone.

  “Wow.” I breathe out.

  “Seriously, Leigh. Let a boy put his hands in your pants so we have orgasm stories to trade.”

  I look around her room and feign shyness.

  “
Come on.” She nudges my knee. “Don’t you want to kiss boys? You’re so pretty, L. What are you waiting for?”

  It suddenly seems amazingly lucky we’ve avoided this conversation for as long as we have. I can’t tell Becka there’s a boy I kiss, or that he’s making me wait for Fourth of July on Christmas because he thinks I’m too little.

  Hopped-up-on-first-orgasm-endorphins, Rebecka smirks. “Let Oliver do it.”

  My thought process stumbles and I laugh. “What?”

  “He would,” she insists. “He’s probably dying to.”

  “No way.” I shake my head, not considering it. “Oliver’s with Erin, and …”

  What am I supposed to say?

  I could never.

  I don’t want to. And if I did, I’m Thomas’.

  I start again. “Maybe I’m …”

  Think, Bliss.

  “What?” Becka lifts her brows.

  “Maybe I’m saving it,” I say, keeping shy pride and unquestionable innocence in my tone. “Myself, I mean. I’m saving myself.”

  “Well, isn’t that sweet?” Becka teases, keeping one of her brows raised like she’s not certain. But then she drops it and narrows her eyes. “Virtuous and pristine Leighlee Bliss. Silly little virgin girl.”

  “Hey.” I hit her with a pillow.

  “Such a prude,” she taunts, hitting me back.

  While we play back and forth with her pillows, I think this can work because I’m not lying to her. I am saving myself for someone special. This is a real part of who I am, and who I have to be.

  The boy I love is making me.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, giving in. “You’re still technically a silly little virgin too, you know.”

  Becka tosses her hat back and shakes out tangled blonde hair and says, “But not for long. And don’t worry. I’ll let you live vicariously through my awesome love life.”

  Rebecka’s in love.

  Rebecka’s going to have sex. Soon.

  And I’ll be stuck on first base until I’m eighteen.

  We both fall onto our backs and stare up at dim yellow-white rope lights, wordlessly relaxing in her contentment. I lean my head on her shoulder; blond flyaways tickle my nose while I listen to my heart and her breathing.