A Penny on the Tracks

by Alicia Joseph

Carson was a boy who lived down my street. He was in high school and was a complete asshole. One day, I had fallen off my bike right in front of his house while popping a wheelie. I cut the side of my head really bad. Blood gushed down my face and into my eyes. I couldn’t see a thing, but I heard Carson snorting in laughter. When I smeared the blood from my eyes with my sleeve, I saw Carson standing on his porch, pointing and laughing. He shouted out to a friend inside the house to come outside.

  I rushed to my feet. I didn’t want another person laughing at me. Ignoring the throbbing sensation against my forehead that felt like a hot heartbeat, I jumped on my bike and pedaled as fast as my half-blinded, blood-in-my-eyes sight would allow.

  “No way would he be nice to us. Carson’s a jerk,” Abbey yelled.

  “A big fucking jerk. And Derek was nothing like him.”

  We were both quiet for a while until Abbey asked, “Why don’t you think Derek told anyone?”

  “Maybe he didn’t tell anyone because he felt he had no one to tell.”

  “He had us,” Abbey said.

  “But we’re just a couple kids. What could we have done about it? What would we have done if he’d told us?” I paused. “This is why Derek said he didn’t need his pocket knife anymore and gave us all his old magazines. He knew he was going to kill himself.”

  Abbey stooped over her bucket and pressed her elbows against her knees. She rested her chin in the palms of her hands. “But he didn’t seem sad.”

  “Maybe when he was with us was the only time he wasn’t sad.”

  “Or maybe he was just pretending not be sad,” Abbey replied.

  “Maybe.”

  Abbey pushed herself off her knees and looked at me. “Do you think his step-dad was the only reason he killed himself?”

  I didn’t know how Abbey thought I would know the answer to that, but she seemed to need to believe it took much more than having a bad parent to jump in front of a train.

  “Maybe life made him do it. Remember last year, that high school kid snuck into the park pool after summer was over and jumped off the high dive right into the empty pool. He didn’t die, but he wanted to. He broke a lot of bones, though.”

  “Oh yeah,” Abbey said.

  “He told everyone that life made him do it. That he was in so much pain that he couldn’t take it anymore, had to do with some girl. He was sad over a girl so he jumped into a pool that had no water. Derek was sad because of his step-father, but if his mom knew about the beatings and didn’t do anything to stop them, then maybe he did it because of her, too.”

  We were quiet for a little while until Abbey said, “I wish I didn’t have the mom I have. Maybe I should jump in front of a train, too.”

  I looked at her. “Why would you say something like that?”

  She stared at the ground and lifted her shoulders. “I don’t know. I just said it.”

  “Well it was a really stupid thing to say.”

  She placed her feet on the edge of the bucket and hugged her knees to her chest. “I wish there was a way to know if Derek was really happy when he was with us at the Hideout and not just pretending. I hope that at least with us he was okay.”

  I put my head down, ashamed that I’d never considered if Derek was happy or not. I never considered anything about Derek when he wasn’t at the Hideout, except for all the fights I assumed he was getting in.

  At the Hideout, I never thought about his home life. Did he have a mother who loved him? Did he have brothers? Sisters? A loyal dog waiting for him by the door? I didn’t think about the life he lived or the person he was outside of the Hideout, until he was dead.

  For me, his only identity was Derek— the cool guy with long hair and ripped jeans who gave me cigarettes and got into fights.

  I had only ever considered him as the Derek he was when he was with us. I only knew what was right in front of me. I didn’t try to make out more about the boy I spent so much time with. What I did discern about him, I supposed, was enough at the time, but now that he was dead, and I was never going to see him again, I wished I’d known him better.

  I wondered if he’d had any aspirations—what he fantasized himself being great at when he closed his eyes to dream. Abbey and I desired to be rock stars, but I had no idea what Derek had dreamed to be, or if he had even been able to see past the day he woke each morning to live.

  “I’m going to miss him,” Abbey said.

  I glanced at the battered tennis rackets still hanging on loose nails. The last time we’d blasted my radio and jammed with those rackets was five days ago, yet it felt like five years had passed.

  Everything had changed.

  I imagined Abbey and me singing, pretending to be the biggest rock band in the world with our make-shift guitars in the space we were now solemnly sitting. I couldn’t imagine being that carefree again.

  And I longed to have those days back.

  I was suddenly nostalgic about a youth I was still living, but had been ripped apart by its sudden betrayal. I was standing outside my childhood, watching like a stranger, because it wasn’t mine anymore.

  “Lyssa?” Abbey lifted her head and looked at me.

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I sleep over tonight?”

  I turned to her and tears broke down my face. She leaned her head against my shoulder and started crying, too. She took my hand and held it tightly, just as she had when we had first seen the body on the stretcher being carried out onto the street, before we knew the body lying underneath the sheet was Derek’s.

  I needed Abbey to sleep over at my house that night because I needed my best friend with me.

  WE WERE TUCKED tight into our slumber bags on my bedroom floor. My mother had poked her head into my room hours ago to ask if we needed anything before she went to bed. It was late. We should have been sleeping, but I was wide awake and knew Abbey was too because I heard her tossing around.

  “Lyssa? You awake?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” I answered.

  “What do you think it felt like?”

  I glanced at the drawer in my desk where my bags of crushed pennies sat. I hated Abbey at that moment for forcing me to see images my mind didn’t want to realize. I felt my insides burn as my body reacted to the memories of watching in excitement as the trains roared by, flattening those pennies.

  Pennies didn’t make a sound when they were crushed.

  “I don’t want to think about it, Abbey.”

  “I don’t either, but it’s just what I think about. What do you think—?”

  “Don’t,” I interrupted. “Force your mind not to think about that.”

  She didn’t say anything after that, and eventually, we both fell asleep.

  A MONTH LATER, we were riding our bikes along the streets we knew so well. Summer was coming to an end. We hadn’t been to the Hideout since the day Derek died. We never talked about not ever going again, we just never went.

  We still rode around town, but avoided riding near the Hideout. Not only did I not want to see the Hideout, but I also didn’t want to be close enough to hear the trains I used to love so much.

  We were avoiding our Hideout just as others were finding out about our secret place through papers and local news stations.

  Our Hideout wasn’t our Hideout anymore.

  That year was the first time I was happy summer was coming to an end.

  Chapter Twelve

  1993

  EDDIE VEDDER’S CLENCH-teethed vocals blasted from my speakers as I undid the buttons of Jess’s denim shirt, but she pushed me back. I banged my elbow against the Nirvana poster plastered on the wall next to my bed. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your mother’s still home.” Jess moved farther away from me and began hooking the buttons I’d just unfastened.

  “The door’s locked. Stop doing that.” I pulled her hands away from her shirt.

  “When’s she leaving?”

  “Soon.” I tried to kiss her again, but Jess stood from the bed and finish
ed fastening her buttons.

  “Don’t do that,” I begged, pawing at her. “Please?” I reached out to grab hold of her, but she stepped away. “I’m only gonna unbutton them again later. You know that.”

  “You’re not doing anything until your mother’s gone.” She smirked at me and folded her arms over her now completely covered breasts.

  I jumped off my bed and hurried out of my room.

  When I came back, Jess was sitting on the edge of my bed smoothing her hands through her long, brown hair.

  “What took so long?” she asked.

  “My mom and Franklin had to go over the rules with me. I think she forgets I’m eighteen now.”

  “But you’re still living under her roof.”

  “God, you sound just like her.”

  Jess smiled. “When’s she leaving?”

  “Five minutes.”

  “She said that almost an hour ago.”

  I walked up to her. “I can’t stand how much I want you.” I ran my hand gently across the side of her face. “I get to be alone with you for a whole weekend.”

  “And it’s a three-day weekend.” She tilted her face to me with a wicked smile.

  I kissed her on the mouth and leaned all of my body weight against her, forcing her onto her back. She wrapped her arms around my neck.

  “Your mother’s still here,” she said between kisses. “And you didn’t lock the door.”

  “She’s not coming.”

  I jumped off Jess at a sound from the hallway.

  The door opened, and my mother stood in the doorway with a tote bag slung around her shoulders. “Hi, Jess.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Walker.” Jess straightened herself on my bed.

  “We’re leaving,” my mother yelled over the loud music. She wore brown slacks that showed off the same tiny waist she’s had since I was a little girl and a short-sleeved beige satin blouse. “Give me another kiss.” She held out her arms and enveloped me in a tight grip. I felt the need to remind her that she was only leaving for three days, but I knew she needed this goodbye.

  Franklin showed up behind her wearing jeans, a Chicago Bears sweatshirt, and a baseball hat. Unlike my mother, his waistline had expanded through the years, but my mother didn’t seem to mind at all. She’d often throw her arms around his thick neck and boast how safe he made her feel. Franklin seemed more insecure with the thinning of his once thick hair, than with his weight gain. He wore a lot of hats.

  “We really need to get going, hun. We’re already off to a late start.” Franklin gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Goodbye. Be good. Remember the rules.”

  “I will,” I replied with a heavy sigh.

  “There’s plenty of food in the fridge,” my mother said, and, finally, she let me go. She looked at Jess. “I’m glad you’re staying here. I would have hated to think my baby was here all by herself. You girls have a good time this weekend.”

  I smiled. “We will.”

  As soon as they left my room Jess threw a pillow at me. “Wipe that nasty grin off your face. You’re an open book.”

  “To you maybe, but not to her.” I walked back to my bed and lightly shoved Jess back so she was once again sprawled out onto her back. I pulled playfully at her bare toes.

  Jess giggled hard and kicked her feet away from me. “Stop it. I’m ticklish.”

  “I know.” I leaned down and kissed her mouth and neck.

  “Hmmmm . . . that feels so good,” Jess moaned in my ear.

  “Wait.” I pulled myself off her.

  “Where are you doing?” She grabbed the neckline of my T-shirt and pulled me back down to her. “Get back here.” She kissed me.

  I tore my lips from hers. “I want to turn the music off.”

  “How come?”

  “Because we don’t have to be quiet anymore, and I want to hear you.” I nuzzled my face against her neck. “I want to hear the sounds you make when I touch you, without holding back.”

  She smiled her perfect smile as I stood up and walked across the room to the CD player sitting on a shelf against the wall. I switched it off.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. Jess’s hair was in a tangled mess high across my pillow.

  “It’s so quiet,” she whispered.

  “I know. It’s nice. And you don’t have to whisper.” I leaned over her. “No one can hear you but me. And I want to hear you, baby.”

  “You’re gonna make me self-conscious,” she said.

  I kissed her softly on her forehead. “I don’t mean to. I’m just excited to be alone with you.”

  She wrapped her arms around my neck. “Me too. Been looking forward to this all week.”

  “I got a little nervous cuz I heard my mom telling Franklin a few days ago that she was having second thoughts about leaving me alone for a whole weekend. He stuck up for me though. Said I was old enough. I think he was as anxious to get my mom alone as I was to get you alone.”

  “Hey.” She pulled herself up and pushed me back onto my feet. I stood in front of her, and she grabbed my hands and held them against my sides. “Do you think your mom knows about us?”

  “No way.”

  “Not even suspects?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  I freed my hands from her grip and lifted her fingers to my lips. I kissed them gently one by one. “I know my mother doesn’t suspect a thing about us, because she . . . well . . . she sorta thinks you’re a slut.”

  Jess popped up from my bed and pulled her hands from mine. “Why would your mother think I’m a slut?”

  I sighed. “Don’t get mad, but one day she was asking a bunch of questions about us, and I wanted to throw her off just in case she was starting to get suspicious.”

  “What kind of questions was she asking?”

  “Innocent questions, but I got paranoid, and I may have told her some things.”

  “What things?”

  “Just things about you being a little boy crazy.”

  “There’s a hell of a big difference between being boy crazy and being a slut. Why would your mother think I’m a slut?” Jess gave me a stiff look. “What did you tell her?”

  “Remember you promised me you wouldn’t get mad,” I said.

  “I promised no such thing,” she countered. “Now tell me what you told her.”

  “I don’t remember exactly, but I think it had something to do with the boy’s baseball team.”

  “Lyssa!” she screamed.

  “And the basketball team,” I quickly added.

  “Lyssa. That is not cool. I can’t believe you did that.” She rushed toward me, and I picked her up as her body met mine. She wrapped her legs tightly around my waist. “I’m really mad at you.”

  “Be mad at me on Tuesday. We have three whole days to ourselves.”

  She looked me in the eyes. “Fine. But you’re going to fix this.”

  “Of course I will,” I promised.

  With her legs still snug tightly around my waist, I shuffled us back to my bed, and dropped her onto a mound of blankets.

  I stood over her.

  “I love how you’re looking at me right now,” she said.

  “How am I looking at you?” I asked.

  “Like you’re about to do whatever the fuck you want to me.”

  I slowly raised one side of my mouth in a confident smirk. “Now that we’re alone, it’s exactly what I’m going to do, and we can make all the noise we want doing it.”

  WE WERE LYING together in my bed, under a cool crisp sheet. The room was dark except for the moonlight breaking in through an opening of my shades. That night wasn’t our first time being together, but it was the first time we didn’t have to be sneaky or quick about it.

  Lying with Jess cuddled tightly in my arms the way she was, made me feel more mature than I’d ever felt before. We were now adults making love in a bed, instead of a couple horny teenagers getting off as quickly as we could in the backseat of a car.
r />   “This is nice,” Jess said.

  “Hmmm.” I closed my eyes and rested my chin against the side of her head.

  Silence passed for a couple seconds until Jess started giggling.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “I was just thinking of our first time together. We were both so awkward, not sure what to do. You fumbled with my bra, couldn’t even get it undone. I still don’t know how that could be. You wear a bra, too.”

  “Not the fancy ones you wear that unhook in the front. I was flabbergasted. I knew right then that even though we had similar features, everything about being with you was going to be different. And it was. You smelled sweeter. Your body was smoother. Your touch was gentler. Your kisses were softer. I didn’t know what to do with you, even though I wanted to do so much, but I was so damn nervous and scared I was gonna make a fool out of myself cuz I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I only knew what I saw on cable, but the experience was completely different in person.”

  Jess trailed her fingers up and down my arm. “I was nervous, too. Who isn’t their first time? But I’m glad it was with you.” She kissed my shoulder. “We were sixteen, but so in love. It wasn’t just about sex.”

  “I wanted boobs,” I said flatly.

  “Hey.” She slapped my arm.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s true. I liked you and all, but I really wanted to see your tits.”

  “Whatever,” Jess said. “For me it was about love.”

  “It was about love for me, too. I fucking loved your tits.”

  She slapped me harder. “You better watch it. Talk like that’ll get you a weekend alone.”

  I squeezed her in my arms. “Oh baby. It’s not like that anymore. You know that. Once I knew you, everything changed. I fell hard.”

  “Would you have thought two years later we’d still be together?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t we be?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe I thought the pressure of keeping our relationship a secret would be too much. Or maybe we’d get caught and somehow be forced not to be together anymore.”

  “Nobody could force me not to be with you,” I said.

  “I know that, but there are so many reasons couples break up—like cheating for one.”