“And?”
“And I had to stand there, trying to control my thoughts, trying to block my raging—”
“Luke.”
“…trying to block my groin with my backpack. And there was no way I could bend down in that condition.” He raises himself onto his elbow, peers over at the piles of our clothing, folded and stacked on the floor by the bed. “Hey, are those thigh-highs in there? Yeah they are.” He answers his own question, leaning across me to reach down to my clothing pile. His hand comes back with the apparel in question, and he couldn’t seem more pleased with himself. “You’d look really good in these right now…”
I poke him, only partially considering his half-spoken request.
“Ow,” he says, rubbing his chest. “So? Do you really forgive me? Once and for all?”
It’s a new perspective, for sure. One I had in no way anticipated. At the time, all I’d seen were my worst suspicions confirmed: Luke had finally become one of the bullies. He’d stood there like a red-faced fool while his friends laughed at me in my humiliation.
“Okay,” I say.
“Okay?”
“Yes. But do me a favor and consider my side of the experience. And then try to understand why I might have reservations about going back there, even with—no, especially with—you in my life.”
He nods. “I get what you mean. Still, nothing has to come between us, if we don’t let it.”
I nod, too, but I can’t believe so easily.
“Should I make you promise me on that one?” he asks, holding out his pinky.
I don’t offer mine in return. “I’ll do my best, Luke.” He looks sad after I say this, so I also do my best to distract him. “You know, I’ve been thinking of some ways we can make those condoms last…”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep. And…about the thigh highs…”
Thirteen
Peeping Hermit Killers and Other Horrors
We sleep and eat and kiss and fool around throughout the rest of the afternoon, and do the same throughout the night—a little heavier on the sleeping, plus we do more than just fool around. Only once, though. We have to exercise a little self-control and, besides, that takes us down to two condoms.
By the next morning, I’m tired and sore and happier than I’ve been, probably ever. I wake up to a kiss from Luke, who’s surprising me with a glass of water and a bite of fresh, hot, stovetop-improvised brownies.
“You made the brownies? What are we celebrating?”
“You,” he says, simply.
I smile and accept and thank him. I eat, I drink, I slip back into sleep.
He joins me somewhere along the way, but the next time I start to wake, I don’t feel at all like I did earlier. I’m half-drowsing, too tired to fully awaken, but I’m caught in this awful, nagging feeling, like there’s something I should be remembering and it’s all kinds of bad. Danger is the word that surfaces in my mind and finally forces my eyes to open. I scan the room, trying to focus. There’s something wrong here.
Movement by the window draws my attention. I squint, blink, jerk back against Luke: the dark shape at the window’s bottom corner is a man’s face. He’s staring at me.
My breath snakes in through my teeth, stealing my voice, and when I reach back to try to wake Luke, the man disappears.
“There was a man.” I point to the window, gasping out the words as soon as Luke raises his head.
He jumps from the blankets, naked, and cuts to the window. He can’t see anything, especially with the board restricting the view, so he comes back to pull on his jeans. “Which way did he go?” His eyes are wide, his breaths shallow and fast.
“I don’t know. I didn’t see.” I’m up too, dressing almost as quickly, nearly catching up to him by the time he’s pulling on his boots. I follow him out the door as soon as he pries the board free.
“No, you stay inside,” he says in a rough whisper, reaching back with one hand to stop me. In the other, he holds a hammer. “The second hammer’s in the pantry. Use it to protect yourself after you nail the board back on.”
“You want me to leave you out here, alone?” I whisper in reply. “No way.”
“Just please go back inside.”
“Luke.”
“Layla, please.”
I go in and nail the board in place, but not very hard. I want to be able to rip it off again, if I have any suspicion that Luke needs me.
I wait, going from window to window with my hammer, imagining all kinds of awful scenarios, not to mention a myriad of ways in which I could be helping Luke.
When there’s a knock on the door, I nearly spring from my skin.
“Layla,” Luke says, keeping his voice low.
“Oh, thank God.” I use the claw of my hammer and a flathead screwdriver to wedge behind the board, like I’ve seen Luke do, but it still takes a lot of wrenching and yanking to work it loose. So much for nailing it lightly. Once I open the door and Luke steps inside, I wrap my arms so tightly around him that he practically has to pry me off to answer my questions about what happened. The only thing he can tell me is that he found nothing at all, besides some shoeprints that disappeared somewhere in the mix of our own tracks, among the brush and fallen twigs.
“What did he look like, again?” Luke asks. He’s returned the original board to the door and is nailing on a second, having relieved the pantry of another of its sparsely occupied shelves. He’s already asked this question once, when he first returned to the cabin, but maybe he’s hoping I’ll have a better answer this time.
“I really couldn’t see. The window’s kind of smudgy and my vision was blurry from sleep.”
Luke nods, his mouth twisting in frustration.
I try harder. “Maybe he was short, though? It was hard to tell, but he was looking through the bottom corner of the window, so probably short? I think his hair was dark, too. That or he was wearing a hood. Could’ve been a hood.”
Luke gives me a worried little smile, stands and pulls me close, kissing me on the forehead. “We’re going to have to be extra-careful,” he says, when I tuck my head under his chin. I can only nod against his chest.
♦ ♦ ♦
We do some kissing, some eating, and only a little fooling around throughout the rest of the day. We also take turns napping, so we can trade off sleeping overnight. When night comes, Luke lets me sleep longer than he should, and even though I’m grateful for it, I convince him it’s not a good idea, given how tired he is when morning arrives.
It’s January fourth, counting the notches on our little calendar-log, and this day, too, is quiet. We check the windows often; we keep our voices low. Luke plays Solitaire, seated at the table wedged against the door, and I perch on the chair near his, digging around in my backpack until I find my plum nail polish, so I can paint my toes.
When I’m finished, I wave air over my nails to dry them and wiggle my toes for him to see.
“Cute,” he says, humoring me.
“Your turn.” I point at his hand and the crinkle shows up between his eyebrows, but he stretches out his fingers, anyway. I paint a single pinky plum and he smiles.
“So we match?” he asks.
“So you can keep part of me with you when we go back.”
His eyes hold mine, and his smile tips down into sadness.
“Who’s winning?” I nod at his cards.
“Not me.”
He gathers the jumble of cards, stares at them, tosses them onto the table, and I get up to give him a hug from behind.
He rubs his hands along my arms and leans his head back into my chest. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about all of this,” he says.
I bend over him to kiss his mouth upside down. “Not your fault.”
“I’m not so sure about that. When I ran into you at the school and realized we’d both missed the bus…I thought driving together would give me a chance to be alone with you, to talk. I wasn’t thinking about safety.”
“Still not y
our fault. Not in any way.”
He lowers his head, still clinging to my arms. “Even if not, I’m still sorry.”
He’s in such a bad state throughout the day that it’s a relief when he comes to me in the early evening with a little half-grin on his face. He has his hands behind his back, like he’s hiding something.
I’m lying on my stomach, propped up on my elbows, facing the foot of my bed. Another sunset is happening through the window, its pink light glowing against me.
I lift my chin out of my cupped hands to turn to him. “Whatcha got there?”
“The start of a party.” He holds up a tiny glass and a bottle swimming with amber-colored liquid.
I have to stop myself from making a face. “Is that whiskey?”
“Straight outta Tennessee. I saw it hiding in the back of the cabinet when we first found this place. Except there’s only one shot glass here.” He tips his head toward the kitchen area. “Weird, right? I mean, with all the twos in this place, you’d think…”
“Luke, I doubt you should be drinking when you have a concussion.”
He scoffs. “You think I’m going to let a little old brain injury keep me from our party?”
I frown at him, sitting up. “It doesn’t sound safe.” He looks crestfallen and my heart aches a little. Still. “Even besides your concussion, there’s a potential serial killer lurking around in the woods.”
“Come on, we don’t know that he’s not just some weird, Peeping-Tom Hermit Guy…and, anyway, I’m going stir crazy, being trapped in this place.”
“Oh, because my company’s so scintillating, you mean.”
“Layls, it’s not you. You know that. I’m just…I don’t know…I can’t take being wound up like this and not being able to do something about it. We’re cooped up in here and getting low on food and water, and now there’s some Peeping-Hermit Serial Killer out there, stalking us, and we need more snow and firewood and…”
He pauses for a breath and I walk over to remove the seal and screw-top from the bottle. “So, you admit he’s a serial killer.”
He hands me the shot glass and I pour some whiskey into it, eyeing the sheen of the liquid. I sometimes have drinks with friends, but so far, I’ve been limited to fruity concoctions that taste like candy and sneak up with their effects, or beer, which, to me, tastes the way old socks smell. I take a sniff: the whiskey has the scent of wood or smoke, maybe something sweet. There’s an edge of something else, too. Something sharper and potentially toxic, in the way I imagine jet fuel might smell. “Just one little shot each, right? To take the edge off?”
He nods, giving me a wink.
“Fine. To the Peeping Hermit Killer.” I tip the glass back and swallow the liquid. It burns the entire way down my throat and I start coughing. “Ouch.” I choke out the word, eyes watering.
Luke laughs. “Wimp.”
He does a shot, makes a tough-guy swallowing face that seems worthy of a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood film, fills the glass halfway again and holds it out to me once more.
I tilt my head. “This doesn’t mean I’m giving in to your name-calling, but—”
“But?”
“But this stuff’s making my stomach all nice and warm, and it’s already getting cold in this place.”
“Any other justifications?” he asks, handing over the glass.
“Yes, one more. I’m also going stir crazy, despite your scintillating company.” I swallow the second shot; it doesn’t burn as much this time.
He takes a second shot, and when he moves to set aside the bottle, I hold out my hand for a third.
“Wild woman.” He raises his eyebrows, grinning.
“Something like that,” I say, downing the shot. “No, it’s more like I’m drinking for you,” I say, my voice hoarse with its coating of whiskey, “since you have to stop.”
Luke and I hang out for a while at the table and I have another half-shot or two, possibly three. I don’t think he’s drinking, but it’s hard to keep track, especially when we’re touching playing cards to our tongues and plastering them to our foreheads, trying to see how many we can get to stick. It’s gross, sure, but it beats going stir crazy, hands down.
“Maybe these would stick to other places, too,” Luke says, smiling. His eyes skim over me, lingering on a couple of spots, and I shake my head.
“No. No way. There’s already whiskey going on here; there’s no way we’re doing sex stuff, too. Haven’t you ever watched a horror movie? One strike against us already, Luke. There are no virgins left in this cabin.”
He laughs.
“I’m glad you were my first, by the way.” I swallow the sip left at the bottom of the glass before asking, “Do you wish I’d been yours, too?”
His smile loses its shape. He stares at me, nods. “Yeah. For real.”
I blink, working to keep him in focus. “But mean old Marissa was, instead.”
“She wasn’t.”
“Seriously?”
“It was at a party, with some girl I’d met that night. She’d just broken up with her boyfriend, or something. Anyway, I was wasted. The only part I really remember is when she handed me the condom. I thought, Oh, and that was it. I don’t even know what her name was; I wouldn’t recognize her if I passed her on the street.”
“Oh no,” I say, and then I feel like I’m not getting my words right. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I know, and guys aren’t supposed to talk like this, or whatever, but it kind of bites, anyway.”
I feel sad for him, and then I start thinking about how he could probably use a hug, and then I think a kiss would be nice, too, and then I start thinking about how there are only two condoms left, so they have to last. “Hey, wait a minute,” I say, all other thoughts ceasing. “Were those condoms meant for Mean Marissa? Were they leftovers from ones you bought for her?”
“No.” He locks his gaze on me, and I try my best to keep my own from wavering. “No. They had nothing to do with her.”
“Then why’d you buy them? For the ski trip? You had your eye on someone?”
He fills his cheeks up with air, blows it back out again. Takes a drink. “I don’t know why I bought condoms. I guess it’s something guys do.” He scratches his head, wincing as his fingers edge near his cut. “No, that’s not the truth. The truth is, Layla, I knew you were going on this trip and I also knew there was no chance in hell that something would ever happen between us, but I still knew if there was even the smallest, little tiny chance I could get close to you again, I knew I wanted to take it.”
“What are you saying? …All those ‘knews.’ …Me? Are you saying…me?”
“Yes, Layls. You.”
I smile. “Me.” Then, I frown. “Wait, I had no idea that was going to happen until it happened.”
“Neither did I, but I’m really, really glad it did.” He grins and reaches for me, pulling me onto his lap.
“No sex stuff,” I tell him.
“Right. Sex stuff.”
“No. Not.” I take his face in my hands, smoosh my lips against his, and break into a fit of giggles. He laughs a few, random times, but only at my giggling.
I rub my palms over his cheeks; he’s back to the beginnings of a scrubby beard and it’s bristly when he kisses me, but I like it, and, already, it’s growing longer, softer. I think of how it feels against my stomach, my breasts: tickling, prickly, and I kiss him again, longer.
We fool around a little and end up in our underwear, breathing heavy, before I remember that we’ll be doomed for certain if we go any further. No, no, no, I think as he leaves a pattern of kisses trailing along my collarbone and downward, under the edge of my bra. He reaches around to the closure in back, but I push at his arms. “No, Luke.”
He sighs. “Okay. Stopping.”
I get a little sleepy after that, curled up in his arms. I might even doze, but then I’m stirring again, because Luke said something. I have no idea what it was, but I awaken to a clear memory that Marissa s
howed up in our conversation this evening.
“God, she’s so mean,” I say, blinking. “How can you do stuff with her?”
“What?” Luke squints at me. “I asked if you wanted rice and beans.”
“Oh. Yuck. They’re not my favorite, Luke. I can’t keep pretending.”
He nods a few times, grins a goofy little grin.
“Wait, though. I’m talking about Marissa. How can you?”
Luke groans. “First of all, there’s no ‘can.’ That’s present tense, Layls, and she’s nothin’ but the past.” He smiles, like he’s just said the coolest thing ever.
“No. Even in the past she’s horrible.” I’m feeling a little hungry, a little mean. “But, what else?”
“Huh?”
“You said, ‘First of all,’ like there was more.”
“No. There’s nothing. Oh, except…yeah, she’s not as bad as you think, at least in some ways.”
Now I’m feeling a little meaner. “Luke, she’s like a dragon lady, or a…something with a forked tongue…lizard kind of—”
“Don’t. I know what she’s like, but she’s also sort of sad…kinda pitiful on the inside.”
“And big boobed on the outside.”
Luke groans again, drops his head back. I stare down at my chest, which is probably only average at best, until I realize he’s looking at me. “You are beautiful to me, Layla. Completely. And you have nothing to worry about. I’m into you. Not…that.”
“You were into that. Literally.”
“Not exactly on purpose.”
“Sorry, what?”
“I mean I don’t think I was ever actually sober when we were together. Ugh. I don’t walk to talk about this.”
“Well, I’ve already heard all about it, anyway.”
“Huh?”
I stand and push out my chest, try on my best, squeaky cheerleader voice, which doesn’t happen to sound anything at all like awful Marissa. “Luke is…so…big, and he does this thing with his tongue…”
Picturing You Page 12