by Jamie Kain
Where is Sin, and why did he leave me here alone? I haven’t seen him in what feels like an eternity but is probably more like a half hour. He disappeared with some girl I’ve never seen before, and I am perplexed that I feel a little jealous. Probably because he’s my only friend here. I know some of these people, but they are not exactly my pals.
Sin heard about the party from Tristan, and because Sin’s managed to hang on to his mom’s van all day, he thought we should drive out here. I came, I’ll admit to myself now, partly because I was hoping to see Tristan in some setting other than the claustrophobic space of his house, but no luck.
Now I just want to go home.
I’m tired from not sleeping well lately, and I’m annoyed at Sin for disappearing, and I’m mad at myself for even wanting so badly to see Tristan.
I sip my beer halfheartedly, not liking the yeasty taste of it—not liking beer at all, but someone handed it to me and it gives me something to do with my mouth while I sit here not talking to anyone—when a figure slouching against the wall catches my attention. It’s him.
My stomach does a little joyous flip, and I down the rest of my beer in a few long, bitter gulps.
He’s talking to a girl. Or rather, she’s attempting to dance with him, writhing her body around to an old Outkast song that Tristan is doing little more than bobbing his head to. Not even that—maybe he’s just nodding.
I will him to look over at me, and by some miracle he does. His gaze lands right on me, over the dancing girl’s shoulder. He doesn’t look away.
He stares. I stare. We have some sort of a moment.
I haven’t eaten all evening, so the one beer is making me feel a little drunk now, a little less averse to being like the couple on the couch across from me, who have by now advanced from an upright position to a full-on lying–down-on-the-couch-and-grinding-hips-together one.
Tristan says something to the girl writhing before him, then he walks straight over to me.
“Hey. You’re here.”
I’m not sure what to say to this brilliant observation, so I just try to look bored or something.
“Where’s my little brother?”
I shrug. “He disappeared.”
Tristan sits down next to me, and my whole body goes on alert to the sensation of his thigh against my thigh, his hip against my hip, his arm now draped around my shoulders.
“Is he going to get pissed off if he sees me sitting here?”
“Maybe.” I don’t want to consider that right now.
Sin must be busy, or maybe even gone. He’s been weird and silent all day, and I almost wonder if he’s been mad at me again over the hot-tub incident, but I haven’t had the energy to ask.
Some part of me wants to punish him for not letting go of the whole thing, for not understanding, for being so weird about it. So what if I made out with his brother? It’s not like Sin owns me.
Or maybe it is.
“Remember when I caught you pulling up your pants?”
“Yeah.” My cheeks burn at the embarrassing memory. “What about it?”
“That was kind of hot, walking in on you like that.”
“You’ve already seen me naked.” I don’t know where my boldness comes from, but I like it.
“You should be naked more often. It suits you.”
“It suits you too,” I say, sickened by my own lameness.
“I’m opposed to clothing.”
“Even when it’s cold out?”
“Especially when it’s cold out.”
I can’t think of anything to say to this, so an awkward silence follows. I stare at him. He stares at me. We have another moment, this one far more intimate than the last.
“You don’t look like you’re having much fun here,” he finally says.
I shrug, wishing I had another beer. Something to do with my hands and mouth that won’t get me into trouble.
“How about we find some place a little quieter?”
This is the best idea I’ve heard in my entire life. I conveniently decide Sin has abandoned me. “Yeah,” I say, but Tristan’s already standing up, tugging at my hand.
I rise and follow, floating almost. Giddy with my newfound fortune.
“This house,” he says as he guides me upstairs, “is amazing. Did you get the tour yet?”
“No. Do you know the people who live here?”
“My mom’s second husband.”
Sin, in typical fashion, never mentioned this. I didn’t know him when his mother was married to either of her husbands, and Sin doesn’t like to talk about them much. I recall his saying something about his stepdad being an asshole, but not that he was rich.
This house is pretty deluxe, I notice as we move away from the horde of teenagers. It’s kind of a funky hippie place, but much nicer than usual. Trust-fund hippie. The stair railing is some kind of carved wood in a swirling pattern that isn’t fancy like in most expensive houses, but is instead expensive looking while still funky. Like some artist was high when he worked on it.
Tristan leads me down a hallway past three or four doors, then to a pair of double doors that he opens into a room lit by a few small, glowing lamps, one on each side of a giant bed. The room has a high, wood-beam ceiling, like a church, and something about the dim lighting reminds me of churches too.
Not that I’ve been inside many, but I’ve seen plenty of them on TV. And once, the summer after fifth grade, my grandmother had celebrated Sarah’s going into remission with a trip for all of us to Paris, where we’d visited cathedral after cathedral. Mostly I remembered people walking through these supposedly sacred spaces talking on cell phones and taking cheesy pictures. Here, a woman in front of an altar, grinning fakely; there, a guy next to a stained-glass window of a saint loudly speaking Spanish into a cell phone.
This room feels the same to me—the mundane and sacred all mixed together.
But I am only fully aware of my hand in his, growing sweaty. I take advantage of his closing the double doors behind us to wipe my hands on my skirt.
The doors block most of the sound of the party down below. Now we are in a different world, someone else’s bedroom.
“That’s better,” Tristan says, and I notice finally the sound of soft music coming from hidden speakers.
Had he come in here ahead of time to set the ambience, planning to bring someone up here? Me, maybe? Or had someone else prepared the room for his or her own romantic encounter? I weigh the possibilities for a moment before Tristan takes my hand again and I tense up, losing the ability to think complex thoughts.
“You’re not a virgin, are you?”
I was not expecting this question, out of the blue and so blunt.
I almost point out that I’ll soon turn sixteen, as if this is evidence of anything one way or the other. But I don’t. I’m not embarrassed to be a virgin. I like the possibility of it, the not-yet-ness of it. It fits me.
Or at least it did until now. I’m here with Tristan for a reason, for not-yet to become been-there-done-that.
Understanding dawns on his face. “You are, aren’t you?”
This is what I’ve been imagining for a long time, all my fantasies wrapped up in one guy. And it’s nothing like I imagined.
How have I gotten so lucky that he notices me? That he actually wants me? And why don’t I feel lucky?
“Yeah,” I say, my voice barely audible.
This person I become with Tristan—I barely know her. I don’t know where she’s come from, or how she got into my body. I guess she is the new Asha, the one born after Sarah’s death.
He nods. “That’s cool. I’ll be right back.”
I watch him disappear into the master bathroom, and he returns with a plush burgundy towel.
Then he takes my hand again and leads me to the bed, where he spreads out the towel on top of the white duvet.
“You scared?” he asks as he slides his hands beneath the waist of my shirt.
I am hyperaware now. His touc
h gives me gooseflesh. He smells like weed and beer, and he hasn’t shaved in maybe a few weeks.
“No,” I say, though I’m not sure it’s true.
I want this to happen, but a nagging something is in the back of my mind. Is this what I’ve been imagining? What I’ve been waiting for?
His hand ventures farther north, exploring virgin territory. I want his touch everywhere, and in a few specific aching places, all at once. I slide my own hands up his bare arms to his shoulders, his neck.
There is the sensation of falling, falling fast. I am on the bed. He is on top of me. I am burning all over.
His beard is alternately rough and silky against my face when we kiss, depending on the angle. I wonder how it will feel on other parts of my body. But when he pulls my skirt up, along with my shirt, I wonder if we’re going to bother getting undressed for this at all.
I don’t hear the door open. I am only aware of it when I hear footsteps. Both of us stop and look toward the sound, just in time to see Tristan being pulled up and a fist smacking into his face.
I look up to see that the fist is attached to Sin’s arm.
Tristan goes sprawling backward on the bed, and there I am, my denim skirt hiked up around my waist, my rainbow unicorn panties exposed. I start tugging my skirt down.
I didn’t even know Sin was capable of punching anyone. I am too stunned to make sense of it.
“What the hell?” Tristan bellows at his brother.
“What the hell? Yeah, what the hell, Asha? You said you’d stay away from him.”
My face burns, nothing like the burning I felt before. Now I am horrified, humiliated, wishing I could crawl under the bed and hide.
Tristan is tugging at the towel underneath me, trying to wipe his bleeding nose, and I move off it.
“You left,” I said dumbly.
“I was outside. So that’s a good excuse to screw my brother?”
Tristan stands up and heads for Sin. I know they’re going to fight if I don’t stop it. Jumping up from the bed, I fling myself between them.
“Stop it!” I cry, but I’m not sure whom I’m hoping to defend.
Sin? He’s the one being a jerk here. Tristan? He hasn’t exactly done anything wrong, has he?
And neither have I.
I think.
Well, except for the lying part. And the sneaking part.
I narrowly avoid a punch in the face myself when I grab Sin and drag him toward the door, but before we make it out, Tristan pushes past us.
“Screw it,” he says. “You two can have the room—I’m out of here.”
I stop. Watch him walk away. Part of me wants to go after him, and part of me is relieved to see him go. He slams the double door as he leaves.
I turn to Sin, and he’s looking at me as if I have something nasty oozing from my eyes.
“It just … happened.”
“You just happened to fall underneath my brother and your skirt just happened to get pushed up to your armpits?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“You promised you’d stay away from him. You promised.”
His arms crossed over his chest, he is looking at me as if I disgust him, and I can’t take much more of it. I just want to leave, storm out of here, get away from him.
But I also don’t want to face the party again—or the rest of the world—without Sin.
“Just because I’m attracted to your brother doesn’t mean I’m betraying our friendship.”
Sin looks at me with an expression of utter disgust. “What friendship? We’re not friends. Just stay the hell away from me.” He turns and storms out, leaving me alone in the big bedroom with the church ceiling.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, put my face in my hands, and cry—really cry—over more loss than I can measure.
Twenty
Rachel
Me and Asha have never been friendly, as far as sisters go. From the time she was old enough to walk, she was grabbing my hair, taking my toys, and generally getting on my nerves in the way only little sisters can.
People say the middle child gets ignored—and that’s in a normal family. Now imagine how ignored the middle child gets when the oldest child has cancer and the youngest child is the matching donor. There was no room for me in that medical drama.
Oh, poor me, right? At least I had my health, right? At least I didn’t have to get poked with needles or anything like that, right?
That’s not how I see it.
If Asha had shown even the slightest kindness, had been even a little bit nice, things might be different, but she’s always been a brat, and I’ve always been the odd sister out. I guess I got along better with Sarah—sometimes—but only because Sarah had so perfected the sainthood act that it was hard to find anything to be mad at her about.
When she was still alive, her and Asha were tighter than tight, always ready to defend each other, always ready to make stuff my fault.
And that’s how it was.
But how is it now?
Asha, as a rule, knows better than to ask me for favors, which makes it pretty out of the ordinary that she called and asked me to come get her from this stupid party. I almost said no, but she was crying over the phone, and Asha crying is such an unheard-of event, I came to get her mostly out of morbid curiosity.
When I’ve parked in front of the house with the address she gave me over the phone, I can see kids inside, talking and dancing. It’s a big cedar-siding place that is sort of a Marin County version of modern, with a slanty roof and lots of windows. I scan the front lawn, looking for Asha, because she said she’d be waiting out front, but I don’t see her.
Then my gaze lands on a shadow in front of the garage, and I realize it’s her. She steps out, her arms crossed over her chest and her shoulders hunched, totally not dressed for the chilly night in a miniskirt and short-sleeved top. She is shivering, and her face is a wreck, all red and puffy from tears, I see as she crosses my headlights. A few seconds later, she’s sitting in the passenger seat beside me, putting on her seat belt.
“So what happened? You lost your virginity unwillingly? Drank too much and barfed in front of everyone? What?”
She makes a loud snuffling sound. “Can we just go home? I don’t want to talk.”
Suddenly, though, I do want to talk. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do. I’ve got her captive here, her only way home, and I have never seen Asha like this.
I look over at her, keeping my expression as serious as I can, and try to sound … if not caring, at least not hostile. “I’m your sister, you know. You can tell me what happened.”
She looks out the window, shivering and sniffling, and I see her for the first time in years as a scared little girl. I almost feel sorry for her.
“I got in a fight with Sin, that’s all. He left me here.”
Two drunken teenagers wander past the front of our car, a guy and a girl, heading off toward the backyard, their bodies leaning into each other as they walk. The girl stumbles, lets out a screech, and they descend into laughter.
“Drive,” Asha says. “Please.”
I back up out of the driveway, then head north toward home.
“What were you fighting over?” I ask once we are away from the house and she’s stopped sniveling so much.
“Nothing.”
“Doesn’t seem like nothing.”
She sighs. “What the hell do you care?”
Good point. I don’t have an answer at first. I have made it my mission not to care about Asha, but I guess sister stuff is more complicated than that. I have never once in my life thought of Asha as a person aside from who she is in my family—the little sister, the heroic bone-marrow donor, the royal pain in the ass—but seeing her tonight, emerging from the shadows of a strange house, looking like a freaking wreck, she is suddenly this other person I don’t know.
And somehow, that tugs at me.
Who is this lost-looking version of my sister?
In the silence of the car, she finally says, “Do you know Sin’s older brother, Tristan Tyler?”
“Sure. Who doesn’t?”
“Sin caught me making out with him and got mad.”
Pulling up to a stop sign, I slam on the brakes too hard. Asha has surprised me yet again. “You and Tristan Tyler? Seriously?”
She says nothing, only glares at me for a moment and looks away.
“What does your little gay friend care if you make out with his brother?”
“He says he’s just a big user or whatever.”
“What guy isn’t?” I try to imagine my little sister with Tristan Tyler.
Maybe she’s just convenient, since she’s at his house all the freaking time anyway, but she has a lushness about her that I’ve always envied, if I’m being honest. Everything about her overflows. And the attitude of not giving a damn that she has perfected, it makes her magnetic.
I’ve always liked to think of myself as the sister who gets all the guys, but I know that in one way Asha has always had me beaten, until tonight. I care if guys want me, and she doesn’t.
But this wrecked version of her—she clearly does care about something.
“I hate going home now,” she says out of the blue.
“What?”
“Since Sarah died, I don’t want to go home anymore. I just wish our whole house would disappear.”
I don’t know what this has to do with Tristan Tyler and his lame-ass brother, and I definitely don’t want to talk about Sarah.
“Is that why you’ve been staying at Sin’s?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe he likes you,” I say, realizing for the first time that Sin doesn’t seem all that gay. He’s just not all that manly, either.
“Maybe who likes me?”
“Sin.”
“What?”
Her dumb act annoys me, and I totally lose interest. We are only a few blocks from the house now, but I don’t want to go home either. I can’t stand the thought of being in that house right now.
“Never mind,” I say.
I can feel her staring at me. “Can we, like, not go home?”