by Jen Brooks
“I would never take you somewhere you didn’t want to go.” That’s not a lie, not yet.
At last she scoots over to the wall. “It was just a dream,” she says, and lifts up the covers for me. I am so relieved, I jump right in and put my arms around her.
She snuggles into me, soft and mostly relaxed, considering the last few minutes. For the moment, anyway, this Kylie is comfortable with me. This Kylie wants to be with me. I kiss her hair, secure that she appreciates the affection.
“Have you been running? You’re wearing running stuff,” she asks.
“Yeah.”
“Why would you run all the way over here?”
“Maybe I just missed you.” Her hand moves to my chest and makes mini caresses through my shirt, right where the worst of my scars live, over my heart.
“This is twice in a week. Should I be worried?”
“No worries.” I kiss her again on the head. We lie there for a while, her fingers gently caressing, my arm wrapped tightly around her. She slides a leg over mine. I shift a little to face her. She props herself on an elbow, and soon we’re kissing. Slow kisses so filled with devotion, I wonder if Tess is wrong. Kylie is not conflicted. She loves me as she always has.
We cover a few bases in silence, moving hands and bodies under the covers. I wish I weren’t doing this after getting sweaty from running, but she doesn’t seem to care. Neither of us is sweating now. We are not aflame with violent passion. Our touches are soft and unhurried, like each stroke of the fingers or brush of the lips whispers, I love you or I’m content being this close to you.
Kylie and I have done violent passion, but tonight that’s not what I need, and she has always excelled at giving me what I need. Tonight I need I love you more than anything else in the world.
I lose track of time—five minutes, ten minutes, more, less. We finish with a deep kiss. She plants a peck on the tip of my nose and says what she has just shown me with the gentleness of her body. “I love you, Jonathan.”
I smile. It’s been a while since the corners of my mouth turned up instead of down. “I love you, too. Always.” What I really want to say is Thank you. Thank you for being the only person in the world who loves me. But that’s not what the moment calls for.
She cuddles into the soft space between my shoulder and my neck, ready to find sleep together. All my time with Kylie has built this special easiness between us. When I first created her, we couldn’t mess around and then snuggle in for the night so quickly. It’s beautiful, really, the way we are so comfortable now, and before I let her dream, I cast off my final doubts with a question.
“Kylie, did you ever want to be a medical researcher?”
She lazily drapes an arm over me. “A long time ago, I think I did. I wanted to cure you, but, then, you didn’t need curing.”
“Was winter ever your favorite season?”
“Maybe on snow days from school.” Her voice is sleepy, and she stifles a yawn as she nestles closer. “Why the random questions?”
I want to tell her. I really want to tell her, because she deserves to know, but I don’t think three in the morning, just roused from a nightmare and reconciled with intimacy, is the best time to do it. Plus I don’t think I can make myself say the words.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
“I’m fine, now.” And I am. Except I don’t ever want to be without her, and I fear, one way or the other, soon I will be.
CHAPTER 15
I LIE AWAKE IN KYLIE’S bed, but she isn’t here. her alarm clock says 6:04 a.m., so I assume she’s in the shower. Since she chose not to wake me, I figure it’s okay to linger long enough to say good-bye.
I close my eyes, so tired that I’m almost asleep again when I hear the door click open. For one panicky second I think it’s Kylie’s mom, but it’s not. Kylie glides over to me wearing a fluffy white towel, her wet hair clinging to her head and shoulders. “Morning,” she says, and sits on the edge of the bed.
I sit up with her, noting the difference between my rumpled sleepiness and her fresh showerediness. Her long legs are smooth and shiny like she just shaved them. In the semi-lit room the white scar on her knee glows. It’s just a short line, earned when she hit a hurdle in practice last year. It bled a red rivulet down to her sock, and when the scab peeled, she was proud of the evidence left behind. Now we both had scars.
I only note it now because I’m remembering something Tess said. If one Kylie had a sprained ankle and the other didn’t, a merged Kylie would end up with the good ankle. So a merged Kylie, it follows, would end up with a scar-less knee. We’d no longer be “scar buddies,” as Kylie once called us. Irrationally, I’m devastated by this thought.
Kylie notices me staring at her scar, but she doesn’t say anything. Last night was so nice, I really am wondering if Tess’s merging scenario disaster is highly exaggerated. One way to check is to spend time with real Kylie and see how she’s recovering from her confessions at Mexican Station. If she seems as normal as this Kylie, things might be okay after all. The only problem with that is that it means spending today in the real world, not with my girlfriend.
“I might not see you in school,” I tell Kylie.
“How come?”
“I have to take care of something. Nothing bad, but it has to be during school hours. I’m going in to talk to Coach Pereira just in case I’m not back by practice.”
She doesn’t like this idea. I note a faint wrinkle in her mood. “You want to tell me about it?”
“Maybe later.”
“Tonight?”
“I don’t know. I might have to do something for Uncle Joey.”
That sounds like one excuse too many, and the excuses are only going to pile up the longer I split my Kylie time.
“Fine,” she says, and storms over to her dresser. She picks up a hairbrush, turns on a blow-dryer, and gets to work in the mirror. She glares at my reflection as I put on my shoes. Only then do I notice the circles under her eyes, like maybe she didn’t sleep well the rest of the night.
I wave to her, unable to say good-bye because I don’t want to shout in her parents’ house over the hair dryer. I’ve never seen her act hostile before. As I climb out the window and crouch in the bushes to go back to the real world, I’m worried that maybe she’s not altogether normal after all.
* * *
My nerves are shot as I walk into creative writing. The desks are arranged in a circle today, so I park a few seats down from two girls who arrived before me. Mr. Eckhart is out of the room, and the doors to the adjoining rooms are open. The noise of hyperactive freshmen comes pouring through the door to the front.
A few more people arrive, including Emily and Zach, who sit directly opposite me and start unloading their materials for class. I reach down to unzip my bag and pull out my notebook and pen. While I’m bent over, someone claims the seat next to me. I recognize the shoes. It’s Kylie.
“Hi,” she says, and it comes out like a little-girl squeal. In fact, she bounces a couple of times in her seat like an excited kid. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Zach and Emily look up at us. They frown, and I feel like I’ve done something wrong.
“Hi.” I’m not a blusher like Kylie, but I feel a twinge of blood rising to my face.
She’s dropped her backpack onto her desk and is rummaging through it. In a few seconds she’s got a notebook and pen and has stuffed the bag under her chair. She reaches over and grabs my notebook right off my desk, flips through the pages until she finds a blank one, and writes, Dear Jonathan, I’m sorry about last night. Love, Kylie. Although Emily can’t see what’s written, I swear her jaw drops when Kylie gives the notebook back to me. Zach just looks amused.
Eckhart chooses that moment to walk in, and the bell sounds behind him. He closes all the classroom doors and announces it’s a free writing day. “Let’s put up a few topics,” he sa
ys.
The class sits and thinks for a moment before people start raising their hands. Eckhart chalks their suggestions onto the board.
“Write about what it would be like to be the last of the unicorns.” That was Kaitlyn Frost.
“Write a conversation between the ghost of a person who got killed by a drunk driver and the person in jail who killed them.” Mitchell Hoversley.
“Make a list of things you can use a tissue box for.” Sherri Grace Pearce.
“Make as many stupid similes as you can.” Claude Arsenault.
“Make up a college major and describe the classes.” Zach.
Eckhart adds a couple of his own and sets us to writing independently for fifty minutes. Students relocate from their desks to their favorite inspirational spots, but I never change positions for free writing. Kylie usually sits by the window, but today she doesn’t budge.
She grins at me like we’re sharing a secret plan to collaborate on a masterpiece, and opens her notebook. Before long she’s writing, so I get to it.
I decide to make a college major in world-making. If I had to read this to the class, or if I thought Eckhart would actually take it seriously when he reads it, I wouldn’t do this, but with Kylie all giddy beside me I feel a little reckless.
Courses:
World-making 101: Will it. Don’t squeeze it.
World-making 102:
Um, World-making 102 . . .
As for that World-making 102 . . .
There are plenty of things I think of writing but just can’t bring myself to. World-making 102: Living without a family. Or Creating the love of your life. Or When your dead sister shows up. Or What to do when your girlfriend and the girl you want to be your girlfriend start to merge. Nothing is lighthearted enough to match my original intent. The last thing I want is Eckhart reporting me to Mr. Diamond.
So I flip the notebook page to start something new. I’d rip the page out, except that would make a noise in the silent room.
What to do now?
My writer’s brain is like a pig, covered in slop. There’s one stupid simile, but I don’t think Claude Arsenault would be impressed.
The rule in free writing is that you keep your pen in motion as much as possible. Even if you’re stuck, you commit words to paper, so I raise my pen and start committing words.
Fainthearted.
Singularity.
Indefatigable.
Corroded.
Zealous.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
New Zealand.
Metamorphosis.
Antidisestablishmentarianism.
Paradoxical.
Another notebook slides onto my desk. Kylie has written me another note. Dear Jonathan, Want to trade notebooks?
I look up at Eckhart, who’s working at his desk. Sometimes he free writes with us, but today he’s grading papers. Kylie stares at me expectantly.
With a slight cringe because I don’t know how we’ll get credit for this session if we don’t write in our own notebooks, I pass mine over. The draft of “Cosmic Mysteries” is in there, but since I intended to give it to her before, and since I’m guessing its content will be familiar to her because girlfriend Kylie has read it, I don’t worry too much. Most everything else is as bland as can be. She doesn’t flip through the pages, though. She just starts writing in my notebook as if it’s hers and she’s following directions.
I turn to the next page of her notebook, thinking I’ll write something too, but the next page is full. It’s a poem titled “Jonathan.”
he spent the night
in my head
in my room
warm under the covers
a dream but not a dream
this need
like thirst
like starvation
his presence a feast
are you here, jonathan
i can’t tell anymore
please come to me
i’m shivering
Beside me her pen stops moving. She’s frozen, gauging my reaction. The room keeps writing, oblivious to what Kylie and I are doing. Emily looks up, eyes unfocused, and returns to her page having found the word or idea she was searching for. Claude smirks to himself in the corner. Claude is always smirking.
Kylie’s poem sounds desperate, but the person beside me is giddy. I don’t think I’ve ever known a manic-depressive, but that diagnosis comes to mind. I switch the pen to my left hand to fake that I’m still writing and slowly move my right hand to cover Kylie’s. I want to calm and reassure her. She makes a sound—half giggle, half sigh—and to my mortification, several people look up. I’m too afraid to make the sudden movement to detract my hand, just in case the onlookers haven’t noticed yet. Kylie and I move our pens like the sound didn’t come from us, and the temporary distraction passes.
I can’t write with my left hand, so what comes out are strange markings like some ancient language. I wonder if I can get credit for that. Kylie’s pen flies down the lines of my notebook, her mood still overexcited, her hand tight beneath mine. Since my touch is not helping anything, I carefully pick my hand up, but she’s quick to grab it back, her hand now on mine, clutching it tightly. Mr. Eckhart notices. His eyes narrow on our clasped hands. He doesn’t give away any disapproval by his expression, but he does meet my eyes. I’m sure I appear distraught, because that’s how I feel. I peek at the notebook Kylie’s furiously writing in. The page is covered in the same four words written over and over: “Jonathan Aubrey Kylie Simms, Jonathan Aubrey Kylie Simms.” She doesn’t notice that she’s being watched. Her fingernails dig and undig into my fingers while she writes.
Mr. Eckhart goes back to his work, and I’m guessing he’s chosen not to interrupt class by making a big scene out of a relatively small one. Emily is gaping at us now. She pokes Zach in the leg, and he looks up to see us too. Kylie comes to the end of the page and stops. I look sideways at her to see if she’s okay, and she looks sideways back at me, then down at our hands. Her nails retreat from my skin, and she pulls my hand under her desk. While she holds my wrist, she rubs out the nail marks with her other hand. “Sorry,” she barely whispers.
Her energy subsides a bit, and she returns almost to baseline again, except for the fact that she doesn’t let go of my hand. Instead she clasps it just a little more tightly while with her other hand she slowly raises the hem of her jeans. She has to let go of me to get the pant leg up over her knee, but she manages the task, then places my hand on her knee so my index finger touches the smooth skin. Emily and Zach are about to fall out of their chairs.
She shifts in her seat, and between my finger and my eye it’s clear that she has no scar there. Eckhart clears his throat at us. Several heads pop up out of their notebooks, several voices snicker, and Kylie drops her pant leg.
She doesn’t let go of my hand, though, and although I’m dying because this incident will ruin my obscurity as soon as the ending bell puts the gossip mill in motion, I squeeze her hand back in solidarity.
* * *
Mr. Eckhart keeps Kylie and me after class to ask if everything is okay. He makes it clear that future distractions during writing time won’t be welcome, but I can tell he’s more curious than angry about whatever’s going on.
He releases us to the changing of classes. Kylie managed to separate her hand from mine long enough to be scolded by Eckhart, but as we emerge from the room into a small gathering of spies who’ve already heard, she reattaches herself and pulls me down the hall. I hear someone sneer under their breath, “I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it.”
“What is she thinking?” someone says, and then giggles.
I want to melt through the floor.
Although I planned to stay in the real world today, I can’t bear to go through with it now. The truth is that most kids
don’t give us a second glance because underclassmen probably don’t know how unusual it is for Kylie to be with me, but it still feels like every eyeball swivels in its socket as we pass.
At her next classroom door Kylie mercifully says good-bye with nothing gushier than a smile and a “Thanks for walking me to class.” I run straight to the office to dismiss myself. The secretaries don’t even tsk-tsk me anymore. They just take my note and let the administration deal with me.
I endure the final two classes in Kylie-Simms-is-my-girlfriend before heading to track practice. I’m so looking forward to just being out on the roads with my running friends. I need a good heart-pumping, head-clearing distance run and the chatter of other guys talking about normal things.
But when I get down to the gym, the workout posted on the wall is a light two miles on the track. I can’t believe I forgot that tomorrow is the big meet against Dunford High School. I didn’t expect to be on the track today.
I usually love track days because Kylie’s sprint workouts are on the track.
I go out for the team warm-up and stretch next to Rob Finkelstein. He’s in a good mood and fills most of the stretch with a story about a girl in his history class whose choice of outfit “left little to the imagination.” Kids snapped cell phone pictures every time the teacher turned to add notes to the board. I try not to compare his laughter at this scandal to the other laughter surely spreading over me and real Kylie in the real world. A hundred meters away girlfriend Kylie’s leading her team in a stretch, her back to me. I watch her through most of Rob’s chatter, hoping she’s still the normal Kylie I was with last night, not the unsettled one from this morning.
Coach Pereira comes to collect the distance runners after we finish our stride-outs. He talks to us briefly about the competition tomorrow, who will run what and which points he hopes we’ll score in each event. When he’s done, we start jogging, and I pass Kylie coming up the track with a pair of starting blocks. The usual bounce in her step is missing. She acknowledges me with a “Hey” as we pass each other, the businesslike delivery not unusual in the middle of practice, but considering everything, not a good sign.