by Kristen Mae
Rome accepts my assessment with a nod and rubs his index finger back and forth over his upper lip, thinking. “First of all, how do you know they didn’t give a shit about that stuff? Did you ever think maybe those guys just didn’t believe those opportunities were available to them? Second of all: I do fit in with them.”
“But you’re so fucking smart. Like really smart.” Smarter than a valedictorian.
“My boys back home call me a smart-ass all the time.” He laughs. “They rag me, but nobody means any harm. And I’m not really that smart. I just know a lot because I’m curious about everything.”
He sounds exactly like me. I remember the first time I made straight A’s, in sixth grade, and what a triumphant letdown that was, to have nothing else to strive for. And then my dad said, “I bet you like that, feeling like the smartest one in the bunch, huh? I bet you think you’re hot shit, don’t you? Little smart-ass!” and ruffled my hair affectionately. I never made less than an A after that. How could I have? Not such a smart-ass, after all is what he would’ve said.
Our pizzas are up. We take our boxes and fill our cups at the soda fountain, then find an empty table.
My pizza is still steaming, too hot to eat. I watch Rome, how he opens his pizza box with messy, unfiltered movements, how he slouches over his food with a fidgety kind of impatience, his intelligent eyes sweeping over the room, then down at his pizza, and back up to me. He’s always moving. He’s the opposite of Garrett, who is uncommonly still. Give me your cock, please. Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m going to claw my skin off if I start thinking about Garrett.
“So where’d you learn to dance like you did at that party?” I ask Rome.
He shrugs, lifting a slice, nipping the trailing strings of mozzarella with his finger. “Picked it up in the streets.”
“Well,” I say, not even trying to hide how impressed I am, “you’re talented as fuck.”
He takes a bite of pizza and reverse blows when it’s too hot on his tongue. “Thanks,” he says with his mouth full, then chews and swallows. “And you’re talented as fuck at cello.” He pauses for a second. “But I guess you probably didn’t learn that in the streets.”
“Ah, who’s the one making assumptions now?” I raise an eyebrow at him and pick up my own slice. “I had a teacher who trained me, but it was in the streets that I really learned to perform.”
“So the streets aren’t all bad then?” He winks and takes another bite.
I smile. “Guess not.”
* * *
Rome and I are almost to the dorm’s front walk when we see Daphne coming toward us from the other direction in the dark. She’s wearing gym clothes and her cheeks are glowing like she’s fresh off a workout. “Hey, you two! Where’re you guys coming from?”
“We grabbed dinner at the commons,” I say. “We had a study date.”
“Cool.” Her voice sounds peppy enough, but she gives me a wary look as the three of us make our way up the walk. “So, Miss Staying-Out-All-Night…were you where I think you were?”
What the hell is she doing telling my business?
I can feel Rome smirking at me. “Hey girl, get yours,” he says with a lopsided grin. “Don’t be shy.”
“I’m not shy.” I swipe my key card and open the lobby door, throwing a glare at Daphne.
Rome takes the elevator since he’s on the fourth floor, and Daphne and I head for the stairwell. “So,” she says as we clomp up the concrete steps, “what’s with Romeo?”
“How’d you know his real name is Romeo?”
“I didn’t. Trying to be funny.”
Our footsteps echo against the painted cinder block walls. “We have a class together,” I say. “He’s helping me study since I bombed the first quiz.”
“He’s helping you study? Seems like it should be the other way around.” She pushes open the door to our floor. “You being valedictorian and all.”
“He’s really smart.”
“He’s just a little…I dunno…ghetto.”
Hearing it come from Daphne makes me realize how bafflingly small-minded I’ve been, and now I’m truly ashamed. I can’t believe Rome keeps talking to me after I basically called him a thug. “Well,” I say, “he taught me some shit about history, but he also taught me a few things about not judging a person based on how they dress.”
She levels her gaze at me. “Point taken. But you know, I see him around with girls all the time. He’s got a reputation for being a man-whore.”
Geez, glad I never told her I fucked some random partygoer our first week here. “Rome’s not a man-whore, Daphne. He just has a lot of friends.”
“And he’s a drug dealer.”
Is she fucking serious? I shoot her a look of disgust as I push open the door to our room. I can feel my blood pressure rising, and each criticism she throws at Rome makes me hate myself a little more for judging him in the first place.
“Fine, whatever. Let him do whatever he’s gotta do to get by. What is your problem with him, anyway?” I sit on my bed.
She sits at her desk and opens her laptop, fixes her eyes on the screen. “No problem, he just…he’s not good enough for you.”
I can feel my brows knitting together, my face heating.
“You can do better,” she says quickly.
“You need to lay off,” I say. “He’s my friend, Daphne.”
What would she say if she were to see Aunt Bonnie’s dilapidated trailer, or if she knew I fucked a greasy mechanic for my car? Would she think it made perfect sense for me to be friends with a guy like Rome? Or even to date him? I grab my economics book and a highlighter from my desk and throw myself against my pillows, cracking open the book with more force than necessary.
“Fine, fine, he’s your friend. I’ll lay off. However…I do want all the details on Garrett,” she says, dropping her voice lasciviously. Her fingers are already pecking away at the keys on her laptop.
Unbelievable. I flip to the assigned chapter, keeping my eyes locked on the text. My face is burning. “He’s an awesome cook, he has the metabolism of a reptile, and his house is completely dust-free. And we fucked.”
Her laughter peals like a bell. “You slut. That’s fucking fabulous.”
I roll my eyes and don’t say another word.
* * *
Monday morning I’m in my practice room at the music school, unpacking my cello, when I receive a message from Garrett: I know you don’t want anything to interfere with your studies—trying not to bother you during the week. Just wanted to say I enjoyed Saturday night.
I almost cry with relief, because though I haven’t messaged him, I’ve been going crazy wondering if he’s thinking about me. I cannot believe I spilled the entire story about my shitty family life. I thought maybe I’d scared him away.
I respond: Me too.
I was thinking about the running thing. That I could train you.
A little fire lights in my belly, warming me from the inside out. I chew my lip and text, I won’t hold you back? Of course I’ll hold him back. I just hope he won’t mind.
We’ll meet twice per week. I’ll do my harder workouts alone, on other days.
Sounds good. I hesitate for a moment, then send a follow up message: I’m scared, though.
I’ll teach you to pace yourself.
If anyone knows a thing or two about pacing, it’s probably Garrett. Pacing is all about self-control, and Garrett has that in spades.
I see I’ve got a message from Liza—she’s auditioned for the school musical and won a spot in the chorus. I quickly respond: Whoa, seriously? Liza has always been shy and asocial. She has an awesome voice though, always singing in the shower, especially once Dad wasn’t around anymore to tell her to shut up.
Then from Garrett: Start Thursday?
Sure.
Liza: Isn’t it SO amazing? We’re doing 42nd Street!
Garrett: Will text you with when and where to meet. Tell me if you play downtown.
OK. I want
to leave an “xo” or something, but I can’t tell if it would look too cutesy. I hate texting.
There’s a knock on the door. “Yeah?”
Bethany peeks into my practice room, her orange curls loose around her face. “Oh, good, you’re here. It was so quiet I wasn’t sure.”
I look at the time on my phone. “Shit. Yeah, gonna start now.”
“Cool.” She grins. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Me? Yeah, why?”
“You just look kind of…hot. Thought maybe you were sick or something.”
Sick. I feel my cheeks heat even more. I know it’s from sitting here texting Garrett and marveling at his superhuman self-control, the way he smirked and shook his head at me while I spread my legs and begged him to fuck me. “No,” I tell her. “I’m fine.”
That afternoon at my lesson, Professor Yarvik also comments on my red face and I don’t even hear her at first because I’m imagining Garrett bending me over his kitchen counter. She tells me I’m playing well and to prepare a new Popper etude for class this Thursday.
Tuesday, Rome and I sit together in Twentieth-Century Europe. He slouches down in his chair, keeping his gaze on Professor Hart and nodding occasionally as if the two of them are having a private conversation. During the mid-class break he makes fun of me for how many notes I’m taking, and I splash him with water from the fountain.
That same afternoon I go to hip-hop class with Daphne, even though I’m still a little annoyed by her snotty attitude toward Rome. She’s there at the front doing lunges before the class has even started. “Calm down,” I tell her. “The class burns enough calories already.”
“I ate nachos last night at the commons,” she breathes.
I think she looks a little thinner than last week, but I hold back from telling her because she might take it as a compliment, and I don’t mean it as one. Instead I join her at the front of class and push myself just as hard. Maybe harder. I don’t want to wimp out with Garrett when we run on Thursday morning.
Wednesday afternoon after Music Theory, I lug my cello to my car so I can play downtown for a few hours. My car insurance is due and my bank account is running low. I text Garrett my plans because I told him I would, even though it feels silly to do it, like I think he can’t stand to miss a single note.
I play for an hour before he shows. The sun is sitting low, pouring its liquid gold over the trees, and just when I’ve convinced myself he’s not coming, there he is, leaning on a tree barely within my peripheral vision. The second I catch sight of him I straighten and almost lose my grip on my bow. How long’s he been standing there with that smug little smile? I take a break after a while, hoping to chat or at least say hello, but when I look back to the tree, he’s already gone.
Chapter Fourteen
I’m sweating and gasping for breath and the sun isn’t even up yet. But it’s worth it because being with Garrett, alone before the world has come alive, might feel more intimate than sex—it’s like a secret I’m sharing, letting him see me pant and struggle and perspire. Running has revealed to us both that I neglect to care for my body. I eat junk and only exercise when Daphne makes me, and it shows.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Garrett says from ahead of me. He slows to a stop and turns to face me, his chest heaving rhythmically. “You’ll be sore tomorrow.”
My shoes crunch against the pebbles on the path as I catch up to him and double over with my hands on my knees. I’ve discovered that the lungs are a muscle and can light up with pain like any other muscle can. But though I can barely breathe, I feel alive as fuck.
Garrett’s hand rests on my back. “Stand up and walk. It’s not good to suddenly stop like that. Let your heart rate come down gradually.”
I force myself upright and plant my hands on my hips, try to move around. “That,” I wheeze, “was hard. I almost puked.”
“Let’s walk the rest of the way as our cool-down. We’re close to your dorm.”
“How far was that?” I ask. I feel like I’ve run a marathon.
He looks at his phone. “Two point eight miles.”
“Is that…good?”
“It’s not a lot. But it’s your first time out.”
He leads, and I stumble along behind him on rubber band legs. There’s a sweat mark on the back of his shirt between his muscled shoulder blades. I want to stick my hand up under his shirt and feel the damp heat of his skin. I want him to turn around, see my flushed cheeks, and invite me back to his house to shower with him.
He doesn’t, of course. He kisses my cheek at the end of the sidewalk by my dorm and heads back across the street to his house without looking back. I go to message Liza that I’ve gone jogging for the first time ever and see the messages she sent me three days ago while I was in the practice room—messages that got no reply. I send her an apology, with the excuse that I was in the middle of practicing and meant to get back to her, but that’s only partly true. I was distracted by Garrett’s texts, marveling at his self-control.
And I’m an asshole.
* * *
“Just hang on, I’m almost done with this chapter.” I highlight a few more lines, close my eyes and repeat the events and their corresponding dates to myself, three times each, giving them a catchy rhythm to help me commit them to memory.
Rome and I are in my room this morning since Daphne is out. I’m sitting on my bed and Rome is at my desk, polite as ever. He wouldn’t sit next to me on the bed, wouldn’t dare give me the idea that he’s angling for anything more than friendship. He’s staring at me now, though, suppressing a smile as I whisper-repeat my facts. Rome’s done studying, or basically done; he’s read all the material for the entire course.
“Not everyone is blessed with a photographic memory,” I tell him.
“Quit saying shit like that.” His knee won’t stop jiggling. “I told you, I’m just interested in shit, and when you’re interested in shit, your brain retains it easier.”
“Well, no wonder I’m slow, then. I have to force-feed every bit of information into my brain.” I close the book with a sigh and lie back on the bed. My room faces east, so the late-morning sun is streaming in through the window and bathing us in bright white light. “Where did you get your love for learning from, anyway?” I ask, staring at the ceiling. “Are your parents super intellectual too?”
I hear his backpack zip. He doesn’t answer right away. “My parents…yeah, I guess. My dad’s a pediatrician and my mom’s a social worker. I suppose I picked up some of my love of information from them, but…it’s not a genetic thing. I’m adopted.”
I prop myself up on my elbows. “Oh.” I want to know more, but it seems rude to pry.
“Yeah, it happened kinda late in my childhood, one of those adopt-from-foster care deals. I was one of my mom’s cases.”
I remember my brief stint in foster care, when my mother got a concussion and my dad was locked up. It was only a couple of nights, while Liza and I waited for Mom to be released from the hospital and Dad to be released from jail. If it hadn’t been for Aunt Bonnie, Liza and I might have been adopted by a nice intellectual couple too.
Now I’m too curious to stop myself from asking. “How late in childhood? Like, how old were you?”
“Man…” His hat has been backwards for the duration of our study session, but he turns it now so the brim shades his eyes. “I kind of hate to talk about it. For kids like me, it was a fairytale fantasy for your fucking social worker to fall in love with you and adopt you. That shit almost never happens. It’s not fair that it was me and not someone else.”
I sit up all the way, crossing my legs and resting my elbows on my knees. “I dunno, Rome, I feel like you deserved a little luck in your life.”
“Yeah, but my older sister…” He rubs a hand over his jawline, over the back of his neck. “Ten years older than me, already out of the system by the time my mom and dad adopted me. She never knew any kind of peace or comfort. Still doesn’t.”
“That sucks.�
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“It’s not fucking fair. I tried to get her to come around, my mom and dad tried, but…”
“And your real parents? I mean, your biological parents?”
“Unfit. Meth. We were taken from them when I was two and my sister was twelve.”
“Holy shit, Rome.”
“Yeah… Anyway, my sister got jack and I got the good life. My adoptive mom, she’s some kind of fucking angel, I swear, she devoted everything to me. I don’t know why it had to be me, but…”
I wait for him to go on, but he’s staring out the window, lost in thought. “Maybe she saw all that potential in you,” I tell him. “Maybe she wanted to give you a chance to explore it.”
“That’s nice of you to say, Malory, but having potential doesn’t make me any more deserving of a good life than anyone else.” His voice is low and rough. “‘Potential’ shouldn’t be a prerequisite for comfort, safety…love. Right?”
I push at my cuticles. “Guess not.”
“And, for the record, my sister is ten times smarter than I am. She just got caught up with the wrong people, and she was so lost, so desperate to find some kind of connection with anyone…”
“Where is she now?” I ask the question timidly, afraid to overstep.
“Miami somewhere.” He shrugs. “Last I heard, she had two kids from two different dads, and she’s on and off drugs. And she gets involved with these fucking assholes that beat her. It’s like…it’s almost like she seeks that shit out.”
“I’m sure she’s not really…I mean, that’s a hard pattern to break.” I’m thinking of my mother now.
He huffs an agitated sound. “I guess so. It just makes me feel kinda helpless, you know?”
I think of Liza, trapped in that piece of shit trailer with Aunt Bonnie. I make a mental note to Skype her after Rome leaves. “Yeah. I know.”
* * *