“And you must think you’re uncomplicated then, is that it?” I asked. “You mope around, acting like no one in the world could possibly understand you. I never know what you’re thinking or if you’re even thinking at all. Instead of telling me what’s happening in your head, it’s like you’re waiting to be asked, only sometimes, I don’t even know there’s a question.”
“How very poetic,” Enzo said dryly.
That’s when I should have left. Or before then. Really, I shouldn’t have gone to Enzo’s apartment in the first place. But it was too late for any of that. We stared at each other for a long time, and I could feel my anger fading, and then I was just left with sadness. My lip trembled. I blinked, trying to push back the tears that were threatening to spill.
The thing about crying is that I didn’t do it in front of other people. It would only draw attention to my weaknesses, and I hated making myself that vulnerable. I guess for most girls, it’s different. I see them crying in the bathrooms at school all the time, which makes me feel awkward, as if I should say something, but I don’t know what. I’d even seen Emily cry when she got a rejection letter for the fancy private school she was trying to get into. But that was different, because Emily was my best friend then, and it only mattered that I was there for her, even if I didn’t have the words to fix anything.
So there I was, on the verge of tears, and crying in front of Enzo seemed like a huge defeat. There was no going back and pretending like his feelings for me didn’t matter.
“Hey,” Enzo said, not sounding angry anymore, “don’t get upset.”
“I’ve been upset.”
“You know what I mean.”
I shrugged. I tried to find something to focus on other than him. I found a spot on the carpet where something had spilled a long time ago and directed all of my attention to it.
“Come here,” Enzo said, but I didn’t move, and he ended up stepping toward me instead. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight.”
He wrapped his arms around me. Stiffly, I let my head rest on his shoulder. I was uncomfortable. I wanted to leave. But I let him hold me for a minute, then I let him put his hand under my chin and tilt it up, and then I let him kiss me. I kissed him back. It wasn’t as magical as the first time, but all of the harsh words between us started to melt away. The next thing I knew, he was pushing me back onto the bed and climbing on top. His hands were touching me everywhere at once. When he started to take off my clothes, I let that happen too.
• • •
The thing about sex is that before you have it, people tell you that your first time is going to go one of two ways. The first possibility is that it’s going to hurt, a lot. The second is that it’ll be mind-blowingly awesome, like all the awesome that’s ever existed in the universe crammed into one moment.
For me, it wasn’t either. It wasn’t good or bad. It just was.
It hurt a little, but in an uncomfortable way, not the way I’d overheard other girls talking about it, like they could feel themselves being ripped open. There was a little blood though, and afterward, when Enzo saw that, he freaked.
“Jesus. You were a virgin,” he said, putting his hands over his face.
“I told you I was inexperienced.”
“I didn’t think you meant you’d never had sex at all.”
I thought it was going to turn into some big deal, but he just sighed deeply and started tugging the sheets off the bed. I scooted over to help him. He left the sheets in a pile on the floor, then lay back down and rolled a cigarette.
Another thing that people don’t tell you about sex is that it doesn’t go the way it does in movies. At least, it didn’t for me. In movies, you never see the awkward parts, like how sometimes you can’t get a button undone or how it’s sort of weird to sit there and pull off your socks while the other person is just waiting. In movies, there’s never a terrible silence while the condom wrapper is being torn open, and the girl never seems to panic because she doesn’t know whether she should let the guy put it on or if she should do it for him, and if it’s the latter, what if you accidentally start to put it on the wrong way? And what about how movie sex always ends with the couple collapsing into bed together and laying close? In real life, the guy gets up to deal with removing the condom while the girl sits in bed feeling very naked and wondering if it would be inappropriate to get dressed.
It turned out that sex was pretty much like everything else in life. Not nearly as magical as you think it’s going to be.
“Don’t get weird now,” Enzo said and took a long drag on his cigarette.
“Me? You’re the one being weird.”
“I feel like an asshole.”
“Because it was my first time?” I asked.
“Because you’re just a kid.”
“Well, you’re not really the most mature person I’ve ever met.”
I wanted to get out of bed and find my clothes and get out of there. Just being in the apartment seemed like too much, as if the walls and ceiling were pressing in on me. I was self-conscious though. I wasn’t thinking about her while it was happening, but now that it was over and we were just hanging out, I couldn’t get the image of Lizzie out of my mind. The Lizzie from the photo with her shirt unbuttoned, as curvy as an underwear model. How must I look to Enzo after her? Skinny. Boring. Young.
Then I realized it didn’t matter. He’d already seen all of me anyway.
I got out of bed and started pulling clothes on as I found them. I could feel Enzo watching me.
“Where are you going?”
“I have some things to do,” I said.
“What things?”
“Just things.”
Probably sit in my room all night and worry about what all this meant. Which seemed pretty depressing.
I thought about writing in my notebook earlier, describing the kiss. How had everything changed so quickly? I wanted to rewind, to be that girl again. Now I was just very, very confused.
“It gets better,” Enzo said. “Just so you know.”
“It’s not that. It was fine.”
“I don’t just mean because you were a virgin. People need to get used to each other’s bodies. Find the right rhythm or whatever.”
“That’s not why I’m leaving,” I said. “I have stuff going on tonight.”
“You’re a terrible liar, kid.”
I finished tying my shoes and stood up.
“Can I ask you something? And will you give me an honest answer?”
“Sure.”
“Did you ever really think Lizzie was a werewolf?”
Enzo seemed startled by the question. He looked at me for a long time. Then he crushed out his cigarette in the ashtray on his nightstand and took a deep breath. “I wanted to believe that she was. I wanted to believe everything you did.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then why pretend?”
Enzo sighed. “Because I wanted to stop thinking about what probably happened.”
“So I guess it was convenient that I showed up with all of my crazy theories.”
Enzo started to roll another cigarette. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“That’s exactly what you did. I’m just a distraction for you.”
“That’s not true.” Enzo stood up, naked. He pulled one of the bloody sheets off the floor and wrapped it around his waist. “I promise, that’s not true.”
My eyes stung with tears again. The night was getting more mortifying by the second.
Enzo leaned down and kissed me softly. Then he looked me in the eyes.
“Here’s the truth. I thought there was a small chance you were right. Not that she was a werewolf, but she was so into wolves that she might have run off because she thought she was a werewolf. We read about that, remember? Clinical lycanthropy? When w
e were searching the woods, I really thought we might find her. Doing research and taking notes seemed useful for understanding what she was going through. And yes, maybe I wanted to listen to you talk about all your magic and folktales because it made all the real stuff easier to handle. But that’s not the only reason I stuck around. Spending time with you is great.”
“Well. OK then,” I said.
“Are you upset?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still want to go home?”
“Yes.”
After helping me hunt down my keys, which had somehow ended up under the bed, Enzo walked me to the door. He kissed me good-bye, like he was suddenly my boyfriend, like that was something we always did. He leaned against his open door and watched as I made my way out of the building.
“Hey, Hawthorn,” he called.
I turned.
“Do you really think Lizzie’s a werewolf?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t know much of anything tonight.”
Enzo nodded as if it was the answer he expected, and I made my way to my car, where at least I’d be alone with my thoughts.
• • •
What happened next is what my dad would call “learning a lesson” and my mom would call “karma.”
I got in my car, super glad Enzo wasn’t looking at me anymore so I could start to sort out my feelings. I figured I’d drive around for a bit, maybe find a place to get some coffee. I didn’t want to be at Enzo’s, but I didn’t want to be at my house either.
I put the key in the ignition and turned it. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. The car didn’t even try to start. No clicks, no rumbling. Just silence. I tried again. More of the same.
I could just imagine how smug my parents were going to be. They’d remind me of how many times they’d told me to take my car to the mechanic.
I groaned and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. Of all the times for this to happen. Of all the places. I was going to have to drag myself back to Enzo’s apartment and ask if I could use the phone. Then someone, probably my dad, would drive all the way out to Layton, grumbling the whole way, to pick me up. I didn’t want to spend the next half hour waiting awkwardly in Enzo’s apartment. I didn’t want my dad to see where I’d been spending so much of my time. He’d think the apartment was in a bad area and think less of Enzo than he already did. He’d probably instinctively know I’d had sex for the first time and lecture me or—even worse—want to have a heart-to-heart, and it would be unbearably embarrassing.
I tried to start the car again, hoping something had changed. It hadn’t. I wished I had my cell phone on me so I could call someone without having to deal with Enzo. I wished I had someone to call besides my parents. But I didn’t, and I had to do something.
So that’s how I ended up walking home.
• • •
It was a long walk, so there was a lot of time to think.
About how I was no longer a virgin, how I had reached a milestone in my life, how I would always remember the first time that I had sex. Was I happy it had been with Enzo?
I thought about what would happen with me and Enzo. And if I really wanted anything more to happen. I was pretty sure that Enzo didn’t understand me as much as I pretended he did and would never be as into me as I wanted him to be. And it wasn’t because of Lizzie. For once, it didn’t all come back to Lizzie Lovett. It was just who I was and who he was.
I trudged through town, shivering the whole time. I was glad it wasn’t snowing yet. We’d had a warm fall. And walking wasn’t as terrible as I thought it would be and certainly not as terrible as pacing in Enzo’s apartment while I waited for my dad to show.
Cars passed me without slowing down, and I wondered how I looked to the people inside of them. Did I seem different now that I’d lost my virginity? I knew I was supposed to feel different, but I still felt like me. Only more confused than ever.
I wondered how old Enzo had been the first time he had sex and how he’d felt afterward. I wished we were the same age, had experienced all our firsts together. Maybe our relationship would have been different if it wasn’t so unbalanced from the very start.
If I’d met Enzo when he was in high school, back when he had his notebook of bizarre events, maybe he wouldn’t have been pretending when he said he believed in werewolves. Maybe our search would have been real.
Or maybe not. I pondered the last thing Enzo said to me. Did I believe Lizzie was a werewolf? Had I ever really believed it? Out of all the things on my mind, that was maybe the most important question of all.
Chapter 30
Day Seventy-Nine
I hated my first period algebra II class even more than usual. That was because I hadn’t gotten home until three in the morning. I’d stumbled up the stairs, exhausted and freezing but thankful my parents hadn’t waited up for me. I hadn’t anticipated my mom waking me up a full hour before I had to get ready for school because the absence of my car in the driveway freaked her out.
Which made it difficult to concentrate on the problems Mr. Bennett was writing on the board without nodding off. I wished my mom had a job. Then my house would be empty all day, and I could sneak home to sleep. But no, Mom would be in the kitchen, baking vegan desserts and hanging out with her hippie friends.
That morning, when I’d been woken up after two hours of sleep, I explained about the car not starting. Surprisingly, my mom didn’t gloat or say, “I told you so.” She was too distracted by her rage. Rage that I walked from Layton to Griffin Mills in the middle of the night. Alone.
“What were you thinking?” she shouted before telling me I could have been hit by a car or mauled by a wild animal or murdered by a serial killer.
“At least we know where I get my overactive imagination from,” I’d told her. For a second, I really thought she might slap me.
At breakfast, after my mom cooled down, she said I needed to have my car towed to the mechanic’s after school. That meant I’d have to go to Enzo’s apartment, which didn’t exactly thrill me. Maybe I could just leave the car there forever, buy a new car.
Which was what I was actually thinking about in math instead of math problems. To stay awake, I started doodling in my notebook. Spirals and squiggles and stars. A crescent moon. A heart. A broken heart. A sad face.
My eyes were stinging, and there was an uncomfortable pressure in my head, and every part of my body ached. I didn’t feel like I could possibly make it through the day. And it was only first period.
“Hawthorn?” Mr. Bennett said. “Why don’t you do the next one?”
“Huh? The next what?”
People laughed. Of course they did. It’s easy to laugh when your car isn’t stranded at the home of the person you just lost your virginity to, you’ve had enough sleep, you didn’t spend the whole night walking, and you don’t have a teacher and a whole classroom of people staring at you as if you were a gigantic idiot.
I wished that every single person who laughed at me had to say the numbers out loud whenever they were doing math, even if it was just figuring out how much to tip at a restaurant. I wished their favorite clothes would shrink in the dryer. I wished they’d always get stuck behind drivers going five miles under the speed limit.
“The next problem.” Mr. Bennett gestured to the whiteboard. A row of problems were written there, all of them completed by a different hand, except for the last one, which wasn’t solved yet.
“Oh. Right.”
Everyone stared at me. My face burned. I would have struggled with this even on a good day.
“Can I pass?”
Snickers surrounded me. Mr. Bennett frowned. So I sighed and made my way up to the board.
Being called to the front of the class makes me panic. I was sweaty and flustered, and my throat went dry. The whole class watched me, waiting for me to
fail. What if I tried to do the math and forgot everything I’d ever known? What if I’d started my period, and that’s what all the whispers were about? What if, on cue, everyone pulled out their lunch bags and started launching apples and peanut butter sandwiches at me while Mr. Bennett laughed manically?
I picked up the marker and took a deep breath. Suddenly, it was way too quiet. I closed my eyes for a second and pretended I was in a room by myself, no one watching me, just working on a math problem. An easy math problem.
Then I opened my eyes and got started. It actually was OK. There were some parts I was unsure of, but pretty much everything Mr. Bennett taught us came back to me, and my fear was replaced by the euphoria you can only get when you’ve slept for less than two hours.
I finished right as the bell rang. The classroom filled with noise while kids gathered their textbooks and started conversations.
“Good job, Hawthorn,” Mr. Bennett said.
“Thanks.”
I grabbed my backpack and made my way to the next class, relieved and happy at my accomplishment, even if it was one of the day’s minor challenges compared to dealing with my car and Enzo.
• • •
Most of the day passed without me paying attention. I sleepwalked through school. At lunch, I dozed off on the steps behind the gym, where I now ate alone. I woke up when the bell rang and scrambled to gather my stuff and get to fourth period.
I was about to walk into the classroom when someone called my name.
“Hey, Hawthorn?”
Mychelle Adler. She’d been off my radar for the last couple weeks, blending into the regular annoyances of school. But her standing there in the hall with such a smug look on her face brought back all of my hatred.
“What?”
Mychelle waved a spiral notebook in the air. “Recognize this?”
“It’s a notebook. That was easy. Give me another question.”
The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett Page 23