The Beginning of After

by Jennifer Castle

  Joe’s truck. I gasped, then shut myself up.

  And Joe, sitting on our doorstep with a takeout cup of coffee in his hands. Wearing a ski hat topped with a pom-pom, and fingerless gloves. He looked up when he saw our car and squinted.

  “You have a visitor,” said Nana as she turned off the car. My eyes darted to the rearview mirror to see David glance up and register Joe. He looked confused for a second, then lifted one side of his mouth into a half smile.

  Then he quickly got out of the car and said, “I’m taking Masher over to the dog park.”

  He walked toward the house, and Joe stood up. I watched Joe watch David warily, like they were crossing paths in a dark alley. Then, a few feet before David reached the front door, Joe started walking over to our car. Where I sat, unable to move.

  “Hey, man,” said David, nodding quickly as they passed each other.

  “David,” said Joe flatly. Joe opened Nana’s door for her, helped her out.

  We heard Masher barking, then David fiddling with his key in the front door, finally getting it open and stepping inside. Nana watched Joe move around to my side of the car, then she turned quickly and went into the house too. It was starting to get dark now, and the temperature had dropped sharply since we’d left the Palisades Oaks.

  Joe opened my door, but I climbed out before he could help me. He glanced at the house and back at me, quizzically. “David Kaufman has a key to your house?” was all he asked, his breath visible in the twilight.

  “Uh-huh,” I said casually, then closed the car door and glanced up at Joe. He looked cold. And still sick. “What are you doing here?”

  “Meg told me about David’s dad, and that you were going out there today.” He paused. “I left you a bunch of messages. . . . I thought you might need someone to talk to after.”

  Now the front door opened again. David and Masher. Neither of them looked at me as they climbed into the Jaguar. Joe and I stepped aside as David backed up past us and then, once out of the driveway, sped down the hill.

  I felt something catch in my throat, and my eyes get wet. If Joe hadn’t been standing there, I was pretty sure I would have started chasing after the car.

  But now that it was gone, I looked back at Joe, at his runny nose and bloodshot eyes, waiting for me to say something.

  Someone to talk to.

  But I couldn’t think of anything. Where would I even start?

  I thought back to that night in the truck outside Yogurtland, and how happy I’d been for those moments Joe had had his skin on mine. Things were best between us when we weren’t talking. At least, not about anything that mattered.

  My hesitation must have been obvious, because Joe said, “Or we don’t have to talk. You just look like you could use a distraction. If your grandmother says it’s okay, can we go have dinner? I brought you a Christmas present.”

  There was suddenly nothing I wanted more than to get distracted somewhere public and normal with Joe. We could eat and maybe do more sketches together and make jokes about the other diners, then make out somewhere in his truck.

  But then I looked down the driveway, and I could almost still hear the Jaguar’s tires screeching.

  The only thing I knew for sure at that moment was that David would be back.

  If I was gone when that happened, would he leave again? For good?

  David, do you know that’s a chance I can’t take?

  Now Joe reached out tentatively, slowly, and took my hand. His glove scratchy, his fingertips icy as they laced through mine.

  “Let me take you out,” he said, trying to sound confident.

  I felt my ears burning and my throat closing and the tears coming.

  “Joe,” I sputtered. “Why are you being so nice to me? I completely blew you off today. You sent me all those sweet, concerned messages and I didn’t answer.”

  I thought he would let go of my hand, but I felt his grip tighten instead. “It’s okay. I understand.”

  “You’re not mad at me?”

  “No.”

  Now I was the one to pull my hand from his.

  “But you should. You should get mad at me, even just a little. You’d get mad at anyone else.”

  “You’re not anyone else,” he said.

  “Yeah, you told me. I’m amazing in spite of everything I’ve been through.” The bitterness was rising now; I could almost taste the bile, and it was all I could do to keep it down.

  “Uh-huh,” said Joe, an almost-question.

  “Joe, I shouldn’t be anything in spite of anything. I want to be someone you can get pissed off at when I do something that’s not cool.”

  His eyes changed shape as he started to get it, and he dropped his head. It reminded me a bit of what Masher did when he knew he’d done something wrong.

  “I’m sorry, Laurel. You’re right. Let’s just go somewhere and talk about it.”

  “I can’t,” I said weakly, forcing it out before my throat clapped shut again.

  I looked toward the road again, and this time Joe followed my gaze. And I could see him get this other thing. David. His face scanned the house and the driveway uncomfortably, like a stranger in a foreign country, hopelessly lost.

  “Joe, you—you are—” What? Wonderful. Delicious. Something that was doomed before it even began.

  “Stop,” he said. Then he took off his hat, pulling it by the pom-pom, and shook his hair out a bit. “It’s all good.” Now he caught my eyes and held them. “I’ll see you.”

  He pulled his keys out of his jacket pocket and loped toward the truck. I walked parallel to him, aiming for the front door, and stood there long enough to watch him drive away. Unlike David’s Jaguar, Joe’s truck moved slowly, but quietly. Maybe he was hoping I’d stop him.

  When he was gone, I took a step and felt my foot knock something over. I looked down. It was a wrapped gift that had been leaning against the house, shaped like something framed. I picked it up and slowly tore it open.

  On a sheet of notebook paper, in pencil, Joe had drawn a figure in jeans and a plain T-shirt, wearing sneakers. Her hair down and her arms hanging simply, confidently, by her sides. Me.

  There was no cape or helmet or anything on my shirt. But Joe had written a name on a slant in the corner:

  SURVIVORGIRL

  Was that what made me so amazing to Joe? I never wanted him to see me as someone with superpowers. Even Superman wanted Lois Lane to love him as Clark Kent, not as the Man of Steel.

  I stared at the drawing until my hands were too numb to hold it. Finally, I went inside where Nana waited for me, knowing better than to ask any questions.

  An hour went by. No David. Two more hours. Then Nana and I ate frozen lasagna on TV trays while watching an old movie. The final credits rolled and still, no David. I saw Nana checking her watch, and I got even more pissed at him, for making her worry, this grandmother he had no official claims on.

  Finally, Nana said, “It’s late. Go to bed. He’ll come when he comes.”

  So I did as she told me, not wanting to cause her another ounce of stress. I changed and brushed my teeth, trying to shake off the pain of Joe’s Oh, I get it expression. Then I got into bed with Elliot and Selina and tried to read Persuasion for AP English like we were supposed to over break.

  When in doubt, Laurel, do what you’re supposed to.

  And somewhere in there I managed to fall asleep.

  The first thing I felt was a hand on my cheek. Not really a full hand, just a good part of four fingers, pressing lightly.

  “What?” I said, startled out of a dream where Joe and Meg and I were fishing off a boat on a river.

  “Shhh. It’s me. Sorry, I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

  I felt something settle on my bed, and I propped myself up to see David’s silhouette, growing more and more 3-D as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

  “David. Where have you been?”

  “At the park. And then, driving around.”

  I smelled something we
ird on his breath. “Have you been drinking?”

  “Uh, yeah . . . coffee?”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m about as sober as I’ve ever been right now.”

  “Okay.” I was still trying to shake the sleep from my head, to be sure that this wasn’t a dream.

  “I talked to my grandmother. She said my dad’s fine.” His voice sounded gentle, airy, but I still felt overcome with shame as he mentioned his father.

  “I’m so sorry, David. I really messed up there.”

  “It’s okay. I’m sure I would have done the same thing, if it were me. Plus, you kind of did us a favor, because I think me and Etta were both too chicken to tell him.”

  We were silent, but I could feel something different in the shadows between us, the tension gone.

  “I needed to see what it might be like, to be back here,” said David after a few seconds. “Every inch of every road has some kind of memory for me.” He paused. “Not all of them are good. . . . Although it’s the good ones that hurt the most now. You probably know that too.”

  I had to be able to see his face as he said these things, so I reached out and turned on my bedside lamp. We both flinched from the light, and then David scanned my nightshirt. It was a new one for Christmas, with frogs and candy canes all over it. Extremely dorky.

  “Nice outfit,” he said.

  “Thanks.” I smiled, and then he smiled. I sat up and then, as an invitation, offered one of my pillows to him. He propped it against the wall and took off his shoes and scooted back to lean on it, sitting cross-legged on my bed. His getting all comfy made me a little brave. “What if you got a place near your dad?” I asked.

  David nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve considered that. I’m not sure a strange town where I don’t know anyone would help. For months I’ve been in nothing but strange towns where I don’t know anyone, and it’s not making me feel better.” He looked at me. “You would stay. You would do the right thing.”

  I started to protest, but knew it was true. “Yeah, I probably would. What I’m confused about is who decides what the right thing is.”

  “I think it’s a panel of hundred-year-old white guys in a room in a tall building somewhere.”

  “Eating pork rinds and smoking cigars.”

  “And getting lap dances, because that would be the perfect kind of hypocritical.”

  I chuckled, and then stopped, and blurted out, “I still haven’t decided whether or not I want to go to Yale.”

  “Why not?” he asked flatly. There was no reaction there, no judgment. He was the only person in the world who could do it like that.

  “I feel like I need to be here. For them. This was their life, and now I’m the only one living it anymore. If I’m not, then am I betraying them?”

  “And anyone else would tell you, oh, but your parents would want you to move on and get an education and fulfill all the dreams they had for you.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “I don’t know, Laurel,” said David, and I loved how he said my name, like he enjoyed it. He looked up at the ceiling. “Maybe instead, your folks would have wanted you to dedicate your days to remembering them. Maybe it makes them feel better, wherever they are, to see you give up your life so you can be closer to them, since they don’t have one anymore.”

  “I wouldn’t be giving up my life,” I whispered.

  “Of course you would be. What the hell else are you going to do here?”

  “A lot. My work at the animal hospital, for instance.”

  He tilted his head into a Come on! slant. “There are animal hospitals in New Haven, if it’s that important to you.”

  “Nana wants me to go. She wants to spend the winters in Hilton Head. So I feel like for them, I should stay but for her, I should go.”

  David paused, then said, “Aren’t you talking to your therapist about all this?” like it had just occurred to him.

  “I’m sorry. Am I boring you?”

  “I’m just thinking maybe I’m not the best source of advice here. Look at me. You said it yourself. Everything I’m doing is completely and totally all about myself and what I want.”

  “You’ve given me good advice before,” I said, prodding him.

  He paused, then looked at me squarely and said, “Just forget about the for thing. Don’t do anything for anyone else but you. You can be a little selfish.” Then he smiled crookedly. “Come on. You know you want to.”

  I remembered all the things I’d silently screamed to myself back in the chapel at the Palisades Oaks. He was right.

  “Thanks, David,” I said, trying to make his name sound like I, too, enjoyed saying it. But the end curled up into a strange ball of sound, high and tight. And before I knew it, I was crying again.

  Within a few seconds I heard the short, sharp breaths coming from David that meant he was crying too. And then I felt his hands on my shoulders, and a shifting of weight on the bed, and now he had me in his arms.

  I wiped my face with the palm of my hand and raised it up, and kissed him. I don’t think he was expecting it, because he jerked his face away for a half second. But then he kissed me back. Fast, with energy. He moved his hands to either side of my face and I felt like I was falling, not into a place or a hole, but into colors. Red and orange and purple. Deep and rich.

  David took one hand off my face and pressed it against my chest, pushing me down into the bed. Then one of his legs was on one of mine and the feeling of weight there, of being covered, was suddenly the best thing in the world.

  You slut! said a teasing Meg in my head, as we kept kissing. David ventured away from my mouth and onto my neck, my ear. I giggled.

  “Is this okay?” he whispered, and I just nodded, not sure what he meant. Was anything okay? Did it matter?

  And now David’s hand was slipping under my nightshirt collar, reaching for what passed for my right breast. Practiced, experienced. I wondered for a second how much sex he’d had when he was out in the David Zone, and whether it was with anyone really pretty.

  Is this it? Is this going to be where I actually do it for the first time?

  It was an intellectual question, like I was sitting at my vanity table a few feet away, watching myself on the bed. Then David’s other hand slipped down to the bottom of my frogs-with-candy-canes nightshirt, and started to push it up.

  I felt my body get tense, like it was fighting him off, but forced my mind to override that. Now both of David’s hands slid smoothly from my waist to my head, taking my nightshirt with them. Before I knew it, it was off, and all that was left was my underwear. I couldn’t remember which pair I was wearing and could only hope it was one of the new ones.

  David stopped and looked me up and down, his face full of wonder, as if seeing a sculpture unveiled. I looked back at him, this boy so beautiful all of a sudden—or maybe always—and knew I should be doing something. It’s my turn, right? I wanted to but was still frightened to make that first reach.

  With a deep breath I did it anyway, reaching my hands under his T-shirt and laying them on his stomach, which still felt cool from being outside. I ran my fingers across it, the soft hair, what felt like an exceptionally deep belly button. David sighed, and I felt brave enough to keep going, lifting his shirt and kissing him where his skin met the top of his jeans.

  In another quick, expert motion, David pulled his shirt over his head and pressed his chest to mine. I was falling into colors again, but this time a little too steeply. It made me dizzy, and the beginning of terrified.

  David reached one hand down toward my underwear, lifting the elastic away from my skin.

  That’s when I stopped him and said, “No.”

  As David pulled his head away from mine, I noticed we had matching sweaty patches of hair where they’d been connected. “Please don’t tell me to stop,” he said breathlessly.

  “I have to tell you to stop,” I said.

  “Laurel . . . please.”

  “David . . .” The dizziness ebbed
. It was like stepping off a merry-go-round.

  He rolled over onto his back, still panting. “I thought you wanted this.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, then after a horrible silent moment, “I’m the girl who’s not sure what she wants for herself, remember?” I tried to make my voice sound normal again, and not like I’d just been teetering on the edge of losing my virginity.

  David threw his arm over his face now. Was he embarrassed to look at me, or for me to look at him?

  “Can I want some of it, just not all of it?” I asked.

  He nodded from behind his own arm. “Yes,” he said softly. “Of course you can.” He pulled his arm away and looked at me now with regret. “I’m sorry if I pushed you too far.”

  “I pushed too. It’s been a weird day.”

  “A very weird day.” He paused. “I should go, and leave you alone.”

  David climbed over me out of the bed, grabbed his shirt, and walked slowly out of the room, leaving the door open. I listened to his padded footsteps travel downstairs, the jingle of Masher’s collar as the dog jumped off the couch to greet him. I got up and found my nightshirt, slipped it on along with a pair of sweats and slippers, and then followed. Not because I didn’t want David to be upset, or because I wanted to explain some more, but because I really just needed to be with him.

  Downstairs, David stood in the living room, staring at the Christmas tree all lit up. Nana and I had forgotten to unplug it before we went to bed. Now I was glad we had, because it was lovely.

  David didn’t turn around, but I could tell from the hunch of his shoulders that he knew I was there. “Your Christmas tree is very small,” he said.

  “That’s because it’s alive,” I said, and stepped up beside him. I fought the urge to touch his arm. “I don’t want you to leave me alone.”

  We were silent for a moment, and then David asked, “Have you ever been there? You know . . . the place, where it happened?”

  The spot right before the second light on Route 12. Which I hadn’t driven on since April. “No,” I said. I’d wanted to. Nana had gone twice, but I couldn’t scare up the courage to go with her. The guilt of that tugged at me sometimes, like a debt I had yet to pay back.