by Zoe Whittall
“Did he used to go to Avalon?”
“Why does that matter now?” Stuart yelled, drunkenly. People turned to look at him.
“Okay, well,” Andrew said, “I should get going, then, unless you have something to say to me.”
Andrew considered asking him what the fuck he’d been thinking, dating a student before hate crime legislation and gay-straight alliances were a thing, when people didn’t think twice about chasing you down an alleyway with a baseball bat for having the wrong walk. Just being gay was risky, but dating a student was crazy. He remembered the time they were making out by the ridge, and two guys had pelted them with bottles and rocks until they ran to their car and sped away, bottles smashing against the back window of Stuart’s second-hand Toyota hatchback. Was Andrew really worth the risk? Was it really love, the way it had felt for him at seventeen, when the thought of Stuart made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before? Was that what love was?
Stuart said, “No, I don’t.”
“Okay, good then. Good.”
Stuart paused for a few moments. He didn’t offer a hug, or a look of affection. The feeling emanating off him was please leave me alone forever, don’t remind me of who I am.
Andrew wondered if Stuart had always been this sad, this un-self-aware. Then again, who would Andrew be if he had to live here again? Likely a hermit, a pothead, sitting on the dock and growing more odd by the year. Andrew was antsy to leave, kicking his feet under the stool like a child. Stuart went back to the table, and Jared ordered another two pints.
“Wow, that was intense, babe,” he said, squeezing his leg.
“Yeah. Sad, really,” Andrew said.
Another drag act came on the stage, and the crowd hollered. Before the next act, Andrew could tell Jared was catching a buzz.
“Let’s go make out in the alley! Or do they have some sort of cellar/back room situation? Is there some secret bathhouse around the block the cops might bust up?” Jared asked.
“The basement has an area …” Andrew admitted. “But I don’t want to go there.”
Jared looked at him as though he’d suggested they not visit the unicorn cage at the zoo.
Andrew turned on his stool and surveyed the room. The pulse of an old house song from the 1990s vibrated everything. The kid beside Stuart stared at Andrew, winked, and kept staring. He stood up slowly and nodded his head towards the back room. Jared squealed under his breath.
“I want to go home,” Andrew snapped. He stood and pulled on his jacket. Jared downed his drink and shrugged.
“Looks like we still got it, old guy.”
“No fucking way,” Andrew snapped.
“I was kidding. I was just trying to lighten the mood. We can go. It’s okay.” Jared reached out to put his arm around Andrew to comfort him, but he was rebuffed.
Andrew swore under his breath. If they were in the city, he’d have grabbed a cab home alone. They got in the car without speaking. Andrew squealed the tires as he pulled out of the parking lot, merging recklessly onto the freeway. Who gives a fuck. I’m so tired of this! Foot on the gas, heavy, heavier than it needed to be. Jared in his periphery, and everything Jared said making it worse. He felt the wetness on his cheeks before he realized he must be crying, which didn’t match the rage he was feeling. In the distance he heard Jared’s voice, at first soft and kind, and then rising in a panicked crescendo. “Pull over. You shouldn’t be driving. You need to calm down. You’re driving like a maniac. Pull over now. Now!”
“You found it so cute, all those pathetic fags in their sad little town,” ranted Andrew, “wanting to go make out with some kid!”
“That’s not fair. I did not want that. I was happy to know he thought we were hot, Andrew.”
“You just want a story to tell our friends back in the city about this backwoods town!” He heard himself yelling but didn’t feel he could speak any other way. It started to rain and he flipped on the wipers, still gunning it above the speed limit, playing Ping-Pong between the cars now. A semi truck slammed on his horn. Andrew knew he wasn’t actually mad about Jared being amused by that kid’s attention. That wasn’t it at all. Still, he kept drilling his point.
“Andrew, I understand you’re angry, but it’s not fair to take it out on me. Are you trying to kill us?” Jared slapped his hand down on the dashboard, and Andrew finally registered what was happening. “Slow the fuck down!”
Andrew pressed his foot gently on the brake, breathing hard. He saw the upcoming exit for a service centre, and he pulled off, parking in a spot near the edge. He got out and slammed the door, walked towards the grassy area beside the gas station. He tried to calm his breathing, uncurl his fists. He went into the gas station and bought a bottle of water and a Snickers bar. When he got back to the car, Jared was in the driver’s seat.
Andrew handed Jared the chocolate bar. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You really scared me,” Jared said, turning the key in the ignition and adjusting the seat.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why are you so angry with me? What have I done, except try to support you this whole time? Do you think I’ve been having a good time of it?”
“I don’t. I don’t know why I’ve been so angry at you. I guess I’m projecting.”
“That’s for fucking sure,” said Jared, as he checked his mirrors and pulled out onto the expressway.
Andrew put his cheek against the cold of the passenger-seat window and stared out at the night passing by, quietly weeping.
thirty-nine
sadie barely went to school in her last semester. She got several early acceptance offers to colleges, picked Columbia almost at random so she could be closer to Clara and Andrew, figured out how to write her exams and papers independently, and kept mostly to herself. When she wasn’t hanging out with Jimmy, she was spending time with Lena, who’d been texting her their encounters at One-Stop Burgers. Lena didn’t demand much of her, and it felt easy to be around her. She liked to get high, listen to music, and watch weird movies. Going to her house was like going to another town or reality.
Jimmy and Lena were not fans of each other, so she’d been doing some dancing around, trying to make sure they didn’t overlap much. It was mostly Jimmy who didn’t like Lena, but when pressed, he could never really explain why, beyond slipping into a tirade about how he didn’t like that everything had changed so much. “I wish you’d come back to school, hang out like we used to.” But Amanda had basically dropped her for good, and no one else really wanted her around. She talked to her father once a week on the phone, and it was awkward but she still missed him and felt conflicted all the time. The trial was a week away now, and she felt it like a looming cloud of anxiety.
The only thing she couldn’t get exempted from was a final speech in her social sciences class. Mrs. Rae didn’t give a shit about her problems, and wouldn’t accept a position paper as a replacement. She snuck into the back of the class so she could do her thing and then leave quickly. She generally sat at the front of every class, next to Cheryl and the other keeners, maximizing that percentage of each grade given for enthusiastic participation. Every time she had to be at school, she felt that Cheryl was everywhere.
She chose the desk farthest back and closest to the door, just before a girl with hand-drawn fake tattoos on her knuckles reading Hate Slut approached her with a sneer. “That’s my seat.”
Sadie sat down and returned the sneer. “Forever? This is your seat until the end of time? I don’t think so.” Sadie didn’t break the gaze until the girl huffed and turned away, sitting at the desk beside her. Sadie pressed the eraser in her pocket, pushing her thumb into it so hard she felt a part of it give way and break off.
Cheryl got up and cleared her throat. She managed to look holier-than-thou but also like a little kid, shaking hands on three-by-five index cards. “My talk today is on how to
give enthusiastic affirmative consent, and also how to recognize it. You can tell a lot about how someone feels through their body language. Let’s start by defining consent,” she said, continuing in what sounded to Sadie like blurs and beeps.
“The definition of consensual is ‘affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.’ If someone doesn’t say no or resist, it doesn’t mean consent. You have to hear them say it. Being drunk or high can mean a person isn’t legally able to give consent.”
Sadie felt a sudden wave of exhaustion. The room was warm, and the girl beside her was carving Sick Of It All in the wooden armrest with a protractor.
“Now, let’s talk about the importance of self-respect,” she said, pulling out a PowerPoint screen and darkening the room.
Miranda was sitting next to a girl with shiny brown hair. Amy? Emily? Sadie couldn’t remember her name. Miranda always looked at Sadie with a pained sort of expression, and Sadie had generally avoided all interactions with her since the arrest. She turned now and stared at Sadie, as if she wouldn’t stop until she got a reaction. With the shades down and the lights off, the girl beside Sadie pulled her gum out of her mouth and balled it up, still staring hard.
“Hey,” the girl whispered.
Sadie didn’t respond, pretended to be absorbed by Cheryl’s inane presentation.
“Hey, I’m talking to you, Sadie. Are you deaf?” The girl threw her gum at her. It landed square in the middle of her chest and bounced to the ground. Sadie swallowed hard and kept looking ahead, unwilling to crack.
Mrs. Rae shushed them and the girl gave a mock look of shock.
“Personally, I prefer older men,” she said.
Sadie gripped the edge of her seat, overwhelmed by an urge to punch the sneer off her face.
“I like it when they get a little rapey,” she whispered, laughing. “Miranda is the worst. She just went to rehab.”
Miranda turned. “Drop it.” But she didn’t.
“Heard your dad got some karmic payback in prison.”
Sadie stood up and stumbled to collect her things, Cheryl stopped talking, and everyone turned. Mrs. Rae said no one was allowed to leave, but Sadie didn’t stop. Laughter echoed in her brain all the way to the parking lot.
She sat in her car, head on the steering wheel, and texted Jimmy, asking him to come out. She watched him emerge from the side door, pulling his blazer over his head and running in the rain.
“What happened?” he said, getting into the passenger seat.
“I hate everyone here,” she said, turning to embrace him.
They drove around and pulled into one of the public boat launch areas around Woodbury Lake. She lit up a joint and passed it to him. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the rain on the top of the car.
“Only a week left, and then this whole year is over, really. I just want to know what will happen. I feel so itchy all the time, like I can’t imagine waiting to know.”
“Come here, babe. It’s okay.” He urged her onto his lap, where she cried for a few minutes into his collar, fingers laced around his neck. The sound of the rain reminded Sadie of camping, or rain on the boathouse roof, before this terrible year began. She reached under his shirt and traced her name on his chest, then she kissed him, felt him grow hard underneath her. She pulled back and looked at him. He was blushing and looked away, then pulled her closer and kissed her hard, hand on the back of her neck.
He reached his hand under her skirt, but she pulled it away. She whispered, “Bleeding,” as an explanation, a lie.
She thought about Cheryl, her brazen offer. She’d only ever gone down on him once, early on, before they’d actually had sex for real. He once asked to go down on her, but she’d been too embarrassed. His hands were on her breasts now, she could feel them moving, but she didn’t experience anything except annoyance. She looked at his face, his half-lidded eyes, heavy. His breath quickened, and he grinded against her. It was raining so hard outside that she was pretty sure no one could see in the windows.
Sadie reached down and unzipped Jimmy’s jeans. He bit his lip, surprised.
“What are you doing?”
“Shut up,” Sadie said, taking him in her hand, and then her mouth. She was completely divorced from what she was doing, mimicking the girls in Kevin’s magazines, and he came so quick it took her by surprise, and she had to stop herself from throwing up.
“Oh my god, Sadie, thank you. That was amazing,” he said. She sat back in the driver’s seat, popped one of the orange Tic Tacs from the console. Her phone vibrated. She felt like garbage.
“Calculus,” she said, “starts soon. You shouldn’t miss it.”
He looked at her, confused. “Nah, I’ll skip. Let’s go to your house. Let’s, you know, hang out some more.” He put his hand on her leg. She wanted to rip it from his shoulder.
“I’m supposed to meet Lena,” she said, looking out at the lake, starting up the car.
“Right,” he said. “Are you okay?”
“Yup,” she said. She could tell he didn’t know what to do, so he kissed her gently on the mouth. She reversed out of the boat launch road and turned the radio on.
“I’ll come by before dinner?” he said.
“Sure,” she said.
She packed her one-hitter and texted her dealer. He said to meet him at One-Stop Burgers, then she answered Lena’s text.
lena seemed grateful to have a reason to skip the final period at the public school. They shared a plate of fries, Lena drawing obscene shapes with the ketchup, as they played Have You Ever?
“Have you ever given a blow job?” Sadie asked.
Lena took a sip, and blushed.
“How many times?”
“A few times, with my last boyfriend. We had great sex.”
“How do you qualify that? What makes it great?”
Lena grabbed a bunch of fries, shrugged. “We had great chemistry, I guess. We would sit next to each other in class and I felt like, if he touched my shoulder or my leg, even for a second, my whole body would feel like it was on fire. Kissing was the best. The best. I’d kissed a few boys before, but it was like this wasn’t even the same activity at all.”
“Wow,” Sadie said. “And you didn’t think blow jobs were gross?”
“No, just kind of weird at first. But really, what he liked best was going down on me.”
“No way. Boys always say they’ll never do that.”
“He was super into it. It was awesome.”
“Why did you guys break up?”
“He moved to Vancouver. We still email and text, but it’s kind of doomed.”
“Huh. I got back together with my boyfriend. I just gave him a blow job, like, two hours ago.”
“Woah! Hard-core lady. Was it good?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that, I guess.”
“Sounds like it wasn’t awesome,” Lena said.
“I guess not.”
“That’s a bummer,” Lena said. “Maybe you should stop hanging with those Avalon prep kids, they’re garbage. Except you, of course.”
A year ago Sadie would’ve punched someone in the nose for saying that, but today she just nodded at her new friend. She realized it was getting late, and Jimmy would be at her house soon.
“Come meet me here tonight and we’ll get so faded and you can forget about your bad bj day. There’s supposed to be a good party at my friend Mike’s place.”
“Will everyone recognize me?”
“Nah, no one gives a shit at my school. Everyone knows the shop teacher fucks a bunch of twelfth grade girls all the time. You can be free to be whoever you want,” she said, grabbing the final fry.
“That sounds perfect,” Sadie said, stealing the fry from her hand and popping it in her mouth.
forty
andrew didn’t realize Sadie was gone until Jimmy knocked on their bedroom door at three in the morning. Jimmy didn’t wait to hear a response before he rushed in and stood over them like the spectre of death. Jared, startled, let out a yelp before Jimmy clicked on the bedside lamp.
“Sorry to wake you dudes, but your sister never came back and I’m worried. She was hanging out with Lena after dinner and her parents say she’s not there. She’s not answering her phone, my friend-finder app says her phone is off or dead, and I texted and called everyone we know. I posted about it online and no one knows where she is. She’s nowhere. I don’t have a car, so can I use yours?”
Andrew had sat up, confused. “She’s probably at Amanda’s house.”
“No, I biked over there, she’s not.”
Andrew sat up and reached for his robe. “It’s okay, we’ll find her. Just give me a minute and we’ll get the car and go look for her.”
They went back to Amanda’s, to the burger joint by the highway where the “bad” kids hung out, and to all the twenty-four-hour corner stores, looking for her bike or signs of her. They even went to Kevin’s new condo. Andrew watched Jimmy pound on the door until the gold 6A swung loose, revealing Kevin, confused and holding a baseball bat, while Jimmy yelled at him with a kind of anger Andrew didn’t realize a laid-back kid like him could possess.
“If anything happened to her, it’s your fault,” Jimmy yelled.
Andrew eventually had to go grab his arm and urge him back into the car. They drove back to the Woodbury house, woke up Joan and Clara, and called the police.
forty-one
in a dream, Sadie was lying on warm sand, making out with Jimmy. He ran a finger under the waist of her bikini bottoms. “Yeah, you want that?” she heard a voice say, but it wasn’t Jimmy’s voice. She woke up to the feeling of something moving between her legs, and just as she realized she wasn’t in her bed, and wasn’t alone, she felt a sharpness, someone’s finger inside her. Her eyes popped open, and she reached down to grab the hand by the wrist. “Hey,” she mumbled, bottom lip drooling, rested against a patch of thick carpet. “Sorry,” said the voice. She pulled a strand of fibre from her lip and examined it. Orange. What the hell was it? She coughed. Someone was spooning her, and the voice came from a boy with messy red hair who was now pretending to sleep. Who? She pushed his shoulder. “Who the fuck are you?” He continued to pretend to be asleep.