by Sophia Ryan
The song ended, but we stayed on the dance floor, holding each other, waiting for the next song to begin.
"Why didn't you come back to school after Christmas?" I asked.
He stayed silent for so long I had decided he hadn't heard me. "I had enough credits to graduate by then, and I . . . I didn't have any reason to stay, so I started college early."
That part about his not having a reason to stay hit me hard in the chest. There it was, as I'd always suspected—he left because of me.
"You always talked about going to school in Boston. How'd you end up here?"
"I decided to stay closer to home." Truth was, when Nick left school, the remaining months in school were tough ones for me, academically and socially. Boston rescinded their offer when my final grades went out. My parents could have bought me a spot pretty much anywhere, but by then I guess they were as tired of fighting as I was.
Even though the music stopped between each song, he and I never left the dance floor. We moved slowly in each other's arms, talking and reminiscing. He smelled so good, felt so familiar.
"There's a question I've been dying to ask you," I said, smiling.
"Ask."
"It's about that day your mom and brother caught us in bed together."
He smiled, nodded. "Ooo. I remember that day well. I thought it was going to be my last day on earth."
"What happened when you got home from work?"
"She yelled at me for an hour straight. Cried on my shoulder for fifteen minutes.
Sent me to bed without dinner. Then woke me up, fed me dinner, and yelled at me some more about the stupid choices I was making."
"You mean me?"
"She thought I needed to focus on school and not let anything – or anyone – distract me. It didn't help that my aunt sent her my attendance records, showing the days I'd ditched school to sleep with my girlfriend . . . friend . . . or whatever it was we were to each other."
"Ah, let's just say girlfriend. I don't think I'm brave enough to call it what it was."
"Wow. I finally have an answer for the question, 'who was your high school girlfriend?'"
I found it hard to believe that I'd been his only girlfriend, until I remembered he'd been in trouble most of his high school years.
"I'm sorry about that stupid agreement I held you to. Why didn't you just tell me to go to hell and dump my ass?"
"Because I loved your ass. And some action was better than no action, you know what I mean?"
We both laughed, but I didn't find it particularly funny to know that he only put up with my shit for the sex. I mean, I know that's what we were both doing, but for him to say it . . . well it hurt.
The music stopped, the bright lights came on, and the band thanked everyone for coming out to hear them play. People shuffled out, and the party planners immediately began picking up used cups, pulling down decorations, and packing up supplies.
"I think we're being asked to leave," I said, still in Nick's arms, and unwilling to leave.
"Yeah. These university-sponsored dances are pretty lame, but it's something to do until the real parties start."
He let me go. "What dorm are you in?"
"DeSarga."
"What! Princess Angela's living in the worst dorm on campus? What, did mommy and daddy disown you after you slept with me?"
I let the smile drop from my face and my chin quiver a bit as I pretended to wipe tears. "As a matter of fact, they did."
My words wiped the grin from his face as easily as marker from a wipeboard. Poor guy looked like he'd been stabbed.
"Angela," he said, his voice soft, eyes full of concern. He slid his hand down my arm, took my hand. "I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry."
"God, Nick, I'm just kidding. Way to make me feel like a heartless bitch, though."
"That's not funny, Angela."
"Neither was that insensitive pervert remark about 'some action's better than none .
. . heh, heh, heh, know what I mean?'"
We stared at each other for a few long seconds, both of us steaming from the perceived wrongs done to us. Then he grinned, shook his head, and laughed. I joined him.
"C'mon, heartless bitch . . . I'll walk you home."
"It's not out of your way, insensitive pervert?"
He smiled, took my hand in his. "Not at all."
The full moon cast a silvery net of intimacy around us as it we made our way across the dark campus toward my dorm. When Nick and I were together, we had kissed, touched, tasted, explored just about every spot on each other's bodies. We hadn't done a lot of simple hand-holding. His hand, warm and large around mine, felt comforting and exciting. Feeling him walking beside me, our shoulders touching now and then, made me feel safe and loved. Everything I'd felt for him in high school came rushing back. I wanted him.
"So, did you run back to Sean's arms after I left school?"
"No. I was finished with him the night he hit me in the face."
"The night you and I—"
"Yes."
"Ah. Did you date anyone else?"
"No."
"So, I ruined you for anyone else?"
I hesitated to give him an answer . . . the truth anyway.
He stopped and turned me to face him. "What happened?"
All the feelings of those last months without Nick rushed back. I found it difficult to think about much less discuss.
"Angel, tell me."
I took a deep breath, released it. "The short answer is, yes."
"The long answer's the one I want."
"Sean told everyone in school about you and me. You don't know how it is in wealthy circles. I was no longer considered a valuable match. The only reason the guys were interested in me was to find out whether I'd live up to my reputation. I knew that, so I always turned them down."
"Shit. I really fucked up your life, didn't I?" There was that concerned look on his face again. It was sickeningly close to pity.
"I believe I was the one who begged you to make love to me our first night together, Nick. If anyone deserves credit for fucking up my life, it isn't you."
"I'm sor—"
"No," I insisted vehemently and placed my hands on his solid chest. "Let's stop saying that to each other. I'm sick of it. You and I are sorry for the bad things we did to each other. I get it. You get it. It's done. We lived through it. Call me stupid, but I've chosen to remember the good times we had and forget the bad. So, Donnelly, can we agree to no more I'm sorries?"
"Agreed." He put out his hand.
I took it. We shook. Kept walking. We enjoyed a lull in conversation after that, as if we were both lost in those good memories we'd agreed to keep.
"You didn't go to winter ball? Prom?"
"No. Did you?" I asked, bugged that we were still on this track.
"OK. Don't bite my head off." He said it through a smile, so I know he was only trying to get me flustered.
We were at my dorm. I ran my key card through the reader and we walked inside.
I thought he'd leave me at this door and walk away, but to my surprise, he walked over to the couches.
"If you're not too tired, maybe we can sit and talk awhile?"
"Sure," I said.
He settled in at one corner of a couch, and I sat beside him. The couch was more comfortable than it looked, and the good company made it easier to overlook the strange stains and funky smell.
I worried that sitting had crimped our conversation line, because for the first few seconds, neither of us said a word. Kicking myself for not coming up with something more interesting, I turned toward him and tried to get us reconnected using the most common and boring question on campus.
"You didn't say what you're majoring in?"
"Mechanical engineering."
"Isn't that like designing or building engines and machines?"
"Yeah. Basically, I'll be a well-paid auto mechanic."
"You worked at the bike shop in high school. Is that where you got in
terested in working with engines?"
His body tensed at my question, taking his posture from comfortable to rigid. His mouth seemed a little tight, too, and his eyes moved away from me as if he didn't want me to see what he was feeling or thinking.
"No. My dad and I would work on cars together from the time I was little to the time . . . ."
His sentence trailed off, but I could see in his face that the thought didn't. It was still running around in his mind, torturing him.
"It bothers you to talk about your Dad, doesn't it?"
He turned his eyes back to me. They were shiny, but there wasn't a tear in sight.
"You know, don't you?" he asked.
I nodded. "But I'd like to hear your side." His arm lay along the top of the couch, his hand dangling off the edge, close to me. I took it in mine and pulled it into my lap, squeezed it. "If you want to tell me."
He paused so long I thought he wasn't going to tell me. Then he spoke, his voice tired, low, as if telling the story of his odyssey was as exhausting as the journey itself had been.
"I haven't told that story for nearly five years, and even then it was to cops, shrinks, lawyers, or judges, and only because I had to."
"Maybe telling a friend is what you need most."
"You may not be a friend once you've heard the whole story."
In high school, that might have been true. After all, I had broken up with him after reading the report on him my mom had thrust down my throat. But now . . . I knew I wasn't going anywhere. That period of time after Nick and I met, especially the time after he left high school, changed me. Love, regret, lust, heartbreak, and longing slashed my ability to judge Nick harshly.
Still holding his hand, I shifted on the couch so that we sat within the tight bubble of whispering distance. "You can't get rid of me that easily, Donnelly. Spill."
"He was my hero. Big, tall, good looking, always laughing. We'd build things together. Models when I was little, then later, lawn mower engines, cars, trucks, motorcycles. People always said he was real good with his hands. I thought they were talking about his skills as a master mechanic. It wasn't until I was older that I realized they meant he was a ladies' man. I'd catch my mom crying at the kitchen counter sometimes, or at the washing machine, so no one could hear her. It scared me. I'd put my arms around her and lay my head on her back. She'd wipe her tears away, say, 'Ah, nothing's wrong, hon. I'm just feeling weepy.' But she wasn't OK. He cheated on her. With many women.
And it was slowly killing her."
He was replaying it all in his mind. He hadn't blinked. His pitch hadn't altered, until the end. The only movement was his mouth, and his hand which sometimes squeezed mine. Mesmerized, I watched him, listened to the emotions flowing out on his voice.
"The summer before I went into high school, I was on a football league team. The high school football coach came out to watch my games. He invited me, unofficially, of course, to drop by his practices, toss the ball around a little. It was the best day of my life.
My dad hadn't made it to my practice—he had to work late. I convinced my mom we had to go to the mechanic shop right then to tell him my news. When we got there, I jumped out of the car before my mom had put it into park, and ran into his office. A woman was on top of him, bouncing on him like one of those—what are those sticks that go up and down?"
"Pogo sticks?"
"Pogo sticks. Bouncing on him like he was a fucking pogo stick."
"Did he see you?"
He nodded. "Oh, yeah. He started yelling, 'why the fuck are you here,' 'get the hell out of here.' I ran out of the building. I ran the whole way home. Five miles. I stopped twice to throw up."
I hadn't imagined I'd feel so much pain listening to his story. Tears filled my eyes at the little boy's world shattering around him. I sniffed.
"Are you crying?" he asked me in a light, teasing tone. "If you're crying already, I'm going to stop here."
"Me crying? No way. You threw up twice. Cool. And . . . ?"
He chuckled. "Sure you want me to go on?"
I nodded.
He kicked back on the couch, laying his head on the arm and held out his arm so I could lie down beside him, wanted the contact. I did. And with his arm around me, my head in the crook of his shoulder, my hands on his heart, he continued.
"When I got home, he and mom were fighting. Yelling, screaming, crying, cursing.
He shouted that he was leaving her and Simon and me for that woman he was having sex with. Mom threatened to take him to court and get all his money and keep his sons from him. I got in between them, tried to stop them, but my dad knocked me in the head." He paused.
"Made my ears ring for days."
"Had he been abusive before that?"
He shook his head. "He'd never hit me before. It enraged my mom, flipped the switch on her inner mother bear. She came out swinging, scratching my dad's face, pounding him on the chest, kicking his shins and knees. Growling. I guess he got tired of deflecting her blows, because he smacked her in the face and she crumpled to the floor.
She hit her head on something, opened a bleeding gash on her temple. She wasn't responsive. I freaked out. I tackled my dad like I'd learned in football practice. I had bruises for days, on my chest and my arms, even my stomach. I told him he couldn't leave, that I wouldn't let him leave us."
He took a deep, shaky breath, released it, as if trying to keep a rein on his emotions so he could finish, as if dumping the toxins building up in his cellular memory from recalling that event.
I wished I hadn't pushed him to talk. I slid my arm further around him, holding him closer. I wanted to shield him with my body. I wanted to heal him with my warmth and care.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to, Nick."
He turned onto his side so that we faced each other, only inches separating our lips.
"I want to, Angel. This made me who I am today. I want you to know, because I want you to know me."
His arms were around me, holding me close, and his leg was over mine. I felt protected in his embrace, and I think he did, too, like nothing past or present could harm us here. "I want that, too, Nick. Tell me the rest."
He closed his eyes, as if it were critical that he remember the details correctly. Then he opened them. "I had always been fascinated by the switchblade he carried. It was small and shiny, made of titanium, and looked like a little coffin. The blade came out the top of the handle, not out the side, and I thought it was way cool."
"Wait, was that the knife you showed me the first night we met?"
He gave me a half smile as if it pleased him I'd remembered something about that night.
"The very one. He promised me it would be mine when I started high school, and he kept it on top of the bookshelf, so I could see it every day and be sure to work for that goal. When he knocked me aside and headed toward the door, I grabbed that knife, slid up the safety with my thumb, and released the blade into my father's back. When he turned around, it almost yanked the knife out of my hand. But I held on. I stabbed him in the stomach. He had that real shocked look on his face as he grasped the wound and used his big, strong, master mechanic hands to try to stop the life flowing out of him. Blood poured over his hands, onto the floor. Then he clutched his chest, and fell. I was sure I'd killed him. Just as I was sure he'd killed my mother. I called 911, but they were already on their way. A neighbor had called them."
"Where was your little brother while all that was going on?"
"Simon had pressed himself into a corner, his knees up to his neck, his hand jammed over his ears. It's his eyes I remember most about him that night. They were glazed over and wide open, like they were being held open by that piece of equipment eye doctors use. His breathing was choppy and shallow, like he couldn't get enough air to take a breath. When Dad dropped to the floor, the room went silent. It was the weirdest thing. I remember thinking it was like a giant vacuum had sucked out all the sound in the world. I remember that silence because
of what happened next. Simon began to scream, this high pitched moan that sounded like a siren. I sat beside him, holding him, and waited until the police arrived. All I could think about was how was I going to take care of Simon with both parents dead."
Listening to Nick, I'd forgotten to breathe. I took a deep breath now, released it slowly. We both held still, quiet. I heard the beat of his heart, felt it pounding beneath my hand. I gave him a minute to catch his breath, too, then I prompted him again. "Your father died."
"The police thought it was the knife that killed him, but the doctors and the medical examiner said later it was a heart attack. The trauma of the argument and of being stabbed may have played a part, but they said his heart would have blown in a matter of weeks. In the eyes of the law I was innocent. But in other people's eyes, it was as different story."
"Like who? Anyone who knew the full story would see clearly that you weren't at fault."
He shrugged. "Some people aren't interested in the full story, only the most scandalous parts of it." He yawned into his hand.
People like me. My parents. Mr. Wilson. Three-fourths of the school. How many more people did he have to let judge him?
"Your mom was OK, right?" I stifled my own yawn.
"Yeah. She needed stitches, and she had a concussion, but physically, she was OK.
Emotionally, well those wounds took a lot longer to heal. The day of Dad's funeral, the woman he was running away with pointed a gun at my mom, blaming her for my dad's death. I rushed toward her to stop her—I was the protector of the family now—and she tripped and fell, shooting herself in the head. She died right next to Dad's coffin. In a way, they did leave together."
In high school, Nick and I had been as physically intimate as two people can be.
But this night, I felt closer to him than I ever had. I understood him better. I loved him more than I ever had. My last thought before I fell asleep in his arms was that I wanted to be with this man the rest of my life.
Nick and I woke a little before dawn I heard the early birds chirping outside in the semi darkness. Somewhere in the night, our bodies had melted into each other on that ugly orange couch, so that I couldn't feel where he began and I left off. And it was good.