The Last Time We Were Us

by Leah Konen

  “Now?”

  “If you can.”

  I tiptoe down the hall to see if my parents are up. I can hear the shower running through their bedroom door. Dad gets up early, even on Sundays, but Mom must still be asleep. “Be there in a second.”

  I head down the stairs and look out the front window. There’s Jason’s truck, idling in front of his house, pumping gray clouds of exhaust into the morning light. The coast looks fairly clear, so I slip out the front door in my sleep shorts and a tank top, flip-flops on my feet. I’m so excited to see Jason that I don’t even care that my hair is messy, that I’ve got no makeup on.

  I open the door to the truck, and the smell hits me immediately, sugar, flour, and pure nostalgic warmth. The polka-dot box sits on the dash.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I was driving to work, and I saw the light on,” he says. “I figured my boss wouldn’t kill me if I was a few minutes late, given that I’m recovering and all.”

  He opens the lid, and the sweet smell is even stronger.

  “Still your favorite?” he asks.

  “Are you kidding?”

  Your first time having a real Krispy Kreme doughnut is a rite of passage in North Carolina. It has to be the real deal, fresh from the shop when they have the HOT light flicked on.

  Jason and I had ours together when we were five or six. I’d stayed over the night before, and Mrs. Sullivan slipped into his room superearly, got us out of our bunk beds, and told us we were going to have the best doughnuts of our lives. She always said that fresh Krispy Kreme doughnuts were the only thing North Carolina had on New York, food-wise. When she handed them to us, they were still hot, and they melted in our mouths, just like she’d said they would.

  “You first,” he says, and he picks it up and places it in my mouth. I bite down, the layers and pockets of pastry turning to warm sugar-air in my mouth. I take it from him, and he grabs his own, and we chew and smile and laugh at the crumbs of glaze on the corners of our mouths, just like we did when we were kids.

  “I can’t stay,” he says. “I just wanted you to have that.”

  “You are amazing,” I say. “Do you know that?”

  He flicks a crumb of sugar off of my lips. “You deserve amazing, Lizzie Grant.”

  WE MAKE PLANS to hang out after his shift is over, around five. I go back to bed and sleep in late. When I finally get up, I spend the afternoon helping my parents around the house. I figure any brownie points I earn now might help down the road. When the upstairs toilets are cleaned and the laundry in the machine, I walk up to my room, flop back on the bed, thinking about Jason, how there are only a few hours until I see him, touch him again.

  As five o’clock gets closer, I find myself thinking of one of the last times we hung out before things changed. We were at the community center pool, doing our lap competitions, Jason beating me as usual. The water beaded against his skin, brown in the deep of summer. I was just starting to feel self-conscious about my body; we were only just beginning to look at each other differently.

  He swam to the edge, easily five seconds ahead of me, leaned his head back on the concrete, lay there, smiling in his victory. When I swam to meet him, he didn’t make fun of me like he usually did, didn’t shout, “Oh, snap!,” do his stupid Marlon Brando impression (I coulda been a contenduh), any of that. Instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him. I leaned my head on the concrete, too, and we floated like that, shoulders touching, staring up at an impeccable June sky. And I wondered, for those few moments, if Jason was about to be mine.

  And here I am, so many years later, so much changed, a rough, windy road bringing us to the point where we are—finally—us again.

  I’m about to leave when I see a missed call on my phone from Mrs. Ellison. I’m instantly scared, that I shouldn’t have been so stupid to go out in the truck with Jason, kiss him where anyone can see. I call her back, and she doesn’t answer.

  There’s a nagging, though, a dark blurry shape in the corner of my mind. What we have now is a reprieve—he still hasn’t told me exactly what happened, and I haven’t told him that I slept with Innis. I tell myself it will be okay, that whatever Jason has to tell me about that night can’t possibly be that bad, that what happened with Innis won’t have anything to do with the way he feels about me.

  I inform Mom that I won’t be here for dinner, that I’m going to dinner and a movie with Marisa. She looks at me a little questioningly, but I’m out the door before she has much of a chance to protest.

  I get to his place at five thirty. He answers the door with a smile, with a look that says we’re alone again, and I walk in, kiss him right on the mouth. “How was your first day back?”

  He shrugs. “It was work. How was your Sunday?”

  “Uneventful.” I think about the missed phone call, whether I should tell him about my irrational fears.

  He hovers at the door, with a smile on his face that says he has a plan. “You hungry?”

  And I decide right then not to tell him anything, that these are our moments, and I shouldn’t ruin them. “Definitely. Where do you want to go?”

  “Do you still like Best Burgers?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Of course I do. But I haven’t been there in years.” It’s a hole-in-the-wall spot on the more industrial side of town. Dad loves it, but Mom says there’s no ambiance, which is kind of the point.

  “Great,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  The place is just as good as I remember it. We order cheeseburgers and take a table by the window. After a few minutes, a girl with great big hoops stuck through her ears comes out with two greasy, sloppy burgers, a bucket of fries, and two Cokes.

  I think about what MacKenzie used to say—the bigger the hoop, the bigger the ho—and as the girl smiles at me, I realize that sometimes MacKenzie is an idiot.

  Jason digs into his burger, while I pinch the straw and tear the bottom off, then lift it to my mouth and blow. The wrapper shoots at him, hitting him square in the nose.

  “Oh, you’ve got it coming.” He grabs his straw, rips off the wrapper, sucks up a bit of Coke, and spits it right at me. It hits my cheek, then splatters on the table, and an older lady turns to us and gives us her meanest behave-yourself look. We just laugh.

  I eat my burger, and I get mustard all over my face, and he smiles, licks his thumb, wipes it away.

  When we’re done, Jason pays for the meal, a grand total of $10.50, and I’m riding our high, thinking that cheap burgers beat French roasted chicken any day, when I turn around and see, of all people, Erica and her husband, Dan.

  “Erica!” Her name slips out like a curse word.

  “Hey, Liz.” Her voice is venomous as she flits her eyes to Jason. “You remember Dan.”

  “Hey, Dan.” It’s the part where I should say, “And you remember Jason? My old next-door neighbor?” But I just can’t.

  “We should probably get going. Enjoy your dinner.” I head for the door, only looking back to make sure Jason’s behind me.

  In the car, I realize that my breathing is heavy, panicky. Erica’s probably texting Lyla right now.

  “Are you okay?” Jason asks.

  I don’t answer his question. “Are you mad at me for not introducing you?”

  Jason pauses a second, thinking it over, but then he shakes his head. “It’s going to be a little awkward. No way to avoid that.”

  “Do you remember Erica?” I ask.

  He nods.

  “She’s Lyla’s best friend.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “I don’t want you and me to be a secret. But when push comes to shove, I guess I just don’t know what to do.”

  Jason lifts his hand to my face, then tucks a stray hair behind my ear. “It’s okay,” he says. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  Chapter 25

  HIS APARTMENT IS EMPTY WHEN WE GET BACK.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “He goes out with friends sometimes.”
He grabs my hand, pulls me towards his room. I push Erica, Lyla, all the rules I’m breaking out of my mind, because right now I don’t care about anything but this moment.

  We fall into his bed, kiss until my lips are numb. We hold each other, our hands moving swiftly, exploring.

  I feel this deep confidence inside myself, this comfort, this familiarity with Jason that I cannot deny. Soon, my hands are lifting his shirt over his head, and I’m pulling my soft cotton sundress over mine, and when he reaches inside my navy bra, my breaths quicken, my heart rocks my chest. I shake all over, and so many parts of me come to life at once, and it feels so good, so right.

  It feels so different than it did with Innis.

  His hands wander down to my underwear, reaching, but I stop them. I can’t handle it again—the hurt and betrayal, the surprise. I don’t want him to feel surprised, either.

  I breathe in deeply. “There are things I want to know before we do this. And there are things you should know about me.”

  He leans his head on his elbow, relaxed, and for the first time, I think he trusts me enough to tell me. I think he’s willing to answer the questions I’ve had for so long.

  He takes a deep breath. “Do you believe in me? That I’m a good person?”

  I nod. “I do. But I still have to know.” I take his hand in mine. “I know it’s hard to tell things. Don’t you think I’m lying here, afraid of telling you what I have to say?”

  “It can’t be half as bad as what I have to say.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The past is the past. But I still have to know.”

  He cups my face in one hand and gives me the softest and sweetest of kisses. “Okay. But you go first.”

  “Okay.” I brace myself. I have to tell him before I lose my nerve. I take a quick breath, ignore the shame I know I shouldn’t feel, but that I feel nonetheless. “This won’t be my first time.”

  His eyes narrow, and I can tell, in an instant, that it’s not what he thought I was going to say. He sits up. “It won’t?”

  “Don’t look so shocked.” I sit up, too.

  “It would be mine,” he says.

  “Seriously?” I am so used to being the inexperienced one that I didn’t even stop to think that Jason might not have had sex. Virgin, I think. The very word sounds girly. It’s just not something you think about with guys.

  His eyebrows knit together. “Who was it?”

  I bite my lip.

  He looks at me long and hard. “It was Innis. God, I didn’t think you were like that.”

  I feel tears well in the back of my eyes. “Like that? I was about to be ‘like that’ with you.”

  Jason rehooks his belt. “That’s different.”

  I scramble to pull my bra on, my sundress back over my head.

  “It was only even once. And I regret it. There. Are you happy?”

  He shakes his head. “When?”

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  Jason lets out a held breath. “Maybe you should go.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “You told me you weren’t seeing him anymore.”

  “And I haven’t!”

  “Yeah, after he was all over you. I’m sorry, but the thought, of him, of you . . .”

  “You know, I could have lied. I could have been vague and evasive, just like you’ve been to me. But I didn’t. I wasn’t. I care about you. Enough to be honest.”

  “Apples and oranges.” His face is stony.

  “Yeah,” I snap, getting up now and putting on my flip-flops. “I slept with someone I was dating and was honest about it, and you attacked someone and won’t tell me the whole story. And I’m in the wrong?”

  “I told you to trust me. I thought you did.”

  “And I have. And you still have the nerve to judge me over this?”

  But he shrugs, looks at his feet. “What do you want me to say? If it were anyone but him . . .”

  And I don’t think I can quite believe it. He’s actually going to sit there and slut-shame me. “Maybe if you could tell me why exactly you hate him, in a way that’s not totally and completely cryptic, this would make a lot more sense.”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but then he shuts it again, looks down at his hands.

  “You’ve got some nerve, you know,” I say.

  And I grab my bag, rush out the door, before he can see how badly he’s hurt me.

  When I get home, my mother is practically waiting for me at the door.

  “Movie get out early?” she asks.

  “It was sold out,” I say, absolutely straight-faced.

  “What was the name of it again?”

  I rattle it off without missing a beat.

  “You’ve been seeing this Marisa person a lot lately.”

  I shrug. “Do you want me to have only one friend?”

  “No.” She stares at me, and I stare back, challenging her to just come out and say it, to ask me directly. I feel so upset about what happened that I almost crave the fight.

  But she doesn’t. Maybe it’s because the wedding is in less than three weeks, and she’s got so many other things on her mind, maybe she wants me to own up and tell her myself, or maybe, and I have to stop myself from laughing at this because it’s so funny, she actually believes me.

  Innis calls me three times that night. I answer on the third.

  His speech is slurred. He sounds drunk. “I miss you.”

  “How many beers have you had?”

  “Five or six. I don’t know.”

  “Have some water. Go to bed.”

  “You’re so good to me,” he says.

  “I’m not.”

  “Can I call you tomorrow? Can we talk?”

  “No. You should stop calling. I told you it’s over.”

  I hang up before he has a chance to protest.

  I SLEEP THROUGH the alarm the next morning, and I’m hot and sweating and fifteen minutes late by the time I get to the Ellisons’ house.

  Mrs. Ellison opens the door, bag on her shoulder, obviously ready to go.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I overslept.”

  “Liz.” She stops, one hand still halfway on the door, keys in the other.

  “I can stay later if that helps,” I offer. “I hope I haven’t made you miss something.”

  She just looks at me, and her lips turn to the slightest frown.

  Behind her, a girl walks up. “Everything okay?” She’s got bright red hair, and I recognize her from my sophomore biology class, though I can’t remember her name. Sadie is latched on her hip.

  Mary Ryan comes up behind her. “Miss Liz!” she says, clapping her hands together. “You came to play. My mommy said you weren’t coming to play anymore!”

  I realize all in a rush that my missed-call paranoia wasn’t paranoia at all. It was very real. “Seriously?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says, but she doesn’t look sorry at all, standing there, her body rigid. “My husband said he was going to call you last night. He must have forgotten.”

  I stare at her, hardly able to believe it. I don’t know how she found out, whether she really did see me with Jason in the truck, or if someone chatted up the ladies in the Homeowners’ Association, or if it just spread through one of the myriad cogs of Bonneville’s rumor mill, but it doesn’t matter, this sucks.

  “Jane, can you take the girls up to their rooms, please?”

  Jane grabs Mary Ryan’s hand, but Mary Ryan rips it away. “I want to play with Miss Liz,” she says, her voice rising to a piercing scream.

  “Mary Ryan Ellison.” Mrs. Ellison raises her voice. “Obey Jane this minute. Go up to your room.”

  “No,” she says, and she stares right at me, waiting for an answer. I look up at her mother, who I want to slap across the face, then back down at Mary Ryan. “I’m sorry, but I can’t play with you anymore. But you’re going to have a lot of fun with Jane.”

  “But why?” she asks.

  Mrs. Ellison looks at me, li
ke—Are you going to tell her?—when she is the only one who can possibly give the real answer. I pull myself together. “I’ve got to help out my mommy, okay? She needs my help. You’ll have a great time with Jane.”

  Mary Ryan looks at me funny, then pouts. “Okay.”

  And just like that, she lets Jane drag her away.

  Mrs. Ellison closes the door behind her, and it almost looks like she’s ready to thank me for smoothing things over, for letting her completely off the hook with her own daughters. But I don’t wait for her to say a word. I turn and stomp away down the street.

  I can’t bear the thought of going home right away, so I head to MacKenzie’s instead. Mrs. Weston says she’s still in her room, but she lets me up anyway. I knock twice and hear her groggy groan, then open the door. The shades are drawn tight and her sheets are in a mess at her ankles.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I can go.”

  “No, no.” She pats the space next to her on the bed. “Come on. Sit down.” She narrows her eyes at me. “I thought you had to babysit this morning.”

  I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry. I will be the indignant, angry working woman I deserve to be. I was fired without due cause.

  MacKenzie just stares at me.

  “She replaced me.”

  Her eyes open wide for a split second, and in that second, I see a genuine morsel of surprise. But as quickly as it comes, it’s gone.

  “What?” I ask.

  She shrugs. “What do you want me to say? She probably heard about you and Jason from someone.”

  “Who,” I ask. “You?”

  “I don’t even know Mrs. Ellison,” she says, matter-of-factly. “God, you’re paranoid.”

  “So just because she finds out I’m hanging out with him she has the right to fire me?”

  “Relax. Of course not.” MacKenzie props her pillow behind her and folds her hands in her lap like a condescending talk-show host. “But what did you think was going to happen? Everything would just go on like it was?”

  “Can you try to look a little less gloating?” I snap. “Like you actually care what happens to me?”

  She whips her face back like I’ve slapped her. “I care more than anyone what happens to you. That’s why I say the things I do. Jason doesn’t care what happens. His life is already screwed up. I don’t want you to get dragged down, too. Sue me.”