Drain You

by Beth Bloom

  “Yes, it is.” I braced my arms over his, locking them into position around me.

  “It’s not. Trust me.”

  I lifted one hand behind me and interlocked my fingers with his messy hair. I noticed his eyes were down, lined up exactly with the bare skin on my collarbone, watching my black cotton bra rise and fall. After a second it felt like I was holding his head there. Like if I let go he’d pull away.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just give me a second.” James turned his head and faced away, down the hill.

  “I’m mad at you. You give me a second.” We sat in silence.

  Then he said, “Second’s up,” and he was back.

  I moved my body around so we were facing each other again.

  “You’re pretty pissed at me.”

  It was weird; I could be pissed and totally not pissed at the same time. “Listen,” I said, touching my chain around his neck, “if I tell you to go away, like, if I shout at you to go, will you?”

  “Not if you don’t mean it,” he said.

  “I probably won’t ever mean it.”

  “You’re tired,” he said.

  “You’re tired.”

  He didn’t look tired, though.

  Then my eyes closed again and he said, “I’m boring you.”

  I would have fake-yawned to be cute, but if it turned into a real one it’d be too soon. “So tell me a secret.”

  “I have one, but it’s pretty weird.”

  I waved my hand, like, Lay it on me.

  “Last Wednesday, in front of the video store, that wasn’t the first time I’d seen you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  In my worn-out haze, I tried to think back. I had no recollection of ever seeing Naomi outside of school. I’d never seen her at a party, renting a movie, at the mall, at the grocery store. And of course I’d never seen her with him. I would’ve noticed.

  “It was around Christmas. Like, a year and a half ago.”

  “Was it at Libby’s party?” Dudes, dudes, and more faceless dudes.

  “No.”

  “Were you a mall Santa? Did I sit on your lap?”

  “At least you’re not freaking out.”

  “James, just tell me.”

  “I was walking on Laurel Pass. I saw you skateboarding.”

  “And?”

  “And you wiped out. It was late.”

  Casually I said, “I remember that,” but it wasn’t casual; it was bizarre. That night I’d actually been skateboarding home from the Blocks’ Christmas cocktail party. Libby was supposed to drive me home, but she and Nathan got into a huge fight over something very unhuge. Whatever. My board slipped out from under me and I did a serious face-plant on the concrete. I got a crazy bloody nose and a split lip, but I was alone. I knew I was alone because I called out for help for ten straight minutes and no one came. Not even a car drove by.

  “I didn’t want to creep you out,” he said. “Some weirdo coming out of the darkness.”

  “Yeah, real horrifying.” Remembering the pain and embarrassment annoyed me. And then to realize he’d been watching me the whole time, yelling and bleeding and cussing at myself, annoyed me even more.

  “But you were cool, remember? You got up and skated home.”

  “And you were where? Hiding in the bushes?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I was just out.”

  “Just out checking for bloody asphalt?”

  His voice laughed a short, “Yeah.”

  “What am I missing here?”

  “Look, I saw you and didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Well, I’m officially creeped out.”

  “Good. Be creeped out.”

  “I wish you’d just…hung out with me.” This was the most aggravating point of all. James had been there, and if he’d just said hey, we could have met, spent two amazing weeks together, started a correspondence, had a long-distance thing. Then I would’ve already been friends with Naomi and not had to deal with Morgan’s weirdness for all of junior year because I’d be making out at this exact moment on the grass, on a date, with my sexy older boyfriend.

  Then I said, kind of angry, “Doesn’t matter if you’d scared me. Who wouldn’t help a bleeding, limping girl in a Christmas dress all alone on a dark, cold night?”

  “I wasn’t in any condition to be helping anyone.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. That’s why you like me anyway, right? Because I’m mysterious?” Then he looked up and met my eyes for the first time all night, and I didn’t like it.

  In a very small voice I said, “That’s not why.”

  “Sorry. Sometimes I’m rude to girls I think are sexy.”

  “You’re confusing.”

  “I described you to Naomi afterward. She told me to leave you alone.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with me?”

  James stopped to think about the question for too long.

  “Wait,” I said, “you think I’m sexy?”

  His eyes drifted across my face, down my neck, to my unbuttoned dress. He left them there and nodded, slowly, yes.

  “With a bloody nose? You think bloody noses are sexy?”

  He squinted. “That’s a harder question to answer.”

  “Is it?”

  Then he cupped my face in his hands and pressed his lips to my forehead, leaving them on my skin. I closed my eyes to enjoy the moment, but it was impossible to open them again once he pulled away. The rest of my body screamed at me: BED. I shook my head to fight off the feeling, but it must’ve looked like slow motion to James, because he started lifting me off the grass.

  “Home, dude?”

  “Home, dude,” I said, and yawned for real. I hung my arms around his waist and let him half carry me, half shuffle me along.

  “So are you going to put my picture in your locker?”

  “It’s summer. I can’t get to my locker.”

  “How about your diary?”

  I stuck out my tongue. “That’s private.”

  And then we were quiet for a while.

  Then, because there was nothing to say, I started saying everything. I confessed my random crushes on young Springsteen and Will Smith, stuck up for television, citing the many ways it’d shaped my once vulnerable mind, bashed baseball, admitted to having a retainer I never wore. I told him I wanted to learn how to play, in no particular order of importance, the upright bass, the tenor saxophone, and the drums, but I’d settle for a drum machine. I recited Tennessee Williams lines, Seinfeld quotes, Smashing Pumpkins lyrics, told my only good joke, performed my only celebrity impression, badly. Strong beliefs on eighties Lakers versus nineties Bulls, Diet Coke versus Coca-Cola Classic, Kurt versus Courtney, West Coast rap versus East Coast rap, Converse versus Vans.

  At times James looked at me like I was an alien, and other times he looked at me like I was his kind of alien. Most of the time he just pulled me in tighter to hug his body and smelled my hair and kissed the top of my head.

  Soon we were on my block. When I could see the tea lights outside of my house, James interrupted me.

  He was like, “First crush?”

  If it counted: “Aladdin.”

  “First kiss?”

  Skip that. “Boring.”

  He asked about my first…anything else.

  Skip that one too. “Nothing to tell.”

  He wanted to know had I ever had my heart broken.

  Easy: no.

  Had I ever broken anyone’s heart?

  Simple: one person’s, every day for a year.

  But he didn’t ask the most obvious question in this line of questioning: Had I ever been in love?

  Not before now. Not even close.

  When we reached my stone steps, I said, “Come upstairs. Please.” I smiled at him, wobbly. The yawns were coming on strong. I was almost asleep on my feet.

  He said, “You can�
��t even open your eyes.” But it wasn’t a no.

  I pulled him through the front door and up the stairs. He hesitated in my doorway and raised his eyebrows at the janky state of my room.

  “Don’t judge me, Mr. No Windows No Phone No Bed No Furniture,” I said between yawns. “Bless this mess.” I jumped on the bed once and then flopped down on it.

  James stood over me, his expression soft but preoccupied.

  I pulled on his arm a little. “Lie down with me, please.”

  “Saying please doesn’t work on me. What about mom and dad?”

  I pointed at the pillow next to me, at the small folded white piece of paper lying on it.

  James picked up the note and read aloud: “‘Quinlan, great dinner party, wish you had stayed for dessert. Next time invite Morgan in. If we’re gone when you wake up, don’t forget to eat a proper meal. No soda, please, although the odds of us paying your college tuition with money from recycled cans are increasing. This room has gone beyond a mother’s reproach. Love you, Mom.’”

  James set the note on my nightstand next to a Diet Coke can.

  “Told you she thinks I’m with Morgan. Libby saw you and she still probably thinks I’m with Morgan.”

  Libby. Where was she now?

  James knelt down next to the bed and touched my flushed cheek with the back of his hand. I faded in and out of sleep while he said things I couldn’t really understand about Libby and Stiles. Then he took off my Docs and put my Garfield stuffed animal under my arm and laid a light blanket over me.

  “Obviously we’re supposed to kiss now,” I mumbled.

  “We already kissed. You’re delirious.”

  “Not on the lips.”

  “You’re asleep.”

  “You’re not taking advantage. I want you to do it.” I reached my hand to touch just below his neck, that area of exposed skin above his shirt’s V where our necklaces hung together.

  “Maybe I don’t want to kiss a sleeping pill.” He flashed a slanted smile and said, “Maybe I want a little proactive contact sport,” but I knew that wasn’t it. Some other reason kept his mouth so specifically off mine, but I wasn’t going to find out tonight.

  I thought I fell asleep again, but when I opened my eyes he was still there, holding my hand, and it was in this hallucinating state that I offered up the only real secret I had.

  “James, I think I love”—but something stopped me—“stuff. I love stuff.”

  I was delirious. It wasn’t much of a secret anyway.

  Then James pulled away from me and followed the path back to my door. “Stuff…is cool, Quinn. I’m really, really into stuff too.”

  It was the best.

  But if it was the best, then why wasn’t it easier, as I floated into dreams, to pretend not to hear the doubt in his voice?

  7.

  INVITATION

  Woke up at four thirty in the afternoon feeling steamrolled. Bulldozed. Yeah, I loved the nightlife. Apparently being with James meant trading all my lazy sunny days by the pool for midnight walks and five a.m. long good-byes. Which would’ve been fine except that the bags under my eyes were becoming deep dark pools of their own. I was learning that bodies didn’t like the sleep-all-day, hang-out-all-night schedule. And yet James seemed to be pulling it off, so who knows.

  I only had an hour to get ready for work, and I wanted to make it count. First of all, after yesterday’s humiliating dismissal, I knew I’d have some serious butt-kissing to do. That meant dressing like a semi-sane girl and a responsible employee, having all emotional meltdowns before six, and volunteering to handle even the most menial tasks, like calling customers with late fees and rewriting the entire New Releases dry-erase board. Also I had to prepare for the potentially worst coworker ever, which for different reasons entirely might be either a judgmental version of Alex or a pissed-off version of Morgan. I preferred the pissed-off Morgan, but bratty, selfish beggars can’t be choosers. Secondly, I needed to call Naomi and accidentally mention I had a shift tonight in hopes that she’d then happen to mention it to James, whom I’d forgotten to tell last night when I was trying to lure him into my bed. Third, I had to find Libby somehow, even if that meant tracking her down by phone at the Spader sanctuary and then commanding her to come visit me at the store. Finally, had to feed myself real food. And sneak out a Diet Coke for emergencies. Which, after last night, I was pretty much banking on.

  I set about my tasks in order. My loveliest look was a vintage rayon forties dress that my mother had bought me at Aardvarks on Melrose. I paired it with a ripped, too-small denim jacket and some scuffed lace-up boots, because I could only stand to look so precious. With all the gold jewelry, the black eyeliner, and the knotted bird’s-nest hair that I tried to comb to no avail, I appeared exactly the same as I did on other who-cares workdays, except that somewhere beneath all the junk was a dainty rose print instead of a dirty Beat Happening shirt. So much for put together.

  I skipped ahead to my mother’s request and ate some fruit. This would please her and prove to both of us that I could survive without being hand-fed. I wasn’t sure if a tangerine and seven raspberries sufficed as a full meal, considering I’d slept straight through breakfast and lunch, so I rounded it out with seven Saltines and guacamole and a stick of string cheese. I scribbled her a note of my own on the kitchen counter:

  Mom, no immediate plans to clean aforementioned bedroom/tornado site, BUT am totally full and well fed. After work tonight might be out late with someone special. Don’t worry, I’ll be good.

  Love, Me

  I had about fifteen minutes left to make my calls. I climbed on a bar stool at the counter and grabbed the phone. Naomi first. I knew I needed to seem like a cool cucumber, like, keep it smooth. I let the dial tone drone for a full fifteen seconds while I fixed my hair, straightened myself, and swiveled around a few revolutions. Then I practiced saying, “Hi, Naomi,” into the mouthpiece a half-dozen times. I dialed and exhaled a long sigh before she answered.

  “Hello?”

  I said, “Hey, lady,” but the “Hey, lady” wasn’t me, it was Tom Jones.

  “Quinn?”

  “Yeah, hi. What’s up?”

  “Um, nothing. Just got back from riding, about to take a shower.”

  “Cool, shower.” I yelled at myself: Get to it. Get to it. I tapped the top of the phone against my forehead. Screw the cucumber; I was a zucchini.

  Naomi drew out the word, “Ohhh-kay,” and it made me feel crazy. Crazier. “What’s up with you?”

  “About to go to work. You know, got a shift at the store like always. I’ll be there all night. Until eleven. Then I’m just going to walk home. No plans.”

  “You can come over…if you want.” Naomi sounded sort of disappointed, like she thought we were already done with the “awkward acquaintances” phase. And we were. Sort of. But she’d misunderstood my nervousness and overly specific outline of the evening, and now things were worse. I couldn’t say no to her because I was basically begging her, but if God made miracles and James showed up to walk me home, I couldn’t actually say yes to her either.

  So I said, “Maybe?”

  “Whatever, okay.”

  “So…I’ll just be at the store.”

  “Right. And I’ll be here if you want to hang out.”

  “Okay, well, I get off at eleven. Like always.” This was a mess.

  “Like you said.” I heard Naomi turn the shower on.

  Now my inner monologue ordered: Hang up the phone, Quinn. Hang it. Up.

  “And Morgan’s not taking me home either.”

  Wow.

  “Be safe then?” The sound of running water was getting louder.

  Something was seriously wrong with me, because I literally said, “Safe isn’t always the best way to be.”

  “What?”

  “Bye, Naomi. Bye.”

  Surprisingly painful, actually.

  This second phone call would be easy breezy as long as I didn’t start crying. But th
en again, if I was going to cry, I’d better do it now.

  Stella answered on the third ring, sounding totally out of it. She said Libby wasn’t home, that she’d spent the night at Stiles’s and was probably still there now. Okay, no big deal, I’d just call Stiles…at his underground lair, where he most likely had Libby chained to a radiator and she was loving it. Stella gave me the number, which contained not even one six, let alone the three in a row I’d expected. His answering machine beeped a single beep with no outgoing message.

  “Oh. Okay. Hi, this is Quinn Lacey, I’m looking for Libby. I know she’s with you, so just go get her.” I waited a second. “Libby, listen, sorry about last night. Whatever my friend James told you, it’s not how I feel. I still want to see you, so please come by the store tonight and we’ll talk about whatever’s going on. Or we can talk about other stuff, doesn’t matter. I just want to see you and make sure you’re okay. I’m going to guess for both of our sakes you were just having a rough night. Okay, so come by. Love you, bye.”

  The phone beeped back at me while I rushed to get the last words out. I contemplated calling again, just to make sure my message hadn’t gotten erased or cut off, but I could only stand to be so much of a weirdo. Even if Stiles ignored me, Stella knew I was looking for Libby. I’d covered my bases and done my best. Psychic powers were out, meal was in, best dress was on, and I’d gotten more done in one hour than I had in three days.

  I ran to Morgan when I saw him behind the front counter. He wanted to be moody and dismissive, I could tell, but once I was bounding toward him he opened his arms for me with only the smallest reluctance. I babbled about whatever, not allowing for a single moment of awkwardness or self-reflection from either of us. We put The Basketball Diaries on. During one particularly intimate scene, Morgan turned to me and yanked on one of my tiny braids.

  “Hey, aren’t you going to marry Leo? Once you get to Paris?”

  “Oh, Morgan, you’re so smart.” I wasn’t being sarcastic either; he remembered everything.

  We were back in full swing. Okay, maybe more like semi-swing, but it felt great. I didn’t care if it was denial or repression or just teenage madness, but pretending like he didn’t love me and I didn’t not love him was a refreshing change. We weren’t talking about anything that wasn’t directly in front of us: an annoying customer trying to return a busted copy of Beetlejuice, how the Jim Carroll book was way more disturbing than the movie, my new silver nail polish, licorice whips. Morgan even mentioned the recent heat wave; we were talking weather! I waited for things to turn, braced myself for the total bitch-out I deserved, but Morgan kept it light and pleasant. Until a certain point.