And She Was

by Jessica Verdi

  “Really?” I say. “That’s so nice!” I look back at Sam. See? “Isn’t that nice?”

  He nods. “Very.” But he doesn’t seem as impressed as he should. I shake my head at him and turn back to Sharon. She swipes my card and prints our keys.

  “Have a wonderful evening,” she says.

  “You too,” Sam and I say in unison.

  Sharon laughs joyfully at how in sync we are.

  The elevator is empty, apart from us. Sam’s back is against one wall, and mine is against the other. It’s the most space that’s been between us in hours.

  Sam speaks first. “Really?”

  I smile innocently. “What?”

  He shakes his head. “I’m finding it hard to know what’s real, what’s beer-induced, and what’s part of a scheme.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yeah, I think it does.”

  “Come on, Sam, don’t be such a party pooper.”

  “Are you serious? No one in the history of the world has ever been more game than I’ve been the past two days.”

  “So then why does there have to be an implication behind everything?”

  He sighs, defeated. “You’re right. There doesn’t.”

  Yay. I win.

  The elevator doors open and we lug our bags down the hall to room 1407. I slide the key card through the lock and the door clicks open.

  Sam whistles.

  It’s different than our Philly hotel, that’s for sure. The suite is huge, with a separate living room, an enormous king-sized bed, two TVs, and a freaking Jacuzzi the size of a small pool in the middle of the room with tiled steps leading up to it and a fake potted plant on the ledge. Floor-to-ceiling windows meet in one corner.

  “So this is what a honeymoon suite in an off-brand hotel sort of near the airport looks like,” I say, deadpan.

  We burst out laughing.

  I kick off my shoes, leap up onto the bed, and start jumping. “New tradition,” I say in between jumps and gasps of air. “We must jump on every bed in every hotel room we encounter on this trip and rank them from best to worst.”

  Sam joins me on the vast expanse of white duvet. “This one is definitely the winner so far,” he says.

  “Soft but not too soft.”

  “Lots of space in which”—he jumps from one end of the bed to the other—“to make wide-spanned leaps!”

  I take a big jump too, and my stomach takes a hard dip as I land. I cradle an arm against it and switch to smaller bounces. I’m probably still bloated from the beer. “And not squeaky at all!” I shout.

  He laughs. “Probably because it’s the honeymoon suite.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People must have sex in this bed all the time. The hotel doesn’t want a squeaky bed keeping the people in the downstairs rooms up all night.”

  I stop jumping. “Right.” The reality of the little fairy tale I told to Sharon is starting to hit me. Sam and I are going to have to share a bed tonight. And after all that kissing …

  If I thought the Philly hotel room was intimate, tonight is going to be way scarier.

  Sam slows his jumps and collapses to his knees too, shadowing my position.

  There’s about three feet of soft white bedding between us. Suddenly the bed, and the room as a whole, is feeling a lot smaller than it did a few minutes ago.

  “So.” I look around. It’s still daylight outside. Too early to turn in for the night, even though sleep sounds glorious. “Want to watch TV?” I stretch to grab the remote off the nightstand.

  But Sam’s fingers graze lightly across the hand I’m using to prop myself up on the bed, and every cell in my body feels like it’s fluttering in a warm breeze. I look at him.

  “I know you don’t want to talk,” he whispers. “But can I just say one thing? While we’re still drunk and it doesn’t count?”

  I nod.

  “I really like kissing you.”

  I swallow. “I like kissing you too.” Half of me means it one hundred percent. But I’m not as drunk as I was, and the other half is nagging, whispering a sequence of “buts” in my ear:

  It doesn’t mean anything.

  Kissing someone doesn’t mean you like them.

  I needed to try it, and you were there, and it was fun.

  So … friends, yeah?

  But of course there’s no reason to say any of it. I’m sure Sam’s on the exact same page. If I said this stuff out loud, I’d come off as some conceited, inexperienced idiot who made a good thing weird and jumped to conclusions for absolutely no reason.

  Still, he’s right here, leaning forward slowly. In the bar, the kissing was part of the adventure. In the lobby downstairs, it was part of the charade. Here, I don’t know what it is. Being alone with someone makes everything different. And there’s a bed. And we’re on it.

  But I like the taste of him. Sometimes, I decide, things can be as simple as that.

  Our mouths just barely brush each other’s, and a breathy noise escapes me.

  “Was that a good sigh or a bad sigh?” Sam whispers against my lips.

  I open my eyes—I don’t remember closing them. His face is as close to mine as it can be.

  I hadn’t meant to sigh at all. “Good sigh,” I tell him.

  He smiles—I can see it in his eyes and feel it against my mouth.

  My stomach gurgles again.

  Sam laughs. “Are you hungry?”

  “No.” We’re still so, so close, and yet still not officially kissing.

  But then my stomach makes another sound, and takes a bigger plunge than before, like I’m in a roller-coaster car that’s just tipped down a tall slope.

  I pull back quickly and freeze.

  Worry works its way into the lines of his face. “Did I do something wrong?”

  I manage a shallow shake of my head. “No, I—”

  My stomach swoops again, and this time I know it’s not pangs of desire. Oh no. I cover my mouth with my hand, and launch myself off the bed and around the corner to the bathroom. I throw the door open, and fall to my knees in front of the toilet, unable to spare the time to locate the light switch. A couple seconds later, everything inside me—which basically equates to a bucketload of amber-colored liquid and some half-digested mozzarella sticks—comes up. Luckily, my hair was already in a ponytail.

  My body keeps heaving until I’m empty, and then a few more times after that for good measure.

  I rest my clammy forehead against the side of the tub and flush the grossness away.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asks. I don’t turn around, but it sounds like he’s standing near the doorway.

  “Ughhhh” is my only response. I’m sure I look exactly as I feel.

  He comes closer and crouches down beside me, placing a hand on my back. It’s the complete opposite of the sexy, daring brush on my hand just minutes ago. This is the kind of touch my mom would use to check my forehead for a fever when I was a kid and not feeling well. Comforting. Gentle.

  “I knew you drank too much,” he said. “Or was it the mozzarella sticks?”

  I groan. “Sam, please. Shut up.”

  “Sorry. Can I get you anything?”

  I lift my head and push the sweaty strands of hair off my neck and forehead. “No. Thanks.” I stand up on shaky legs. “I just want to go to bed.”

  I brush my teeth, and change into pajamas right in the middle of the bedroom. Sam turns away to give me privacy, but I feel the worst I’ve felt since I had food poisoning from a bad egg-white-and-spinach wrap when I was eleven, and modesty isn’t high on my list of concerns right now.

  Neither is the shared bed issue anymore, or the fact that I’ve spent the day making out with my best friend. Sam and I could be about to share a tiny twin bed for all I care. Nothing else is going to happen.

  I pass out as soon as the side of my face presses into the squishy down pillow.

  My head feels like there’s a pendulum inside, clanging into one side of my sku
ll, then the other.

  My midsection is sore, and my first thought is that I must have pushed myself too hard during a core workout. I sit up slowly. No, this is an unfamiliar kind of discomfort. Someone placed a glass of water on the table next to me. I take a sip. Much-needed moisture returns to my mouth, but the effort it takes to swallow doesn’t do my head or stomach any favors.

  With the next wave of pulsing inside my brain, my memory comes back, starting with the violent heaving over the toilet—that’s why my stomach hurts—and rewinding from there.

  Oh God. Sam.

  I peek to my left. He’s lying next to me, on his back, wide awake and staring at the ceiling.

  “Hey,” I say, rubbing my eyes. Even after the sip of water, my voice is scratchy.

  “Hey.” He doesn’t look at me. After a pause, he asks, “You feeling all right?”

  “Not at all. You?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “It’s my own fault.”

  There’s a tension in the air that I’ve never experienced before with Sam. It’s as if, even though the sky is bright with the morning sun, it’s still yesterday in all the ways that matter. Everything that went down is still big and important and here in the room with us.

  Why the hell did I kiss him?

  That’s not what he and I do. Our friendship was perfect. Well-oiled and comfortable and safe.

  And now it’s weird. I screwed up things with the one person I had left.

  He’s still refusing to look at me.

  I can’t lose Sam too. I have to fix this. But short of rewinding time and doing it all differently, I don’t know how.

  The pendulum makes it hard to think. But slowly, a nugget of an idea starts to form.

  Maybe I can give Sam a redo? If he wants it. And if he takes it, that could make all of this a lot easier, for both of us.

  I make a show of rubbing my forehead and groan, exaggerating the reaction to my very real headache. “So … what happened last night?”

  That gets him to look at me. “What do you mean?” he asks warily.

  “I think I drank too much.”

  “You definitely drank too much. We both did.”

  I bite my lip. “I remember being at the bar, and drinking a lot of beer …”

  “And?” Sam sits up, watching me carefully now.

  “And the rest is pretty … blank.”

  “Blank?”

  Keep going, I urge myself. I blink back at him innocently. “Yeah. I’m sorry. What happened? Do you remember?”

  He gapes at me, and I can almost see the machinery working in his head. If he doesn’t tell me about the kiss, that means I was right to give him this out. And if he does, well, I guess we’ll be back where we started when I woke up.

  “Do you remember throwing up?” he asks.

  “Um … no, I don’t think so? When did I throw up?” I don’t like this. I don’t like lying.

  But you have to try. You can’t lose him.

  “Last night. Do you remember coming to this hotel? Tricking the lady at the front desk into believing we’re on our honeymoon?”

  I laugh a little, and shake my head.

  “Marla? Mozzarella sticks?”

  I shake my head again. I’m not even good at this. He’s going to see right through me.

  No, he’s not. Look at him.

  He frowns. “You don’t remember anything else?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m sorry, Sam. Is there anything else I should know?”

  He sighs and seems to consider the question. After a long moment, he shakes his head and says, “No. Nothing important.”

  Two things happen inside me simultaneously then. One: utter relief. We don’t have to talk about all the kissing. We can move on; let things return to neutral. Two: a bizarre, confusing disappointment. He’s right—it’s not important. It didn’t mean anything. He’s my best friend; nothing more, nothing less. I don’t have the right to want him to think the kisses we shared were at all significant, when I don’t. But still. It would have been nice.

  I manage a smile. “Okay, good.”

  “Do me a favor and don’t drink that much ever again, okay?” he asks, visibly loosening up now. “You clearly can’t handle it.”

  “Not a problem.”

  I get up to shower, and once my skin and hair and teeth are clean and I’ve changed into fresh clothes, I feel a little better.

  “Breakfast?” I ask Sam, coming back into the bedroom. He’s sitting on top of the bunched-up blankets, fingers tapping away at his computer.

  “We can get something on the road,” he says. He closes his laptop. “I just need to shower, and then we can get out of here. Or did you want to go to the gym first?”

  I shake my head. The thought of getting on a treadmill right now makes me want to puke all over again.

  He gathers up some clothes, and skirts around me on his way to the bathroom.

  While I wait, I open my email. If this morning has taught me anything, it’s that avoiding one problem only causes more.

  Two new emails from Mellie.

  To: acelove6@email.com

  From: Mellie.Baker@email.com

  June 21 (6:29 PM)

  Subject: Best friends

  Dear Dara,

  Apart from my family, there was one other person who was central to my childhood. Her name was Kristen Meyer. I fell in love with her in second grade. To this day, she’s the only girl I’ve loved, besides Celeste.

  (I know I told you I dated men back when I dated at all, and that’s how you were conceived. The truth is, for me, it’s only been women. But dating has been complicated. Of course I would have to disclose the fact I was trans to any serious partner, but revealing that information was just not an option. For reasons I promise I’ll get to, it was crucial that no one know who I was, or where we came from.)

  Kristen had the seat assigned next to mine at our classroom’s big table. Her raven hair fell all the way to her waist, and I often had to stop myself from reaching out and stroking it. She wore patterned tights under corduroy skirts, and winter jackets with fluffy, faux fur collars. Her smile made my stomach flip.

  But most of all, she was nice to me. She made me feel welcome. Important.

  She lent me a pencil whenever I needed one, and sometimes let me use her special silvery one with the purple feathers at the top. We talked about the TV shows and music groups we both liked. We weren’t a boy and a girl. We were equals.

  The confusing part was that I both loved her and wanted to be her. And I didn’t know if that was normal. So I kept my mouth shut on both counts, and for the next several years, Kristen remained my friend. My only friend.

  Love,

  Mom

  I listen to the shower running on the other side of the wall. Sam. My only friend.

  Just as I think it, his phone dings on the nightstand, the same noise it made yesterday in the car. I can’t smother my curiosity. Oh-so-casually, I peek at the screen. It is a text message—and it’s from Sarah.

  I know you said you needed space, but … I think about you all the time. Can we please talk?

  Immediately, my mouth dries up again. I polish off the glass of water.

  It was Sarah who texted yesterday too, I’m positive of it. But why would he hide it from me? Is he thinking of getting back together with her?

  I shake my head, even though there’s no one in the room to see it. No way. He can’t.

  Why not? the little “other me” voice in my head counters. You’re not his girlfriend. You just lied to him, for the first time in your life, to make sure of that.

  The shower turns off. I walk to the window and force my attention back to my email. I have more important things to worry about. It doesn’t matter whether Sam gets back together with Sarah or not. Anyway, he’s probably not. He didn’t even reply to her message yesterday.

  To: acelove6@email.com

  From: Mellie.Baker@email.com

&nb
sp; June 22 (12:02 AM)

  Subject: Stepping-stones

  Dear Dara,

  Most of my childhood is blurry, like rough waves sloshing together all around me, significant and unrelenting, but the drops indistinguishable from one another. There are a few moments, though, that stand out as defining, as if they’re stepping-stones through the tide, the direct path to who I am today.

  The Glinda dream was one.

  Another was the day my mother caught me pretending.

  Sometimes, when my father wasn’t home and I knew my mother was busy with other things and wouldn’t be looking for me, I would go into my room and pretend. That’s what I called it, though experimenting is probably a better word.

  Once I “borrowed” some of my mother’s makeup from the bathroom cabinet and tried on lipstick and eye shadow. I forgot to bring a washcloth into my room to wash it off, though, so I ended up having to wipe it off using one of my undershirts. And then I hid the shirt at the bottom of the garbage can in the kitchen and prayed no one would notice because I couldn’t risk Mom finding it in the laundry.

  Another time I put on one of Joanna’s sundresses over my pajamas, and curled up under my blankets, taking comfort in the feel of the pretty, flowing fabric around me. I fell asleep quickly that night.

  But it was when I was naked from the waist down—eleven years old and standing in front of the mirror, attempting to see what I would look like without a penis—that my mother walked in.

  “Marcus!” she screamed, rushing into the room and jerking my arm nearly out of the socket, so that my legs unclenched and all my parts sprang back to their original position. “My Lord, what are you doing to yourself?”

  I turned away and quickly pulled on a pair of underpants. I could feel my face and neck burning bright red but I didn’t know what to say, so I just hung my head and remained silent.

  I had no idea what was going through my mother’s mind in that moment. I still don’t. All I know is that she called my father home early from work, and when he got there he yanked me from the place behind the bed where I was hiding, terrified, and beat me until I had no tears left and my bottom was covered in dark-purple bruises.

  Another stepping-stone, a much happier one, was the day I found out you didn’t have to be stuck with what you were born with.