by TE Carter
I’d always pictured experiencing it myself. I’d thought about it with Caleb. But none of that happened when he kissed me.
I hadn’t seen it coming, even though I’d been thinking about it, and his mouth was open and his teeth scratched my bottom lip. But I smiled when he moved away, because I wanted it to be better. I wanted him to do it again.
“I really like you, Ellie.”
“Why?” I asked. I almost tried to talk him out of it. Tried to tell him how little he knew about me, but he laughed and took my hand. He didn’t answer.
Caleb led me into the party. He’d invited me because he could. He’d kissed me because he could. Just like his dad, Caleb lived in a world of could and we drifted from room to room on the privilege of it.
“What do you want to do?” he asked, grabbing drinks for us both.
“Whatever you want. I don’t care.”
“Would you feel better if I introduced you to Gina Lynn? If you had permission or whatever?” I knew he was mocking me, and I felt ridiculous for saying anything. I’d been a freshman for almost a year and I still felt like a little girl.
“It’s fine. It doesn’t matter,” I said.
“No, I’ll introduce you. Gina Lynn and I go way back. She’s like my sister.”
Gina Lynn wasn’t the sort of girl most guys would view like a sister. She was a photograph. The kind of girl people make magazines for just to have excuses to look at them. Her hair cascaded. Naturally. It formed frills of gold that bounced, along with everything else on her that was supposed to bounce. Her eyes were brown, which she’d complained were ugly, but they were flecked with gold, too. Because that’s what Gina Lynn was. The golden girl.
“Caleb Breward. You’re a dick.” She kissed him, and I wondered if he bit her lip, too.
“Oh, why’s that?”
“You haven’t even said hello.”
“That’s what I’m doing now. This is Ellie. I invited her.”
She looked at me, taking in all the things that made us different, and she nodded. “Mike’s outside. He’s trying to open the pool. I told him it was too cold, but he’s fucked up.”
“We can go swimming,” Caleb said. “It’s not that cold. Fuck March anyway. What the hell happened to spring?”
“The same thing that always happens,” she said. “It changes every day. But no swimming regardless. I told him we weren’t doing the pool, even if it stayed warm. Not after last summer. It took weeks to clean that shit up.”
“Mike’s not gonna listen, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. He’s a tool. Do me a favor? Tell his ass to get back inside.” Gina Lynn ran her hand along Caleb’s arm, tapping her fingers on his elbow. “Please? I don’t feel like fighting with him.”
Caleb turned to me. “I’ll be right back. Socialize or something.”
He left me standing there, with a cup of warm beer I didn’t want.
“So, what’s your name again?” Gina Lynn asked. “Sally?”
“Ellie.”
“Nice. Where are you from?”
“Here.” It was a recurring question. It was strange to be from a place that didn’t know you were a part of it.
“Oh, are you new?”
“I went to Saint Elizabeth’s. Last year. I mean, I’m not new new. I’ve always lived here. But yeah, this year new, I guess.”
“Weird. I’ve never seen you. Anyway, yeah, nice to meet you. I’ve gotta go mingle, though, okay? You know how it is, right? Gotta feed the troglodytes.” She laughed, but I’m not sure she was kidding.
I went back to the porch. Nobody was by the pool anymore, including anyone named Mike. I didn’t know anyone at the party except Caleb, and I didn’t know how to find him, so I settled in on one of the pool chairs. It had a layer of frost on it, which seeped through my skirt.
When Caleb found me later, he didn’t explain or apologize for leaving me alone outside for more than an hour. He was drunk and he spun me around, kissing me again. This time, my lip was unharmed. But I still didn’t have those sparks. I didn’t feel it in my toes or feel any of the other things I was supposed to. I just felt … nothing. Except happy he’d picked me.
“Come on,” he said, pressing himself against me. “Gina Lynn said we can use her sister’s room.”
He took my hand, leading me to a pink room with unicorns on the walls. He tossed a stuffed bear onto the floor. Everything in the room sparkled.
“This is awkward,” I said as he sat down on the bed.
“Awkward how?”
“Here, I mean. This is a little girl’s room.”
“Don’t you like me?” he asked. “Why are you thinking about some little girl?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it’s just weird.”
“So you don’t like me?”
I sat down next to him. “No, I do. I’m sorry. Never mind.”
He kissed me again, and I tried to feel it. I tried to put him into that space, the one that was waiting for someone. I did like him, so I didn’t know why it felt so strange. I wanted to kiss him, and I wanted to be around him. But I also wanted it to feel different. My body reacted to his nearness, but it felt like responding to someone through a fog. It was disappointing. There were none of the fireworks you see in movies.
“You’re really beautiful, Ellie,” he said.
It wasn’t horrible. I liked how he looked at me between kisses, how he tangled my hair in his fingers. I liked his steely gray eyes and the way they didn’t blink, even when I tried to talk instead of kiss him. I even liked that he seemed more desperate the longer we were in the room. Like he couldn’t get enough of me. I liked how badly he seemed to need me. His hands gripped my thighs and I remembered what Kate had said about how naïve I could be. But I liked it, too. I liked feeling wanted like that.
Maybe this is how we fall in love. Not because we can’t stand to be apart from someone, but because a guy says you’re beautiful and you don’t really know about kissing him in a room full of pink unicorns, but you figure it’s good enough. And then you find yourself falling for that need in him. The way he looks at you and whispers your name and almost seems to want to devour you. And it’s both scary and somewhat exciting, because it means maybe you really are beautiful.
All of this unfolds and then suddenly, this person has carved their way into your life and it’s strange that they weren’t always there. You tell yourself that the movies and pop songs are wrong. That love isn’t an explosion; it’s a slow burn.
But hell. I don’t know if that’s what love is, either. I was fourteen.
This isn’t a story of great romance or of true love. It’s simply a story of being lonely and how comforting it is to be called beautiful.
chapter thirteen
He comes back with the lightbulb. Gretchen’s crying and the bruises are already starting to blossom, but it’s over now. They both wait for her, irritated it’s taking her so long to get dressed, not understanding that collecting each piece of her takes time. They don’t feel how strongly her shame shimmers in the room.
She’s on her hands and knees gathering pieces of herself when she finds it. In the time that must have passed since the girl with the gum on her shoes was here, no one thought to clean. The lip balm cap falls off, and Gretchen reaches forward. Picks it up, holding it close.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she asks, keeping her back to them as she recognizes what it is. She quickly tucks the lip balm into her pocket.
“What the hell are you talking about?” He puts the lightbulb on the end table and goes to Gretchen, picking her up off the floor. “Hurry the fuck up. Jesus.”
“It doesn’t matter how long it’s been, you know.” Something in her changes. A stillness comes over her. They don’t notice, because they don’t notice anything, but as soon as Gretchen put the lip balm in her pocket, everything about her slowed.
She buttons her shirt, where she can. Two of the buttons are lost somewhere in the room. They don’t matter, though. Not now.
“Someone’s going to find out,” she says. “You can’t hide this forever. Maybe I’ll even tell them.”
“Nobody’s going to believe you.”
“Where is she?” Gretchen asks.
I try not to let it happen. The sparks, those last dying embers, kindle. I feel it blazing before I can tell it to stop. Hope refuses to die, even in a place like this. But I could be wrong. She may not be asking what I hope she is. I don’t want to feel it for nothing.
“Get her out of here,” he tells his brother. He takes out the lightbulb, leaving no light in the room except the faint streak from outside. “I don’t want to look at her.”
She stops in the doorway, while he drags her from the room. The new lightbulb bursts to life, and she smiles as she looks back. I almost think she’s looking right at me. But that’s impossible.
Once they’re gone, I lie on the bed. It was nice once. I like the headboard. There are scratches in it and when they leave the light on, it reflects off the headboard and reminds me of sunlight. The ripples in the wood sparkle.
I remember sunlight. I remember the way it never stayed the same. It would sneak around branches and behind buildings, pretending to say good-bye. But just as you started to miss it, it came back and it warmed you.
Since I’ve been here, I haven’t seen the sunlight much. It doesn’t matter, though. Sunlight can’t make me warm anymore.
chapter fourteen
After Gina Lynn’s party, Caleb was my boyfriend. There was no official decision. Nothing happened to make it true. We’d had a borrowed day, and then he found me again months later, and after we’d kissed, we kept kissing. Like I said, it wasn’t a romance. But it was something.
By late May—by my birthday—this something had become the biggest part of my life. I hadn’t been a girl people noticed, unless it was to make me feel bad about myself, but now they did. They saw how Caleb held my hand as we walked down the hall. They watched him press himself against me outside my math class and kiss me way too passionately for school. They saw how he laughed when the teachers would ask him to stop. Sometimes I felt a little bad about that, especially when my math teacher would shake his head as I cut between him and Caleb to sneak into class. I wanted my teachers to like me, but I’d still have the taste of Caleb’s lips on mine when I walked past them.
When my birthday came, I realized I didn’t know how to take this part of my life and juxtapose it with the rest. I didn’t want Caleb to come to my house. I didn’t want to sit at the table with both him and my dad, Caleb totally unaware of how my father felt about his family, and my dad trying to see what I saw. Trying to give Caleb a chance just for me.
“I made reservations at Mario’s,” my dad said. Mario’s was an Italian restaurant in St. Agatha. It wasn’t fancy or anything, but it was better than the pizza place in Hollow Oaks. “I promise I won’t ask them to sing to you again.”
We went to Mario’s every year for my birthday, and then we’d come home and eat cupcakes. It always felt like a waste to make a whole cake for only two of us. We’d each have one cupcake instead and we’d talk.
We’d talked less in the last few years about anything that counted, but we still had this one day. My birthday was special, even if my dad and I had drifted apart.
But this year, I wanted to spend the evening with Caleb, and I didn’t know how to tell my father.
“Oh … I was … Well, um…”
I hadn’t told him I had a boyfriend. I knew that would lead to him asking about him, and he’d find out who it was. I knew he’d do his best to see Caleb separately from his father, but I still didn’t want to talk to him about it. I didn’t want to defend how I felt. Mostly because I wasn’t exactly sure why I did.
My dad watched me stumble over my words. “Do you want to invite that girl from down the hill?” he asked. He’d seen me going to Kate’s more and more, because as I tried to make sense of Caleb, I went to her for help. For guidance on how to be.
“No, it’s just that some kids at school were having a party, and I guess I figured I’d go. Can you change the reservation? Maybe we can go for lunch Sunday?” I asked.
He looked over my head and out my bedroom window. I don’t know what he was looking for, because our town didn’t have anything worth looking at. “I have to work,” he said. “We can do it next weekend, if you don’t mind. But I feel really terrible that—”
“Don’t.” I knew I wanted to spend my birthday with Caleb, but I didn’t want my dad feeling guilty for my choices. “I should have said something. And I’m fine waiting. It’ll be like an extra-special, extra-long birthday celebration.”
“Should I still get cupcakes?” he asked.
I shook my head. “We’ll get something at Mario’s next week. Maybe splurge and split a cannoli?”
“It’s your birthday, Ellie,” he said. “Whatever you want. I’m going to go cancel. Have fun at your party.”
I watched him walk away. I saw his shoulders start to sag. I saw how he waited until he was almost around the corner before he fully let the weight push down on him. And I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I wanted to explain. I even considered texting Caleb and asking him to forget it. But then I thought about what he’d said—that he had a really special surprise for me and he couldn’t wait—and I wanted to know what it was. I wanted to spend the evening with him, and so I turned back to my mirror and worried about my makeup. I fixed my hair and I told myself my dad would be okay. That there were plenty more birthdays and that we’d have more time next weekend anyway. I told myself whatever I needed to believe so I didn’t have to think about it too much.
When I met up with Caleb, he drove me back to the house where we’d first gone. They were getting rid of it soon. He set up a cake, grape juice instead of wine, and hamburgers he’d gotten on the way to meet me.
“I thought it might be nice to be here. It’s not as nice as a restaurant, I know, but it’s kind of like our house. Like it’s just us. And this is our place,” he said.
I ate my hamburger in silence. I didn’t care about going anywhere else. I didn’t care about anything. He’d done this. For me. No one besides my dad had ever done anything for me. I guess Kate kind of had, too, but it wasn’t the same. With her, it wasn’t for me as much as it was for us both.
“You’re disappointed.”
“No,” I replied. “I’m really not. I promise. It’s just…”
We sat by the light of our phones. He didn’t want to use candles because we weren’t supposed to be there. The house was supposed to be done.
“I just thought this place was special,” he explained. “It’s where we started after all.”
“Until you disappeared for months on end.”
He looked at me, his eyes dark in the dim light. “I expected you to call me. I told you.”
I didn’t feel like reminding him. Not tonight. I didn’t need to tell him again that he’d never given me his number. That we’d passed each other every single day at school in the hall by my math class. That he’d been with several other girls in the months between. I didn’t want to ruin what he gave me, so I just nodded.
“You’re right,” I said. “But it’s okay, because now I know.”
“Now you know.”
We didn’t have much to talk about. Even when we went out, it was to a party or with his friends. And whenever we went somewhere alone—his car, another house, the lake—we spent way more time kissing than speaking.
“I have something else for you,” he said after we’d finished our burgers. We didn’t eat the cake, even though it was there, because he seemed anxious. He kept shifting in his seat, and he finished eating well before I did. I could sense he was waiting for whatever was next.
“Oh yeah?” I asked.
“I told you. I wanted to do something special.”
“This is special.”
He stood up and held out his hand. “Come with me, Ellie.”
I followed him, holding h
is hand, up the stairs as he guided us with his phone.
We ended up in the master bedroom. He’d brought sheets and pillows and he’d made the bed. On one of the pillows, there was a small box wrapped in pink paper. I hated pink, but I didn’t want to tell him that.
He went to the bed, lying down with his head on the other pillow. He patted the bed beside him. “Remember you wouldn’t trust me that day? You wouldn’t lie down with me?”
“I still shouldn’t do that,” I said. “There are all kinds of warnings about lying in strange beds with strange boys.”
“Am I strange?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“Come here. Please?”
This time, I did. He was Caleb. He was my boyfriend. We’d spent enough time with each other that I trusted him. I knew it might be a bad idea, because I wasn’t ready for being in a bed with him, but I also figured he’d understand that.
“Can I open it?” I asked, lifting the box from the pillow.
“Of course. Happy birthday, Ellie.”
It wasn’t big. Just a simple silver chain with a tiny diamond heart. Maybe it was fake, but I doubted it. Caleb wasn’t the kind of guy who bought fake diamonds.
“This is so pretty,” I said.
He leaned over and took the necklace from me, putting it back in the box, before dropping the box to the floor. “Just like you,” he whispered, as he grabbed my wrists with his hands. “You’re so pretty, Ellie.” He kissed me and held me down on the bed, my body under him as I tried to turn off what I felt. I wasn’t at that point in our relationship, but it was really hard to tell myself that when I felt him on top of me.
“Ellie,” he said, repeating my name as he kissed me. He moved his hands down. So far, we’d kissed plenty and he’d touched me, but always over my clothes. Now, his hands moved quickly as he pushed my shirt from my shoulder, kissing my bare skin along my neck and at the top of my chest.