Firsts

by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

  “You’re drunk,” she says after I regain my composure enough to have another shot.

  “I’m so not,” I say, wiping a tear off my cheek. “I’m just happy, you know?”

  She tilts her head and peers at me intently, like she’s seeing me for the first time. Her smile turns into a full-lipped frown, but even her frown is beautiful.

  “You’re not, though,” she says. “Happy. Maybe you’re drunk happy, but it’s not the same.”

  “Why did you really transfer to our school?” I ask. Drinking makes me blunt, a fact I suddenly remember.

  “Who were you lingerie shopping for?” she asks, equally as blunt.

  By the time I get to my feet in the stall, I’m having more than a little bit of trouble standing, but I don’t know if it’s just the booze or the restlessness creeping through every inch of me. “This place is too small for me,” I say, attempting to swirl my arms around but smacking them into the metal door instead.

  Faye stands up, too, and puts her hands on my shoulders. “We’re in a bathroom stall,” she says. “Of course it’s too small, silly.”

  “Not the stall,” I say. “This whole place. School. The city. California.”

  She curls her bottom lip into a pout. “California’s too small for you? That’s too bad, because I was just starting to like it here.”

  “I’m getting out,” I say. “I’m going to MIT. I’m going to wear a parka in the winter. I might even make a snow angel. I’ll be just another number.” I sing the last part, expecting it to sound better out loud than it does.

  Faye closes the inch between us. “Snow angels are vastly overrated,” she says. “And you could never be just a number.” I’m close enough to smell her lip gloss, something fruity and sweet. My heart slams against my ribs. She’s going to kiss me, right here in the bathroom. I was right. I wasn’t making it all up in my head. She likes me. She wants me.

  I pull away, my head spinning. The scene is all too familiar, and I suddenly realize this is the very stall where I tucked my Cons up onto the toilet seat and eavesdropped on Jillian talking to Annalise.

  I fumble with the latch and step out of the stall, and that’s where the night starts to get fuzzy for me. I got jostled through a crowd, through a forest of sweaty hands and fingers. I danced, but I don’t know who I danced with. Somebody asked my name. Somebody else asked for my number. Somebody picked me up, gripping my waist tightly. Hands, hot hands, under my shirt. But when I wake up in a bed that isn’t mine under an unfamiliar blue duvet in a strange room with no idea what time it is, I realize that I don’t remember much at all.

  22

  “You,” Zach says, handing me a glass of clear liquid that I sure hope isn’t vodka, “are the cheapest drunk I have ever seen.”

  I strain to crack my eyes open. The contact lenses I left in are more or less congealed to my eyelids. Zach, wearing an expression somewhere between amused and concerned, is standing in front of ugly plaid curtains.

  “Where am I?” As soon as I open my mouth, I regret it. I can taste the unmistakable musk of puke, puke mixed with something acidic that can only be vodka.

  “You’re at my house,” he says, putting two Advil in my hand. “Sorry about the mess. I wasn’t expecting to have a girl over. Much less the dancing queen of Milton High.”

  Fear washes over me, along with a new wave of nausea. “What do you mean, dancing queen? I don’t even dance.”

  He sits on the edge of the bed. I turn away from him so he won’t smell my horrendous breath.

  “You danced last night,” he says. “You wouldn’t stop. Not even when I tried to get you to leave.”

  I flop back down on the pillow. “Oh. My. God. Please tell me nobody saw.” I clap my hand over my mouth as I remember a more important question to ask. “Who was I dancing with?”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Not me, if that’s what you mean.”

  I rub my mouth with my hand. “Who?” I say, but it comes out muffled.

  “There was one guy who kept trying to spin you around. But he wasn’t around for too long. Then Charlie tried to pick you up.” He narrows his eyes.

  “What do you mean Charlie tried to pick me up?”

  Zach presses his palms together. “I mean pick you up. As in, lift you in the air. It was kind of weird. That’s when I told him I could take it from there, and that’s how you ended up here.”

  “Maybe he was just trying to help,” I say.

  Zach shrugs, and I can tell he doesn’t think so. “Well, I think it made you sick,” he says. “But nobody saw you throw up except me and Faye.”

  I bite my cheek to stave off a new wave of nausea. “Did I ruin your date?”

  He shakes his head. “Nah, she understood,” he says. “She was worried about you. Helped me get you out to my mom’s car. She felt really bad about getting you so wasted.”

  I squint my already half-closed eyes. Zach smooths my bangs off my forehead and applies a cold cloth. I should tell him to stop, that I don’t need to be taken care of. But it feels good and I don’t want him to stop.

  “I called your mom,” Zach says. “I found her number in your cell phone. I let her know you crashed here.”

  “You called Kim?” I pull the washcloth over my eyes. Zach probably thinks he did the right thing, but now Kim’s going to take this minor screwup and lord it over me.

  “Don’t worry. I told her you were taking care of a friend.” He pushes the cloth off my face.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask.

  “Because you would do the same for me.” He shakes his head and laughs. “Actually, she was pretty funny. She told you to enjoy your one-night stand.”

  I feign a smile, but the effort hurts. Could Kim be more embarrassing?

  Zach leans back onto the pillow beside me and closes his eyes. I know he has dozed off when I hear him snoring lightly. I never knew Zach snored. All the time he has spent in my bed, and I always kicked him out before he could fall asleep and make himself comfortable.

  I sit up gingerly, trying to take my mind off my spinning head and lurching stomach by focusing on Zach’s room. Zach’s bedroom. I haven’t been in any boy’s bedroom, not even Luke’s. Luke never invited me over. He said it was because he hated his dad, but now I don’t know what to believe. I used to imagine what it looked like, what I would look like in it.

  I never pictured Zach’s, but if I had it probably wouldn’t have looked like this. His room is small and cluttered, with clothes strewn everywhere and books piled high on a messy desk. Our massive chemistry textbook is at the top, perched perilously atop books half its size. A pang of guilt shoots through me.

  I swing one leg over the bed, then the other, and rise wobbly to my feet. I shuffle over to the desk, putting one hand on it to steady myself. Breathe, Mercedes. You’re not going to throw up again.

  My phone number is tacked to a corkboard on the wall. Mercedes Ayres. I recognize my own handwriting, my neat little lettering. I remember giving him that little slip of paper after our first Wednesday date, after I couldn’t believe I had slept with somebody I barely knew. It was so unlike me. I made it happen. I controlled the situation. I controlled him.

  My stomach lurches and I run to the hall with my hand covering my mouth. Thankfully, the bathroom is right across from Zach’s room and I make it to the toilet in time. There isn’t much in my stomach to throw up, but what does come up is acidic and runny brown in color, like diluted coffee. Kneeling on the porcelain floor, I watch it splash in the toilet bowl and float on the water’s surface before flushing the mess down. When the water comes back up, it’s clear again. I wish it were that easy to make every kind of mess go away.

  “Are you okay?” Zach’s voice comes from outside the door, accompanied by a gentle knock. “Can I get you something?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to sound brighter than I feel. I run water in the sink, trying to stave off the tears pricking at my eyelids. I don’t know why I feel like crying. Maybe beca
use I’m embarrassed, or maybe because this situation never would have happened at my house. I feel like it has been a million years since Kim ever took care of me. She doesn’t try, and I don’t think I would let her if she did. It would just end badly.

  Just like this will end badly, too. I can’t let Zach take care of me, either. He’s not my boyfriend, and he shouldn’t have to wipe up a drunk girl’s puke and clean up the messes that spring up in her wake.

  He deserves better.

  Before I come out of the bathroom, I splash water on my face and put toothpaste on my finger to rub around the inside of my mouth. I paste on a smile before pushing Zach’s bedroom door open. For the first time, I notice he’s wearing flannel pajamas. I’ve never seen Zach in pajamas, and it feels intimate somehow, like I have crossed a line.

  “I should go,” I say, locating my purse on a nightstand beside Zach’s bed. “I need to be getting home.”

  “You should stay for breakfast,” he says. “My mom’s making French toast.”

  I try not to outwardly balk. “Your mom?”

  Zach blushes. “She always makes us French toast on Saturdays, before she goes to work.”

  I rub my temples. “She knows I’m here?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “I mean, I couldn’t exactly get you into the house without her knowing. You were pretty loud.”

  I sit on the side of Zach’s bed. This must be what rock bottom feels like. The ultimate humiliation. I wish I could take a giant eraser and wipe out the last twenty-four hours. I wish I could go back in time and stay home from the dance like I should have done anyway.

  “I can’t meet your mom,” I say, dropping my head in my hands. “I’m a mess. I look like shit. And I probably smell terrible.”

  Zach sits down beside me and wraps an arm around my shoulders. “You couldn’t smell terrible if you tried,” he says. “And you look great. My mom’s cool—trust me. She has been wanting to meet you anyway.”

  I grip my jeans-clad thighs with my hands. Zach’s mom wants to meet me. What has he told her about me? I can’t exactly imagine that conversation. Hey Mom, there’s this girl I bang on Wednesdays. She’s a real peach. The type I really want to bring home for Sunday dinner. No, she’s not my girlfriend. Funny story there …

  Zach leans in, close enough that his breath tickles my ear. “Seriously, Mercy. This is no big deal.”

  He’s wrong. This is a big deal. I haven’t met anybody’s parents. Not even Luke’s. But I don’t have much of a choice. I’m trapped in Zach’s room, and short of escaping out the window, the only way out is French toast and awkward small talk.

  So I take a deep breath and follow Zach down the hall.

  The first thing I notice about Mrs. Sutton is that she has actual gray hairs. Kim claims that she has never found a single one on her own head, which I know is bullshit, but any actual gray hairs would be promptly bleached into oblivion.

  The second thing I notice about Mrs. Sutton is that her hug doesn’t hurt. She’s soft and plump and wraps me in an embrace that doesn’t involve bony elbows or protruding collarbones or rock-hard breast implants. And her smile isn’t fake. It’s open and loving and I know she probably smiles like that at everybody, but it feels like that smile was meant just for me. I feel myself defrost a bit just being around her.

  She doesn’t mention my hangover. She doesn’t ask if I’m Zach’s girlfriend or how we met. She serves me a giant slab of bread dunked in eggs, fried, and topped with sticky maple syrup that she claims is a “family secret.” I can’t even remember the last time I had anything for breakfast besides black coffee. Probably around the same time I last had a real family breakfast with Kim and my dad, around the age of eight. Even then, Kim encouraged me to limit my portion sizes and to have egg whites instead of yolks.

  Zach’s mom encourages me to have seconds and sifts icing sugar over the top of each slice of bread. I eat hungrily, greedily, using the bread to sop up every last bit of syrup from my plate. I’m completely out of control.

  “That was delicious, Mrs. Sutton,” I say when I’m finished. “Thank you so much.”

  “Please, call me Julia,” she says, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

  “Julia,” I repeat. Zach clears our plates and starts piling them in the sink.

  Before Julia leaves for work, she gives me another hug and tells me I’m welcome anytime. I almost don’t want to let her go. Maybe this is what it feels like to have a mother who cares. Maybe it’s not carbohydrates that I’m starved for, but actual affection.

  When Julia is gone, I realize I should go, too. I can’t hide out at Zach’s house the whole day. I need to face reality, my own reality, with my problems I don’t know how to fix and my mother I don’t know how to love. I run back to Zach’s room to grab my hoodie, and, as an afterthought, I check the pockets. The right-hand pocket contains a little piece of lined paper. Written on it is a name—Rafe Lawrence—and a phone number, along with a note.

  In case you forgot our conversation—see you Sunday at nine, your place.

  I did forget the conversation, but it’s coming back to me now, in flashes and bright colors. Rafe pulling me out of a throng of dancing bodies, shouting over the music, asking for a favor. Me telling him I’d be glad to help him out. I guess it slipped my mind that I’m done with the virgins. Plus, Zach is coming over on Sunday for tutoring. I’ll have to find a way to let Rafe down without pissing him off.

  A buzzing noise makes me jump, and I whip around. It’s Zach’s phone, vibrating like crazy on his dresser. I don’t know why, but I walk over and pick it up.

  There are three text messages displayed on the screen, all from Faye.

  Is she okay? Honestly, I’m worried about her.

  Do you think we did the right thing, not bringing her to her own house?

  Call me later and we can figure out what to do.

  I stare at the screen. My cheeks are hot with humiliation. I feel like a little kid who did something bad, who hurt the people around me. A stupid kid who ruined something that people were probably looking forward to. A pathetic, hopeless kid who needs to be taken care of.

  I’m somebody who hurts people. How many times can I hurt Zach and Faye without them turning their backs on me and realizing that their lives are better off without me? Maybe that’s what Faye meant by we can figure out what to do. They’re figuring out how to get rid of me.

  I turn Zach’s phone back over.

  I’ll make it easy for them.

  23

  Our yoga instructor tells us to “clear our heads.” He says this a number of times, along with “sweat out your negative thoughts” and his favorite slogan, “be in the moment.” When I look to my right, Kim has her eyes clenched shut and the stupidest expression on her face. I think she was going for serene but fell short and ended up somewhere near constipated.

  I’ve got so much to clear from my head, but it’s going to take a lot more than a yoga class. Guilt and sadness and frustration. I hate the way I left Zach’s house, with a perfunctory hug and an awkward thank you. I hate that he let me leave.

  Mostly I hate what I did last night, when I typed out a message I didn’t want to send.

  Sure—my place at nine. See you then.

  I sent it to Rafe Lawrence.

  To Zach, I sent a message letting him know I was too sick to tutor him. I waited for him to send a rant back, to let me know that he was over it. But he didn’t. He sent back a sad face and offered to bring me soup, and I felt lower than I ever thought possible. I wanted to take it back, but it was too late. I had already committed to Rafe. Maybe it was the wrong choice, but it was my choice.

  Rafe will be the last one.

  I position myself in downward dog, breathing through the rush of blood to my head. I know who Rafe is from his visibility on the school theater scene. He isn’t somebody I would have pegged as a virgin, but sometimes it’s the ones you least expect who surprise you. Angela dragged me to see Milton High’s production of Grea
se last year because she is absolutely obsessed with the movie and complained afterward that Rafe was too “smarmy” to be a convincing Danny Zuko. I nodded my assent but secretly disagreed, thinking he was just smarmy enough.

  “How about dinner tonight?” Kim says when we’re toweling off after class. I narrow my eyes at her. When I got back from spending the morning at Zach’s house, Kim wasn’t even home. I figured she would show at least an iota of parental concern after I failed to come home after the dance, but I was wrong. She didn’t even leave a note, but I did hear her stagger in at some wee hour of the morning, laughing and telling her male companion to shut up. I don’t want to have dinner with Kim tonight. Why should I care if she doesn’t?

  “I have a date,” I say, stepping into my sweatpants. “He’s coming over at nine.”

  I watch her face for any expression of shock, surprise, anger, anything, but she’s paying close attention to a hangnail instead.

  “Well, dinner would be at five,” Kim says, sweeping her hair into a ponytail. “Plenty of time. Part of my new diet plan is not eating anything after seven o’clock.”

  She rattles on about a new vegan restaurant she wants to try, even though she’s not a vegan. Pretending to eat healthy is Kim’s flavor of the month, similar to the short-lived juice fast and shorter-lived abstinence from alcohol. And Kim’s not a secret fad dieter, either. She makes it known to everybody—friends and strangers alike—that she’s “on the Zone” or “giving up meat.” She likes the attention more than the actual idea of giving anything up.

  “Fine,” I say with a sigh. I don’t have the strength to argue with Kim today.

  “You won’t regret it,” Kim says. “This restaurant is the place to see and be seen.”

  I roll my eyes. That’s exactly the kind of thing Kim would say.

  In actuality, the restaurant is completely bohemian which I can tell Kim wasn’t expecting. In a sea of long dresses, short hair, and Birkenstocks, Kim is totally out of place in her tube top and towering high heels. She glances around nervously. “You’d think people who eat this clean would want to show off the results,” she whispers when our waitress—a tiny girl in a billowing muumuu—shows us to our table.