Winner Take All

by Laurie Devore

  I’ve taught myself in my years being dismissed at Prep that if you get angry enough, you won’t leave room for hurt. You can mow it down in its tracks, fill it with something so much better. Get rid of those places where hurt feelings are supposed to go and douse them in kerosene instead so they’ll burn better. “You can’t talk to me. That is perfect.”

  “Dammit, Nell,” he says, pushing the door all the way open like he’s trying to frame himself in a better light. “Don’t do this—don’t get into shit you don’t understand.”

  “Oh my God, fuck you,” I spit out. “Find someone else to condescend to.”

  “I will,” he tells me, starting to close the door. “Go home, Nell.”

  Who gave him permission to dismiss me? I think. I brace my hand against the door—I’m for sure getting called crazy by everyone in his social group after this anyway, so damn it all to hell at this point—and push the door open after him. The house opens into a huge great room, two stories high with a balcony overlooking the main floor. Everything is wooden and beautiful and glossy and perfect and I am just me. Tall and abrasive and too much. Too much ambition, too much competitiveness, too much girl, too much everything. “You are not going to throw me aside like a piece of trash, Jackson Hart,” I say, my voice holding steady. “Because I’m not.”

  There’s something else in his expression. It’s not contempt. I’m not even sure it’s regret. It looks like hunger.

  “It’s not like that,” he says. “This has gone way too far.”

  “Too far? You had no problem showing up at my house unannounced, and at all hours of the night. So, fine. Is it me? Or is it your reputation? What do you even think this is?” I’m to the point where I know I should stop. Close my mouth and go. Step back and sort through my thoughts.

  Easier said than done.

  He rubs his hands over the silky material of his shorts. “It’s none of that. It’s not about any of that.”

  “Jesus Christ.” I put my forehead into my palms, the realization hitting me like a brick. “Fine. You’re right. You proved your point. You can pull me in just like every other sad girl on this planet. It’s clearly my problem. I’m the one who thought I was somehow better than everyone else.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with them and there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? I don’t know what more I can say. That’s all of it.”

  “I was pissed,” I say, putting myself back together. It’s sinking into my shoulders, weighing the rest of me down. Hating myself for my own false sense of superiority. “You know what? Never mind.” I turn back toward the door and then stop myself. One last thing before I go. “It does hurt, you know. When you do this. Just for future reference, you should at least say something nice at the end.”

  He puts his hand flat against the door right as I go to open it, stopping me. “This is not what you think it is.”

  I twist around so that his arm is next to my face, sun-lightened hair on tan skin, my back against the door. “What is it, then?”

  He closes his eyes as if he’s in physical pain, luxuriating in the drama of the moment, making me feel so unsure. Then he opens his eyes and I think he’s going to say something.

  He doesn’t. He kisses me.

  There must be some word for it. For when you have always felt like the most logical, rational person on the planet, and the feel of someone else’s body against yours turns you into something famished for connection. I wrap my arms around his neck, linking them below the collar of his T-shirt. His mouth is everywhere and our bodies are everywhere and there’s nothing but me and him, him and me, and I can’t remember what I was supposed to feel before.

  I guess that’s the thing about kerosene veins. Lots of different things can light you on fire.

  “Don’t stop,” I mutter into his hair when his mouth is on my neck.

  He doesn’t show any signs of it. Our hands want to touch every part of each other, and I love that I don’t have to think about anything when it’s happening. Nothing’s ever felt this simple in my life.

  “Where’s your room?” I ask then, and apparently, that’s what stops him. He gives me a look like he’s just remembered who I am. “What?” I demand.

  He motions his head in the direction of the stairs, up to the balcony, and ushers me through the first door on the right when we reach the top. The room is green. It has all the signs of being carefully decorated by a professional with tiny moments of rebellion thrown in throughout: A group picture on the shelf with Jackson and all his friends flipping off the camera. A fake stuffed head of some mythological creature, part lion but with antlers and a jaunty hat. A collection of trophies displayed upside down for some reason or other.

  It’s weird, but for the first time, I think he’s not just Jackson Hart. He’s a person. That’s what all these disparate pieces equal. For the first time, I really see him.

  He’s watching me and when my eyes catch his again, there’s a different intimacy than was there before. I don’t like the space between us. It’s like room to think, and that’s the last thing I want. I take one step closer. His fingers tangle into my hair, his palm resting against my cheek.

  “You know,” he whispers, and his voice sounds a little strangled. “For someone so innocent, your eyes look like you want to take me apart.”

  I don’t know if that’s what does me in or if it’s everything else. I kiss him quick, once, like a question. And he kisses me back again like an invitation.

  I know it’s supposed to be a big moment. Some epic flash where you consider all your options and come to the right conclusion. That you’re ready.

  But I’ve never been the type of person to wait for something I want.

  I throw my shirt over my head because it doesn’t matter. And neither do these shorts. They’re all just an impediment, one more thing between him and me, keeping us from each other. He follows my lead, his eyes never leaving me as if this is a mysterious, unbelievable thing he must track through every moment. Until we’re both on the bed and my whole body is screaming stop making me wait so long, and finally he reaches over to his nightstand and grabs a condom and he stops right after he does it and looks down at me, at all of me.

  It aches everywhere.

  I wait for him to say something like they do in movies—Are you sure? pops to mind. Or maybe I’ve wanted this for so long, but instead he’s like, “Is this a huge mistake?”

  “If you make me wait one more second, I will kill you,” I say, and my voice aches, too. I push him over so I’m on top and wait for him to get the condom on, and then I figure the rest out on my own. He lets me take the lead, like I know he knows I like, and the feel—my God, the way my whole body feels. It’s uncomfortable, the way everyone always talks about in the whispers of locker rooms and bedroom conversations, but it’s something else, too.

  It’s two people from the inside out. It’s nothing and it’s everything. And I never want it to end.

  But that’s the thing, isn’t it? Everything ends.

  Then you’re left trying to reach that high. Over and over again.

  23

  “This is supposed to be the weird part, right?” I ask. Jackson reaches to the top of his bed and grabs a pillow; I raise myself up slightly so he can put it under my head. He puts the other pillow under his own and we lie there next to each other, across the bed instead of using it properly because we can never do anything properly. It takes me a couple of seconds to become self-conscious over how very, very naked we are before I grab a velour blanket from the end of the bed and drape it over myself. And then him.

  Jackson talks a lot with his body, I’ve decided. His thumb presses into the spot between my collarbone and throat and his fingers wrap around the back of my neck. “Is it weird?” he asks, his thumb in constant motion.

  “It felt right.” I turn my head so I’m looking at the side of his face. “That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.”

  “Says who?” He leans to look at me, moving our faces
close together. “You don’t worry very much about how things are supposed to be. You always do everything like you’re sure.”

  “I am always sure.” I frown and shift away, watching the ceiling fan spin in circles above us. “I feel like I’ve been missing something.”

  “That makes two of us.” He releases me. “I’m sorry. About before. Downstairs. And in the parking lot.” He almost has to force himself to say it. “For not telling you last week.”

  “Telling me what?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. Like he has to work himself up to it, he says, “That there are few things worse in this world than watching you walk away from me.”

  I swallow. That sounds like a big declaration. Or maybe just a line.

  “I don’t control myself as well as you do, but I guess I somehow thought I could prevent the inevitable.” Inevitable. As if we’re two freight trains set to collide at full speed and nothing we do can change that.

  “I completely freaked the hell out,” he goes on, “and that’s why I was avoiding you. This isn’t a good time for this.”

  “What?” I ask, twirling an artfully frayed piece of the blanket around in my fingers.

  He eyes me.

  “Don’t freak out, Hart,” I say, lacing my voice with bravado. I push the blanket off then as if I haven’t a care in the whole world, and re-dress. He stays where he is, staring up—not necessarily giving me privacy, but like he can’t stop thinking about something.

  “You know it was real, right?” he says. I don’t know what that means. I pull my shirt back over my head, watching him. “Offering to change your grade on the test wasn’t a trick or anything. I would’ve let you have number one.”

  I pull my hair from under my shirt, looking at myself from afar in the wardrobe mirror on the other side of his bed. “I won’t let you give me anything because I’m not going to owe you anything.”

  “I just mean I wasn’t playing a game. All of it, like, wasn’t just to get you here. Do you believe me?” he asks, like my answer is of the utmost importance. And he’s looking at me—really looking at me—like it matters.

  I sit down at the edge of the bed, at his feet. Play with another piece of the blanket. “Okay,” I say, feeling like I’m agreeing to something else. Something I’m not sure I understand. I watch him as I answer. “I believe you.”

  He sits up, the blanket pooling at his stomach. I watch the taut muscles of his abdomen as he moves. He pulls his legs up close to him, reaching out and pushing my hair away from my face. It feels too intimate.

  “I have to go,” I say. Then I meet his eyes meaningfully. “I’ll be back.”

  He looks disappointed. Or relieved. How am I supposed to be able to tell?

  “Okay,” he says, keeping his voice void of either of those emotions. “Let me get dressed. I’ll walk you out.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say, standing up. “I’m already probably going to be late,” I continue, glancing at the clock on my phone screen like the number means something to me. “I can show myself out.”

  Right as I say that, I hear something moving downstairs. A person. Right, he has parents. I assumed they weren’t home.

  He sees the look on my face. “It’s only my dad,” he says. “He doesn’t care.” But then, “Just let me put my clothes on.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, rushing out of the room before he can change my mind and taking off down the stairs with my head held low. It doesn’t matter because my footsteps echo through the house like it’s a cavern.

  I slam the front door behind me, only chancing a look back when I’m a couple of yards from the porch.

  I see his dad’s face in the window. Watching me.

  I don’t know what else to do, so I wave.

  24

  “You did what?” Lia demands of me, her face drained of all color. She goes to sit up from her bed, then thinks better of it and falls back down. “But why, Nell?”

  I shrug, leaning against the wall of her yellow bedroom. “Because I wanted to.”

  She unleashes a loud laugh. “Of course. Because you wanted to.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Because you go take whatever you want when the thought occurs to you.”

  I’m a little confused about why that is a bad thing. “And that’s never been a problem because usually I’m taking the thing that I’m supposed to want, as per you and Mom and Dad, only now I want something that just I want so it’s wrong.”

  “You want Jackson?” she asks, her voice skeptical. Now that I don’t have quite as snappy of an answer to. Because I do want something about Jackson. But I haven’t quite figured out what that means yet.

  I’m not ready to admit that.

  “Couldn’t you have at least waited to have sex with him?”

  “Waited for what?” I ask, daring her to judge me.

  “I don’t know,” she admits, throwing up her hands. “You said you don’t trust him.”

  “Who says that’s changed?” I throw back.

  “Oh, okay, fine. Why would it matter if you trust him? You trust him with your whole body.”

  “He doesn’t have that,” I tell her sharply.

  “Fine, you’re right. I’m sorry,” she says at last, rubbing a spot on her temple with her finger. “I just—didn’t expect this,” she tells me, her voice more even.

  “I don’t love him,” I say. “It’s not like that. I’m not confusing the two.”

  “Good,” she says then. “That’s good.” I can tell she’s weighing her words carefully. “It’s only that I’m worried about you, Nell.”

  “He’s just a boy. I have complete control of the situation,” I assure her. That part feels true. I have complete control. I’ve been in control for seventeen years of my life and very few things deter me now.

  “You’ll tell me what’s happening, right? You’ll always tell me.” She’s looking at me hard, her eyes sharp. “No matter what it is.”

  “Of course,” I agree. “I just did, didn’t I?” I push off the wall, walking closer to her. “Now you tell me.”

  She sighs, as if this was expected. “You’re not going to like it,” she says, curling her legs up, making herself smaller. “It’s Columbus Proctor.” She momentarily buries her face so I only just hear her mumble, “It’s a train wreck.”

  “Are you serious? What? How?”

  She shakes her head. “I know. But everything has been awful with the trial, and I needed someone to talk to. You’ve been working so hard and I don’t know—Columbus wanted to talk to me. I don’t know why, but he’s such a good person. My parents would kill me. Taylor would kill me. You can’t tell anyone.”

  I twist my hair in my fingers. “Wow.”

  “Guess I shouldn’t be so critical, huh?” she says with a laugh.

  After a minute, I join in. “Oh my God, you are sitting here judging me about Jackson Hart and you are dating his best friend.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him, though,” she tells me in a quiet voice. “We’re just—I don’t know—together sometimes.”

  I go right past it. “And you’re using him to spy on me.”

  “He knows we’re best friends. He wasn’t spying. He was talking about you because he thought I already knew.” She looks away.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m still trying to navigate all this. I don’t know what it is.”

  She leans her head against the wall. “Trust me, I understand. But”—she holds her pinkie finger out to me—“no more secrets, okay?”

  I reach out to grab her pinkie with my own. “You know the depths of my soul,” I tell her with a smile.

  “Gross,” she returns, dropping my hand. And for the first time in a long time, something feels like normalcy between us.

  “You wanna go to the park? Practice serving?” I ask, and her eyes practically roll out of her head.

  A few minutes later, we’re in our workout gear and headed out the door. As we pass by the kitchen, Taylor’s voice floats in. �
��I’m not mad you’re happy,” he says to someone. When it’s a moment before I hear anything else, I realize he’s on the phone. “For the love of everything, Amanda, I did not like you better when your life was in shambles.”

  Lia gives me a look, an eyebrow raised. I shake my head at her and pass through the side door into the bright sun, the sounds of Taylor’s pleas echoing behind us.

  25

  Do you want to go run after you get done with volleyball?

  “What are you grinning at?” Mom asks. It’s the next Monday. Five days later. We won our tournament yesterday—it was a smaller tournament in Newberry, a town right outside of Columbia—but still, it felt so good. I’d been the consensus tournament MVP. It was a start.

  I look at Mom on the other side of the kitchen. She’s turned back toward the sink washing dishes just like she was a minute ago. I guess she had to take a peek, see what I was doing. But I hadn’t realized I was smiling so I immediately stop. “Lia,” I tell her, my new perpetual lie.

  Sounds good, I type back.

  I haven’t seen you all weekend. Please give me something more than that.

  I set my phone down.

  “What are you two up to?” Mom asks me about two decibels from her reasonable Mrs. Becker voice. “You’re acting strange.”

  I hate that she’s noticed.

  “Volleyball.” I shake out my hands. There’s so much nervous energy running through my veins. So often, my nerves act like an impetus, driving me, forcing me to test my boundaries, but I can’t let them in too much or they swallow me whole.

  And God knows I can’t let Mom know that.

  “I have book club tonight,” she tells me, letting it go. She dries the wineglass she was washing. I hadn’t seen her drinking when I came home last night. I chance a glance toward the recycling bag but there’s no telltale sign there, either.

  “Again?” I ask. “Didn’t you just have it?”

  “It’s a bunch of teachers,” she tells me. “More frequent in the summer.”

  “Oh.” I nod. “Well, have fun,” I tell her.