Wake

by Abria Mattina

  Crap. He’s right. What have I done?

  Friday

  Mornings after dialysis are like hangovers in reverse. I go to bed feeling groggy and sluggish and wake up feeling alive, at least until the rest of my medication catches me up and I crash again. From the first round of dialysis I noticed its tendency to screw with my energy cycles and sex drive. I’d get these weird bursts of energy that would promptly be shot down by fatigue. I’d be horny as hell but have little inclination or privacy to masturbate. It got better when I started to receive dialysis as an outpatient, because I could go home and sleep it off and I had the option to jerk off fruitlessly in the morning.

  Today is one such morning. I wake up starfished across my bed with my pillow at my feet—I’m a restless sleeper after dialysis, but I never feel more rested than the morning after. I could flail all night and never feel a thing, and the pillows are my hapless victims. I contemplate reaching down to retrieve my pillow, but decide it’s hardly worth it. Sandwiched comfortably between my body and the mattress is a promising start to the day. I get out of bed and turn on the shower. I’m really recovering now; my body is going to cooperate this time.

  I strip in the dark and step into the warm shower. I angle the showerhead toward the inner wall and lean against the tiles so that the water runs down my back. The steam feels like hot breath on my skin, and for a split second I’m reminded of the way Emily used to breathe across my neck when she kissed it. I can’t think about her right now, and push that thought away as quickly as I can. Images from various porn sites take her place, but no matter what I think about—her parts, her revealing clothes, her positions—the girl in my head always turns into a petite blonde.

  Don’t over-think that—not now.

  I bend and twist the girl in my mind—the one with fair skin and curly hair and a tempting look in her eye. The idea of her gets me harder than I’ve been in awhile, and as I move my hand and the water runs down my back, I feel the familiar weightlessness of a building climax.

  My hip begins to cramp from leaning against the shower wall. I ignore it at first, too afraid that the slightest pause will make this wonderful feeling disappear. But then my knees start to shake, and I kneel down on the floor of the tub, taking the weight off my back and legs.

  Relax. You’re making yourself too tense.

  I’m so afraid of not coming that I’m psyching myself out, and then I can’t. It’s a vicious cycle. I focus on the blonde, on the fantasy of bending her over in this very tub. She’d brace her hands against the slippery sides, with water running down her back and my hands around her hips. She’d be tight as hell and have a goddamned dirty mouth…

  Suddenly I feel like I’ve been kicked in the balls and the stomach at once. I curl reflexively around my abdomen with a grunt of pain as my cock twitches in my hand. Thin strings of semen dribble pathetically out of my penis. I’m ejaculating, but where the hell is the orgasm? Why did that hurt so much?

  I rest a hand between my hips. It feels like I pulled a muscle, and the pain radiates all the way along my groin.

  You pulled a muscle just by coming, it’s been so long.

  This is how ninety-year-old men must feel.

  I rest my head against the shower wall and sigh. It felt so good, and then…

  “Fuck!” I slam my fist against the side of the bathtub in frustration.

  “Jem?”

  I freeze as Mom knocks on the bathroom door. She must have come in to wake me up. How much did she hear?

  “Are you all right?” Before I can answer she opens the bathroom door.

  “Mom!”

  “Why is it dark in here?”

  “Because the lights are off. Get out!” I stand up and hold the edges of the shower curtain shut. She turns on the bathroom light. I’m screwed.

  “I heard a thump. Did you fall?”

  “No! I dropped a bottle. Get out, please.”

  “It sounded heavier than that.” Her fingers slip around the edge of the curtain, ready to push it back. I slap her hand away.

  “Mom! Get out!”

  “Are you bleeding?”

  “No!”

  Elise’s slippers make a slapping sound on the floor as she crosses my bedroom to stand in the bathroom door. “What’s going on in here?” she asks.

  “Everyone is going to get out, now!”

  “Did you bump yourself against the shower? Why on earth would you shower in the dark, anyway? Are you bruising?” Mom persists. Maybe I’ll put the plug in the drain and drown myself.

  “Yeah, Jem,” Elise interjects. “Is it swollen?” She walks away with a giggle, and the plug becomes irrelevant. I am going to die of embarrassment long before the tub could fill enough to drown in.

  Mom mutters something about breakfast and bagels, sounding nearly as embarrassed as I feel, and the bathroom door shuts sharply behind her. Breakfast is going to be awkward.

  As I towel off, I hear Eric’s booming laugh and know that it’s going to be a very long drive to school.

  Willa: March 29 to April 8

  Friday

  On humid days like this, the cafeteria is too stuffy for comfort, and Paige keeps trying to talk to me about Chris’s proficiency as a kisser. Hell no. I drift away from the group more or less silently. It’s not until I’m past the main office that I notice I’m not alone. Jem follows just slightly behind me, hands in his pockets.

  “Totally airless in there,” he says.

  “You read my mind.”

  Jem and I go out to the parking lot to sit on one of the picnic tables, resting our feet on the bench. The air is cool and damp and the lot is quiet apart from the infrequent cries of gulls. There’s harsh weather coming in if the gulls are hanging out inland.

  The silence between Jem and I is comfortable. He usually feels the need to fill these, but today he doesn’t. He just rests his elbows on his knees, twines his fingers together, and watches the seagulls scavenge for food around the trashcans.

  “Who do you think would win in a fight over garbage—a seagull or a raccoon?” he says suddenly.

  “Raccoons. They’re smarter, can hunt in packs, and have claws.”

  “But the seagull can shit on a whim.”

  I laugh without meaning to. “How is that relevant?”

  “Even if it doesn’t get the garbage, it can get revenge. So who wins?”

  “Well what would you rather have—food or vengeance?”

  He thinks about that for a moment. “Food.” As if on cue, one of the gulls takes a dump on Elwood’s windshield. Jem laughs, but I contain myself. I merely smile.

  “Screw it,” he says. “Vengeance is better, but only if you have an army of seagull minions to carry it out.”

  I shake my head. “Why do I know you?”

  Jem turns to me with that sideways smile. “You could be my second in command. We could take over Greenland.”

  “Greenland?”

  “No one would expect it.”

  I smile and suppress the urge to ask him if he’s high. “Fine. Greenland it is.”

  Jem’s mood is unusually good today. It lends him a buoyancy, an ease of movement, that isn’t typical of him. He smiles easily instead of wryly or reluctantly. When he jokes, he isn’t insulting anybody or self-deprecating. He’s…happy.

  Some of Jem’s paleness is starting to fade. Healthy color is coming back into his face and hands, even though the latter are scarred. His lips don’t blend in with the rest of his face anymore. Looking at his skin in the sunlight, it looks like he might have shaved this morning, and I wonder if his hair is starting to grow back enough for that. Maybe it’s just the color coming back into his skin that’s giving it a new texture.

  I wonder about him. He was so put off balance by Emily this past weekend—he must value her opinion highly. He called her his friend, but perhaps that’s a new label on their relationship. Maybe they were something else entirely. Maybe that’s why he took it so hard.

  I can’t picture Jem d
ating anyone. Then again, I also can’t really picture him as the red-haired teenager I’ve seen in photos. I’ve only known this incarnation of him—this oversensitive, loveable asshole. Maybe I don’t know him well enough to know his romantic predilections. Maybe Emily wasn’t it, but someone else was. Jem isn’t exactly vocal about the past. I don’t know if he’s ever dated, much less whom, or if he has a type. Even the broad categories like orientation have never come up in conversation. I’ll keep him filed under 'ambiguous' for now.

  “Why are you staring at me like that?” The happiness in his eyes dims with suspicion. Jem gets so defensive over the smallest things. I can’t even have the pleasure of looking at him without an excuse.

  “What’s the matter? Aren’t you used to it?” Jem’s face goes blank, but his hands clench into fists before he gets up off the picnic table and storms away. Moody as ever, I see.

  “Wait.”

  Jem ignores me. I knew better than to say that, and now I need to apologize.

  I get up and take my time crossing the parking lot. Jem is marching toward his car, pissed off as he is. I know he’s sensitive about his appearance and others’ reactions to him. He says he likes me for not being afraid to look, but I he doesn't really want anyone to look at him, even himself.

  Jem gets into the driver’s seat and leans over to check the glove box for a spare key. I open the passenger door and slide in.

  “Piss off,” he growls at me.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Get out.”

  “At least let me apologize. I was out of line.”

  “Damn right you were.” He slams the glove box closed. His palms come down heavily on the steering wheel as he blows out an angry breath. I watch his knuckles turn white as he grips the wheel of a stuck-stationary vehicle.

  “Can we talk?”

  “What the hell is there to talk about?” He won’t look at me. I must have stepped farther over the line than I thought.

  “Why I was staring at you.” That gets his attention. He looks at me like I just threatened to set off a firecracker in the car.

  “Why?” he finally asks.

  “I was thinking about Elise.”

  A little crease appears between Jem’s eyebrows. He wasn’t expecting that, and can’t see how it all adds up to the look I was giving him.

  “About her and that guy she’s crushing on. The basketball player.”

  “What about them?”

  “Does romance weird you out? Or is it just Elise?”

  “Just Elise. She’s my baby sister, for crying out loud. She isn’t supposed to be interested in that kind of crap.” His fingers, which were beginning to relax on the steering wheel, tense again.

  “Mmmh. I see.”

  “No you don’t, your brother isn’t a sixteen-year-old girl.”

  “Isn’t that a little sexist? You wouldn’t be tweaking if Elise was a boy.”

  Jem sighs irritably and ignores my question. “Was that really all you were thinking?” he demands.

  “More or less.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I was also kind of wondering, if it wasn’t just Elise that bugged you, but romance in general—if you were some kind of closet case or asexual.”

  Jem looks at me expectantly, like I haven’t finished my sentence. When I don’t continue after ten seconds he bursts out laughing. The sudden noise makes me jump, and I sit there watching him rock in his seat with bitter laughter.

  “You are so…!” He cuts himself off to think of the right word. “So…insane. You don’t think clearly. Who else would jump to such a stupid conclusion but you?” He has no idea how right he is.

  “Well you roll your eyes at Paige and Diane whenever they talk about dating, and you’re downright mean to Elise whenever she shows interest in a guy. You’re cynical about Celeste’s boyfriend. You never show interest in any of the girls at school, and you’re oddly fixated on Elwood—it’s not such a wild conclusion, when you really think about it.”

  “Paige and Diane talk about petty high school drama. It’s juvenile. And I’ve already explained Elise. Celeste’s relationship is a joke, Elwood is a complete tool, and what good does it do me to be interested in any girl here—who the hell would go out with me?”

  “You’re right.” That takes him aback. “You’re an absolute asshole. Any girl with half a brain would avoid you.”

  Jem adjusts his face into a more neutral expression and turns away. He slouches down in the driver’s seat, looking thoughtful. Stray raindrops begin to hit the windshield.

  “Why don’t you avoid me?”

  “You’ve grown on me.”

  “Like a tumor.”

  “Jem.” He absolutely has to ruin everything with bitterness and morbidity, doesn’t he? He mutters an apology and sighs.

  “Can we just forget about this?”

  “No. You’ve made me curious.”

  “I’m not going to tell you what kind of cancer I had.”

  “Not about that. Is there anyone you’re interested in?” Lord have mercy on the girl he chooses to pursue. He’d probably be all creepy and melodramatic about it, like Van Gogh.

  Jem looks at me out of the corner of his eye. The movement is just a flicker, gone before I can be sure I’ve seen it, and he sighs. “No.”

  *

  It’s the last day of the egg project. We hand in the assignment and show Mrs. Hudson the egg to prove that it’s still ‘alive.’ When she sends us back to our seats Jem asks what we should do with the thing. What a stupid question.

  I take it out of his hand and lob it toward the trash can. It cracks on the far side and yellow goo runs down the black bag, into the bin.

  Jem is looking at me like I just murdered a kitten. “What?”

  “What is the matter with you?”

  “Dude, it’s an egg.”

  Jem refuses to talk to me for the rest of the period. I don’t get it. He wasn’t even interested in this assignment.

  Saturday

  The gulls made good on their prophecy. It rained hard all night, with hail to punctuate the Devil’s Hour. The storm carries over into the morning, bringing down blustery winds and flirting with sleet. On an especially nasty day like today it’s hard to do anything. Of course, some people can’t be deterred. Luke calls at nine o’clock and persuades me to drive out to Port Elmsley to spend the day in his garage. He was deeply offended when he heard that I didn’t know how to do basic stuff to my car like change a tire or check the oil. So we scheduled this little meeting to ‘make me less of a girl.’ I’m not sure if that’s sexist or just true.

  I spend the morning in the Thorpe garage and stay for lunch. Luke wants to spend the afternoon together too, but I beg the excuse of homework. When I get back to Smiths Falls and decent cell reception, my phone buzzes with three missed calls and a text message. The calls were from Jem. How the hell did he get my number? I certainly did not give it to him. He must have swiped my phone while he was over and programmed his info into it.

  The text message is from him too: Where are you? It’s been five hours since he sent that text.

  You’re not the only one who is allowed to be MIA on a Saturday.

  Jem gets back to me right away: I reserve the right to monopolize your attention next Saturday.

  We’ll see.

  Are you home now? What are you doing?

  Your mom.

  I don’t hear from him again until late at night, just as I’m crawling into bed. I’ve gotten into the habit of putting headphones on to fall asleep lately. It helps to drown out the sound of the frigid wind blowing over the roof. Luckily Jem’s text arrives before I press play, or I wouldn’t have noticed the buzzing.

  What are you thinking about tonight?

  I keep it simple: Music. Santana. He made a reference to one of their songs yesterday at school and I’ve had the melody stuck in my head since.

  I can’t sleep.

  Tough break.

  Are you li
stening to Santana now?

  Yeah. “Into the Night.”

  Can I listen with you?

  Before I can reply my phone rings. That’s not my usual ringtone. It’s a short recording of Jem saying, “Pick up, it’s me.” A picture of his stupid smirking face replaces my wallpaper. Not only did he steal my number, he programmed himself into my phone, created an annoying ringtone, and took a picture to go with it. That douche.

  “We need to have a talk about boundaries,” I say in place of ‘hello.’ He giggles like a little kid who has managed to pull off a lame prank successfully.

  “I thought it was pretty stealthy.”

  “You are such an ass.”

  “Did you have a good day?” There’s a hopeful undercurrent in his voice, like he genuinely wants me to be happy. What a weirdo.

  “It was decent.”

  “Did you and Frank do something?”

  “No, I was in Port Elmsley all day.”

  “Oh.” He doesn’t like that. And it’s too late in the day for me to even consider dealing with his sulky moods.

  “Do you want Santana or not?”

  “Yeah, please.”

  I leave one earphone in and place the other over my cell phone mic on my pillow. I listen to “Into the Night” with Jem, a song that sounds sort of like a lullaby despite the electric guitars.

  “Goodnight,” I say when the song ends. He doesn’t answer me, but I hear slow breathing on the other end of the line. So much for insomnia.

  Sunday

  I set today aside for errands, since I’ve been busy all week. I make a quick stop at the bank and then it’s on to the grocery store. I’m choosing apples from the bin when a pair of hands grabs my waist suddenly. “Gotcha.” I jump. I can’t help it. And when I turn around, guess who’s the culprit?

  “Are you seriously stalking me now?”

  “It’s a nice Sunday morning hobby.” Jem takes the bag of apples from me and ties it off. “What next?” He pushes the cart farther down the aisle toward the nectarines and oranges. I guess he’s shopping with me, then.