by Julia Kent
It takes me a few seconds to realize I'm wrong.
He's not angry with me.
In fact, he's trying to get me to explain his anger. To him. Or to validate it? I don't know. All I understand is that Will Lotham is leaning against the wet door to my 1998 Toyota Corrolla, his ass on the very same handle I touch every time I drive, and he's talking to me like we're friends.
Deep friends.
“Is that – is that what you want?”
“Huh?”
“Is that what you want your life to be like?” I try again.
“What does what I want have to do with any of this?” Yet again, the mask I have seen in almost every interaction with Will for the last four years snaps back on, like tiny magnets were activated to bring it back in place.
I'm not fooled, though.
Not anymore.
Some part of me decides in a split second to persist. To put myself out there. To cut through Will's self-imposed bullshit and to be real. He can hurt me, yes. He can cut me down with a look or the wrong kind of sigh.
But I'm about to take my last final exam and move on to a whole new world in college. If I can't take a risk now, when can I?
“What you want, Will, is the only important thing. You are the one who lives your life. Not your parents.”
“Tell them that.”
“Have you?”
“You can't tell – I can't tell people who control everything in my life what to do.”
“Why not?”
Tilting his head, he eyes me like it's suddenly dawned on him that I am legitimately crazy.
“Okay, then, Mallory. What do you want to do that is different from your parents' path for you?”
“My parents don't have a path.”
“You got into Harvard and Brown. Your path is pretty damn fine. So are you.”
His eyes. Oh, those eyes, as he says those words. Is he flirting? Does this mean what I think it means?
“I'm, um – what was the question?” A battle forms inside me, defenses drawn, places entrenched as the army of emotions falls into formation. On one side, we have Practical Mallory, the part that knows damn well Will Lotham is absolutely, positively, unequivocally not flirting with me. There is zero history between us to indicate that I should interpret any of his signals as romantic interest. A careful inventory of every single achingly difficult moment I've ever interacted with him demonstrates that.
But then there's Eternal Optimist Mallory.
And she is activating antennas like a cell phone company expanding into new territory. Ping ping ping!
His soft laughter cuts through me, ripping me out of my reverie. “How did you become so successful?” he asks. At the word “successful” my mouth goes dry. Having the truth spoken so easily – because I am successful, academically – feels like a crown. An awkward one, crooked and weighty, but a crown. Something ordained and spoken, a symbol. Will's words have that power. They're not just heard.
They are seen.
I am seen when he speaks about me.
“You said your parents don't have a path for you,” he elaborates, as if giving me time to process but still expecting an answer.
“They don't.” Truth is my only choice now. I've spent most of high school guarding who I really am against the tide of people determined to make every step outside of a line drawn around me without my permission a transgression.
Telling the deep, direct truth feels like breaking the rules, but it also feels oh, so good.
“You just magically excel in school?”
“No magic. Hard work.”
“We all work hard.” An edge cuts through his words, slicing straight to my heart.
“I didn't mean to imply you don't. I just – I don't have the kind of pressure you're describing. My parents want me to be happy.”
He does a double take.
“I – I – I don't mean to say your parents don't want you to be happy!” I cry out, feeling like everything between us is wrong, upside down and inside out, like we've entered a strange dimension where Will Lotham is paying attention to me like I'm a live, breathing, feeling human being and when did this happen? When did I slip into a wormhole and enter the black hole of my blabbering, where every word in the universe gets sucked into my mouth then hurled out in the most embarrassing format possible?
“I didn't think you were saying that.” He slumps against my car, batting away a purple balloon condom. This one smells like mint and petroleum. “I know my parents love me. It's just – man. The pressure. You know that look in their eyes when you don't win? When you're not the top student? When you don't get voted into office or don't throw the game-winning pass?”
“No.” I'm about to explain that I don't do team sports, I only run for office when it's an academic curricular and I'm friends with half the club or team, and –
He just nods. “Right. Me neither.”
I'm so confused.
“I don't know what that actually looks like, because I've spent most of my life making sure it never happens, Mallory.”
Whoa.
Will just went deep.
“You would never know,” I whisper, a breeze taking my words and carrying them to Will, who jerks his head up and stares at me, eyes narrowing with trepidation and something else.
Something else I can't name.
“You really wouldn't,” I continue, boldness taking over. “You're – well, you're Will Lotham. The Will Lotham. You seem like you have it all together. Captain of the football team. Lacrosse captain, too. You're an Eagle Scout and fluent in two languages and you play saxophone – ”
“Badly. I play saxophone very badly.”
“It's your embouchure,” I assure him. I play flute. I should know. “You just need more practice.” The thought of Will using his lips and tongue to practice anything makes my skin tingle harder, as if there's a scale I didn't know about. My eyes drift to his lips and I can't look up, can't make eye contact, am constitutionally incapable of doing anything but imagine how those lips would feel on mine.
“I don't give a shit about playing sax, Mallory. I only do it because Mom and Dad said I needed an instrument.” He aims an epic eye roll at the school building, his face in profile, chiseled yet human.
“Oh.” I blink hard, looking away.
“See? How many activities do I join because my parents think it will help with some path I'm on that I never chose? You play clarinet, right?”
“Flute.”
His eyebrows knit. “Are you sure? I would swear you play clarinet.” Our eyes meet again.
“Pretty sure I know exactly what my lips do when they're held up against something long that makes a sound, Will.”
He goes still. Curling his lips in, he bites them, stifling a laugh.
What did I just say?
WHAT DID I JUST SAY?
“I've never known anyone quite like you,” he says as he makes little laughing noises.
“You don't know me, Will. That's the thing.” I start picking at the stray thread on my shirt.
He stops the laughs. He pops a knuckle.
I let my breath go.
“No – I meant – that crack. You're funny.”
“I wasn't trying to be.”
“But you were. Funny and smart. And you make your own choices about college?” He shakes his head. “Brown? Really? Why would you reject Harvard for that?”
The word that feels like a steel-tipped arrow straight to the heart.
Soft buzzing from the car drives me nuts in that moment, forcing me to unlock my car and grab the stupid purple monstrosity. I've never touched a vibrator before. The silicon is rubbery, the veins on the penis part feeling a little too warm for comfort.
It falls between us, buzzing in a small pothole, tip down as if it's trying to have sex with the gravel.
“There's some symbolism going on there,” he says solemnly.
I reach for my door handle. “I'm going to run it over with my car.”
“No! Don't.” Looking around, Will spots something in the distance. He bends down and picks the vibrator up, holding it in his hand, fingers wrapping around it like it's pigskin.
Eww. Maybe it is.
With a perfect (of course) throw, it sails in an arc over two rows of cars and lands right in the convertible car driven by Sameer Ramini.
“Hah. That'll get him back for the gerbil in my cup during practice last month,” Will says triumphantly.
“You nearly drank a gerbil?”
“Not that kind of cup.”
“What kind of – oh!” I look at his crotch. I can't help myself. “You had a gerbil... there?”
“Not on purpose.”
“Ow.”
“Just a scratch or two.”
“That is disgusting.”
“I'm fine.”
“But is the animal fine? Poor thing must have been traumatized. I would be, if I found myself trapped in a small space with some guy's penis.”
Blink.
Will just blinks at me, lips parted, the smile all over his face before his muscles know to move.
“Oh, God,” I groan. “Did I really just say that?”
He clears his throat. “You did.”
“Can we pretend I didn't?”
“Um, you can.”
“I meant that I'd be terrified! Of course, I'd claw my way out!”
He's mocking me with those ever-widening eyes.
“IF I WERE A GERBIL I MEAN!”
“There you go again. Yelling. It's cute.”
Did Will Lotham just call me cute?
Me?
Cute?
A group of students makes a ton of noise behind us, some exam letting out early. Twenty people trickle into the lot and scatter, each headed for their car, a few groups of three sprinkled in among the loners. Sameer Ramini walks parallel to us, giving me and Will a sneer as he clearly wonders what on earth his friend is doing with a loser like me.
I can't help but wonder how he finished an exam so fast.
“Shhhh,” Will says, moving behind me, his arm brushing against mine. “Watch.”
Sameer opens his car door and plops down. Then his head shoots up and he lets out a war cry, the whoop a combination of surprise, pain, and rage. Scrambling out of his car, he looks down, rubbing his ass.
Will folds in half in hysterics.
Sameer looks around. Will grabs my arm and pulls me down, hissing in my ear, “Stay hidden.”
His breath smells like coffee, our faces inches apart as the hot metal of my car panel meets my even hotter body. It's not a super high temperature day.
I'm just burning from the inside out.
I start to teeter on my heels, so I reach for the car for support, grabbing Will's thigh instead.
“WHO THE FUCK DID THIS?” Sameer thunders. Will, ignoring my hand on his thigh, moves up just enough to look.
“He's holding the thing up in the sky, like a spear,” he whispers, snickering.
“WHO PUT THIS FAKE COCK IN MY CAR?”
“You sure your dick didn't just fall off, Sameer?” someone across the parking lot shouts.
“Nah – that's way too big to be his,” someone else yells before a car door slams and tires peel out.
I look up.
The vibrator goes sailing over our heads, landing in a trash can.
“Good aim,” Will hisses, impressed.
“Why are we hiding?”
“Because he'll kill me if he figures out I did it.”
“But it's my friends who put the vibrator in there. Technically, this is their fault.”
“Try explaining that to a pissed off bull.”
I go quiet. His arm is around my shoulders for support.
“Fucking assholes!” Sameer shouts before peeling out, too, as if that accomplishes anything other than removing some of the tread on his expensive tires.
“Is it safe?” I hiss in Will's ear.
But he's not paying attention to Sameer.
He's looking at my hand on his thigh.
“I'm not sure,” he says slowly.
Snatching my palm from its indelicate place, I pivot to stand – and fall flat on my butt.
Leaning over me, Will takes my hand, using his other to guide me up by the elbow. At one point, his hand goes to my waist. It's a courtly gesture, deferential and respectful. My dad would do this. My grandpa. My uncle.
Having Will touch me like this makes me feel cared for.
“You okay?”
“I'm fine. Just clumsy.” Water from the rain soaks part of my skirt, but it's not too bad.
“I understand.”
“You? You understand being clumsy? Will Lotham understands clumsy? No. No, you don't.”
“You don't know me,” he says in mock outrage, one hand going to his neck like he's a diva.
Oh, how wrong you are. I know everything about you.
Changing the subject seems like my best out. “Sameer was disproportionately angry about that.”
“If Ramini had a band, they'd name it Disproportionately Angry, Mallory.”
“That's a terrible name for a band.”
“I never said it would be a good band.”
Nervous laughter comes shooting out of me like someone lit a cannon, all of the pent up emotion in me finding an outlet. My ass has gravel and water drops all over it, and I'm pretty sure my palms are filthy, but I'm laughing in the sun with Will Lotham next to my condom decorated car after he made a successful completion pass of a vibrator someone left in my driver's seat.
If there was ever a time to laugh, it's now.
“Hey, Mallory!” A wall of long, straight, brown hair with perfect bangs appears, large glasses framing enormous Bambi eyes. Ever curious, my friend Rayelyn passes by, obviously having watched Sameer throw his temper tantrum over the, uh, vibrator.
“Hi!” Her eyes jump from me to Will with the super obvious question everyone is wondering:
Why are they talking?
“You done?” Will asks her.
Dumbfounded, she stares at him, mouth a little open, the bottom edge of her retainer showing. Unlike the rest of us, Rayelyn didn't finish orthodontics in middle school. Poor thing still wears a retainer on her lower teeth.
“Rayelyn?” I ask gently, understanding the spell she's under as Will stares at her like she's perplexing him. “All done with finals?”
She responds to me, because I am in her repertoire of the known world. Will is not. “Uh, yeah! Just took my physics final. Whew! Done with that forever.”
“What are you majoring in?” Will asks her.
Her mouth drops again. I answer for her.
“Self-designed major in gender studies and probably social justice. Maybe something including genetics.”
His eyebrows go up, impressed. “There's a college that offers that?”
“Marlboro,” she finally says.
“There's a college in Marlborough, Massachusetts?” he questions, clearly unconvinced.
“No. Vermont. Tiny place,” I explain.
“It's one of the forty Colleges That Change Lives,” she says, breathless, her speech centers unlocked and ready to roll. Once she is in her verbal comfort zone, Rayelyn can talk about ideas for days. It is one reason why we get along so well.
She is also kind and nice. In the dog-eat-dog world of high school, nice is a welcome change.
“Nice,” Will says, as if reading my mind.
“It's not Dartmouth,” she adds, dipping her head down as if remembering her submissive spot in the high school hierarchy.
“It's an amazing school and you pieced together scholarships for a full ride,” I say loudly. Rayelyn is what Persephone and Fiona call my academic wife. Our parents joke about their “work wife” and “work husband,” so Rayelyn is my version of that.
“Congrats,” he says to her with a genuine smile.
Taken aback, Rayelyn turns to me and says, “Thanks.” A glance in his direction makes it clear she's
answering him. But then, suddenly, she squares her shoulders and gives him a direct look. “I'm really excited about going there. It's a tiny campus in the woods.” Ten thousand watts of energy light up her grin. “And now I'm completely done with high school.”
“We all are,” I say.
Will laughs and points between us. “We still have government.”
“Right.”
“The fate of the graduation ceremony rests on it,” Rayelyn chimes in. “You both have your valedictory speeches ready?” She's number five in our graduating class.
“Of course,” Will and I say in perfect harmony, cadence the same.
We descend into a triad of giggles, Will's baritone in contrast with Rayelyn's high soprano and my alto. It's a blend of tones that makes for a light, breezy sound, the kind that makes you smile out of nowhere on a sunny day.
Just then, the sun itself peeks out from behind a cloud, summoned by our shared laughter.
Once I finally wind down, I discover Will watching me, a wistful look on his face. “You look really different when you laugh.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. More approachable.”
I raise my eyebrows and look at him over the top of my glasses.
He points at me. “The opposite of that.”
“Of what?”
“That. You look like a really bitchy librarian.”
“Do not!”
“Do too.”
“You're just a one-man encyclopedia of compliments, aren't you?”
“Telling the truth.”
“That's your truth. Not mine.”
“Fair enough.”
Rayelyn clears her throat. Will and I look at her like we've forgotten she's still there.
Because we sort of did.
“I have something important to do,” she begins.
“You are going out for ice cream while we're tormented by our government final,” I declare flatly.
Index finger pointed at me, she finger shoots me. “Exactly.”
Will lets out a huff. “Have a Berry Blast in my honor.”
“That's my favorite!” she calls out, looking at me. “And Mallory's, too!”
“I knew you were going to Hesserman's without me,” I pout.
“Were we supposed to go together today?” she asks, suddenly worried she's upset me.