Love (And Other Uses for Duct Tape)

by Carrie Jones

  “Then why did we wait?”

  “I want it to be right. I want you to be ready.”

  “You jerk!” I laugh at him and push him onto my bed. “I am SO ready.”

  “That’s not the right word. I didn’t want you to think I was using you, I guess. Or make a mistake, you know, like my parents. And I didn’t want to scare you off. You’re a little wimpy about things since Dylan.”

  This hits home.

  “I guess there were a lot of reasons, not just one,” he says. “I just didn’t want to ruin us. I wanted to be ready.”

  “You are so nice to me. I don’t deserve you.” I flop down next to him. Muffin, who has been hiding under the bed, scoots out and makes a beeline for the door. “Poor kitty.”

  “I think we’re traumatizing the cat,” he says as I lie down next to him.

  “Probably,” I say as he starts to kiss my stomach, the skin below my ribs. I can barely make myself speak. “It’s worth it though.”

  Then I think of Emmie and her belly, and her face once we saw those pregnancy test lines. Poor Emmie … I hiccup. Tom laughs.

  His lips linger at my bottom ribs. He lifts himself over me, his legs straddling mine. He brings his lips down low, and makes a trail, like a butterfly touch around the circle of my left rib and then my right. His hands grab my hands, holding them against the bed and he moves his lips to my collar bones, nibbling. He kisses my shoulders and then lowers his hips so they press against mine.

  “Teenage boys are not supposed to be good at this,” I manage to say.

  “Oh? I’m good huh?”

  I nod.

  “Then stop thinking so much, Commie, and just let me love you, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say and he moves in again. The pressure of his hips change and my hips ride up to meet him. I moan. He breaks away to look at my face and smiles. He brushes hair out of my eyes.

  “You’re so beautiful, Belle.”

  I beg him with my eyes and since he is my Tom, my sweet, handsome Tom … not Shawn and I am not Emmie … he understands and lifts off of me so he can take off his jeans. It’s painful. His leaving is painful, like having an ice cream taken out of my hand or something, like losing a friend. I kiss his stomach while he pulls off his jeans.

  His leg gets stuck. He moans, not a happy moan. “Oh my God.”

  “It’s okay,” I whisper.

  “I’m an idiot.”

  “You do not have to be Mr. Suave Man, Tom.” I kiss his stomach. It’s hard and dark and wide and has some hair on it, totally different than my stomach. “I am in love with your stomach.”

  “Really?”

  “Swear.”

  He gets his leg out of his pants. His stomach ripples up and down. My hands move across it. My body slides up against the length of his body.

  He grabs my face in his hands. “I just want to be good for you.”

  “You are.”

  “Perfect, you know?”

  “You could start singing the Star Spangled Banner and it would still be perfect.”

  His fingers twitch. “What?”

  “I don’t know. I mean … Um, anything you do would be perfect because it would be you.”

  His eyes surrender. “Commie.”

  Then something rings.

  What?

  I’m not sure what it is at first, that dinging noise, is it like some sort of bells of love?

  Tom’s stomach tightens up. “Belle?”

  It dings again. I pull myself up on my elbow. “Oh God, it’s the doorbell. Shit.”

  Tom grabs his pants, makes a frantic effort to start putting them on and then thinks better of it, tossing me my shirt. I yank it over my shoulders and peer out the window just as the doorbell rings again. There’s a little red car in the driveway.

  “Oh God, it’s Emmie,” I say. “I have to go to the door.”

  “Why?”

  He squints and his cheek twitches. It’s like I can see his whole body sigh.

  “Pretend we aren’t here,” he says.

  And this is it. The moment. What will it be? My wants or Em’s needs? What will it be? The boyfriend or the best friend?

  There’s no choice.

  “I can’t.”

  I race down the stairs, trying to tuck my hair back into the ponytail I always wear for gymnastics. I fling open the door. Em storms up the stairs. Her face is white and frozen. I follow her as she starts heading towards my bedroom, which is where we do all our big talks about important things.

  She starts talking. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t tell him. He’ll hate me, Belle. I’ll ruin his whole life. I think I should run … ”

  “Uh-Em, wait a min … ” I say, but I’m too slow and she’s caught sight of Tom in just his jeans, standing near my bed, having issues with getting his shirtsleeves right side out. Tom gives me frantic eyes.

  Em stops and staggers against the wall. She backs up and then whips her head around. “His truck isn’t here.”

  “We hid it,” I explain.

  “Oh … Oh … you guys. Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot your mom was gone … ” She covers her mouth with one of her hands and then does a totally Emily thing. She pulls out her camera and takes a picture of me and then whirls around to get Tom, who is still struggling with his shirt. God, how hard can it be to get into a shirt?

  “Emily. Jesus,” he says.

  His eyes are angry and I don’t know if it’s at Em or because of me, because I got the door.

  Em’s oblivious and she giggles. “I’m so sorry. I have to capture this moment, though. I mean, this is the moment isn’t it?”

  I stare at a picture of a sailboat in the hall. It’s stuck, this sailboat. There’s no wind. No wake. It’s moored in a bay somewhere.

  “I am so sorry I interrupted,” she says.

  She giggles again and stuffs her fist in her mouth trying to stop.

  “It’s okay.” I grab her hand and lead her back down the hall towards the stairs. “Let’s go talk in your car.”

  “I’ll start dinner,” Tom yells.

  He gives me a thumbs-up sign. Everything inside of me unclenches. I flash him a smile, throw it over my shoulder. He smiles back. I am totally, hopelessly in love.

  Damn.

  “I can’t do this,” she says once she’s stopped her hysterical giggling, which turned into hysterical sobbing and then finally ended in this sentence. I can’t do this.

  We sit in her car. The heat of the day presses against us. No wind to provide relief. Nothing moves outside. Not a leaf. Not an ant on my driveway. Nothing.

  “Will you do it for me?” she asks.

  The chords of the world silence themselves waiting for my answer. There isn’t a sound. It’s like everything is waiting for my notes to give some sort of direction, some way to go.

  My hand wipes against my forehead checking for sweat.

  “Okay,” I say and the world starts again. Em looks up, tears in her eyes and I am the one who turns away first. One tiny chickadee flits across the driveway and settles into a branch, still again, but the rest of the world, it’s moving forward.

  “It’s not fair of me to ask you, I know that,” Em says. She swallows so hard I can see her neck move.

  I shrug and open the door but don’t get out. My legs stick to the seat. I take a deep breath, but it’s just hot air.

  “I’d do anything for you,” I say. “You’re my friend. God, I even buy your tampons.”

  She smiles but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “You’re the best friend ever.”

  My legs make a noise as they lift off the seat. “I know.”

  She follows me out of the car and I tell her that I’ll do it tomorrow. After school. I’ll blow off our Students for So
cial Justice Meeting, which is now on Wednesdays. I’ll even blow off Anna’s bike ride. I’ll grab him before practice.

  “I’m sorry I interrupted you and Tom,” she says and hiccups.

  She covers her mouth with her hand, looking surprised.

  “You never hiccup,” I announce.

  She shifts against the tree and slow-walks to her car. “I know. It’s probably hormones or something.”

  Guilt and fear wash over her face.

  “You sure you’re going to be okay?” I yell after her.

  Her hand flits through the air.

  “I love you!” I holler and swipe a mosquito off my leg.

  “I know!” she yells back. “I love you, too.”

  And then she is gone. I wave to her. I wave and watch Eddie’s truck back out of his driveway and follow her down the road. I wave to the truck too, even though I can’t tell if it’s Eddie driving or his dad. I feel like I’m waving goodbye to the whole world.

  Then I climb the stairs back into my house. Inside, I snuggle up against Tom. There’s a duct tape patch on his jeans, right near his hip. It says, Do not forsake me.

  “All this stuff that’s going on?” he asks me running his hand through my hair. “It’s been about Em?”

  I nod.

  His hand moves to my shoulder, makes a circle there. “Is everything okay?”

  “No,” I say. “No.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  I shake my head. “Don’t get mad.”

  “I just want to help.”

  “I know.”

  Five minutes later we’re kissing again, but it’s not the same and we both know it and then my cell phone rings. It’s Emily. Her voice rushes out. “I’m going over now. I’m going to tell him. I can’t wait. I can’t handle this anymore.”

  She hangs up before I have a chance to say anything. I can’t even say good luck.

  Tom and I make dinner. I’m too spazzed out to do anything else right now and he’s being all sweet boy, sexy hunk, understanding. We cook spaghetti in a pot.

  “I think we’ve left it in too long,” I say. “It’s going to be all super limpy.”

  This is not supposed to be a sexual innuendo, but we both crack up anyway. Because everything we do seems to be charged. When I held the uncooked spaghetti in my hands. When the water bubbled to the top. The smell of tomatoes. Everything.

  My cell phone rings. I check out the screen.

  “Emily?” Tom asks.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He takes out an ultra-limp spaghetti strand and bites it in half. It steams. I do not know how he doesn’t burn his tongue. “You should get it. It’s okay.”

  I answer.

  There is nothing but the sound of sobbing.

  “Are you home?” I demand. “Tell me where you are.”

  Tom’s eyes go big. He can tell I’m panicked.

  “Emily? Are you home? Are. You. At. Home?”

  Her voice tiny, and sounding just like she sounded freshman year when her dad died comes back at me, “Uh-huh.”

  I cover the phone with my hand.

  “It’s Emily,” I plead.

  Tom nods. “I’ll clean up here, and run to the store to get more spaghetti. You go.”

  “You sure?”

  He kisses my head. “Just come back.”

  I’m already pulling on my shoes. “Turn off the stove, okay?”

  “Hurry back,” he says.

  I barely hear him because I am almost gone.

  I race my bike over. It takes two seconds. Almost. I don’t even put on my helmet. Em’s mom’s car isn’t in the driveway, so I storm right in, up the stairs, through the hall, past the pictures, to Em’s room.

  She sees me.

  “You told him?” I ask. I don’t know why I ask her because I know.

  “I lose everybody,” she says. She hurls herself across the room, thuds the wall with her fists and then whirls around, screaming. “I lose everybody!”

  For a second I stand there.

  The picture of Kermit with a rainbow? It falls off the wall. She’s had it forever. It bangs onto the floor and lands face down by Crocky Wocky. I make an oath: I will kill Shawn for doing this to her. I will kill him for not being supportive. My teeth grind together like I’ve bitten a bullet all the way through and I just want to keep biting. But this isn’t the time for me to be mad. This isn’t the time for me at all.

  My feet take me across the floor to this bent-over girl who is my best friend, to this bent-over girl who is so much like me, who clutches her stomach because the hurt is too much. My hands reach out and pull her to me.

  “You don’t lose everybody,” I whisper to her firm and real. “You don’t.”

  She spits out the words. “What? Who do I have left? My mom? You?”

  “Yeah. You have me.”

  She tries to break free, but I won’t let her go and she doesn’t really want me to. Instead, I hold her by the shoulders, wait until she has the will to look into my eyes. When she does, I grab her hand and bring it back to her stomach.

  “You don’t even know who you are, Belle. You’re too afraid to face the fact that you love Tom. You’re too afraid to deal with the fact that you don’t always know who people are. You put us all in little compartments and then pretend like you’re all open minded, but you aren’t, Belle. You aren’t, okay? And I’m not Good Emily, Best Friend. I am pregnant and in high school and I’ve lost everybody! Can you understand that? My mom is going to kill me. Shawn hates me. He’s not mature enough to deal with this. My dad is gone. Everybody’s going to be looking at me like I’m such a stupid slut. And you? What about you, Belle? How are you going to deal with having a best friend who’s pregnant? How’s that going to fit in your little perfect world? It won’t. We both know that. Because you’re too wimpy to accept the truth.”

  Her words crush me and for a moment I can’t speak. Every single word she says feels like a guitar string breaking under too much tension, snapping in half, snapping against my face, a spasm of pain. Is that what she really thinks of me? That I’m a coward?

  I am a coward.

  But why the hell do I have to be perfect? Everyone’s always telling me that I need to fix myself, but what about them? They aren’t perfect. They aren’t any better than I am. They’re flawed too and I love them. I love Tom and his fear. I love my mom and her innocent sexiness. I love Emily even though she’s being mean.

  And I do.

  Do not forsake me.

  Okay, I do think she was stupid to get pregnant. I never thought she’d be that stupid. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know her. It just means that I don’t know all of her. It just means I was wrong about one of her actions, but not her essence. And anyway, it’s not the end of the world to be wrong. It isn’t the end of the world to be uncertain.

  I swallow and say, “You are my best friend and you are good.”

  She shrieks at me, “I. Am. Pregnant.”

  “That doesn’t make you bad,” I say. “A little bitchy maybe … ”

  “Will you just shut up, Belle? I am hormonal, not bitchy.” She glares at me. Her hands scrunch into fists. “Ever since Dylan told you he was gay you’ve been an idiot. You’re afraid of everything. You try to understand everyone because you’re so scared you’re going to be fooled again. Well, here it is. Dylan is gay. Tom is not gay. He is very, very straight. I am pregnant, very, very pregnant and you are selfish, very, very selfish.”

  “Selfish?”

  “Always thinking about Belle. Always protecting Belle. Always trying to figure out who people are and what they’re going to do because you’re so afraid of being wrong about people again.” She takes a big breath. “Listen to me, Belle. We are always wrong about people. We never re
ally know people. I thought I knew Shawn. And look! Look at me!”

  I want to reach out to touch her shoulder because even though she’s hurt me to the core, she’s hurting more. A lot more. A good friend would let her rant. A good friend wouldn’t let her give up. I want so badly to be her good friend. I don’t want to forsake her.

  “Emmie?”

  She hides her head in her hands and doesn’t say anything.

  “Emmie?” I touch her shoulder. “You haven’t lost everybody Em. You haven’t lost him. You haven’t lost me.”

  Her lip trembles. “I thought he loved me.”

  “He does love you. He’s just a frightened idiot asshole. He’s a boy, remember?”

  Her hand turns around and clutches mine and then my favorite super-strong friend crumbles, the most important person in my whole life other than Tom, sits back on her bed and cries some more.

  “Can you go?” she says.

  She stares at me hard and weak all at once. She says it again and each word hurts me more than anything Mimi has ever said or done. “Can you just go, Belle? Please.”

  I flinch. I need to be here for Emmie. I need it. “You want me to go? I can stay the night. It’s okay. I’m sure you’re mom will say it’s okay.”

  She shakes her head. “Please, Belle. I love you, but I just need to be alone.”

  I nod, stand up, kiss the top of her head because I don’t know what else to do. I bite my lip so hard it bleeds. The salt blood in my mouth makes me think of childbirth, or pain, of things that can’t change, of hurting so much that blood is almost a relief.

  I want to ask her if she really thinks I’m a delusional coward, but this isn’t about me and I hate myself for even wanting to ask when here she is, my best friend, full of pain.

  She was right. I am selfish.

  “I’ll have my phone on me,” I say, voice cracking. “You call me if you need anything. Anything. Okay?”

  She nods.

  I don’t want to leave her like this.

  She was right. I am afraid.

  “You sure you want me to leave?”

  “I’m sure,” she says and then she jumps up, running to the bathroom. She doesn’t even shut the door, just throws up into the toilet, hands clutching her stomach, clutching at life, clutching, clutching.