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  “No, of course not,” you say, forcing a smile. “She’d only worry and what’s the point? Everything’s fine. We do okay together, right?”

  “Exactly.” The cold has tightened his skin and he looks suddenly young. “Guess I’ll go shower, then.” He heads for the stairs. “You should probably be getting ready for bed, too. It’s late and there’s school tomorrow.”

  “Gotcha,” you say, returning the corny thumbs-up.

  The house feels peaceful now or maybe it’s you. You don’t know and it doesn’t matter. You and Ardith are together again and nothing can go wrong.

  Chapter 19

  Ardith

  You know what killed me the most about what Blair told me?

  That she was turning into the kind of girl my brother liked and my father liked to hear about. The kind that put out without expecting a movie first or a phone call afterward.

  Well, not that my brother really liked them at all. They were just convenient whenever the horniness hit him, willing to give whatever he wanted and not showing hurt when he never even bothered to ask their names.

  He never asked Blair’s name, either, you know.

  The hardest thing I ever did was keep my mouth shut when she was telling me about those rich guys. I wanted to grab her and slap that “who cares?” tone right out of her voice. I wanted to scream, “I care, you stupid thing! Why are you letting them use you like that?” But I didn’t.

  I just shut up and listened. Cursed her parents out in my head, of course, for not giving her a safe place to hide—

  What?

  Because you need steady ground where you matter, not where your father ditches you to go cheat with his girlfriend and your mother breaks you down and pimps you out to further her career—

  No, I don’t think I’m exaggerating.

  I’m the only person in Blair’s world who loves her as is, okay? Who wants to hear her and know her instead of just touch her or see what she can do for me.

  And I was the only one forbidden to be near her. What kind of message do you think that sent?

  Yeah, I’m mad. I’m mad for her and I’m mad for me.

  Because we could have been anything, do you understand that?

  We could have been something really special.

  Chapter 20

  Ardith’s Story

  You leave Blair’s and you’re the life of the ghost town, scattering the shadows and jogging down the deserted sidewalks, claiming them for your own.

  Blair worried you at first. You worried you, because you wanted to run almost as soon as you stepped in the door. But you didn’t. You stuck around, hoping her square edges would resurface from the smooth, round hole she’d been forced to fit into.

  When they do resurface you discover they’re sharper now, honed and jaded, and somehow you’ve become innocent in comparison.

  The balance has shifted and for the first time you feel like the lucky one.

  You pass the “No Outlet” sign and jog the rest of the way home. Slip in the back door.

  “Ardith?” your mother calls from the TV room.

  You shed your coat and hang it over a kitchen chair. “What?”

  “Come in here.”

  The air is different. You go still, trying to separate the cold rush you’ve brought with you from the vaguely familiar but alien thread weaving through the lingering scent of tomato sauce and garlic, cigarettes and beer.

  You recognize it and your legs turn to lead.

  You smell Gary.

  “Hi,” you say, forcing yourself into the TV room doorway. The lights are dim and you finally spot him slumped in the corner of the couch next to Broken Nose. There are two beer cans on the coffee table close enough to be his and the fireball explosion on TV casts a momentary orange glow across his features. “What’re you doing here?”

  “What kind of a welcome is that, cookie?” your mother scolds from the love seat next to your father, frowning at you and smiling at Gary.

  Gary glances up at you without expression. “I called but nobody knew where you were, so I was gonna go out looking for you, but your mom—”

  “Connie,” she says, waggling a playful finger at him.

  “Connie said I’d be better off just coming over and waiting here for you.” He shrugs, leans forward, and picks up a beer. Sips it. Glances at the movie. Settles back in his seat.

  “Oh.” You’re the only person standing. You lean against the wall like a two-by-four propped there for later use and wait, face smoldering. Finally, you say, “Well, I’m here now…”

  He glances up and you realize he’s been waiting for your next push. He’s been waiting so long that he has your whole punishment planned. “Movie’s almost over,” he says, draining his beer and cradling the can in his lap. He looks back at the screen, making certain you understand that Vin Diesel has become more important than you right now.

  Your brother grins and shrugs. Busted, he mouths at you.

  You stare at him simply because there’s nowhere else to look.

  “Come and watch it with us, cookie,” your mother says softly, shifting and patting the spot between her and your father.

  The sympathy, the knowing, the welcome to the sisterhood in her eyes is the only warm spot in the room so you dive into it, and as you wedge yourself in between your parents, sinking in supplication, a lackey awaiting the king’s pleasure, your father drapes his arm around your shoulders and gives you a quick squeeze.

  You close your eyes and start to die.

  “Don’t worry, baby, Gary’ll get over it,” your mother whispers. Her breath is hot and fruity. “You just let him throw his little tantrum, then look sorry and make nice. He thinks he won, you know you did, and everybody’s happy again.” She pats your arm. “Believe me, this is just the beginning. You’ll learn.”

  A shudder rolls up and out of you, vibrating in waves across your skin.

  “Cold?” your father asks without taking his gaze off the screen. He squeezes you again and the stale scent of old cigar smoke stings you into a panic.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” you blurt and heave yourself away from all of them. Go straight into your room and wait. Pace. Will the movie never end? And then it occurs to you that it already could have and Gary might have just gotten up and gone home.

  Someone knocks. “Ardith, Gary’s leaving,” your mother says. “Don’t you want to come say good-bye?”

  “Send him back here, okay?” There’s nowhere else to do this without an audience and your punishment has already been public enough.

  “Into your bedroom?” Her voice sinks in disapproval.

  “I won’t lock the door,” you say, and the urge to laugh bubbles up into your throat, the urge to add, “Don’t worry, if we decide to screw, we’ll do it in the pool where everyone else does, okay?”

  She leaves. Gary arrives.

  You motion him in and close the door.

  “Make it fast,” he says coolly, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning against your bureau. “I’m already past curfew.”

  Oh God, how you hate him for his studied indifference.

  “Are you mad at me?” you say and hear the weakness in your voice. You face him, stand within touching reach, hoping he’ll jump the widening crevasse and come back over to your side.

  He shrugs. You haven’t groveled yet and he won’t sell his anger that cheaply.

  “I didn’t know you were coming over,” you say.

  He folds his arms across his chest. “So what, you just disappear and nobody knows where you are?” He looks at you. “Where were you?”

  “I went to the mall.” You don’t know why you lie, but you can’t take it back now. “I didn’t think I was going to see you tonight and my mother was talking about going clothes shopping, so I figured I’d better see what was out there before she went on her own and bought me weird stuff.” You touch his arm and gaze up into his face. “Don’t be mad.”

  But he’s not done yet. “Well, how di
d you think I’d feel, finding out my girlfriend’s gone and nobody knows where the hell she is?” he says, unfolding his arms and forcing you to remove your hand. “And then I sit here like an asshole all night and find out that you weren’t grounded after your suspension at all.” His voice frays. “I mean, what the hell is that about? What’re you, jerking me around or something?”

  “No,” you say. “No.”

  “I’m sitting there listening to everybody talking about all these parties that have happened, and the ones they’re gonna be throwing, like your brother’s big eighteenth birthday next month, and I’m thinking, shit, man, is that why you didn’t want me over here? Because you got something else going on the side?”

  “No,” you say helplessly, fighting to keep your balance on the edge of the crevasse.

  “Then what is it?” His face twists as misery cracks the stone mask. “I mean God, Ardith, what am I supposed to think?” He runs a hand through his hair and meets your gaze, silently asking if you’re really what he needs you to be.

  The part of you made to crawl is still cold with resentment, but its rumblings are stifled by the reward of Gary’s mouth and arms, and forgiveness.

  You don’t question why you’re supposedly in need of forgiveness, or why you’re so grateful for receiving it. Your humiliation is tucked away beside your resentment because, as your mother said, you know you’ve won.

  Only you don’t dare look down to see which side of the crevasse you’ve chosen or whether you just stepped into the center and sank into the void.

  Gary says good night to everyone and leaves.

  You lock the bedroom door and close the lights.

  Open the window and help him in over the sill.

  You make nice the way millions have before you and you understand the sisterhood now, you understand that caring makes you vulnerable, it makes you give in and reach out, make excuses, go blind, struggle, wither, and bloom.

  “I’m gonna get grounded, you know,” Gary murmurs as he sits down on the bed and pulls you into his arms.

  “You can go if you want,” you say softly, so he won’t think you’re serious.

  “Nah.” He rubs his chin against your hair. “I think I’ll stay.”

  “For how long?” you whisper.

  He smiles. Kisses you and doesn’t stop.

  The room is dark but you don’t need to see. His breathing drives you. You didn’t know a sound could do that, didn’t know a gasp or a low, wordless moan could make you want to cause another and another.

  Your hands ease under his T-shirt before his are under yours. His heart pumps beneath your palm. You arch closer and he slides his hand up your stomach to your breast. Slips under your bra and yes, the feeling is as sweet as it was the night of the swim dance. Sweeter, with his face buried in your neck and his moist breath shuddering across your skin.

  You kiss while you pry off your sneakers, while he peels away your shirt and bra, then his shirt, and gets tangled in the sheets trying to join you under the covers.

  Naked from the waist up is dazzling.

  Your bare feet mingle with his. His belt buckle brands your skin, his hand slips to your waistband and hesitates, as if expecting to be stopped.

  You sigh. Permission granted.

  Kissing, you both fumble with the belts, then the zippers. Trace the top of his briefs while he touches your panties, your joined breath like thunder in your ears. Stroke the thin, wiry trail of stomach hair below his belly button.

  He presses your hand against his crotch, then does the same to you.

  “Oh God,” he groans softly into your mouth.

  You can’t answer him because he’s crept under the elastic now, under the pale, violet-flowered nylon, and the gentle pressure of his palm is making you quiver. You slip your hand into his briefs and kiss him to keep his sounds from escaping.

  Minutes later he goes rigid and your hand is flooded with warmth.

  The pressure of his palm slackens and he rolls away onto his back.

  “Holy shit,” he whispers as you lean over the edge of the bed and fumble for something you can use to wipe off your hand. You find a T-shirt, swab each finger and give it to him. Lie back and listen as he blots and scrubs. Somehow it would be an invasion of privacy to watch him clean himself. Touching is allowed but looking is not.

  “Thanks,” he says awkwardly and the bed shifts. “Oops, missed a spot.” He wipes the sheet. “Okay, all done.” He stretches out beside you and nuzzles your neck. Kisses your cheek. Props his head up on his arm and smiles. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” you say, looking back.

  His palm settles over your bare breast like a bikini top. “You okay?”

  “Mm-hmm.” Your mind is teeming with questions you shouldn’t ask.

  “Did I do something wrong?” he says after a moment, withdrawing his hand. “I mean, if you didn’t want to—”

  “No, I’m all right.” Are you? You don’t know. “Why? Are you okay?”

  “Hell yeah,” he whispers, grinning and waggling his eyebrows.

  “What’re you, kidding? Best night of my life.”

  You smile and try to remember who he’s ever gone out with but come up blank. Are you his first girlfriend? You think so, but you won’t ask. Your twin bed is too small for a threesome.

  “So,” he says casually. “Did you ever, like, go out with any older guys? Like your brother’s friends?”

  What is he wondering? Whether you’ve done this before with someone more experienced, or whether you’ll do it again while he’s not around? Or maybe he’s thinking about how effortlessly he scaled your walls and breached your window. Maybe the route reeks of “enter” instead of “exit.”

  “No,” you say, and your answer seems to please him because he cradles you close, with your head tucked into the curve between his neck and shoulder.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” he whispers. “If you do, I will, too, and then we’re really screwed.”

  “I won’t.” You couldn’t if you wanted to. Your thigh is in the damp spot on the sheet and it reminds you of everything you haven’t done yet. And then you wonder if you’ll be obligated to go further and further each time now, if this one giant step is going to force an ongoing series of reluctant baby steps and the thought chips away at your contentment.

  “Good, ’cause I love you, you know,” he says and hugs you tight, squeezing your breath from your lungs. “I don’t want to get you in trouble. I don’t want anything to go wrong.”

  “I know, I love you, too,” you mumble and pull away slightly.

  Just enough to breathe.

  Gary leaves within the hour, slipping back out the window as quietly as he’s entered.

  You stare at the wet spot on the sheet, then strip the bed and remake it. Scrub your thigh until it glows red. Put a towel over the new sheet before you lay down again, just in case something dangerous remains and seeps through. It’s silly and you know better, but you’re still not taking any chances.

  You can’t sleep. Your room feels different. Inhabited. Nothing has been moved, but everything is out of place.

  You catch Blair the next morning and tell her you didn’t come to her house last night, you went to the mall instead. And when you tell her why, she swears to uphold your cover story and quizzes you on the details of your encounter. You tell everything and are oddly pleased as she draws back and stares at you. It feels good to be the first to be loved.

  “Oh my God, did you say it, too?” she says, clutching your arm.

  “Yeah.” Your cheeks are warm.

  “You did? Really? Did you mean it?”

  You can’t stop your smile. “Yeah.”

  “Oh.” She sits back, mulling it over. Frowns. “Even after he humiliated you in front of everyone? I mean, I know he was mad because you were gone and all, but still. And what about him drinking with your family? Weren’t you afraid that would happen and that he’d turn scummy?”

  You gaze at her, speechless.

&
nbsp; “I just don’t get it, that’s all,” she says doggedly. “I mean, you like him when he’s nice, but you love him when he’s mean? What’s that all about?”

  Your voice returns. You intend to tell her about the sisterhood, but something else comes out instead. “Why are you being like this?”

  “Oh, like you wouldn’t ask me the exact same questions,” she says, snorting.

  “Why are you trying to ruin it?” you persist because suddenly it seems very important to figure out which side of the crevasse you’ve chosen.

  “I’m not,” Blair says. “But God, Ardith, if he loves you so much, then why didn’t he tell you before you got naked? And why did you do it anyway? I mean, since when do you reward guys for bad behavior?”

  “He was upset,” you say. “We were making up.”

  “You were groveling,” Blair says, shaking her head.

  The distance between you is once again increasing. Somehow you’ve ended up on the murky side, where high expectations sink like potholes and lame excuses swirl like fog. Is this the sisterhood your mother was talking about? Looking, but not seeing? Justifying, carefully picking your way through while hustling to make nice so you won’t stumble and drop what little you have, regardless of its actual worth?

  Or is Blair on the wrong side? She might be. She’s never even had a second date, so how can she possibly know how it is between couples? Who is she to judge you?

  The bell blasts a warning.

  “You know what?” Blair says, gathering up her books. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what my problem is.” She forces a smile. “Maybe I’m just jealous.”

  “No, maybe you’re just right,” you say quietly, giving her a hip bump.

  She laughs and bumps you back.

  And now that you can see again, you notice all sorts of disturbing things. How when Gary meets you, Blair deliberately drifts away. How you let her go and turn to him without a moment’s hesitation. You notice how close he keeps you in school and how he’s started asking who’s over your house when he calls at night. How his lean body folds to fit through your window and his growing familiarity enables him to race around your bases, barely touching down as he beelines for home.