Page 59 of The Way I Used to Be
He turns around and puts his hands on my waist, and suddenly I’m up against the door, and he’s kissing me fast and moving his hands all over me. I feel this rush of energy flow from my toes up to the top of my head and out through my fingers, the confidence flooding back through me. And now I kiss him the same way he kisses me. Move my hands over him the way he does to me. Careless, hard, dangerous. He fumbles to get the door unlocked. We tumble inside the darkened room. I barely have a chance to even look around to see where we are, because it’s all happening so fast. There’s a bed, a dresser, a mirror. That’s all I can make out before he slams the door behind us and locks it, turning back to me before I’m even able to take a breath.
We’re in the bed. The weight of his whole body on top of me. Cold metal belt buckle pressing against my stomach. Hands pushing my skirt up. Underwear peeling down my legs. Belt buckle comes undone, scraping against my skin. The sound of a zipper. Heavy breathing.
It’s over before I even fully believe it’s happening. Before I’ve even fully decided I’m going to do it. And I lie here staring up at the ceiling fan, this guy panting next to me. I don’t even know his name. He doesn’t know mine. We stay like this for what feels like a long time, but I can’t be sure how much time actually passes.
He finally lets out a sigh, and sits up slowly. Smoothing out his shirt and buttoning his pants, he looks over at me like he’s forgotten I’m here. “Thanks,” he says quietly. “This was fun.”
“Yeah,” I whisper, slipping my underwear back on.
We don’t speak as we make our way back downstairs to rejoin the party. And I realize I feel a little strange, like, out of my body in a way I’ve never been before. In a way that feels so much better than drinking too much, or even that night at the playground when we got high. Better than any feeling I’ve ever had. Empty and full, all at the same time.
I somehow find my way to Mara, still sitting outside, laughing just like she was when I left. It’s like I was never gone, like time just stood still. They call me over, my name echoing through the thick air. I shake my head and walk to the edge of the crystal blue pool instead. Sitting down slowly, I take my shoes off and dip my feet into the cool water. I swirl my legs in figure eights over and over again as I look up at the stars, the warm breeze floating through me. I don’t know who I am right now. But I know who I’m not. And I like that.
IT BECOMES DIFFICULT TOavoid someone while simultaneously using them. That’s Troy. I know he’s had a crush on me these past three months. And I’ve been trying not to lead him on. Not too much, anyway. Still, he tells us about every party that’s happening in a thirty-mile radius. And I don’t tell him about how I had sex with his older brother back in September.
Not that I enjoy the parties all that much. But I enjoy losing myself. And there’s always someone there. Ready, waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Just like me. I’ve gotten good at picking them out right away. Finding that someone. Not a bad person. Someone who just wants what I want. To disconnect. For a little while, anyway. From themselves, mostly. I think. I wouldn’t really know, though, because it’s not like we ever talk about these things. It’s not like I really care, anyway.
That’s what I’m thinking about, lying on this lumpy futon next to some guy. The bedroom window is open, and the winter air flows in easily, cooling my whole body. I can almost see my breath.
“You’re that girl,” he tells me, propping himself on his elbow as he lights up a joint. “I didn’t even realize it when we first started talking.”
I turn to face him, and see that he’s looking down at me with a grin.
“What girl?” I ask.
“Let’s just say people know who you are at our school,” he tells me as he exhales a cloud of smoke. “People talk about you,” he says, his words slowing down. “A lot.” He offers me a hit, but I shake my head. I haven’t smoked pot since the playground with Troy. It turns out getting high really isn’t my thing. This is my thing.
The smoke begins to fill the room, making me feel dizzy. I close my eyes, and try to sink down into this moment a little deeper—into my body, my mind—so deep I can come out the other side and forget how I even got here. I can hear the muted shouting and music on the other side of the door. But it can’t touch me in here, somehow.
“You know,” the guy says, reaching over to brush my hair back away from my face, his voice pulling me away from this feeling. I open my eyes and try to focus on him. “I can’t tell if you’re really pretty,” he continues so sincerely, a soft smile on his face, “or really ugly.”
It’s like when you’re falling in a dream and you wake up, shocked back into reality by your body hitting the bed with a crash. That’s what his stupid, clumsy words do to me.
And in that instant an image forms in my mind, quick and fleeting.
Josh. I see his smile. Feel his sweetness. His arms around me. For just a moment—just a flash. It disappears almost immediately. As soon as my consciousness kicks in, he’s gone. But he was there just long enough and just clear enough to jolt me, to shock my system with a surge of fresh heartache. It leaves me with this sick underwater sensation, something dangerously close to drowning. Josh would never, ever say anything like that to me, not even after the way I treated him.
I sit up fast. I find my shirt and my pants. I get dressed. This guy lies there, watching me, smiling at me.
“Where you going?” he asks, taking too long to realize what I’m doing.
“Where do you think?”
“I don’t know,” he says slowly.
“Look, I realize you’re stoned, but you don’t say fucked-up things like that to a girl you just had sex with!”
“What did I say? I said you’re really pretty, didn’t I?”
“No, actually that’s not what you said!” Leaving in a hurry was easier in the warmer months. Now I have layers to keep track of—I pull on my boot laces with force as I tie them in a double knot.
“Oh.” He laughs.
I look at him before I leave. He’s just lying there shirtless, grinning, and oblivious. “You know, I can’t tell if you’re really mean or really stupid!”
He cracks up at that. “You’re so funny,” he’s saying as I’m closing the door on him, stepping out into the noise again.
Fuck off.
