Page 64 of Fade into You
I grabbed a handful of popcorn and talked through my munching. “Don’t assume you know my dick-drawing habits in the bathroom.”
He laughed and the lights went dark, and thus he walked me through my first triple feature. I knew he wasn’t much to worry about when the kiss between Lori Petty and Naomi Watts happened and he murmured, “Whoa, nice.” After that I felt safe enough to make a new friend since Olivia Fucking Rubens had made sure no girl at school would ever befriend me again.
Looking back, I think I worked better with dudes, mainly because there was a lot more cursing, foul topics, physical feats of strength, and general acceptance of nerding out over favorite topics than there was makeup, clothes, crushes, and whatnot. Or maybe that was just being friends with Dade. He didn’t have a lot of guy friends, just a bunch of acquaintances who would join him at concerts or parties. The kind of people who bob their heads as you pass in the hall at school and talk about nothing all the time.
Dade and I have always gotten deeper. We would talk about our hopes for the future, discuss Mack’s downward descent as it happened, go back and forth sharing fears, insecurities, and successes. We planned a future that would have us starting out in a small flat and ending with watching movies in an old folks’ home together. Before Kayla I wouldn’t have hesitated to bring thingsup, but since her, it’s like he’s become an acquaintance. I can’t talk to him about how frustrating she is, and he’s had zero interest in my life since their first kiss. I feel like I’m filling time for him today in some way rather than really having “us” time.
The first segment ofFour Roomsis filled with witches, including a pleather-clad Madonna acting out a lesbian fantasy that was cut a bit short for me. Watching the scene, I get a rush of emotion, like a tremble running up my back, and a warm feeling fills… well, all of me, but specifically I get a rush of the turn-on. I remember Bird’s lips and fingers on me, how much more I wanted but also how much I enjoyed what we had. How she fit in my arms as we fell asleep together. How right it seemed in that moment.
How wrong it felt the next morning.
How she kissed me outside, anyway. Pulling me in, against all my better angels. How I kissed back. Sweet lips, a second of paradise, and I’ve been in my own personal hell ever since.
Dade pauses after the segment and murmurs, “I need a smoke.”
I nod and follow as he grabs a bathrobe to cover his T-shirt and boxers. I get my sweater. The October weather has finally brought a chill to the air. On his back porch we settle into the lawn furniture, him puffing on a Camel, me sipping on a cherry Pepsi, happy his mom finally stopped buying Crystal Pepsi.
“Dade, what do you think of Bird?” Let’s ease into this.
“I think she fucking hates me.” He laughs and exhales a cloud of smoke.
“I don’t think she hates you, she just doesn’t know you.”
He squints at me. “You know, she said pretty much the same thing to me.”
“Well, majority wins, you should get to know her.”
It’s quiet for a moment, and I look out to his backyard full of old trees, the leaves caught by a slight wind and falling to the ground, bright in color and crackling noise. “Do you think Bird is, you know?” I wobble my hand back and forth.
“Why, you got a thing for her?” He laughs a little, but I don’t think it’s funny. “For real?”
“Um, well, we kinda made out the other night.”
It’s like someone lit a firecracker underneath his ass, he jumps up yelling, “Holeeee shit!”
“Shut the fuck up, Dade, it was just making out, but I dunno, has Kayla told you anything about her?” My breath catches, me hoping for a second she’s somehow secretly queer, hoping I’m right, hoping Dade doesn’t get a chance to shit on this, too. Hoping the old Dade—myDade—answers this question.
“Okay, I need to hear about how this happened.” He leans back in the chair and for once actually listens to me explaining the other night’s events. He’s made his way through three cigarettes and cracks his own Pepsi to cool his throat. I finish and wait as his Adam’s apple bobs with the swallow.
“That’s pretty hot, but… Honestly, Jessa, she’s probably still straight. Y’all were high. People do dumb shit when they’re high. And plus, Kayla said she had sex with some boyfriend over the summer, and then he dumped her when their camp or whatever ended.”
A flash of jealousy over this ghost boyfriend hits me, sourand angry. Then what he’s said hits me. Wewerehigh. Shit, it was her first time being high. Weed makes everything feel good, it has definitely made me all kinds of turned-on and desperate and wanting in the past. It probably made her feel that way too. I could’ve been anyone. I guess the situation was taken advantage of.
Yeah, she kissed me first.
But people do dumb shit when they’re high.
I feel like a dumb shit.
BIRD
For the past week I’vebeen trying to get Jessa to talk about it. “It” being our unbelievably steamy make-out session. The night I thought should have changed everything between us. The morning kiss outside, the way she kissed me back, grabbed my collar—I keep replaying that memory the most for some reason.
But she has either been unreachable or focused on anythingbuttalking about it. She’s almost reminding me of her parents, not saying a word about the daughter hidden in her bedroom or the bruise on their other daughter’s face as they calmly poured syrup into the little waffle squares. Her mother smiling politely, with her father chattering on about the impending Y2K disaster, as though the world weren’t already trying to end right there in their home.
In journalism on Monday, when we broke off into our pairs to work on the zine, I tried to touch her hand, and she jerked like I’d burned her. I tried again, this time under the table, and felt the electric brush of her skin against mine as sheallowed me a moment before she moved away.
I get it, to some extent. I remember the morning after the first time with Silas I felt so awkward, so vulnerable, so weirdly happy yet somehow sad, too, that I could barely look him in the eye. But he was sweet and understanding and made it easy to talk about. He made it so even though I knew we probably didn’t feel exactly the same about each other, I still didn’t regret it. And that’s what I’m trying to do for her, but she’s not budging. I would think that she just isn’t feeling it the way I am, but I could tell—I could just tell—it meant something to her. At least I thought it did.
