Separate Schools Page 29

  He mumbled to Kelsey, “Want me to take a shower?”

  She shook her head no, lay back and put her head on the pillow.

  73

  Taylor watched him and he didn’t know what to say. He could see the fear in her eyes and knew that she would see it in his, too. What had they done? And worse—how much of it was him and how much of it was Taylor this time?

  Still not saying anything, she averted her eyes now, looked down and gathered up the quilt, brought it between her legs and bunched it around her middle. Her nipples were still aroused.

  Into the bedding, she softly said, “Are you going to lay with me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “of course.”

  His own condom needed to be dealt with, but he didn’t want her to even see it on him. Didn’t want her to see that he’d filled the reservoir tip with something meant for her. So he grabbed the bottom corner of the quilt and pulled it over his naked waist and slid up the bed. Their bare legs touched each other as he slid in place and put his head on the pillow next to hers. They both stared at the ceiling.

  He had a million things to say, and this was his best friend and the love of his life, but he was speechless. Everything he wanted to say was all standing around waiting for one of the others to take the first step. The longer it was quiet the stranger the moment became and all the things that needed to be said and were waiting grew more and more frightened. His hands went under the sheets. He pinched the condom’s base and slid it up his shaft as quietly as he could. There was soft latex clicking sounds under the sheet and he knew she heard it and knew what he was doing. But instead of being sad or forlorn, she put out her hand in waiting, expecting him to put his used condom in it. He tied a knot in the end but couldn’t pass it to her. He curled over her body and tossed it to the nightstand next to the one Brady had used on her. His insides grew dark again.

  Taylor’s hands caressed his sides as he hovered over her, and when he lay down, she kept stroking his chest. She looked in his eyes but now all he could do was see over her shoulder at the two slick discarded snakeskins on the night table. His mouth worked around again but still nothing came out. He said, “I’m going to take those to the trash,” and pointed to them with his chin.

  She said, “Just leave them.”

  “I don’t want to look at them.”

  She had nothing to say to that. She chewed at the inside corner of her lip and watched him, but he avoided her gaze.

  She asked, “You okay?”

  He said “Uh-huh.”

  Then he was up, moving over her again and putting a foot on the floor, getting out of bed. He said, “I just don’t … I don’t want them in here …” It was a hard thing to explain, to put into words, especially when you were so emotional and in fear of being overwhelmed by the emotion.

  Taylor seemed to understand, and her timid face had gone grim but she nodded to him. He was just in his T-shirt with his half-hard dick sticking straight out, and he reached around on the bed to find his shorts, put his legs through them while she watched. Then he turned, gathered up the condoms, Brady’s in his right hand, his in the left.

  She said, “Don’t flush them.”

  Riley had flushed a boyfriend’s condom down the toilet in the house in Saginaw back when Mr. Brooks was still living there and it clogged the pipe. Riley was way too young. The episode had been ugly.

  “I won’t. No, I know …” he said, then walked to the door, halfway there turning over his shoulder to say, “I’ll be right back.”

  As he left, closing the door behind him, he saw Brady and Kay in bed together, half a foot apart, both of them looking at the ceiling; Taylor watched him expectantly, her grim expression becoming sad. He closed the door.

  Down the hall to the big guest bathroom on the eastern wing of the second floor, he tiptoed quietly in case there were people around who would catch him creeping with two used condoms, one in each hand. Enclosed in the bathroom, he lay the condoms on the bathroom sink and flicked the light on. Now he stood at the sink and looked at his reflection in the mirror. This was the right thing. One hundred percent the right thing. But it was so crazy. It was unbelievable. If he loved her so much, how could he share her? And the scariest thought—the one that he was dreading to face—bubbled up with chilling effervescence.

  You know you liked it, right?

  “No, I didn’t,” he said to his reflection.

  Yeah, you did. You know you did.

  He closed his eyes and bowed his head. On the counter, the two condoms lay, one in a slightly S-shape the other in a curved C. He held them up by their knots now. Brady’s was slightly longer, and he winced seeing the load swinging heavy in the reservoir tip. Bigger than his load. And for some reason, as much that tightened his insides he couldn’t help deny that it did powerful things to him, terrible things he should hate—but didn’t. Not entirely. He liked that Taylor experienced Brady. He knew she loved that guy’s body. Knew that as timid as she’d been at first, her hands had enjoyed stroking that guy’s muscular body. Just like she did Colt’s.

  He tossed his used condom onto the countertop and rubbed his hand over his shirt to feel the meager body underneath. This was what she was accustomed to. This was most likely all she had ever felt intimately. She’d only ever been made love to by Harrison. At least up till today. Taylor deserved pleasure. Didn’t she? Why was that okay? It had to be because he loved her. It’s not like he didn’t care, it’s not like he was saying go fuck whoever—I don’t care. It was a hundred and eighty degrees the opposite. Do it because I love you.

  He sniffled now, held up Brady’s condom again and could feel lubrication beneath his fingertips. With his free hand, he cradled the swinging load and his fingers traveled up the length of the condom’s body. It was slick and oily with lubrication but most importantly: Taylor’s insides. Brady had put this over his big hard dick to fuck Taylor. It had been swelled to large and hard proportion this condom and stroked in and out of Taylor’s sweet pussy. He caressed the condom. Felt its warmth. It was Taylor on the outside, Brady tied safely off on the inside. Taylor had made all sorts of noises as she was fucked. They were beautiful sounds. He could hear them now, lusty echoes in his mind. He loved to see her getting off like that. He loved to see her with so much pleasure. His cock was growing harder. It was inexplicable.

  “Whatever,” he said, avoiding his reflection.

  At the toilet, he gathered up handfuls of toilet paper tugged from the roll and bundled up each condom separately, shoved them to the bottom of the waste basket. He peed. Flushed. With soap and warm water he stood at the sink and scrubbed his genitals. He washed his hands and even as he ran them under the water he could smell Kelsey’s sex smell wafting up in humid waves. He had sex with Kelsey Kay Miller. Holy shit.

  He dried himself with a hand towel, and out of respect for his friends, threw it in the laundry basket. Light clicked off, he left the door ajar behind him and padded down the hall back to the bedroom.

  74

  In the hallway powder room just inside the front door into the lake house, Kelsey Kay closed the door behind her and Taylor rested her hands on the edge of the countertop, her face toward the mirror but dipped down because she didn’t want to see herself.

  She whispered, “What did we do?”

  The door closed now, Kelsey Kay leaned her shoulder on it, and Taylor sensed being watched in the mirror. She raised her eyes to see Kelsey’s pallid face just over her shoulder in the reflection. She asked again, “What did we do, Kay?”

  “It’s okay,” she said softly.

  Taylor turned now, took a few steps backward to put some distance between them. On the left-hand side was the pale blue toilet. Now she remembered the day five years ago, the end of summer bash of 2013, where twelve-year-old Kelsey and twelve-year-old Taylor took a twelve-year-old Ashley Gray into this very bathroom and Taylor flipped up this toilet seat making way for Kelsey Kay to shove Ashley’s face in the water. Kelsey Kay had been convinced tha
t Ashley had taken ten dollars out of her iPhone case. The girl had stolen it.

  Now it was all she could think about.

  She hunched a little forward and ran her hands over the sides of her face until she felt the silk of her hair between her fingers. Then her hands went over her ears to block out the ghost-sounds of Ashley’s protests, Ashley’s gurgling, Ashley’s cries. She thumped her butt down onto the toilet seat trying to trap those sounds like they still emanated from the bowl, five years past. Stay in the bowl!

  “Hey, don’t freak out,” Kelsey said, and then her hand was on her shoulder.

  She opened her eyes, saw Kelsey Kay’s bare feet with her black-painted toenails next to her own bare feet. The absence of her toe ring squeezed at her heart again. Her heart that was pounding. Now, with the sound of ghostly Ashley Gray’s proclamation that she didn’t steal the ten dollars—though she definitely did—she could see Kelsey Kay’s feet in her mind’s eye as they were curled up against Harrison’s thighs as she had sex with him. She squinted her eyes shut.

  Kay soothed her: “Come on now, come on ...”

  “I had sex with Brady,” she said coldly and flatly, no emotion at all.

  “You wanted to,” Kelsey Kay said, and she kneeled down so she could look Taylor in the eye. Taylor pressed her forehead to Kelsey’s and Kelsey ran her hand up underneath her hair and stroked at her neck. “It’s okay. Don’t freak out.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  Kelsey Kay said, “Am I mad at you? For sleeping with Brady ...?”

  “What did we do?” she said again.

  “It was Harrison. I think he wanted to prove something.”

  “Why did I do it?”

  “Don’t regret it.”

  “My God. He wants to be open.”

  “I can’t believe Harrison wants to be open. He said it? What the heck happened?”

  She couldn’t tell her about Colt—God, the astounding shame of it. “I don’t know. He knew I was going to break up with him,” she lied. “He knew and ... he said he would support me.”

  “Did he?”

  “He did.” Taylor looked up and into Kelsey’s eyes now. “He said we would be open. He said we could stay together and I could date when I was in California. And he would still be here for me.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I thought I should just break up with him. I thought it would hurt him if I didn’t.”

  “I think it would hurt him way more if you did. He’s so crazy for you.”

  “We can’t do this. Can we?”

  “I think you guys just did.”

  “I can’t believe it,” she sighed, then started to cry. “You slept with him,” she blurted to Kay in a sobbing mumble as the retaining wall around her emotions crumbled. “My Harrison ...”

  “Hey, hey, hey, come on ... you knew I would ...” Kelsey Kay was rubbing her back again.

  “I can’t believe you slept with him,” she said, wanting to go after Kelsey now.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought—”

  “I watched you two together,” she cried.

  “You were with Brady,” Kelsey Kay said with sadness in her own voice, too. “You told me to ...”

  “What did I do?” she moaned again, and flashes of her naked best friend riding the kindest, most beloved boy she ever knew came after her again. Pale, pretty, pink Kelsey. Confident Kelsey. Kelsey who didn’t stress about her looks, didn’t worry about what other people thought. Carefree, cocksure, tough Kelsey. She thought of all the things that Kelsey was and she wasn’t. All the things that Harrison would see in her. He had been inside her. “I can’t believe he slept with you ... I can’t believe he did that ...”

  She’d been jealous of Kay. Jealous of her and her hot boyfriend. But Kay didn’t even care about him ...

  “Hey. Don’t—Harrison did it for you.”

  “I know, I know ... what’s wrong with me?” The trembling of her own hands frightened her and she held them back from her temples to look at her palms. She could see them shaking, could see stains of tears on the insides of her index fingers. She wiped them dry with the pads of her thumb. This wasn’t right. It wasn’t Kelsey’s fault. It wasn’t Harrison’s, either. It was her. Once again, you could lay the blame entirely on her shoulders. There was nobody more responsible for the badness in her life than her. But she wouldn’t cry over it, not in front of Kelsey. Underneath her came more muffled crying from one sad little poor girl who was so happy to get an invitation to rich Taylor Brooks’ house. I didn’t do it, blub, blub, I didn’t take the moneeeey ...

  She sniffed heavily, snorting, making her eyes go wide like she had smelling salts in front of her. She shook her hands out when she was done, dabbed at her eyes.

  Kelsey laughed. “There’s my tough Taylor. Buck up, kiddo. Buck up, you California bitch.”

  “I am,” she said, and set her mouth grim and firm.

  “You are. You’re my hero.”

  “I’m your hero?” She said the last word breaking up with a bit of overwhelming emotion.

  “You’re totally my hero, Taylor. You know you are.”

  “You’re my hero. I wish I was you.”

  “Are you kidding? You don’t know what goes on in this little coconut,” she said and rapped on her own head. They hugged and squeezed each other’s necks and pressed cheeks together. And she couldn’t help it, she started to cry again. She would never get the sight out of her mind: Harrison having sex with Kelsey. She would never, ever lose the vision of the boy she loved having sex with another girl. Didn’t she deserve it? This was a fitting punishment. You deserve this because you’re bad. You’re a piece of nothing. What you did to him tonight, he did back, so take that. With a tough grunt, she dug the thumb of her fist in between her breasts.

  Harrison was hers alone, and that was gone now forever and it hurt so bad. How could he have watched her with Colt?

  “You okay?” Kay asked her.

  “It hurts.”

  “You can do this.”

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You can. You totally can. Don’t you love him?”

  “I love him so much.”

  “Do it, then. But, Taylor, don’t hurt him.”

  “I don’t want to hurt him. But won’t me being with other guys hurt him?”

  “He did this to show you it wouldn’t hurt hm. That’s how much he wants to be with you.”

  “It hurt me to see him with you.”

  “It hurt Harrison, too, he’s just trying to pretend it didn’t. He’s doing it all to be with you, Taylor. You always get what you want.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You kind of do, baby, and that’s okay. Just be careful with Harrison, promise me.”

  “I love him, I don’t want to hurt him.”

  “Be honest with him.”

  They held each other for a long moment, Taylor still seated on the closed toilet, Kay standing beside.

  Taylor whispered, “Please, don’t ...”

  “What ...?”

  “When I’m away ...”

  “What is it?”

  “Please, promise me ... when I go away, promise me on your heart that you won’t sleep with Harrison again ...”

  “I won’t, Taylor. I’ll watch over him.”

  “I can’t be without him, Kay, I can’t be without him. I need him. I need him so bad. It would be like not having you in my life.”

  Kelsey Kay looked down on her with a warm smile. Her forearms rested across Taylor’s shoulders and her fingers played through her hair. Her face dipped toward hers, and she could see Kelsey’s pouting pink lips part and knew she was about to be kissed. She closed her eyes and let Kelsey take her mouth. Kelsey’s hands caressed her neck now and inhaled her deeply. Her friend’s lips were soft and cool and slightly damp. It was a nice kiss, maybe the softest and kindest she’d ever felt. She held
the kiss and gave it back, her hands caressing the small of Kelsey’s back. She breathed Kelsey in. Inhaled deeply as her friend had just done. She could smell Harrison on her. Could smell Harrison’s deodorant on her skin. But under it was her familiar friend’s talcum powder and sugar. The kiss was soft and gentle and it was exactly what she needed right now. Kelsey didn’t let it linger, let their lips part and the sound of their smacking lips made Taylor’s skin snap to goose flesh. Her nipples grew hard, and she tucked her elbows in protectively.

  Kelsey kept her gaze and licked her lower lip, pulled it under her front teeth then let it slide back out again. She said, “I wanted to do that so bad when I watched you with Brady. I really wanted to, but I didn’t want to make it into a thing for the boys to enjoy.”

  Taylor nodded.

  Kelsey said, “That was just for you and me.”

  Taylor nodded again and now she licked her own lips and her tongue felt the ghostly trail left by the softest kiss she’d ever felt.

  “Oh, Kay,” she sighed and she let her head dip forward until her forehead rested just under Kay’s breasts. She turned her cheek and rubbed it into the softness of her friend’s tummy. Kay caressed the back of her head.

  It was like it was all a dream. She’d worried so much about this weekend all summer long. Just before the end of the school year, before they were high school graduates, she and Kay had a sleepover at Kay’s house. They stayed up all night watching YouTube videos and making their own, and when it was dark and very late and they should both be sleeping, they lay in her dad’s home theater on the real live bear skin Kay’s dad killed himself hunting in Canada—I tell you, Taylor, one shot, honey, right through the heart, this mean old guy didn’t feel a thing, don’t shed a tear—staring up at the dim halogen lights in the ceiling. She’d concocted a plan and outlined it for Kay. Divulged to her lifelong best friend forever how when she went away to school she couldn’t be with Harrison anymore. Told her that she couldn’t break up with him. Told her the things that it did to her insides.