Separate Schools Page 30

  God, it hurt so much because she truly loved him. And she was so terrible at responsibility. It was a fantastical phantasmagoric odd evening of delightful plotting, and they babbled and giggled like they used to when they were nine-year-olds and sleeping over.

  In the end they left it as if it was concrete. The party at Wolf Lake would culminate with a foursome. Taylor would sleep with Brady. Kelsey would sleep with Harrison. And they would do it together, and it would be about love and fun. Kay said they would squirm around on the bed like a naked litter of newborn pups. That got her giggling so hard she couldn’t breathe. It was a tender but exciting thought. And she could see how it would work. Could see how it was so much easier than telling Harrison the truth. She was terrible at that. Not honesty, just facing honesty’s responsibility.

  So she figured once they’d all done rolling around in the bed it would be fait accompli. They were now (drum roll, please) on a break. Harrison had slept with someone else and she had slept with someone else. They were going to be 2400 miles apart. She still hadn’t figured out the part where she would use real words and explain it to him face-to-face. She kind of figured the session of the four of them in bed would be all the explaining necessary.

  By the end of the school year she kinda forgot the plan though it didn’t disappear from her mind totally. They’d just been joking, hadn’t they? It was silly; they were each only trying to make the other laugh, surely it wasn’t real. Come June, she remembered it again and laughed. Wondered how serious they had been. By early July she found out Kay was serious. Kay was saying she couldn’t wait for August because she was dying to get rid of Brady, then adding: at least he’s good in the sack. Taylor realized Kelsey was just staying attached to this guy so they could use him at the end of summer party. Early August she almost had a meltdown.

  After work one day at the municipality, still covered in grass clippings—from the sharp line where her ankle socks ended above her work boots, right up to the height of her short-shorts—she lay on the living room couch a frozen immobile wreck. Trish had come in, slapping her hands, Oh my God, look at the couch, Taylor you’re filthy. Get up! Get up! But Taylor couldn’t even move, stayed curled and practically comatose staring at the TV set that wasn’t even on.

  The next day she told Kay there was no way she could do it. Cool Kay shrugged her shoulders and said Whatever. But then she never broke up with Brady. Then Brady was coming to the Wolf Lake party and the only reason Brady was coming to the Wolf Lake party was for the foursome, right? And by the time they picked him up with Kay on Saturday morning, she thought Shit, maybe I could do this. The emergency stop at the WC had been to buy condoms for Brady to use on Taylor. Kelsey Kay and Brady didn’t use condoms, they got blood tests, proclaimed exclusivity to each other and Kay had been on the pill since she was fifteen. Taylor, can’t he just use the condoms Harrison thinks he still needs? I’m not asking Harrison to lend your boyfriend one of his condoms so he can have sex with me, Kay! But even with the condoms in that bag, Trish in Myrtle Beach, and the knowledge the evening may end up laying in bed she didn’t think it would actually happen. Didn’t think it would really come to this. But then again, the path into a bed was a lot easier than the path to uttering a communication to Harrison. Maybe she was a shower rather than a teller.

  And then once she decided that she might actually be able to sleep with Kay’s hot boy-toy—thank God Harrison had taken her real virginity early this morning—it all started coming apart. KC showed up. KC who might not even come. Shows up with a batch of some of the hottest dudes she’d ever seen. And then she knew in her heart of hearts it was practically done between her and Harrison. By the end of the day they would be on a break. And she couldn’t miss the opportunity now ... Of course she could. But sometimes Taylor didn’t see things that way until it was too late.

  She was compelled to Colt. Compelled to Stevie. And deep down she knew there was nothing stopping her except for some bureaucratic technicalities. By tomorrow morning she and Harrison would be on a break and it would be fine. So what’s the matter with doing it a couple hours early? Deep down she knew a lot was wrong with it, and that was why her life was a hastily packed suitcase full of nuclear-tipped regrets. Things she had done wrong. Things that would curse her forever. Bad decisions made; horrible, regretful things said; unacceptable behavior; but most profoundly: an unflappable ability to let down the people that loved her.

  “Hey, I thought we stopped crying,” Kay said soothingly.

  “I’m not crying,” she sniffed, a sob in her voice.

  They held each other’s gaze again; Taylor looked into the depths of her best-friend-forever’s bottomless blue eyes. It was like a never ending well of care and support. The person who’d always been there for her, never begged anything of her. And she looked below those beautiful eyes and saw her equally beautiful mouth and had to have it, her thighs flexing and her knees activating before her brain had time to give permission. She raised off the toilet to stand, and she gave back to Kelsey a passionate kiss just like the one Kay offered her. Standing face-to-face and holding her best friend’s neck, she caressed her ears and cheeks with her thumbs and took her mouth. Kay’s knees dipped and now Taylor’s face was over hers and she held the back of Kay’s neck. This time when she let the kiss part she wanted to show Kay the strength that she’d given her. She smiled confidently, but gave her a blast of warm and caring eyes. She said, “I love you, you know.”

  Kay said, “I love you, too.”

  75

  It was a long and uncomfortable time laying in bed and looking up at the ceiling knowing Brady was in the bed on the other side of the room. They said nothing together and Harrison hoped Brady had fallen asleep. Everything now seemed like a mistake with Taylor gone—just him and the guy that had sex with her quietly breathing. It crushed his heart to return and find her bed empty.

  This room had seemed like such a perfect place before. A place where his Taylor had grown up and slept in back when she would spend some of her summer here. Times when she would come with just her family, waterskiing with her dad; the times they would all come together in late August. It had always been a happy place. Earlier today—God, yesterday now—it had been the place they truly consummated their relationship with their bare bodies together. It was supposed to be a place of beauty and now this room frightened him. It was the place where it all began to come apart.

  He lay in Taylor’s bed, head on the pillow where she’d lay hers while Brady had sex with her. Where Colt had fucked her. The bed smelled sweaty. It smelled like sex. His lips began to wriggle, and he fought back tears. Footsteps came, and he wiped his cheeks before he got caught.

  The latch clicked, and the door opened quietly. Kelsey came in first. She looked briefly at him with no expression then away quickly, tiptoeing across the room and climbing into bed with Brady. Brady had been awake the whole time, and Harrison saw him open his arms to receive Kay into the bed. Taylor was next, coming in sheepishly, looking at him just as briefly before looking away, turning her back to him and closing the door behind her. She hesitated a few heartbeats like that, holding the door lever, her head touching it.

  In that brief flash he’d seen her face, he could tell she’d been crying. It was like a rug had been tugged from underneath him, his already wobbly legs stumbling again. Everything had seemed so perfect. Everything for so long had been so wonderful and now it was all shit. He waited for her patiently, afraid to speak her name because she would hear the sadness in his voice. So we watched her, wiped his eyes again.

  Finally, she turned, and seemed collected. Gone was that sadness, and in it place, Taylor looked happy again. She smiled brightly but her eyes still shone with the remaining wet of tears. Like Brady, he opened his arms to her now, scooted himself to the far side of the bed. She trotted on long prancing legs and jumped into bed, slipping underneath the covers he held up for her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked her. “When I came back, you weren’t in
here and I was worried …”

  “You always worry,” she said and touched her finger to his lips.

  “I do. I do worry about you. I worry about everything.”

  “Don’t. Just be happy.”

  “I’m always happy. When I’m with you.”

  She exhaled a grunt, half-rolled her eyes. “Can we just have fun?”

  “We can do whatever you want.”

  “Don’t worry about me. Kelsey and I just had to talk.”

  “I guess you did.”

  Taylor nodded and smiled. But despite the meager humor on her face he could see a hurt deep in her gray eyes. He said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I did that. With Kay.”

  “Don’t, Harrison,” she said to him. “We’ll work it out. If you want to do this, we’ll work it out. You can’t be like this. It can’t be full of sadness and regret.”

  “I just worry that it hurt you.”

  “Of course it did. I love you, Harrison. I’ve loved you for the longest time.”

  It seized him up, and he fought back the urge to say Then why can’t you just be faithful? If he did, it would ruin it all, bring them back to step one and next time Taylor might not take step two. And without step two he would be alone and without her. So he kept his mouth shut. Whatever love meant to Taylor, he still wanted it for himself. If she could love him, he wouldn’t push it away and he would squeeze from it whatever he could.

  “Okay,” he said. “I love you, too. I’ve always loved you.” Interiorly he added, And no one else.

  She said, “We have to be honest with each other. If this is going to work, we have to be honest.”

  “You’re right. You’re so right, Taylor. That’s what I want. We could’ve worked this out today. But what hurt more than the things that happened was the betrayal.”

  He watched as her face bloomed in sudden red, and a tear squeezed out of her eye and rolled over the bridge of her nose. She let out a soft whining cry and a hoarse sob. He hugged her, and whispered, “Don’t cry, don’t cry ...”

  “I didn’t want to betray you,” she sobbed. “I just want to be me. Everything is so huge and hard and sometimes I can’t take it. I just want to get away but then I don’t want to go away. I’m so messed up ...”

  “You’re not messed up,” he said. “I face it too sometimes,” though he didn’t suspect he did. “But I’ll be here for you. I’ll be here when you need me, and I can hold you when you want it and I’ll leave you alone when you don’t want it. But you always have to tell me the truth.”

  “I do,” she softly cried near his ear. “I do, I really do. I will, Harrison.”

  A gentle shushing came from across the room. Polite, but hoarse and masculine still. Brady indicating for them to keep it down because he and Kay were trying to sleep.

  He whispered to her, “I want to talk to you. I want to talk all night.”

  Taylor said, “Take me out to the roof.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never been out there ...”

  76

  Harrison brought his knees up, got upright and bent over the headboard, opening the window wider using the ratchet, then gestured an open hand to help her. Always the gentleman. She gave her hand; he helped her to her knees, then she hiked a leg out over the headboard, Harrison bracing her from behind with a hand on her butt and on her waist.

  The night air was cool and gentle, and it was beautiful out—the spreading black was full of stars and the smell of smoke. Gentle waves lapped at the beach down below. She was a little afraid of heights, but she made her way warily from the dormer window, bare feet on the asphalt shingle. She peeped down over the edge of the roof as she got closer and could see the dwindling fire. Mikey and Cisco were still up. Mikey noodled on his guitar quietly and Cisco listened drowsily. No one else was out, all her friends had retired. She wondered what they thought about the things they’d actually seen tonight. But she didn’t want to dwell on it and bit her lip, turned back for Harrison. Harrison always made her feel safe.

  And he was coming out of the dormer window now, getting his feet down on the asphalt, tossing pillows on the shingle and dragging out the rose-printed quilt she’d had since she first graduated to her own summertime room when she was eight. He walked on his hands and heels like a crab down toward her. She rose a little higher into a squat, peeked back into her bedroom. Her Harrison had stood in this very spot and watched her do those horrible things. Her beloved boy stood and stayed for the whole thing, poor heart twisting while he watched her be an awful person. As he watched her do some of the awful things she always knew she was capable of. Sometimes she was no good. She closed her hand in a loose fist and bumped it over her forehead, trying to erase the images she made up in her mind of what it looked like when she spread her legs and Colt got between them and put his thing inside her. It had been a horrible thing to do to Harrison. How did she ever think she could get away with that? But then again, she had, hadn’t she? Just like Kay said to her in the bathroom, her casual words laced with a much deeper truer meaning: You always get what you want, Taylor.

  Well, she sure had tonight, hadn’t she? She wanted Colt. Wanted to have sex with him bad. The moment that door burst open, and she was naked and he looked at her and smiled she knew she wanted to have sex with him. He didn’t jump back bashfully and babble apologies, he just pointed at her and said Hey, titties or whatever. What Kelsey always called BDE, or Big Dick Energy. And she knew already because she’d seen it. Spied on Colt in her own pool cabana. He didn’t give her the time of day back then even though she’d flounced around a little. It was nothing. Just curiosity. She was a stupid, annoying kid. KC’s dumb little sister. She didn’t know a thing about sex back then other than the boy put his penis in your vagina and you would get a baby—so don’t you ever dare, Taylor. But somehow seeing him this weekend brought all that back to her, and she felt like she deserved to have him. Deserved to have him? What an entitled piece of shit she was. But it was true. That little blip in her past when she was a little girl, and she had a crush on a hot guy and flash forward to today and times sure had changed. Try and ignore me now, Colt. And what with the stress of school, the stress of the impending departure from her home, from her state, leaving her friends and leaving everybody she knew to go away to a place she’d never been before looming over top of her, she thought she could do it.

  Now she caught Harrison smiling at her, patting shape into the pillows and setting up a makeshift bed for them under the stars. She had done it. She’d done it and got away with it. She’d done it and kept the boy she loved. She cupped a hand over her mouth to stifle a bursting giggle and dropped onto her butt and scooted close to him. She put his arms around him and he put his arm around her waist with gathered sex-stinking quilt and held her.

  She said, “I really do love you so much, Harrison. I can’t believe you want to do this.”

  He said, “I do. I want to do it. But you know that I want to do it because I wanted to make us stronger. Not weaker. Okay?”

  “I know,” she whispered. “I know. It will.”

  He said, “I think it will.”

  There was hope in his voice but his words brought dread to her. It might not. She couldn’t not have her boy in her life.

  When she drew back to look in his eyes, she saw trouble there and she whispered, “What?”

  He hesitated, then said, “After Colt ... why did you want me to go down on you?”

  77

  Taylor’s brow wrinkled as she paused to comprehend him. She averted her eyes for a moment, the red from her table lamp glowing along one of her fine cheekbones. She said, “I don’t know.”

  “You liked it?”

  “Oh boy, Harrison, don’t ...”

  “We have to be honest.”

  “I liked it, what do you want me to say? Am I gross?”

  “It’s not that at all.”

  “It’s hot. I think it’s hot ...”

  “You’re not gross, Taylor. I�
�ll do anything for you.”

  “I knew you would.”

  “I would do anything you asked me.”

  “That’s what’s hot. I knew I could make you.”

  “Make me?”

  “Yeah. I know you would do anything I ask, and that is so crazy hot.”

  He nodded, trying to understand her better. This was what he wanted—to know her better, wasn’t it? The things he was discovering were things he shouldn’t like, but he still found them arousing. He said, “Promise me if we’re going to do this you won’t humiliate me.”

  “Harrison, I won’t. Why would I do that? Do you think I want that? Was it humiliating?”

  “Not if you don’t mean it to be.”

  Eyes on his, she shook her head. “I didn’t.”

  “I don’t want to be your puppy dog.”

  “Last thing you are is my puppy dog, Harrison. You’re my angel.”

  With that she let her face drift towards his with her eyes lowered, and he met her eagerly for a kiss. Softly their lips pressed together and her felt their damp softness.

  She cupped his cheek. “I would never humiliate you.”

  “On purpose.”

  “Did I do it accidentally?”

  “You had sex with four guys tonight. What’s that mean when you go to—”

  “I did not,” she said stridently.

  “You did, Taylor.”

  “No,” she said weakly, and now her eyes drifted a notch upward and darted back and forth as she did the math.

  He said, “You’re not including me, are you?—thanks. And don’t forget Stevie.”

  Her placid face broke in a downward curve and he regretted bringing it up. She realized it was four, though technically she didn’t have sex with Stevie, only had tried to use her hand on him.

  In a soft crying, she said, “It’s not like that Harrison, it’s not. I’m not ... like that.”