This Is What I Want to Tell You (12 page)

What’s this one? I asked, my finger against the base of his spine.

He looked at me. He blinked.

It’s, uh. It’s a reminder.

Of?

It was something I needed to remember at the time. You know? That my family bullshit wasn’t going to be … it’s my journal entry or whatever. It was that time. It’s a reminder. He reached out and squeezed my knee.

You okay? I’m beat. I gotta sleep.

As I began to nod, he turned back onto his side. In seconds his breathing was even, in, out, the perfectly unconscious pattern of sleep.

Last night Keeley told me the truth about what happened in Oxford. We went up to her house to study for a Chem exam. Sitting on her couch facing each other, our legs stretched out side by side, she told me the truth about this person who makes her throat close and the muscles in her stomach clench and her skin turn cold even when it’s me who is touching her.

The part that I never wanted to say out loud is this: when Keeley was telling it, I could feel what he was feeling. Just for one second, I knew what he felt like.

That’s the part I can’t get rid of.

I have to tell you something, she said.

About Nole?

No. About me.

Okay.

You’re not gonna like it.

Somehow, I knew that before she even said any more.

Okay, I said out loud.

His name was J, she said. But that wasn’t his real name. His real name was Jameson something something but he always just went by the first letter.

Jameson what? I pushed. I wanted the details that didn’t mean anything. I wanted all of the things she didn’t know.

She didn’t answer me. I wanted to string her story along. I don’t think I really wanted to know how it ended.

She didn’t even know his last name. She knew he went by J and she said sometimes she thought he was made out of wax. She said his skin and his joints were like rounded, constantly moving waves and almost seemed carved to perfection.

I couldn’t believe she told me that.

Why are you telling me this?

I need you to know it all, she said.

Now?

Yes, now. I’m tired of keeping stuff.

I need all these details?

Please, Nadio. Just listen to me.

She said she met him in a place called Georgina’s where she used to sit and read. Georgina’s is upstairs in the covered market, with heavy tables and weird thin bagels—it’s like a secret hideaway and a hip Oxford student place all at once. And Keeley would sit there and read. On purpose, she said, she read things like
US Weekly
and
Angels and Demons
—things her parents would scoff at and no Oxford student would be caught dead carrying.

She said J found her there. He asked if he could sit with her. This was okay because Georgina’s is so small that sharing tables is just part of sitting there. But right away he started talking to her. And he didn’t say a word about the magazine she was reading. He nodded at her bagel.

Are you American? he asked her.

Yes, she said.

Only you Americans eat those things.

But he didn’t say this with any kind of disdain. She said his accent was slow-moving and sharp all at once—like a carved-out, deep, booming movie accent. And every time he said anything, he said it with this slow smile that wrapped all the way around her and reached deep inside her like there was suddenly no one else at Georgina’s. And Keeley wanted to reach across the table and open her mouth against his and—

She stopped there. She said, You know what I mean, Nadio.

I knew what she meant. I started to feel sick.

Keeley and J were basically never apart after that. For exactly three and a half weeks. The end of it all was what she was leading up to, when she started talking in the living room after everything around us was asleep. It was so deep between night and morning I didn’t even know what to call it. I put my hand down over her legs, but she pushed me away, she drew her knees to her chest so we weren’t touching at all.

Don’t, she said. Don’t touch me while I’m telling you this.

I can only remember it in her voice. It’s like her voice plays in my head when I think about it.

All along I told him I didn’t want to have sex with him, because I don’t know, I just didn’t think I was ready for it, but sometimes, well, it was like my whole body went against everything I was saying. Anyway. We broke up. He said he couldn’t wait around for me to make up my mind, to stop being a child. I was devastated. I thought it was the end, that I’d never actually feel anything ever again. I was so lonely and I didn’t have anyone to talk to and I missed him like crazy.

Finally I went to his room. He lived in this small round room in a tower, it was this dark tower with a real twisting stone staircase. I went there and when he opened the door he didn’t seem right. Nothing seemed right. He said what? Like he was so mad, like he was spitting almost. I didn’t have anything to say. I’d gone there to say I was sorry and I wanted to try to work things out but when I saw him, I couldn’t say it. It was like he’d turned into someone else completely. He was like all rage. We stood there staring at each other and then he kinda laughed. You want this? he said. And he grabbed my arm and pulled me inside the room. It was like he was possessed. I could still feel the burning on my arm where his fingers dug in but then he just threw me down and he was on top of me.

You know, I can’t remember if I made a sound. I remember pushing at him. I remember trying to get him off of me but I don’t think I could make a sound. It was like I was fighting him on mute. I swear to god. It was like of all the noise in the room there was no sound. That’s what I have now, it’s like this soundless memory. And everything he did was like straight from his rage. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Like this. It was so fast. My clothes were even all on after it was over. And J. He wouldn’t even look at me. He was just lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling. My whole body felt, just like cracked, like stiff, like—somehow, I don’t even know, I got up and I straightened everything out on me and walked out and once I hit the street, it’s like all the sound came back.

She stopped. She wasn’t breathing in or out. She stared at her knees. Then she took a deep shaky breath. She just looked up and into my eyes. She was folded up around herself and her hands were shaking.

Can I come over there now? I said. My chest was going to explode.

She nodded. I moved down the couch and I put my arms around her and she felt still and small and tense, everything about her knotted except her shaking hands. I’d never felt anything like the pounding in my chest and the rushing heat in my throat and my ears. I pulled Keeley onto my lap.

I don’t cry about it, she said into my neck, her voice barely audible.

I knew I had to say something. She wanted me to say something.

It’s okay, I said.

I haven’t even talked about it.

Okay. I held her head under my chin. I knew there must be something beyond the top of her head but I couldn’t see.

I can’t cry about it. I just, I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Okay.

I kept saying okay. But I knew I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I thought, this is what people mean when they say “animal instinct” because I knew that rage would be stronger than my mind if anyone tried to hurt her, and nothing in the world could make me let go of her.

By the time I got back from Parker’s it was after dinner and Lace had realized I wasn’t sick, not even close. Only I didn’t care. She sat me down at the table and started yelling. It was like she suddenly out of nowhere became some other kind of mother, like the ones on television shows who wore pressed skirts and soft sweaters. Out of nowhere Lace started to talk about rules and the way things would be now.

One, no more going out, she said.

Like grounded? I asked.

Not grounding. Just no going out.

That doesn’t even make sense.

Lace took a deep breath. Her hands were knotted together on the table. She stared at me.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense right now is your behavior. I give you all the freedom a kid could ask for, Noelle. And it’s not working. Now I’m going to have to make sure I know where you are and what the hell you’re doing.

So now you don’t trust me? I pushed.

I think you’ve made that impossible. She stared. And school, she said. You go, that’s it.

You think I’m not going to school?

Apparently not. And, Noelle, school is not optional. It’s not something you get to decide whether or not you’ll do. You go to school.

I stared back. I didn’t say a word. She went on. She said we needed to make the time to sit down as a family. I stopped listening.

Okay okay okay, I told her. I didn’t know how long she’d been talking.

Okay. I didn’t feel like fighting. I was so goddamn tired. I hadn’t seen my brother but I knew now I could pretend like he didn’t exist.

Was my body supposed to feel different? Was my life supposed to feel different? Wasn’t it all supposed to begin from here? Was our relationship supposed to be different? Wasn’t everything?

What was definitely different was my brother and Keeley. Or not. What was different was that I knew the truth now. I didn’t want to think about how long they’d been making everything a lie. I just wouldn’t talk to them. It was that simple. I pretended they weren’t even there.

* * *

When you’re a little kid, you don’t second-guess what your future is going to look like. There are no questions. Doubts. Not about any of it. Keeley was never not going to be my best friend. She was never not going to be my future. The day before we started high school, we decided to camp out. Nadio wanted to sleep out with us but we wouldn’t let him. We pitched a tent on the rise between both of our houses—you could see the living room lights from each house from the door of our tent. We stocked it with quilts and pillows and chocolate chip cookies and magazines and pens and mini iPod speakers and we lay side by side with our flashlights trained on each other.

Everything happens in high school, Keeley said.

You think?

It has to. It’s a whole other world.

Like what?

Like people start to treat us like adults. Like we find out where we fit. Like we get to start dating.

Dating, I said. Who?

You know. The high school is bigger. More people from more towns.

Yeah, I said. It was hard to believe.

We were quiet. We were both afraid of the same thing.

Nole?

Yeah.

The first one to get a boyfriend, we have to tell the other one everything. I mean everything.

We don’t have to worry, I said.

Why?

It’ll happen at the same time. Everything happens to us at the same time. It’s like we’re blessed that way.