Thousand Words (3 page)

Vonnie held up one finger drunkenly. “Reason. She’s passing up the chance to be with Stephen because she’s in love with a guy who isn’t even here.”

“You and Stephen?” Rachel said, her eyes getting big.

“No!” I said. “There is no me and Stephen. I’m with Kaleb.”

“No you’re not,” Vonnie said. “You’re here, and Kaleb is with his baseball team. Because he doesn’t want to forget
them
.” I got what she was saying. I had thought the same thing many times over the past few months. It seemed like I was always alone, only seeing Kaleb from a lawn chair out in a field somewhere. I might get a wink from the dugout. I might get a little slap on the butt or quick hug after a game, while he was on his way to grab a burger with the team, never inviting me to go with him because it was “boys only.”

He was going to miss
them
. He wanted to rack up all the face time he could with
them
. But was he going to miss me? He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about that.

Vonnie was right. He was with them because he wanted to be. And I was here alone because of it. But I wasn’t ready to admit out loud that Vonnie had a point. Partly because she didn’t understand Kaleb the way I understood him. She didn’t know how special he made me feel when we were alone together and how it was worth it in those moments to have been on the sidelines for so long. But I also partly
didn’t want to admit it out loud because Rachel was sitting right there and I didn’t want Rachel involved in my personal life.

“It’s not like that,” I mumbled, bending forward to pick at the remaining polish on my toes. My hair felt sticky in the folds of my neck, and the after-pool feeling was gross and I just wanted to take a shower and go to bed. Between the swimming and the alcohol and the day’s run, I was super-tired, and super-tired of talking about Kaleb. This conversation wasn’t helping my mood any. “He won’t forget me, either.”

The song on the radio changed and we all sang along for a moment, watching Stephen and Cody scale the gazebo roof, Adam videotaping them on his phone and Rich chucking pool toys at them to knock them off. Then Rachel said, “You should send him a picture of yourself. To take with him.”

“Trust me, he’s got like a zillion pictures of me.”

“No, I mean a…
picture
… of yourself,” she said, her voice going low and whispery.

Vonnie gasped, scandalized. “Dooo it,” she said.

It took a minute for me to understand what they were talking about. Why would they be so excited about me taking a picture of myself for my boyfriend to have at college?

Then it hit me.

Not just any picture.

“Naked?” I whispered.

They both nodded. “You totally should,” Rachel said. They looked at each other and laughed.

“Do it,” Vonnie repeated.

“Oh, okay,” I said sarcastically, then when they continued to grin at me like they were totally serious, added, “Uh-uh. No way. You two are crazy.”

“He’ll remember you for sure then,” Rachel said.

“He’s going to remember me anyway,” I said hotly. I could feel my face start to burn. “What is the deal with you guys? He’s playing baseball. It’s not like I need to be chained to him twenty-four seven.”

“Come on.” Rachel rolled her eyes at me as if I were acting like a difficult child. “It’ll be a going-away present. I’ll bet he’ll totally stare at it all the time. It’s not like anyone’s going to know.”

“And you look hot,” Vonnie added. “Hey, Stephen, wouldn’t Ashleigh look hot naked?” she yelled, then fell onto her back in wild laughter.

I squealed and turned away from the gazebo, avoiding Stephen’s reaction. “Shut up, Vonnie!” I said, but I couldn’t help laughing a little, too.

“What are you afraid of? That he won’t like it?” Rachel said over Vonnie’s laughter. “He’s a guy. Trust me, he wants to see you naked.”

Kaleb and I had gotten pretty close, but not yet that close. He’d seen me in a bikini plenty of times, but that was as naked as I’d ever been in front of him… or any other
boy, for that matter. He’d never even pushed for it, but sometimes when we were making out, his hands would start roaming and I knew that if I’d offered to take off my clothes, he would’ve been really happy.

Now that I thought about it, maybe if I’d offered to take off my clothes every now and then I wouldn’t be taking a backseat to his boys all the time. Maybe it would be me he’d be worried about missing so much.

“You know, he’s going to be meeting tons of girls at college,” Rachel said. “And they probably won’t have any problem getting naked in front of him.”

“That’s right,” Vonnie added. “You should be proactive.” But she messed up the word and it came out more like
prorackive
.

“Thank you, guys,” I said. “That makes me feel tons better. Really.”

I didn’t need them to point out that he was going to be around college girls. I was already a little worried about what kind of girls he would meet at college. They’d be older than me, and probably willing to do things I wasn’t willing to do.

Maybe Rachel and Vonnie were right. Maybe it would be the going-away present he needed to get his mind off his boys and totally onto me. If I was going to compete with college girls, maybe I had to be willing to woman up a little. I couldn’t be a baby forever.

“What am I supposed to… how would I even…?” I
laughed, covering my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this right now.”

“It’s not rocket science. Just get naked, take a picture with your cell phone, and text it to him,” Rachel said. “Totally easy.”

Vonnie put her hand on my arm. “Oh! And just be like, ‘See what you’re missing? There’s more where this came from.’ He’ll crap himself.”

The music thumped, louder and louder. Everyone had gotten out of the pool and was milling around the patio, the flicker of the tiki flames bouncing off their bare skin, which looked soft and warm and tan. In that moment, it felt like summer would never end.

My head buzzed with the noise and my stomach twisted up in butterflies. I felt wired, like every nerve ending in my body was zapping into place.

“You guys, I can’t,” I whispered, but inside I was starting to think I could.

“Why not? I totally would,” Rachel said, her voice dripping with derision, like I was the most infantile person she’d ever met. “My brother’s girlfriend does it all the time. And she’s in ninth grade.”

“It would be a great way for you to show him how much you love him,” Vonnie added sincerely. “Remind him you belong to him, you know?”

That was what I wanted. It was
all
I wanted, really. To let Kaleb know that while his boys were important, I was
the real thing. I loved him. I was willing to give him something special. I didn’t want him to forget me.

The song switched, then played out and switched again. Cheyenne and Annie came over and squeezed next to Rachel on the chaise. Vonnie and the other girls talked about how much they hated their coach, and a couple of older kids started showing up as it got later, barging through the gate with towels slung over their shoulders as if they owned the place. The party raged on, bumping with music and splashing and whoops. But I wasn’t really there. I was in my own head, swimming in my thoughts, going round and round until I was dizzy and bold.

“I’m gonna do it,” I said at last, and Vonnie and Rachel stared at me with wide eyes.

“What?” Cheyenne asked. “What’s she gonna do?”

But I didn’t answer. I gulped down the last of my drink and stood up. I could hear Rachel whispering to the other girls as I strode into the house. I didn’t look back.

We weren’t required to work silently in community service, but I did anyway. Darrell and Amber and Kenzie all knew each other and shared stories that were funny or interesting or exciting or terrible only to them. I couldn’t have added anything even if I’d wanted to.

Their conversations would go like this:

“Y’all hear Fat Benny got busted?”

“Who’s that?”

“You know, Sanchez’s stepbrother.”

“You mean Mike?”

“No, his other stepbrother. The one with the red hair who passed out that jank acid at Ace’s house that one time?”

“Oh, that guy. I thought he was dead.”

“No, you’re prolly thinking of Travis. Dude that crashed his motorcycle into the Big Burger.”

“Oh, yeah, I remember that. Went right through the window.”

On and on it would go, and I would try to follow the trail, finding myself sketching little family trees in my mind. And I’d think,
Oh, I remember when that guy drove through the Big Burger window. It was on the news
. It seemed surreal to me that I was hanging out with people who knew him personally, but I would never say anything because to me it was just another news story and to them it was something that had happened in their lives, and our experiences could never be the same.

Plus, I didn’t want to open up any discussion about what might have been on the news about the sexting scandal at Chesterton High. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what they’d all seen about me.

So instead, I sat at my computer and did my research, trying to follow their conversations in fits and starts, and wondering what Mack was doing that required so much clicking and why he never got involved, either.

Mack had never spoken. At least not that I’d heard. I almost wondered if he could. What was weirder was that nobody really ever spoke to him, either. Not even Mrs. Mosely, other than to say hi when he walked in.

Mrs. Mosely spent most of her time bent over a book or would sometimes step out into the hallway to use her cell phone. Once, the front-desk receptionist came down and lingered
outside our door until she got Mrs. Mosely’s attention, and then they hung out in the hallway and talked for a while.

But every now and then someone would say something that would interest even Mrs. Mosely, and I would see her glance up from her book, sitting very still, her eyes darting back and forth between Darrell, Kenzie, and Amber, who never seemed to even notice that there was anyone else in the room with them.

“My mom is getting divorced again,” Amber said as we settled into our work routines on my fourth day. “This is number five. I keep telling her to mess around with as many dudes as she wants, just stop marrying them, but she says she can’t help it if she falls in love.”

Kenzie leaned back in her chair and rubbed her belly. “Shit. Look what falling in love got me,” she said. “Got me fat.” And they both laughed.

There was silence for a few minutes, and then Darrell piped up from his computer. “You ever regret it? Sleeping with that Jonah guy, I mean?” Darrell was always doing that—asking people really awkward questions at really awkward times. Mrs. Mosely’s head popped up and she studied Kenzie. I stopped reading and turned my head slightly, too, watching them out of the corner of my eye.

“No. You regret beating the shit out of people?” Kenzie’s tone was hostile, but Darrell pressed his lips together, sheepish.

“Sometimes, yeah. Like when I see my mom cry, I do. I don’t mean to make nobody cry. I got a hot head is all.”

The room was silent and had an on-edge feel that couldn’t be ignored. I waited for Mrs. Mosely to say something, but she just kept staring over the top of her book.

Then, finally, Amber cut the silence. “We all’d rather be out there having a good time than doing this, right? I regret stuff, too. Lots of stuff. Especially stuff that got me here every day. Nothing wrong with regret.”

“Well, I don’t regret anything,” Kenzie said. “Life’s too short for that shit.” She pushed away from her desk and pulled herself to standing, her hand on the small of her back. “Mrs. Mosely, can I use the restroom, please? Baby’s sitting down low.”

Restroom breaks were supposed to be scheduled, and Mosely didn’t often veer from the schedule. But this time she nodded, and watched Kenzie saunter out of the classroom before finally looking back at her book.

“Everybody regrets some things,” Darrell muttered after Kenzie had left. “Wouldn’t be human not to.”

And that was the end of the conversation. But for some reason I couldn’t turn my eyes back to the article I’d been reading. I knew it was full of things I regretted. Things I regretted so much it hurt to even look at them, to remember them. I squeezed my eyes shut tight. I had so many regrets, I wasn’t even sure where they began. Was my biggest regret not having the guts to tell Rachel to take a hike? Was it falling in love with Kaleb? Or was it the simple motion of standing up, tossing a drink, and marching into Vonnie’s house that night at the pool party?

Or was it something else altogether? Something deeper, more ingrained in me?

I opened my eyes and glanced to my left. Mack had stopped clicking and was staring right at me. Even though his earbuds were in, I was sure he’d heard everything they’d all said. And for some reason, I had a feeling he knew why I was so silent. Our eyes locked for the briefest moment before he turned back to his computer.

Only a few partiers were inside Vonnie’s house, and they were all in the kitchen, easy to slip past as I charged toward my things. If even one of them had stopped me to talk, I probably would have lost the resolve I’d worked up out on the pool deck. My stomach felt full of butterflies, and I actually giggled to myself as I located my bag by the front door and rooted through it for my cell phone.

I grabbed the phone and bag and ran downstairs, noticing how grainy everything looked. I felt removed from my surroundings, like they were movie props and I was watching them go by in someone else’s life.

There was a tiny voice in the back of my mind wondering if I was really going to do this. I was an honor student. An athlete. I made dinner with my parents every night and I got awards and I was a virgin. I rarely drank, I was responsible, I was not the kind of person who normally did something like this.

But what did that mean,
something like this
? It’s not like this was a huge deal. People did it all the time. It was just for fun. Who would it really hurt?