What Happens Next (26 page)

“… and every single time I see you…”

I lean against the house and hold on to his wrists so I don’t dissolve into a puddle. And I kiss him back. Over and over, I kiss him back.

24

I dig waitressing,
maybe because I’m really good at it. The Diner on Clifton is awesome. I think I might skip college and work there forever. They have lots of interesting, happy clientele, and the staff is stellar and fun. I’ve picked up all of this catchy diner lingo, and I use it at every opportunity.

Adam and Eve on a raft!
(Two poached eggs on toast.)

In the alley!
(Serve it on the side.)

Kill it!
(Cook it well done.)

Cremate it!
(Burn it to a crisp.)

I especially like when people order two scrambled eggs. I get to yell, “Two eggs! Wreck ’em!” really loud.

I wear my hair in these big, obnoxious pigtails. The curls look like showers of sparks coming out of both sides of my head, and customers love it; I get fat tips when I wear my hair like that.

It’s hard sometimes being around all that food, though. I feel really proud of myself if I leave without eating anything. But I usually cave and grab a piece of bread or something small to hold me over. I’m human and cannot exist on air alone. I know this. I know I need to eat more. But still, even though I feel hungry and want to eat everything I see, a bigger part of me resists. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes it gets away from me, the desire becomes overwhelming, and I stuff myself sick. Then, well… you know. But most of the time, I just try to stay strong and not eat too much. Besides, when I see her, my mom is always poised and ready with the grub, which I try my best to avoid. If she could tie me to a chair, jack open my mouth, and shovel it in, I think she would. She’s getting harder and harder to fool.

Kirsten and Paige come by The Diner when I work sometimes. So do Corey and his landscaping buddies. They stop in if they’re doing a house nearby. I’m allowed to talk and hang out with them as long as they’re eating and I don’t ignore my other customers.

But last week?

There was an incident.

I sat on Corey’s knee between orders for a few minutes. He put his one arm around my waist while he ate with his other. He kissed the back of my neck a few times where my pigtails separate. Not gross, get-a-room type of kisses, just quick, sweet ones. I leaned back into him and was inhaling his yummy, boy-sweat-earthy-cut-grass smell while also getting a cheap, under-the-radar thrill from his unshaven razor stubble against my cheek. It’s a departure from the way he usually smells and looks, but I like it just as much. I can’t help it.

Anyhow, he bobbed his knee and hugged me tighter with his arm and said, “Man, your waist; it’s like a wasp or something. Here, bite…” and he held up a forkful of potatoes. I ate it, but then he came back with another forkful, so I told him that I was full, that I’d eaten a ton in the back already. He didn’t say anything. I felt awkward, and I think he felt awkward, too, because he just scraped his food around and looked at his plate. I pretended to be interested in his friends’ comments on how weed killer’s been linked to sterility, then I got up from his lap, relieved that one of my customers was waving me over for a coffee refill.

Corey loves kissing the back of my neck for some reason. It gives me a shiver—a good shiver. Before the ski trip, I used to pray for a shiver like that. I would nod and act happy when Kirsten and Paige would tell me their magic moment stories, but then I would feel miserable deep down. I thought I might never get a chance to feel that way about someone and to have someone like me back in that way. I thought no one would ever want me, looking the way I do.

And then, after the ski trip, I tried not to think about that stuff at all, because the thought of someone’s hands on me made me ill. I don’t feel that way with Corey, though. We’ve been seeing each other as boyfriend and girlfriend for a month now, and I love hugging him and holding his hand. That’s all we’ve done though, that and a ton of kissing.

We make out in his truck, mostly, because it’s usually the only place we can be alone. We park by the lake at night and put on music and kiss and talk for hours. About once a week, though, his hand will travel up my arm or down my side and he’ll play with the hem of my shirt. He’ll move his fingers underneath and up my stomach and that’s when I tense up. My body says,
I’m not ready for that!
And right away, he will move his hand back up my arm to cup my neck or face, or his hand will find my fingers and slide them into his. I think I might be ready for more soon, but for right now, I’m just enjoying the kissing. I hope he is, too. I think he is.

I feel really comfortable with him and we talk about a lot of things. I’m still trying to guess his middle name. I’ve thought of every car I can come up with and still don’t know it. He likes the game:
Corey Solstice? Corey Taurus? Corey Acura?
I thought about looking for the answer on the Internet, but that would take the fun out of it.

One thing we never really talk about, though, is his mom. He has a clever way of diverting the conversation whenever I mention the word
mom
. Also, he doesn’t talk about his home or house or anything. One time I brought up the idea of coming over his house, and he tensed up, so I immediately changed the subject. I tried to look him up in the phone book and online, but he’s unlisted. Kirsten says that she’s pretty sure he lives somewhere over in Birdtown, which is an older section of southeast Lakewood. It’s really charming, if you use your imagination. It’s this tiny section of the city that was built up by Slavic immigrants back a hundred years ago or so. It’s kind of run-down now, which is a shame, because you can see how beautiful it once was with all the churches and old three-story houses. Artists rent some of the empty factory buildings for work space. I think that alone makes Birdtown altogether beautiful. I want to tell him that he should be glad to live in such a place and that I would be thrilled to spend my time there, but I think it would make him feel uncomfortable if I said that.

Even though he won’t talk about his mom or his home, he tells me other things, private things. He told me something one night that made me want to cry at first (I didn’t, though; I didn’t want to make him feel worse about it). He told me that he’s dyslexic and not cut out for college. Instead, he wants to go to the Culinary Institute of America in New York to become a chef. That part made me smile. He’d be good at that. He’s worried about the essay part of the application, so I told him I would help him with it, that I can write essays in my sleep.

Then, we talked once about
It
.

I asked him once if he’d ever done
It
and immediately wanted to slap my own face.

I prayed that he wouldn’t ask me back, because I don’t know the answer to that question. How does someone like me know the answer to that question? We were sitting on a bench swing at the lake; I was lying across the swing with my head in his lap, looking up at him, and we were swinging and talking. We were laughing about a movie we’d seen together, this romantic comedy. Not the eye-rolling, sappy, make-you-sick type romantic comedy, but the raunchy, hysterical kind with a fun, but sort of romantic, ending. There were sex jokes throughout the whole thing and, I don’t know, we were laughing about it and the question just kind of slipped out of me:
Have you ever done it?
And then I froze immediately.

He grinned and looked away at the lake. I think I embarrassed him. He chewed on a fingernail and then looked down at me.

“I’m almost nineteen, Sid. I’m a guy.” And he nodded his head yes.

I smiled awkwardly and then sat up. I’d figured as much. I knew what the answer was before I even asked it. He has a confident, unrushed way about him when we kiss and touch. He’s in no hurry at all. If things start getting intense, he’ll pull away for a breather, change the CD, take a sip of his drink, strike up a conversation. The anxious, groping, needy phase is over for him. He’s been there, done that, and done it all the way, probably a lot. I don’t know why I asked it—it just came out, and I didn’t want to know more. To know who she was or who
they
were would hurt me. If they were girls at school that I would have to see in the flesh, it would be very painful.

He was right on the verge of asking me about my own experiences when I blurted, “You know what I’m in the mood for? A sin-a-chocolate eruption from Mitchell’s.” As if I would ever order such a calorie-laden monstrosity.

I jumped up and made a beeline for the truck, practically skipping, as though three scoops of dark chocolate ice cream swimming in a bowl of cinnamon hot fudge were foremost on my mind. I just didn’t want him to see my face and know that I was hurting inside. I was terrified he would ask me back if I’d had sex. But what he did was come up behind me and put me in a kidding sort of headlock and say “Sin-a-chocolate eruption? Hey? You knocked up or something?” I laughed really loud. I think he was just so shocked or thrilled that I mentioned going for ice cream that it threw him off of asking me back. Or, more likely, he was just being sweet because he knew I was hurting inside.

“Sid, are you pregnant?” my mom says to me, holding my hands in hers.

“What?!”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” My mom is looking at me with tears in her eyes.

“Why would you ask me that? No! I’m not pregnant. I’ve only kissed the guy. Good god, Mom.”

“But you haven’t had a period in two months. And you don’t want to eat. I thought I heard you throwing up the other morning after breakfast.”

“What? Balls! Get your hearing checked. I eat fine, and I have too had a period!”

Lie.

“Sid, I live here. I’m your mother. You have not had a period.”

“I’m not pregnant, Mom. Shit!”

I get up and storm out of my room.

“I believe you,” she says, chasing after me. “But still, I’ve made you an appointment with the doctor.”

I stop, turn around, and look at her.

“What?”

“Sid, you’ve always been regular. I can set my watch by you. If you’re not pregnant, then something else is wrong.”

“I don’t need a damn appointment with a doctor, Mom. I’m fine.”

“It’s on Tuesday.”

“Well, tough. I have to work on Tuesday.”

I continue storming through the house, with Katherine hot on my heels.

“No, you don’t,” she says. “I know your schedule. You’re going. End of discussion.”

I stalk out of the house and down the porch steps.

“Sid!” she calls after me.

“I’m just going around the block, Katherine!” I yell. “Don’t worry. I’m not
running
away.”

My tone is dripping with scorn as I throw up my hand. I can hear her going back into the house. I walk around for a while because I don’t have my running shoes on and the shoes I’m wearing pinch my feet. I am fuming mad, because basically, well, I’m screwed. The baggy clothes and tops aren’t going to cut it. They’ll weigh me for sure. They always weigh you at the doctor. After a while, I go home, and when I’m sure my mom’s busy with Liam, I weigh myself. I haven’t weighed myself since I reached that goal I’d set a few weeks back. The scale makes this dinging sound when you step on it, so I run the water.

I’m below normal for my height. Shit.

I’ll have to eat a lot between now and Tuesday.

Night comes, and I toss in bed for hours; I can’t get to sleep because I’m so upset. Why does she have to be so nosy? I don’t care that I’m considered underweight for a girl who’s five-foot-nine. All I care about is the fact that my boobs and ass have finally shrunk to the point where I can tolerate owning them.

I am sitting in the doctor’s office waiting room with my mother. I love my mom to death, but right now, at this moment, I really hate her.

“You don’t need to go in with me. I’m almost seventeen. I’m too old to have my mommy in the room with me at the doctor’s. So you need to stay out here, got it?”