What Happens Next (30 page)

He plays with my hair a little, and then, during a commercial, he presses his lips into the top of my head and rests them there.

“Sid?” he whispers, and I can feel his warm breath in my hair.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re beautiful. You know that, right?”

I stiffen all over. I know he feels me tense up, and I try to recover and relax. I pat his knee.

“Thank you,” I say, sweetly.

A little
too
sweetly.

He sits up a bit, picks up the remote, and turns down the volume.

“Hey,” he says, bouncing his shoulder, making my head bob a little. He wants my attention. I turn my head up and look at his mouth.

“I’ve always thought you were beautiful. Even before we knew each other.”

I smile and nod and then turn back to the commercial, the one where the dirty mop is in love with the sparkly housewife.

Ugh. Why do we have to do this? I mean, Corey’s said a lot of nice things to me, but never really anything about the way I look. And I’ve liked that. I want to keep it that way. I don’t want to talk about the way I look. I mean, why is he saying this stuff
now
? It’s because of what happened in my room earlier. It’s because he thinks there’s something wrong with me, that I’m too skinny or breakable or something.

Apparently, I was supposed to say something convincing back to him, because he sits up straighter, pushing my weight off of his chest. He turns to look at me head-on. I brace myself for what he’s going to say next. I try hard to hide my inner wince by willing my shoulders and face to relax.
Think calm face. Soothing face. “Whatever-do-you-mean?” face.

“You think I’m full of it,” he says.

His eyes have disbelief and hurt swimming in them, so I can’t look at them.

“What? No,” I say and shake my head. I reach over and comb his bangs with my fingers for a second. “Of course I don’t think that.”

Then I put my hands in my lap. I try to look at his eyes, but my gaze keeps moving to his forehead.

“I think that about you, too, Corey. Not that you’re beautiful, because, well,
that’s for girls
, but I think you’re hot.”

Then I force myself to stare into his eyes deeply. I tilt my head slightly and add a playful grin. I’m going for a look that’s suggestive, evocative,
burning
. I stare while thinking:
Just keep it going, Sid. Don’t look away, stare him down, and he’ll drop it. Sex sells.

“Balls,” he mutters, almost irritated.

I pull a surprised, sad face. “What? You don’t think I think you’re hot?”

This may work yet.

“No, Sid. Not about that. Not about me. Nice try, though, mixing a joke up with a flirty little compliment, that was slick. No, what I mean is that you think I’m making up that I think you’re beautiful.”

I open my mouth to argue with him, but he cuts me off.

“Not done,” he says. “I’ve always thought it was true. Always. You know what I’m saying?”

“Yeah. I do,” I say, nodding, agreeing, yep, uh-huh.

And I mean it. I know exactly what he’s saying, and it’s starting to piss me off, I think. It’s patronizing. I make myself smile anyway. I was a cheerleader and can be a good fake smiler when I need to be. I try not to overdo it, though—just a half smile. He searches my face, studying it. I stand up and try to pull him up by the shirt sleeve.

“Come on. Let’s go for ice cream,” I say.

He takes my wrist gently in his hand and doesn’t budge. I stand in front of him, my back to the TV, my hair all sticking up from where he was playing with it. He looks up at me.

“You don’t want ice cream. You just don’t believe me and you’re trying to get out of talking about this.”

“Yes, I do. Really, Corey, I do believe you. You think I’m beautiful. Now let’s go get some ice cream. I need some serious chocolate in my life right now.”

I try to walk away, but he takes my other wrist, too. Then he slides his fingers through my hands, lacing us together. He studies our hands, my long pale fingers wrapped in his tan calloused ones, then he looks up at me.

“The ice cream trick isn’t going to work either, okay? It’s worked a couple times on me only because I let it. We’ll get there and you’ll eat two bites of it and try to get me to finish it for you, or you’ll tell me you ate already, that you’re full and changed your mind. I notice these things. And I know that you know that I notice them. I let you out of conversations you want out of, and you do the same for me—I know you do. But not this time.”

Jesus. This guy sees right through me. All this time, he’s seen right through me. I need to be a better liar. I sigh and smile as kindly as I can. I look him dead in the eyes and give him my best game face ever.

“Come on, Corey, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”

I bend down to try and kiss him, but he turns his head away from me and leans back against the couch, still holding my hands—gently, but fixed, so I can’t escape.

“So you don’t want to kiss me now?” I say.
Maybe I can guilt him into dropping it.

He lets my hands go but then leans forward and wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into him, pressing his cheek against my stomach.

“It’s just really important to me that you believe me. And that you believe it about yourself. Just sit with me for a second. Please.”

I’m starting to get choked up. This is too much. I don’t want to talk about this, but I don’t want to push him away, either. He pulls me down to sit on his lap, to straddle him. Not tight and sexy up against his hips—more on his thighs. But I can’t look at him. I’m glad my hair is messed up and in my face. My heart is beating really fast. Why does he have to talk so much? What guy talks this much? None I’ve ever heard of. Paige and Kirsten have no stories like this. If they did, though, they probably wouldn’t tell me, I suppose. It’s too private.

“I want to tell you something. About the first time I saw you.”

I lay my head against his neck and he pulls me tighter. He just wants me close.

“When we were in tenth grade and none of us had cars and we had to eat at school, I saw you out on a picnic table in the courtyard. Me, TJ, and some other guys were on the roof to the service building. We would give the janitor a pack of cigarettes every couple of days to leave the door unlocked, and all of us would go up there and smoke. No one could see us because of the way the building sits. You were sitting with Kirsten and Paige and wearing your cheerleading uniform. There was this other girl there, too. She had really short black hair and all this heavy makeup. I don’t think you hang with her anymore.

“Anyhow, I watched you laughing; you and the black-haired girl were throwing french fries to this seagull that was perched on the brick wall. It got brave and swooped down and started trying to snatch them off the table, out of your hands. You were screaming and jumping up and laughing really loud, and I remember thinking that you were amazing looking. Stunning. But not in the usual way. Different, you know? I watched you until the bell rang. Then I stamped out my cigarette and went back inside.

“The next week I got sent away for… well, you know… and sometimes, at night especially, when I was lying in that tiny cement room on that hard cot with no windows and feeling like I might suffocate, I would think about that cheerleader with the hair and the eyes, the redheaded angel running around and laughing in the courtyard because of that stupid seagull. I dunno, it would just make me smile, make me feel better. And when I got out, I would go to the games just so I could watch you. You were this fireball out on the field. You’d go sit with your friends at halftime and talk to kids that those other cheerleaders wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with. I never had the nerve to actually try and talk to you. Even though I knew you would talk to me back. I just, I don’t know—I just couldn’t do it. And I never thought I’d ever be sitting here with you like this. In my wildest
dreams
I never dreamed it. I sat in that AV room for eight weeks, watching
Deadwood
so I wouldn’t have to look at you, so that I wouldn’t grab you and kiss you and thank you for getting me through something that was really, really awful. I would watch you out of the corner of my eye, though. God, I wanted to kiss you so bad it hurt. I’ve always, always thought you were beautiful, Sid. Always.”

His voice cracks, and he swallows hard. I can almost feel the lump in his throat, and I want to kiss it away. All of this makes me cry. His words are not some bullshit fiction. The black-haired girl he’s talking about was Hannah Spencer; she was kind of a drama queen and spent the whole rest of the week telling people about the rabid seagull living in the courtyard that randomly attacked people. She ended up moving away. And what he said about the cheerleading is true. As soon as the cheering was over, we split like oil and water. The seven of them went one way and I went the other. And the AV room? All that time I thought he was watching
Deadwood
. Oh, god, I think this boy loves me. I think he really might love me.

“Do you believe me now?” he asks.

I sit back on his legs and look at him and nod. I wipe my eyes on my sleeve and then look at my hands, the backs of them resting on his stomach. I pick at my cuticles.

“You’re beautiful, Sid,” he says, pushing my hair out of my face. “And I never said it at first because it seemed so obvious to me, so easy. I didn’t say it because I never wanted you to think the things I say to you are just
things.
Empty compliments to get in your pants. I wanted the things I say to you to be extraordinary, because that’s what you are to me. Extraordinary. And I’m so sorry I didn’t say it sooner, because I think you need to hear it. You were beautiful a year ago and you’re beautiful now—”

Then he pauses, takes a careful breath, and says what I knew was coming all along.

“—but I see how much weight you’ve lost since last year, and it scares me.”

But he’s looking at me so kindly. He’s not trying to be cruel or judgmental. He really means it. He’s worried. I take his head in my hands and kiss his face. I kiss his cheeks and his forehead and his eyelids and his lips.

“Don’t be scared, Corey,” I say. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

He shakes his head. “No, you’re not fine. You’re too thin; it can’t be right. You need to gain some weight.”

I sigh and rest my head in his neck again. We sit and hug in silence for a few minutes.

“Will you do it for me, at least?” he whispers. “So that I know you’re okay?”

I pause for a second, then nod my head.

“Good,” he says.

And he’s better now. We sit for a bit more and then he pats my bottom and says, “Now let’s go for ice cream.”

And we head to Mitchell’s. He orders a sin-a-chocolate eruption and I order a single dip mint chocolate chip. It’s hard, but I do it. My hands shake, but I eat it. All of it.

When he drops me back home, I take a shower and go to my room. I stand for a while in front of the mirror, working up the nerve to drop the towel. Finally I do it. I haven’t looked at my body or weighed myself in a long time. I haven’t wanted to know. But now I look. I really, really look.

And I don’t like what I see.

With the exception of the ice cream, I haven’t eaten anything in two and a half days. I was actually proud. Last night and this morning, my stomach was screaming for food, and I ignored it. I thought I was being strong. Now I look at my arms and legs and I don’t know this body anymore. Corey’s right. And even though I don’t look as horrible as the eating disorder pictures I’ve seen online and in health class, it’s wrong. For me, it’s wrong. I don’t look like Sid anymore. And I don’t look like a better version of me, either, like some healthy-runner-girl Sid. I passed that stage by ages ago. What I look like now is scarecrow Sid… sad, pale skeleton Sid, left out in the rain.

And yet, even after I’ve looked at my body and seen what I’ve seen, and even though I know what I know, something pulls my gaze toward the door.

There’s still time to get rid of it,
the voice inside me says.

But this time… this time, I don’t listen. I don’t want to be that girl. I’ve never wanted to be that girl. The girl who pukes and runs and starves herself to death because she can’t deal with her pain. How did I get to this place?

I put on my pajamas and crawl into bed. I lie awake for hours. And while it takes all my mental effort just to stay put, I do it. I stay put. I reason that if I don’t get out of bed, then I can’t go near the bathroom, and if I stay right here, tucked under the blanket, I can’t put my running shoes on and hit the pavement.

I had no idea that staying in one place could be so hard.

29

I’m sitting in
the unofficial “employee booth” at The Diner—the booth nearest the kitchen, where everyone hangs out during slow spells and between shifts. The lunch shift is over and I’m adding up my tips, which consist mainly of a towering stack of one-dollar bills. I keep messing up and having to start over because I can’t concentrate. I’m completely sidetracked, because one, this table is covered in crap—newspapers, abandoned cups of soured coffee, old guest checks, someone’s dirty apron—and two, I can’t stop thinking about Corey and what I have planned for us later today.

I have made a decision.

A big decision.

An EPIC decision.

I’ve decided… I’m going to let Corey go up my shirt tonight.

!!!!!

I want to see him without a shirt, too. I can feel him through his clothes, and I’m thinking it’s probably pretty fantastic under there. Also, it’s his birthday and the last official weekend of summer. School starts Monday. Bleck.

I actually decided a few days ago that I was ready for more, but I thought I’d wait until his birthday and make it a sort of bonus gift. It’s been, what, two and a half months that we’ve been dating? He’s been a real champ about our PG-13, fully-clothed make-out sessions, but it’s time for an upgrade. Plus, I’ve gained seven pounds back, and at least five of them are in my boobs. He’ll be thrilled.