“Seventeen?” she guesses.
“Close enough,” I answer. She was twenty.
She opens her mouth to say something but then stops.
I’m watching her closely because my thoughts and words are flowing freely thanks to the vodka and I’m worried this is where the judgment begins. “What?”
“Was it consensual?” she asks quietly like she fears my answer. Like she fears for me. For what I may have been through.
“Yes,” I answer honestly. “The first time she asked me to help her move a big chair she’d bought at Goodwill into her apartment. I did and she kissed me.”
“Was that the only time?” The concerned look is still on her face.
“No. It went on for a few weeks. And then one day she was gone. Evicted. I never saw her again.”
The truth is we had sex the second time I went to her apartment. And many times thereafter. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was illegal on her part. But at the time, it didn’t feel that way. It felt like an escape. It felt good to be needed. To be wanted. To make someone happy. I was always the invisible kid outside our apartment and the focus of my mom’s rage inside it. In Isabelle’s apartment, in her bed, I wasn’t either of those. She saw me and there was no rage.
“Did you love her?” The concern is still there. Not jealousy, just concern.
“No,” I answer without remorse because I didn’t.
“Did she love you?” she asks.
I pause for a few seconds because I’ve never thought about it. “No. I think she was just lonely. Like me.” It’s an alcohol-laced, free-flowing add-on.
She nods in understanding. “Have you ever been in love, Toby?”
Sadly, I don’t have to think the question over before answering. “No. Have you?”
“You mean other than Simon Le Bon?” she teases to lighten the somber mood I’ve draped over us.
I almost laugh. “Yeah, other than the Simon Le Bon lusting phase.”
She shrugs the shoulder that’s free and the quilt moves over it. “I’ve had three boyfriends and each time I thought I was in love. I thought they werethe one,” she sings the words to emphasize how silly the idea was, “and that we would be together forever.”
“What do you think now?” I probe. My inhibitions have been freed; inebriation will do that.
“I think I lent my heart to boys who didn’t know how to treat it or me.” There’s a touch of melancholy in her voice.
“And they returned it to you worse for wear?” I don’t like the thought of Alice being mistreated.
She readjusts and tucks her hands under the pillow to get comfortable, and Alice’s confident side shines bright in the smile that peeks out. “I like to think they returned it to me wiser. Because I know I won’t settle in the future—that I deserve all of the effort, attention, and respect that I show them in return. It’s a two-way street. Love isn’t lopsided. Infatuation is.”
“You deserve all of it,” I tell her. She does.
She pulls a hand from its hiding place under the pillow and rubs my forearm that’s resting on the bed next to her. “I know that now. So do you.”
I change subjects because this one is at an end. “Why don’t you live with your parents? I mean, I know you’re eighteen, but you’re still in school.”
She sighs, but it isn’t irritated, it’s tired like the thought of them drains her. “Do you want the short version or the long version?”
“I’ve got all night,” I tell her. I mean it. I would sit here all night and listen to her talk about anything.
“Where to begin?” she says, mostly to herself as she slips her hand down my forearm and slips her fingers between mine. The gesture isn’t suggestive; it’s friendly. “My parents are divorced. They never really got along. They argued a lot and I don’t ever remember seeing them hug or kiss as a kid. When Taber was in high school, he was kind of a hellion. He partied a lot, and when my mom found weed and pills in his dresser his senior year, she kicked him out. My dad didn’t agree with her parenting and that started World War III. Dad moved out and tried to get Taber into rehab. Taber refused because he wasn’t ready, he hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. Around the time the divorce was finalized I started having problems with my vision. You know how that part of the story goes.
“My dad got a promotion at work and was transferred to their Colorado Springs office where he met Suzanne and remarried. My mom lost her shit and became more tyrannical than before. She forbade Taber from her house and from seeing me, saying he was a bad influence. Of course that didn’t work because we just met up at the mall, or for lunch, or after school. He always kept in touch with me, and even though his life was really messed up, he always looked out for me. I couldn’t go live with my dad because I worried about Taber and didn’t want to be two hours away from him. My mom started taking me to a series of doctors. They all gave the same diagnosis. The same prognosis. She wouldn’t accept it. I saw twenty-four doctors the first year of my diagnosis. So not only was I struggling with losing my sight, I was struggling with my mom’s inability to accept it. To accept me. She obsessed about finding a doctor who could fix me.”
The conversation I overheard makes so much more sense now.
