“Please, don’t go,” I said, patting the bed beside me.“Stay with me.Talk to me.”
Her brow knitted into a creased triangle, the same face she made anytime she worked through a complicated puzzle.“We can’t be friends like this.”
“You’re not my friend anymore?”I said the words slowly, afraid that at any moment, I’d push her over the edge.That she’d run.“I don’t follow.”
She huffed, nibbling on her fingers.
“Take a few breaths.Help me understand.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” she tried in a scoff.“Only that… the line is crossed, and we can’t go back, and we can’t move forward, either.We’re at an impasse.”
“Why can’t we move forward?”I asked calmly.I needed her not to bolt.To stay.“I mean, slowly.Together.As a couple?”
She sighed.“That’s what I mean, Henry.I’m not the marrying type.”
Before I could utter, “Who’s talking about marriage?”she was out the window, long blond waves wild behind her as she raced for our path.
I’d known Venus for ten years by then, knew her better than anyone.I knew that when it came to feelings, she preferred flight over fight—emotions made her run.
But that was the first time I understood that her flight tendency even applied to me.
The wordneverreverberated in her wake.I never do anything wrong.It hurt that she used an absolute on me.Venus rarely operated in absolutes.She referred to them as verbal traps, intended to declare something that, more than likely, cannot be proven and will, in fact, be disproven in a blink.Absolutes are abso-don’ts, she’d say when she felt playful.But this wasn’t playful.Ineverdo anything wrong.
Then, I did something very wrong.
In the weeks that followed, it felt like Venus had abandoned me.School interactions were met with coldness, and each time I visited or asked to hang out, she’d be politely but sternly busy.
So, when I got drunk for the first time at my friend Brock’s place, I did the unthinkable—I told him what happened with Vee.
Then, he told everyone else.
It was a fucking nightmare.I was pissed at myself for betraying her this way, pissed at everyone for repeating it.I imagined her hating me.She should’ve hated me.
I wanted to apologize.I found her in the greenhouse, amid the trickling bogs, on her knees as she yanked dead weeds from an overgrown flower bed—our bed, which made me feel worse.Her long, dirty blonde hair was tied with a red scarf, one of Mom’s hand-me-downs, into a messy bun on her head with strands dangling down on her bare shoulders.She wore garden gloves, rubber boots, crossed at her ankles, and denim overalls.She spotted me out of the corner of her eye when the door thwacked shut behind me.But she didn’t react, except with her typical greeting of, “Hello, Henry.”
“I need to talk to you.It’s important.”
She stood, brushed herself off, and put her hands on her hips.“What is it?”
“I told Brock—from school, the basketball team,” I clarified, “what happened with us… that night… in my bedroom.I was drunk and, I don’t know, still confused about it, I guess.Anyway, he told other people, though I told him not to, and now, a lot of people know.I’m so fucking sorry, Vee.I messed up, and I’m desperately sorry.”
“Your apology is unnecessary,” she said, sounding unbothered.
“I did something wrong, something awful.I’ve ruined your… reputation.”
She let out a boisterous laugh.Her arms folded over her chest, and her head tilted at me.“Yesterday, one of Ivy’s friends told me that I was Dr.Blake’strial runbefore he got it right with her and that it was a shame he couldn’t send me back like a bad meal at a restaurant.Then, while hiding in the teacher’s lounge closet to finish my lunch in peace, I overheard Mr.Henderson report that theBad Blakecaused his angina—a statement that I’m sure can’t be corroborated by his doctor.That was before I was sent to the guidance counselor for having theaudacityto question the real-world relevance of iambic pentameter, which apparently makes me belligerent.Do you honestly believe that I care what any of them think of me, Henry?”
I didn’t know what to say.I’d always known that school was tough for her.But hearing a list of indignities from asingleday made me realize how much she didn’t tell me—that every day was a shit day for her.
No wonder she came to me that night.The dread she must have felt over starting a new year and going through the torture all over again must’ve been terrible.And I made it worse.
Some friend I was.
There, in the greenhouse, she held up a finger, like a lightbulb had just blinked in her head.“Ah, I see it now… that’s why everyone’s calling me Flytrap all of a sudden.”Her awkward, bleating laugh rumbled out.“Fly, as in Venus flytrap, and fly as in getting into the fly of your pants—double meaning.I get it.”
“It’s not funny, Venus,” was all I could think of to say.
“I don’t care what they think of me, Henry.I don’t care what they call me.I.Don’t.Care.”
