Well, I’m his, and he’s not with anyone else, and that’s the same thing, really.
“I’m relaxed,” I insist.
“Is this about Becky? What she said?”
I feel my body stiffen at the mere mention of her, picturing her stupid face and her new burned-toast glow. She’s still furious that she tanned that dark and that streaky. She swears up and down that someone switched her tan out for the wrong color in her gym bag, but I don’t know who’d be dumb enough to risk her going off on them.
“Because I thought it was really out of line,” he continues. “I can’t believe people still say stuff like that. I mean—”
“It’s fine.”
“You know I’m not with you just ’cause you’re Black, though, right? I mean, you don’t even look it.”
I’m dumb enough at this age not to catch the insult.
“Really, Marc. I’m fine. Like, I’m not even thinking about that. Come here.” I tug on his shirt to bring him close to me again. The material feels good beneath my fingers. Thick, good quality, like the shirts Dad used to wear to work when he still had a job. They’re in a box somewhere in the attic now. I found a load one day, and Mom caught mesniffing at them to see if there was any of him left in the fibers. She totally freaked out. They’re probably still there, getting dusty and damp.
Marc’s lips are on mine again, and I try to stop thinking about Dad. It turns out it’s not too hard. Marc tends to transform into Tentacle Boy when we kiss, his hands going everywhere. It’s a lot. You know, the sort of jabby, windshield-wiper tongue action. I used to think it was because I got him so excited, but now I sort of think that he just doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Speaking of not knowing what he’s doing, and speaking of jabby, his hand is now in my underwear doing something I imagine is meant to feel good but feels incredibly uncomfortable. I want to tell him to stop, but I don’t want him to pull away again. That feeling changes when I hear his zip come down.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
He pulls out a shiny packet from his pocket and grins. The cocktail of Pimm’s, whisky, vodka, and gin churns in my stomach. I’m beginning to think Emily’s idea of taking a little off the top of each bottle in her parents’ liquor cabinet wasn’t such a smart one after all.
“Here?” I ask, not quite believing it. “Now?”
The excitement in his eyes is snuffed out. “Look, Natalie, you know I’m not gonna make you do anything you don’t want to do.” It doesn’t sound comforting. “I think, maybe, though, I got this wrong, like…I dunno. I just thought you and me made more sense than maybe we really do. And it’s not what Becky said. I guess, maybe, you’re just a bit too…too uptight for me.”
It’s a strange sort of feeling, but it’s almost like halfway through the dumping, I stepped out of myself, and now I’m watching this happen to someone else from a dark corner of the classroom. It’s easier to do that sometimes; disappear while someone is trying to hurt you. Youcan’t feel the blows land if you’re not really in your body. Another choice life lesson.
I want to tell Marc he’s wrong. I want to show him I’m not a silly kid. I want to prove to the other girls that not only can I take Marc Baxter, I can keep him, too. But before I can get a word out, he’s already edging away from me.
“I’m sorry, Natalie. To do it like this, I mean. Here. I just—you know…”
I don’t know. Prick.
“I guess I’ll just—” And the coward doesn’t even finish the sentence. He just slinks off.
Perhaps if that’d been it, if dumping me at prom was the worst of it, maybe things would have been okay. But that humiliation wasn’t enough for Marc. No. He had to push me further. Had to make things worse.
In the end, I was sorry for what happened next. But Marc was sorrier.
4
Now
James’s sniveling has worn my patience thin. I get to my feet, the imprint of my body still on the covers. The clock tells me I haven’t been lying there, staring at the ceiling, wondering about the disintegration of my marriage, my life, for long. But it has felt like an age. Not quite my life flashing before my eyes, but the life James and I might have shared suddenly bleaching out like film left lying in the sun.
Now I find myself creeping into the corridor. A gentle, rhythmic buzzing hums into the soles of my feet. The party downstairs is too loud. I should do something, turn the music down. The neighbors. We’ve just made nice with them and made this neighborhood feel like our own. It’s wild that we’re even going ahead with this belated housewarming, but when James fled to hide in his parents’ home, I warned him I wouldn’t cancel. He could show up, face me, and save face, or I could tell all our friends what he’d done. At least it sounds like the guests downstairs are having a good time, distracted. No one should disturb us.
When I open the door to our bedroom, I find James curled up in a ball at the foot of the bed, sobbing his little heart out. The tips of hisears have gone pink, and he looks like a little pig awaiting the butcher’s knife. Like he knows just how much danger he’s in. He catches my eye and, well, not quite straightens up, but rocks up into a seated fetal position.
“Please, I just—” He pauses to choke out a sob. “I’m so sorry. I love you. You know that.”
My hands clench into fists and unclench. It feels like a rope is pressing itself against the soft flesh of my neck. When he proposed, he promised that together, we’d forget the ways in which our families have disappointed us. Be each other’s chosen family. But what kind of family would choose this?
“If you loved me,” I say, “then how could you do this to me?”
