“I’ll meet you at the register,” I said, slipping away.
Alone on the hardwood floors under champagne-colored lights, I’ll admit it—I felt slightly glamorous. I couldn’t stop looking at myself in the mirrors. I knew I was pretty. I’d never been one of those angsty girls who needed constant reassurance. When your mom’s skeezy “business partners” hit on you when you’re twelve, you learn fast. I’d been aware of male attention since before menarche. I knew I was desirable. I knew how to wield that as both a tool and a weapon.
I’d never really thought of myself as beautiful, though.
The girl in the mirror was beautiful.
Part of falling in love with someone is actually falling in love with yourself. Realizing that you’re gorgeous, you’re fearless and unpredictable, you’re a firecracker spitting light, entrancing a hundred faces that stare up at you with starry eyes.
The girl in the mirror stared at me. She blinked slowly, knowingly. She seemed to be looking at something bright—chin raised, eyes distanced, guarded. Button nose and full lips. Her mouth was open slightly, a sliver of white visible. She had the kind of effortlessly slender body older women hated her for. Despite what Wesley said, her br**sts were average, even on the small side, but she carried them in a way that made you aware. She carried her whole body that way. Spine straight, each limb flowing loosely and easily. She only had bones when she needed them. Rich chestnut hair spilled over her bare shoulders, an elegant mess.
I looked at her and thought, I don’t know who you are.
A group of girls drifted past, laughing in brazen tones. They smelled like a walking Bath & Body Works ad. They were moisturized and shining and tan, but beneath that was pudginess, acne, bulimia, self-hatred. They were processed. I was natural, uncultured and untamed.
My phone vibrated.
Britt, the girl from history class, asking about our project. After I’d responded and put it away, I still felt it. His number was right there, snug against my ass. Any moment, I could reach out to him, connect. For now it was comforting just knowing it was there. But I knew this kind of comfort wouldn’t last. I’d need more.
Mom didn’t bat an eyelash at the armful of clothes I dumped on the counter. I watched the register tick up, growing increasingly nervous as we hit $100, $150, $200. No way would she go for this. She’d stop the cashier. Oh god, she wasn’t stopping the cashier. There was going to be A Scene.
$242.18.
Mom pulled out a wad of twenties. I tried not to gawk.
One of the laughing bulimic girls watched us leave, her eyes glinting jealously.
I was too stunned to say thank you. I followed Mom to the food court, feeling like a delivery person, about to give this to some kid who really deserved it.
She bought us a huge plate of orange chicken and picked at it, eating like a bird.
My body tensed, expecting a blowup. It couldn’t go this long without turning ugly.
“Want to see a movie?” Mom said.
My mouth dropped. We hadn’t done that since I was little. I cleared my throat, blinked. Something weird was happening in my chest. It was an actual feeling for this woman.
“I’m kind of tired,” I said.
Her eyes widened. She looked like a sad raccoon. Her mascara made spider legs out of her eyelashes.
“Maybe a short one?” I suggested.
I couldn’t believe myself. I knew she was manipulating me. I didn’t know why yet, but I knew better than to buy her shit. Remember what she’s done to you, I thought. Remember those nights she left you alone on the couch with a man who kept saying how pretty you were, who touched you, so she could squeeze more money out of him. Remember her going to jail for possession and sticking you in a group home for three months. Remember she’s the reason you’re so screwed up.
I didn’t remember anything.
I sat with her in the refrigerated theater, smelling her cigarette breath and way-too-young perfume, watching a terrible movie, laughing.
That night, I sprawled on my bed with my ancient laptop, ostensibly researching my history report but actually Googling Mr. Wilke. Not much internet presence. Some placeholder profiles on social networking sites. Some blurry JPEGs. Even those tiny, pixelated images made my heart spin like a top. I saved the best one to my desktop, glancing at it while reading about the Cold War.
Not good. I was becoming obsessed.
New search: Illinois age of consent laws.
We were legal.
That night at the carnival was legal, obviously, and even if it happened now, as teacher and student, when he was in a “position of trust or authority” over me, it would still be legal because the cutoff was seventeen. As an eighteen year old, I could legally f**k my teacher.
Of course, if anyone found out, they’d fire him in a heartbeat. He’d probably never teach again.
Something heavy thudded downstairs.
I put in my earbuds and lay back, eyes closed. The Constellations, “Right Where I Belong.” Mellow and bluesy and bittersweet. Just how I felt.
A tepid breeze ghosted through the room, smelling of grass and dying summer. The cicadas were so loud I heard them through the music, the rattle of a million rainsticks. What are you doing right now? I wondered. What if I called?
Something heavy fell again. My bed vibrated.
I sat up, yanking out my earbuds.
Thump. Thump. Crash.
I stormed downstairs, calling for Mom.
A man stood in our living room. Rangy, gray beard, jeans so oily they looked like leather.
“Your mom had too much to drink,” he said.
Mom was on the floor. He was trying to help her to the sofa.
“Jesus,” I said, kneeling. Her skin was cool to the touch. “She wasn’t drinking. She’s cold. What did she take?”
The man gave me an unreadable look.
“Mom?” I shook her. She was breathing, but shallowly. “Mom, what did you take?”
I thumbed open an eye. Her pupil contracted in the light. She moaned, rolled away from me.
Thank f**king god.
I turned to the man. “Who are you?”
“Paul.”
“Paul,” I said curtly, “carry my mom to bed.”
He carried her, and I held her head up. I pulled the cover over her. Turned on the lamp. Found her cell and pressed it into Paul’s hand.
“You’re going to stay with her until she comes down,” I said. “Check her pulse every ten minutes. If it slows, or she gets colder, or stops breathing, call a f**king ambulance. I can’t do this again.”
Paul had trouble paying attention to my mouth. He stared at my legs like they were talking.
“Hey.” I snapped my fingers.
He looked up.
I took a picture of him with my phone. “Now I’ve got you on file. Don’t f**king leave her until she comes down.”
Paul’s beard twitched.
I shut the bedroom door and leaned my head against the wall in the darkness. My throat twisted shut. Selfish bitch. She had never, ever let me be a kid.
A wedge of hot amber light fell across me. Paul stepped out of the bedroom. For a pathetic second I considered hugging this stranger. I needed to be hugged, by anyone.
Paul put a hand on my back. My shoulders knit. The hand slid down to the top of my ass.
I slammed my elbow into his gut. He gave a small, stifled gasp.
“Touch me again,” I said, “and I’ll f**king kill you.”
I walked fast out of the hall, but once I turned the corner I ran for the front door. Slammed it behind me. Dropped onto the top step, breathing wildly.
God, my life was a f**king joke.
I pulled my phone out, intending to call Wesley, to beg him to meet me somewhere, but before I could a new text popped up.
From Mr. Wilke.
Just a photo, no words. A ribbon of fireflies zigzagging through the night. The fiery spokes of a Ferris wheel. The merry-go-round like a giant music box. Deathsnake, a sinuous line of lights rising into the sky, dropping off into oblivion. It looked like a small galaxy, a fog of colored light hanging around it like a nebula. He’d taken it from his house. The lights he saw every night.
My heart calmed. I stared at the screen, forgetting the life behind me. Wish I was there, I replied.
A moment later, his response: Me too.
Somewhere in the universe, two hearts reached out and connected.
Then a figure stepped into the light streaming from the house, a shadow falling over me.
I leapt up and ran for my bike in the garage. Pedaled furiously down the street to the highway. I headed for the water tower, racing as fast as I could, even when I was alone with the arctic starlight and the wind keening in my ears.
At the reservoir I jumped off my bike, letting it fall. Used my momentum to run up the hill. Breathless, sweaty. My blood sang in my veins at hypersonic speed. I climbed to the crow’s nest, feeling savage. I could kill someone with my bare hands right now.
Wesley sat on the driftwood boards, a point of orange fire frozen beside his face.
“Maise?”
I collapsed beside him, rolling to my back and staring up at the fat-bellied tank. Drank air that tasted like clove smoke.
“What happened to you?”
I waited until I had my breath back. “My mom overdosed.”
“Is she going to live?”
“Unfortunately, yes.” I sat up. “Maybe. I really don’t give a fuck.”
I felt him looking at me. I slid to the edge of the platform, dangling my legs off. Thirty-foot drop to grass and dirt. Probably not fatal.
“What’s your greatest fear?” I said, gripping an iron strut angling overhead.
Wesley exhaled. “Being alone for the rest of my life.”
“That’s a good one.” My fingers flexed. “Mine is being my mom.”
I kicked myself off the platform.
Wesley yelled something. My arms held; I swung out over space, light as air. It seemed I could let go and just float to the ground like ash.
Arms around my waist.
His attempt at “rescuing” me almost resulted in both of us falling. I kept telling him to let go, let go, but he wouldn’t. We toppled backward, his arms still locked around me. I wrestled free.
“Jesus,” I said. “You almost made that a murder-suicide.”
“You’re f**king crazy,” he screamed.
I stared at him.
His cigarette lay smoldering on the boards.
“I’m not like you,” he said. “I don’t want to self-destruct.”
“What?” I said in a soft voice.
“If you want to kill yourself, don’t do it in front of me. Don’t make me try to save you.”
I watched, speechless, as he climbed down the ladder and stalked off through the tall grass.
Then I stood there alone. The cherry still burned. I stubbed it out with my toe and sat down. I felt empty, a sort of diffuse hunger, a gnawing sensation in my belly and lungs and throat.
The world shivered brightly.
Don’t. Don’t f**king cry.
I took my phone out. Lost myself in those lights, the stupid pixels that formed words that meant everything.
From up here I had a view of the carnival, too. I snapped a pic. Mine was farther out, a sprinkle of rainbow glitter. I sent it without a message. His reply, almost instantaneous, was what I’d expected, and I smiled.