Cream of the Crop (18 page)

The first time he let me put my mouth on him, he told me how perfect I looked on my knees, and that he was so very glad that I'd never done this before, because he wouldn't have any bad habits to break. And for fuck's sake, he wasn't an ear of corn, to control my teeth and the urge to not gobble like I hadn't eaten in a month, which of course would never happen to someone like me.

The first time he was inside of me it didn't matter if it hurt, because that's what love was, it was supposed to hurt a little so that you knew it was true and real and worth having, and that don't worry, it will get better, and if I could figure out how to finally have an orgasm like regular girls, it wouldn't be something I'd have to think about anymore.

Looking back now, how fucking stupid was I not to see what was going on? But when you were in it, you didn't know it, and when your life had finally started to happen, it didn't matter what else you were giving up for that life. It only mattered that you were special—to someone—and that you were very lucky indeed to have that someone. And everything else should just fade away and become background noise.

Background noise like prom, which I could have finally gone to because, hello, boyfriend! But, hello, college guy, and why the hell would he go to some stupid high school prom with other stupid uppity rich kids?

Background noise like college essays, because even though I'd been preaccepted, I still had to go through the formality of being actually accepted into the schools I'd been dreaming of attending since I was in junior high and beginning to plan out my life carefully and methodically.

Background noise like my high school paper, of which I'd
been the editor, but now was lucky to get an article in every other month

 . . . like my brother's birthday

 . . . like my parents' anniversary

 . . . like my graduation.

I missed my high school graduation, spending it naked on a mattress on my hands and knees, getting fucked in the ass by someone who told me I would absolutely love it, and if I didn't, then there must be more wrong with me than he originally thought, and that it was only because he loved me so much that he hadn't dumped me weeks ago.

If someone had told me that I would have moved out of my parents' home to go and live in a fourth-floor walk-up in the Bronx with my boyfriend, to say fuck off to my mother when she told me this was a terrible mistake, and tell my father he was an asshole when he told me college was off the table if I did this, I'd have said they were nuts.

And yet that September, when everyone I'd known since elementary school was off at Brown and Wellesley, I was standing in front of a two-burner stove, trying like hell not to burn toast because I'd never hear the end of it, wearing nothing but a plaid skirt and bra because that's how he liked me best, and wondering how much it would cost to get a new air-conditioning unit for this piece-of-crap apartment, because ours had died last night and it was
stifling
hot.

I'd never spent August in the city. We had a house in Bridgehampton, natch. I'm not trying to play poor little rich girl, but the city was murder in the heat. And the excitement of walking away from my life to play house with Thomas was beginning to wear a little thin.

What wasn't thin was my body, something that was the center of almost every conversation I had with him. Where he used
to tell me how much he loved my curves, he now told me how flabby I'd gotten, and how much everything jiggled when he was pounding into me. Which was almost every night, and every day, pounding and thrusting and thrashing and hair pulling and
get up on top like this
and
arch your back like that
and
why the hell can't you figure this out for God
'
s sake why do I have to do everything
?

I'd been picked
on,
but I'd never been picked
apart
like this. Not by someone with love in their words, but not in their heart. I was beginning to see some cracks in his charm, in his words, in the promise of what it would be like, could be like, when it was just the two of us against the world.

Any hope he might have had of working for my father someday was gone the second my grades went in the toilet. And any hope he might have had of building great things, huge things, in the city where my father knew literally everyone at every architectural firm, every construction company, every everything that had to do with building in this incredible city of architectural beauty, was gone the second I missed my father's fiftieth birthday party to bring my boyfriend chicken soup because he was feeling under the weather, and I thought that was more important than anything.

And with his world beginning to crumble when his thesis fell apart and his advisor told him he was way off base and in danger of not getting his master's,
my
world was going to shit right along with it.

The veiled hints that I might stand to drop a few pounds here and there had become aggressively rude and crude, with handfuls of fat grabbed during angry sex. Red fingerprints on white skin that folded and crumpled when forced to sit naked, hunched over in order to see just how many rolls there were.

Do I really think that when he saw me across the street, those many months ago, that this was his plan? Maybe not. Regardless, he very likely already knew what he'd be able to get away with, considering who I was back then.

When I saw my mother for the first time since I'd moved out, she burst into tears. I couldn't cry, and not just because I was emotionally shut down, but because I literally didn't have enough water in my body to do so. I'd lost sixty pounds in four months, and was so exhausted I could barely meet her eyes.

I'd gone shopping downtown, taking the subway when Thomas was teaching his undergraduate class one afternoon and I actually had some time to myself. He was home so much more than he used to be, not making all of his lectures for some time now, staying in, with me. For the first time in a long while, I was alone, out and about, actually feeling myself relaxing for a change—coupled with exhaustion. And then she saw me, and I could see on her face just how bad I looked.

If you lose that amount of weight in that short a time, there's a slackness to the skin, a person within a person, almost. But factor in the stress, the lack of laughter, my poor health and well-being, and I knew I didn't look myself.

I let her take me home. I let her wash my face. I let her talk on and on about how much she missed me, how much she worried about me, how many times she'd tried to call me but Thomas told her I was busy. But when she tried to make me a sandwich and put some cookies on a tray, I left.

And went back to the Bronx, where Thomas was waiting for me, wondering why in the world I'd been gone so long, and shouldn't I have put on some lipstick if I was going out?

But something happened that day—even though I didn't realize it at the time. Just being in my home, with my mother,
had opened the tiniest sliver of a door. She'd wept when she saw me, and she'd wept when I'd left, but she was so grateful to have seen my face, even though it was too thin and sad-looking. She was
happy
to see my face.

And Thomas? He was never happy. He used to laugh, make jokes, and tell funny stories—but that night, as I lay next to him in that fourth-floor walk-up studio where our bed was a mattress on the floor, I realized that his humor always had a slant to it, a dark edge or a mean vibe.

He never thought anything good about anything. There was always an angle, someone wanted something from him, or someone was going to try to screw him over for something, or he wasn't going to be able to get something done because someone always had something more. More money, more power, more connections. Stripped down to the naked truth, he was mean.

I used to think abuse was someone getting hit.

Now I know it's anything that makes you double over with pain, that makes you question anything and everything about yourself that you knew to be true. It's anything that tells you that you're only good
if
 . . .

I felt a drop of water splash onto the back of my hand, and I realized that while telling this story, which I rarely shared with anyone, my eyes had filled with tears. Shocked, I looked up to see Chad and Logan watching me, their own eyes filled with sympathy.

“I'm so sorry.” I sniffed, snatching up a napkin and wiping my face. “I don't know what happened there. Truly, I didn't mean to go on so.”

“You didn't go on, it was—”

“Seriously, I'm so sorry, I never talk about that stuff, it's ancient history.” I hurried on, dabbing at my nose, horrified to find that it was running. What the hell was I doing, spilling my guts to two men I just met?

“Natalie.” Logan covered my hand with his. “Stop.”

I looked up at him through still-teary eyes, shaking my head. “I should have never—”

“Shut the hell up and let two gorgeous men hug you,” Chad interrupted, no nonsense. Surprised, I laughed, still wiping my face and knowing I must look a fright.

But I let them hug me. And I realized that sometimes strangers can make for the best company ever.

When Chad and Logan dropped me off at Roxie's a while later, I felt wiped out. Emotionally drained. Wasted.

I hated revisiting that stuff, so I don't know why it all came out today in a blubbery mess in front of two people I barely knew.

I thought about Thomas from time to time, of course. Not intentionally, but sometimes he'd flash across my brain when something about old New York architecture would come up, or someone would be talking about their dissertation.

Or the time I was sitting in a booth behind some couple and the guy started telling the girl that she'd had enough to eat and she shouldn't get dessert, and by the way my mother is coming over for dinner next weekend and don't you think it's time you learned how to make a decent coffee cake?

That time was bad. I had to leave the table to hide out in the bathroom for a few minutes while I got the shaking under
control, and then I had to leave the restaurant entirely when I poured a pitcher of water over that asshole's head and was asked to leave by the manager.

But not before I gave the girl all the cash I had in my wallet and my card, and told her to call me if she needed a place to stay for the night.

She never called. I knew she wouldn't. But I was glad I gave it to her.

I stood outside on Roxie's porch now, watching the taillights of Chad's car disappear into the early evening, and took a moment to banish all bad thoughts from my head. I was good at it by now; visualization was the key. I could take about ten deep, cleansing breaths, visualize Thomas's rotten stupid stinking face, and poof! Gone.

I took the breaths. Poof. I opened the front door and let myself in.

“Yo. Rox,” I called out, climbing the stairs two at a time. All bad thoughts gone, I was already moving on to the night ahead and seeing my best friend.

She was just emerging from the bathroom clad in a towel, with a plume of steam following her. “Hey, girl, thanks for understanding about tonight. Sorry you had to take a cab over.”

“No worries; what happened? Your texts were strange, to say the least. Something about wedding velvet?”

“Kind of. If I didn't think saying the phrase
there was a cake emergency
sounded as ridiculous as I think it does, I'd tell you about how my afternoon went.”

“There was an actual cake emergency?”

She nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Oleson's fiftieth wedding anniversary. She always bakes for him—has baked for him each anniversary for the other forty-nine. But this afternoon her oven
quit on her and she needed a red velvet cake like they had on their wedding day. What was I going to do?”

“You're a good egg, Roxie. You're also dripping, by the way.”

She looked down at the puddle that was forming and headed into her bedroom. “Come in, I just need to dry my hair and I'll be ready to hit the town!”