Drain You (12 page)

Afterward I wandered into Morgan’s room and found him lying on his bed, still shirtless, with a game control in his hands. He paused the game as I came into the doorway.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Playing Super Metroid.”

“Bo-ring.”

“Not even.”

“Thanks for the Band-Aids. I’m all better now.”

“You still look like you’re going to cry.”

“Morgan.”

“You can totally stay here and hang out. Or you can take a nap if you want.”

Sleep sounded like heaven, but I hesitated. Morgan’s bed was small, like a kid’s bed. Two people might fit on it but not without a lot of contact. In the moment, though, it was hard to resist. I knew for Morgan’s sake, for the sake of our friendship and our communal sanity, that I needed to be careful about this kind of stuff. But a stronger part of me just wanted to crawl into a bed and close my eyes. I couldn’t calculate all the varying degrees of potential hurt in this situation. I was exhausted and I was lonely. I took out my ponytail, kicked off my high-tops, and spread myself across his ratty old comforter. For just one slight moment he rested his cheek on my hair, then leaned back up. I looked down at the carpet—not an option. I scootched to the extreme right side of the mattress, lying on my side with one leg dangling over the edge. Totally platonic blissful nontouching discomfort. My eyelids fluttered open and shut, revealing flashes of his Green Day poster, then darkness, then
Dookie
poster, then more dark. He left one arm wedged between us and, with the controller in his other hand, unpaused the TV screen.

“I’m going to play Super Nintendo while you nap. Does it bother you?”

I tried to vaguely nod but disappeared into sleep before I could answer.

I didn’t dream of anything. Just like the last five days, my eyes opened to a dull gray haze and closed to an infinite black field. I had lost James and would only continue to lose him—the shape of him, the look of him, the feel of him—until he came back. If he came back.

When I drifted awake, Morgan’s arm was now cradled around me, some robotic bleeps zinging faintly in the background. I realized from the way his arm was pinned under me, cushioning me, that he was playing his video game with one hand. The gesture felt so sweet, almost noble. I kept my eyes shut.

I tried to imagine what it was like for a human when I showed up unannounced at their house with cuts and scrapes and bloodstains on my clothes. Here I was, wounded and covered in bandages, literally lying in Morgan’s lap, and he just went right along playing video games, unfazed and undisturbed. I’d never appreciated this before. I liked humans. They could be so chill.

I pretended to sleep for another few minutes. Morgan’s arm smelled good, summery, a mix of chlorine and sweat and a combination of other earthy boy odors. The top part of my exposed shoulder was up against his bare chest,
where I could feel his bony ribs. This wasn’t the closest we’d ever gotten physically—there’d been numerous hugs, a couple of failed kiss attempts, and a smattering of other short but specific embraces—but it felt like the closest. At least, the least weird.

Then, probably because his arm had fallen asleep, Morgan shifted his body a little and slumped lower, leaning in toward me. The sudden accidental intimacy hit me with a wave: My loneliness was too deep to fight. I wanted everything I shouldn’t. I wanted him to drape his body around the shape of mine, wrap me in his arms, bury his face in my hair, show me love. Right then, maybe for the first time, I needed him more than he needed me.

Before Morgan knew what hit him, I hit him. I rolled over and twisted on top of his body. He dropped the controller. I looked down at him, through him, careful not to focus too deeply on his eyes. I didn’t want to detect lust or fear or love or disgust, and I tried not to think about what he saw in mine. I held his hands up to my face and winced as his fingers brushed my wounds. Then I moved his hands down my neck, over the outside of my gray tank top, around my hips, the contours of my body. At first they felt like Morgan’s hands, then they became someone else’s. I closed my eyes and connected with the sensation. Warm human hands. A heartbeat. Teenage nervousness. It was better than being alone. Period.

But suddenly Morgan breathed heavier and flipped me over so that his body was on top. He moved in to kiss me but then froze. “I’m not going to stop this,” he said. “Even if I’m not sure you want to, I want to, so I’m going to.”

His voice cut through my fantasy and I looked at him, really looked at him. He was Morgan.

“Okay, now I’m going to cry,” I mumbled.

“Happy tears, or…?” His voice trailed off.

I covered my face with my hands.

Morgan pulled himself off me, collapsed on his back, and stared at the ceiling. Then he laughed. It sounded distant, kind of scary.

The Nintendo music kept playing along quietly.

“What’s funny is I’m not even pissed. It’s classic Quinn déjà vu. You’re, like, so predictable.”

“You’re mad at me.”

“Get over yourself.” Morgan got up abruptly and left the room.

I grabbed my shoes and went down the hallway, through the living room, kitchen, out the back door, to the pool. Morgan was there, by the edge. The sun was just as high in the sky as it had been earlier; it was still scorching.

“Morgan, stop. Wait. I want to say something.”

“No,” he said forcefully, then turned and dove into
the deep end. He swam back and forth several times, the entire length of the pool, coming up for breath only once or twice a lap.

“It’s been bad the past few days,” I shouted at the water. “It’s been the worst. I won’t go into it, but still. This is the best I’ve felt. I don’t know. You were right, we are evolved.”

Still swimming, Morgan lifted his arm out of the water and flipped me off.

“Whatever, okay, I deserve that,” I continued shouting. “Morgan, damn it, please listen!”

I stepped forward to the edge of the pool and dropped myself down into the water. I sank lower and lower, till I was sitting on the bottom. When I opened my eyes underwater, I saw that my Band-Aids were peeling off and floating away.

I also saw Morgan stop his laps, swim over in my direction, and grab me by the shirt, dragging me toward the shallow end. I didn’t resist.

Then my head was above the water and I was gasping for air. Morgan shoved me down onto the pool steps.

“Shake it off, dude, and go home,” he said blankly.

Now I was panting for breath, soaked, wearing all my clothes. My scrapes stung from the chlorine.

I opened my mouth to speak, but Morgan interrupted. “Leave it alone, Quinn. For once just drop it.”

I climbed out of the pool, my shorts and shirt and high-tops sopping and heavy, and stared up at the sun. I dared myself to think it: I wished I were a vampire. I wished I weren’t human. Then I’d be asleep right now and none of this day would’ve ever even happened. And if it was happening, then the sunlight would hit my skin and I’d burst into flames, become ashes, become nothing at all.

“See you next time we do this,” Morgan said finally, then swam back into the pool and resumed his laps.

I kept staring up at the sun until my retinas felt like they were on fire. Then I lowered my eyes and let the red dots and color trails dissolve into Morgan’s backstroke.

Under the diving board, barely noticeable to anyone who wasn’t looking for it, I saw a soggy white piece of paper floating gently just below the surface of the water. My pocket was empty. My heart was emptier.

Boiling hot—like a
hundred and ten or something—in the valley, on Sherman Way, at Follow Your Heart, waiting for my mother to buy her stupid low-fat whatevers. I looked around at all the granola dorks and hippies and New Agers, and they looked happy. Some of them even seemed to be glowing slightly. They glew.

I myself was a shade past waxen as I followed my mother sluggishly around the store, numbly drinking from a Diet Coke can. Clearly I didn’t have the glow. Deal with it.

“Try to enjoy yourself,” my mother called back at me from the whole wheat pasta section. “You’ll be dead one day, and then what will you think of this moment?”

“Nothing. I’ll be dead. I won’t be thinking anything.”

“This routine may work on your father, but not on
me.” She read the label on a soy-cheesy snack thing and threw it into the cart. “So you can just go on acting like a five-year-old. Look around, no one’s paying attention. No one cares.”

“Yeah, I know no one cares.”

People
were
paying attention, though. If I remembered correctly, I was wearing a baggy Butthole Surfers T-shirt over barely visible cutoffs and a metric ton of black eyeliner. Then there were the bandages up and down my arms and legs, my scuffed-up face, and the aforementioned Diet Coke. I wasn’t exactly, like, blending in.

“That’s right. Just keep that sour puss on for days, doesn’t bother me.”

“Mom, that’s so, like, transparent. And ‘sour puss?’ Are you serious?” In plain view of her, a shelf-stocking dude, and some other stupid healthy glowing patron, I ditched my empty soda can right between some vitamin bottles of B12 and B complex.

“Make fun of your mother. Very ‘cool’ of you.”

I missed the handwritten notes. Sweet niblets, bring the notes back.

“Bonnie, chill out.”

That did it. First names. She banished me to the Lex.

Back in the car, the sun had turned the interior into a volcano. The tan leather upholstery felt white-hot against the exposed skin on my legs. I sprawled across
the backseat, letting the backs of my thighs, knees, and calves get bright red and sticky. I could barely breathe, the air was so stuffy and sweltering, the sun burning down through the window directly onto my face. It was like a disgusting sauna. I felt very physical pain. It was awesome.

When the pain finally faded to a distant ache and my body was drenched in a protective layer of sweat, I let my eyes sink closed and just drifted. It was that special almost-sleep of blazing summertime afternoons. I was dimly awake enough to guide my thoughts but too out of it to be fully in control of the outcome. So my thoughts went straight to James. Duh. Obviously.

That night I fell, coming home from Libby’s. Out of the shadows, out of some dark canyon ravine, James walks toward me. He moves fast, determined, his eyes more piercing than usual, vague bloodlust in them. I scream out into the blackness for help, but suddenly James is inches from my bleeding face. I sink into him defenselessly, go weak in his arms, an invalid, already dead, waiting for his awesome kiss. He leans in, licks my tongue, the outside of my lips. His tongue runs over some of the blood running down from my nose, and his whole body ripples with pleasure. I stay silent, dipping my head back as James sucks softly on my collarbone, my neck. Then I feel the bite. The slow, deep sucking. And then it’s my body rippling, jerking, pulsing. My
eyes roll back in my head, and I feel him gently lowering me to the ground. I lie there paralyzed. Ecstatic.

Imagining all this, him, the night, the encounter, I rubbed my hand over the outside of my shorts. I pictured us together on that dark canyon road. In that small, cramped walk-in. Together. I died each death with pleasure, in pleasure. I told James to take it slow, wanting him to indulge in me, but I couldn’t savor the moment enough. I couldn’t hold on to the bliss.

Then there were voices in the parking lot, people talking, the rattling of a shopping cart’s wheels on concrete. I sat up. A car reversed out of its parking space and drove away down the alley. I pulled at the seat belts next to me, curled forward, wet and sticky and red all over, and wept into my lap.

Then just as quickly as I was crying, I was wiping the tears away with the back of my scraped-up, bruised hands. I was losing my mind, or had lost it several times over. I had to get home. To bed, to the pool, to my parents, it didn’t matter.

I smoothed the hair around my face and prepared myself to reenter the store and find my mother. I reached for the door handle and instinctively looked up. There, peering down at me through the window with a look that read “concerned on the verge of panic,” was James. James the cyclist.

He knocked on the glass and said, “Are you okay?”

I shook my head no.

He put a hand against the window, his big palm facing me. “Do you know who I am?”

I inhaled, exhaled. I pressed my hand against his, through the glass, thinking. Sunlight. Daytime. Freckles and a tan. Eyeglasses. Yes, I nodded. I know who you are.

I rolled down the window and looked at him some more. The sun was shining down from above and behind him, ringing him in a weird halo. He folded his arms against the window frame and leaned in.

“Hey. You were crying.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I wasn’t following you. I saw you inside and heard your mother say your name. I’ve heard about you,” he said. “I could sort of guess at what you looked like.”

“Okay. Sounds like you were following me, though.”

He frowned, then smiled; it was a pretty great smile. “Well, I wasn’t.”

“Okay.”

“Want to go get a milkshake?”

“What?” I asked. “No.” But a milkshake sounded so, so, so good.

“Come on. Tell your mom you have a friend. She’ll be happy.”

“Why, because I don’t have any friends?”

“Because you’re in the parking lot crying.”

“So?”

“So come have a milkshake with me instead.” When I didn’t react, he said, “Milkshakes, mmm.”

“I’m not a five-year-old.”

“Just come.”

What was I fighting? I got out of the Lexus, exhausted, feeling faint.

He reached out and held me by the arm. “Hey, you don’t look so hot.”

“Well, I am. I’m really, really hot. It’s way hot outside.”

Then he reached into his pocket, pulled out a pen and piece of paper, scrawled on it very quickly
OUT WITH FRIEND HOME SOON I LOVE YOU QUINN
, and shoved it under the windshield wipers.

“That’s not even close to my handwriting. I’d never write that either.”

“You aren’t the precious little daffodil I was expecting.”

I hung my head down and slouched. Don’t I know it.

“Deal with it,” I whispered to the ground. I felt only slightly more insane than usual as I followed Whitley Sheets to his car.

I stared at the awkward, greasy waiter in a paper hat taking our order. He scribbled in his book, said, “Two black and whites, okeydoke,” then skipped off.

“You took me to Mel’s Drive-In?” I glanced around, scowling at the retro kitsch everywhere. “They have a doo-wop jukebox, it’s a joke.”

“No way, girls love this! Don’t you come here with all your friends and listen to tunes and just laugh and laugh until the end of time?” Whit was already making fun of me. “They have good milkshakes. We can get ours to go, okay?”

“Fine. What’s a black and white, anyway?”

“It’s got vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup.”

“Weird.”

“You’re going to love it. You’re going to shut up and love it.”

I watched Whit as he watched me, and there was one thing I couldn’t deny: Whit was way cute. Handsome even. He had messy hair, short on the sides and kind of wavy and piled up on the top. His face was freckly in a nice way, kind of tan, and he wore cool tortoiseshell glasses. He also had on a really light plaid men’s button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and just enough buttons undone so you could see where a small gold chain with a crucifix hung around his neck. Dark denim shorts were cuffed just above the knees with a soft navy L.A. Dodgers hat hanging out the back pocket. And there were those nasty beat-up Converses I knew too well.

“Can we get serious for a sec?” I asked.

“But we’re having so much lighthearted fun.” The coy, semi-mean-spirited picking-on-me thing was already working.

“You followed me. So you were looking for me?”

“I was somewhat, vaguely, very lazily looking for you, yes.” He nodded.

“Why? I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t do anything crazy”—I thought about that one for a second—“I’m not like that.”

“I had to make sure. And also I wanted to make sure you were okay. I was worried that you might be, like, really scared. Or sad or something.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“So?”

“So worrying about me is, like, pointless. Worry about…Naomi.”

“She’s fine. But clearly you’re not.”

“Clearly?” Whit came on strong.

“You weren’t hotboxing in that car, you were crying. Which means you’re sad. And maybe a little goth, which I can get into.”

I looked up at him. He reached a hand across the table to me, warmly.

“Hence awesome milkshakes, hence awesome newly forming friendship.” He pointed to himself, then me, then back to himself. Us. He wanted
us
to be friends.

“You just want to be sure I won’t tell anyone anything, but I won’t. I already promised, so you don’t have to pretend like you want to be friends with me.”

“Fine. I won’t pretend.”

“Good.” Wow, I really wasn’t a daffodil. I was one of those pointy, scratchy balls that gets stuck on your socks. I was a burr. Those sucked.

“Can I hang out with you anyway?” Whit looked unembarrassed to ask. “I haven’t had friends in L.A. for a couple years, and Naomi isn’t in the hanging-out mood. So I’m pathetic, you’re cool, I’m begging you, please be my friend. You can even fake it if you want. I have no pride. But I don’t have anything to do out here. I’ve been back less than a week and I’m already bored out of my mind.”

“Oh, in that case.”

“And, of course, I obviously have to keep an eye on you so you don’t ruin the lives of all my family members. Loads of fun to be had.”

“Then I should let you know up front that boring’s kind of my thing.”

“I’m not bored now,” Whit said, feigning a yawn.

“Why won’t Naomi hang out with you?”

“She’s pissed. I wasn’t there, but I think…you guys did something to piss her off?”

“Ha, ha. Cute.”

Calling James and me “you guys” was like the most
random, abnormal thing I could imagine. “You guys” made us sound like buddies, like just a couple of coolies hanging out, like two humans. As the middle child of the Laurel Canyon Addams family, Whit was surprisingly chill on the subject of ampire-vays.

“But even if we did piss her off, you didn’t.”

“Yeah, I tried that one. Not working.”

Our phony fifties geek came back with the black and whites in two Mel’s to-go cups. Whit pushed a milkshake directly under my chin and nodded enthusiastically. I rolled my eyes. He paid the bill. He opened the door for me, and we walked across the parking lot to his car.

“Did they have Styrofoam in the fifties?” I asked, holding my cup up for further carbon-dating inspection.

“Has anyone ever told you how adorable you are?”

“No one has ever, ever told me that.”

We just sat in his car in the parking lot, not really staying, not really leaving, not even drinking our milkshakes—which were, as Whit had promised, totally rad-tasting. Then he turned to me, suddenly serious, staring at me in a way that made me sink back against my seat.

“Well. You are.” He started the car and drove me wherever.

Later, sitting in his parked Camry in front of my house with the windows rolled down and a light breeze tossing
through the canyons, I felt kind of okay. We didn’t say anything on the drive home from Mel’s, but it wasn’t tense, just quiet. In one afternoon we already weren’t strangers, we weren’t really friends yet, just weird knowers of each other’s secret stuff. I didn’t want to get out of the car. He didn’t seem to want to make me. We sat together finishing off our milkshakes in silence.

“So.” I cleared my throat and tapped my empty cup against the dash. “You’re in college.”

“Sort of.”

“What’s sort of in college? Community college?”

“No,” he said, nudging my shoulder. “I dropped out of Brown. Just haven’t told my parents yet.”

“Does anyone in your family tell the truth? You’re like the Olympians of lies.”

“Gold medalists in freestyle withholding.”

“Silver in men’s false pretense.” I held back a smile.

“We would have gotten the gold for that, but someone had to open his big fangs.”

I stared at Whit, frozen.

“Quinn.” He reached out and held one of my wrists. “It’s a joke.” He sighed and said, “Maybe you are as fragile as a flower.” Then he looked down at the scrapes of dried blood where he held on to my arm. “What happened?”

“I was being an idiot.”

“Idiot how?”

“I was chasing after you—” I stopped, shaking my head at the memory. “Yesterday, on Lookout Mountain, riding your bike. I thought you were him.”

“During the day?”

“I know.”

“That should’ve been your first clue.”

“I know.” Joking about James didn’t work. Even the humor hurt too much. I swallowed hard. “Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know.” Whit looked at me; we looked at each other. “Probably.”

He took our empty cups and threw them into the backseat, then slumped down behind the wheel and turned his face away from me, toward something out the window. The breeze ruffled his hair a little. I would’ve guessed he was nineteen, but everyone sexy in these hills was a weirder age than they looked.

“Well, do you know what happened? Why James left? Did he tell you?” I stared out my own window.

“No, he didn’t tell me anything.” Whit thought for a second, then said, “Well, he told me to take care of you.”

Even with my head turned I could feel Whit eying my bandages. “I said I fell.”

He shrugged.

“Chasing
you
. So if anything, this is your fault.” I turned back to meet his eyes.