The Devil You Know (10 page)

So Danny was at this family thing, and still pretty cute. He looked almost exactly the same, just bigger. I felt all embarrassed, like, if I go over and talk to him, will he still think I'm in love with him? So I tried to act cool about it and just kind of smiled at him. Meanwhile, my mother was being a total spaz and telling me to go over. “Go say hi to Danny! You used to tell me you were going to marry him when you grew up!” I wanted to smack her. He came over a bit later while I was putting mustard on my hotdog. He said, “I've got some ciders in my overnight bag. Come on.” So I dumped my Sprite in the grass and went with him and we each drank one really fast in the guest room while he refilled our pop cups. It's not like either of our moms would have noticed anything weird—they were both getting pretty hammered anyway by that time.

We did that twice more, and then he was filling us up one more time and I said, “Did you even have any room left in your bag for clothes?” and he just laughed at me, but a nice laugh, like, you know, I was actually funny. I was glad I had gotten a little bit dressed up that night. I had on my distressed jean skirt and my new black tank top with the lacey straps and my hair was pulled back off my face with a hair band but the rest was still loose.

Later on, when it got dark, most of the old people and the ones with little kids had left and my mom was getting ready to go too. But then Auntie Sheila said Mom was in no condition to drive and we should just stay overnight like Rose's family and we'd all go out for breakfast the next day. Then everyone went inside and watched some stupid video of a trip to Disneyworld, and Danny and me just sat outside, getting bit by mosquitoes and splashing our feet in the pool.

We decided to go for a walk on the golf course and then we sat down under a tree and started kissing. I was stoked to be kissing someone I'd liked for such a long time, even if I had been just a stupid kid. I remembered when he made Tina kiss me and how I was finally getting my wish under the mistletoe. The thing was, he wasn't a very good kisser. His tongue was all big and sloppy, like he'd just kind of unroll into my mouth like a big carpet until I was ready to gag. We were lying down and he put his hand up my skirt and the next thing I know he's on top of me and he's totally going for it, you know? I hoped no one could see us and I tried to be really quiet. It's not like I didn't want to, I just kind of wish I'd had a little more time to think about it. Mostly it just stung, like a rope burn, and it took some trying, to, um, get it in there. But once he did he just went for it for a minute or two and then it was over.

We didn't talk much after that. We walked back to the yard, and I tried to hold his hand, but he pushed it away and looked at me like I was retarded. “What, you want us to get caught?” he said. He did help me pick the grass out of my hair though.

I had to sleep on the pull-out couch in the rec room that night with my mom, which sucked. It sounds stupid, but I was so paranoid that somehow she'd know. I felt so embarrassed the next day I could barely look at anyone, especially Danny. Plus, I had all these grass stains on the back of my skirt. I gave Danny my email at breakfast, but mostly just because Mom told me to.

What I really want to tell you is about how it feels to be entered. What
keeps us going back for it is the ache for it, a kind of sickness that's better
than the cure. The boys are all different, but the ache is always the
same. The urgency shames as much as it thrills.

XIV

Wow, okay. File it under the least romantic thing that's ever happened to me. Well, the first part was fine, but the rest… My boyfriend and I did it in the back seat of his parents' car. He was sixteen and had just gotten his driver's license and I was fourteen. We weren't that far from my parents' house and they were freaking out because I was supposed to be home a couple of hours before and my mother had sent my father out looking for me. So just as we were finishing, I look up to see my father's face peering in the window at us. I screamed it scared me so much. Then I was even more scared, because I thought he might pull us out of the car and kill us. But he just shook his head and walked back to his car and drove away. We cleaned ourselves up and Matt drove me home. He wanted to just drop me off, but I made him go in the house with me.

So that was probably the most awkward conversation I've ever had. My mother kept screaming and being hysterical and my father just stood there looking like he wanted to cry. He didn't really say anything until after Matt went home, and then he just looked at me and said, “You shouldn't even know what it's for except to piss out of.” He said if he ever saw me with that boy again, that he'd take off his belt and beat me. He even took off his big brown belt right there in the living room and shook it in my face. He was crying. He'd never laid a finger on me in my whole life, so when he said that, I knew he was serious. But it didn't stop me. Nothing could stop me once I got going.

That last one was mine.

Pen Pal

A
LOT OF PEOPLE WERE THERE THAT NIGHT, BUT EVERYONE
forgets that now. At first, it was about all six of them, who did what to who. It was a group thing, but two of them took it too far. That other guy was there too, at the end, but he gets up on the stand and cries like a baby and now everyone thinks he's a hero. Now, she is all that people see in their minds: her shadow working alone, her shadow in the patchy light under that bridge, her shadow holding that girl under the water. But how do we know? Maybe that girl was already dead. We don't know. It's just her now, in those newspaper pictures in her turtlenecks and dark coats. In the daylight but still a shadow. Always looking down. You'll never catch her crying.

That's one of the things I like about her. She doesn't give a shit what you think. That, and her dark eyes and her little mouth. She looks like a real Canadian girl to me. Tim Hortons counter, hockey rink, gas station—that kind of girl. I bet she needs a good fuck. Remember, between trials, when she beat up that old lady in the park? She needs a good lay.

She might have gained some weight in the last few years, but it's hard to say. Her shape is hidden under all those dark layers. Her face for sure looks rounder, but that could just be age. Some girls get like that. Her hair is shorter; it stops at her shoulders. I still have the newspaper clippings from before, when it was longer. Those sunny days when she'd walk into the courthouse wearing her cream-coloured sweater and her shiny brown hair would fan out behind her. Like a wind machine was blowing. Cameras going off all around her like she was a movie star.

Just saying her name makes my balls hurt.

That other girl, the one who died, probably didn't deserve it. In the stories I saved, the newspapers talked about what a loser she was. Didn't have many friends, didn't get along with her parents. Her ugly face in the school photo staring out. I cut those pictures out and threw them away, because they made me feel bad. I don't want to think about that.

I've written her letters, not coming on too strong. Just being friendly and asking how she is, stuff like that. I haven't heard anything back yet, but it's okay. Where's she going to go? One day she'll get lonely, and that's when I'll be there. I'll visit her in jail, and she'll meet me and see I'm serious. If I'm allowed, I can even bring some stuff: shampoo and magazines; things girls like. After a while, she'll start calling me her boyfriend. We'll be able to have those visits in the trailer. I imagine her in her bra and panties, her thin lips glossy and smiling. She's ready for me. She's been waiting for this for a long time.

Every time we do it, she wants to be on top. I'm okay with that. I like to just lie there and look at her while she rides me. But sometimes, when I'm close, she puts her hands around my throat and her eyes get squinty and I haven't breathed in what seems like a long time and my chest burns and I start seeing sparkles and I think I'm afraid. But then I'm bursting with come inside her and she leans back and takes her hands off and laughs and laughs and laughs.

The Devil
You Know

I'
M GOING UP THE STAIRCASE ON ALL FOURS. IT'S QUIET IN
the back part of the house, except for some people I can hear talking in the hallway above me. I go slow; for a few moments I can almost imagine I'm alone. The stairs are wood, and slippery on my sock feet, and I'm too drunk to risk wiping out. I've never been good at going up stairs for some reason. I even have this scar on my lip, here, from when I tripped up our basement steps when I was a little kid. So I use my hands. My hair hangs down on either side of my face. I like how wavy and orange it looks.

I hope there's no one in the bathroom when I get there. I just need to sit on the floor for a couple of minutes, maybe rest my face on the cold edge of the bathtub. A drink of water from the sink and splash my face a bit. There's bound to be a hairbrush, some mouthwash, maybe a little perfume. Then I'll feel better. Maybe I'll even jerk off. I love doing that in other people's bathrooms at parties. I don't know why; it just gives me a thrill I guess. And it always makes me feel more awake. I do it at work sometimes, too, when I'm on my break, but it's riskier there, with the stalls and everything.

I just need a minute away from everyone. I don't even know where Rhonda is, and it's her house. The kitchen is packed; everyone shoving and laughing and shouting and lighting Sambucas and almost setting the counters on fire. Man, those sambucas were a bad idea. I don't even like licorice. Lighting it on fire doesn't make it taste any better.

My hands wrap around the carpeted edge of the top step and I pull my-self up on the banister. I don't feel as bad as I expected. But the bathroom door is closed, and there's light bleeding out onto the carpet from underneath it. Shit. I lean against the wall and smile at the other people in the hall. I hope they haven't been laughing at me. There's Lauren. She waves me over. I push off the wall and it feels as though I'm moving through honey.

A guy with a tan face smiles at me. His teeth are huge and luminescent. His white shirt looks like it's glowing too. I look at his glowing arm and there's a joint in his hand, which I take. I've had more than enough downstairs, but I'm not going to refuse. This might sound stupid, but it's kind of a pride thing with me. If I get offered something, I take it, no matter what. It's called being reliable, not just some dumb high-school girl who can't keep it together. I can always accidentally lose a drink I can't finish, or even throw it up later if I need to. Drugs are harder to fake, so I usually end up getting pretty fucked up. But that's one of the reasons I get to go to these parties, even though nearly everyone's at least ten years older than me. That, and the fact that I like to fuck.

I take a hit and pass it to Lauren. She smiles and shakes her head and her eyes are glittering in that catlike way they do when she's really high. It's like she can see your insides working. She takes a picture of me with her phone. I make a mental note to swipe it and delete it later.

The tan guy smiles again and says, “I'm Kyle. Who are you?”

“Cynthia,” I say. “Thanks for the weed.”

Kyle grins. “Oh, it's better than that.”

And wouldn't you know it, as if by magic, the weirdest feeling comes up through my feet and legs and up my body and then out the top of my head. It takes stuff with it too, like my balance. The edges of the world go all rubbery, and I feel like I'm on a boat heading over a waterfall. There's a burst of light on my right as the bathroom door opens, and I start to walk over there without feeling my feet touch the floor. I once stayed up for almost three days straight partying in Toronto and had the exact same feeling. I get in and close the door and lie down on the tiles, just to get my shit together for a second. I can hear a lot of voices, but I don't know where they're coming from.

The next thing I see is Tyler, asking if I'm okay. I get kind of offended. “I've only been in here for a couple minutes,” I say, my tongue feeling too big for my mouth.

“Baby, you've been in here for over an hour,” he says.

I don't believe him. He helps me stand up and we walk over to the sink. I look in the mirror and see that I've got bits of lint and hair and stuff from the floor stuck to my cheek. I splash some water on my face and scrub it with a towel. “I need to go outside,” I say.

“It's really cold out.”

“Don't care.”

I'm really wobbly, so Tyler helps me down the steps like I'm his grandma. I'm sliding all over the place in my socks. We go through the kitchen, where there are still a lot of people, and onto the back porch. The air is really cold and I'm hoping it will clear the cotton candy out of my head, but I just feel cold and crappy. I start to shiver. I lean over the railing to throw up, but before I do, I look back through the screen door to the kitchen and see that Kyle guy standing by the sink. He's grinning at me.

For the rest of the night, I'm on the couch in the spare room with a holey afghan over me, barfing into a plastic bowl. Tyler stays with me, thank god, bringing me water and emptying the bowl and patting me on the shoulder. Rhonda comes in at one point and tries to get me to drink some maple syrup to fix my brain sugar, she says, but I can't do it. I can't stop shaking, and every time I try and close my eyes, I get the spins right away. It's one of those nights where you want to sleep so bad that you wish you were dead. Worst March break ever. In the window, I keep seeing faces floating outside, even though I know they're not there because we're on the second floor. The sky behind the faces turns light grey with morning before I finally stop trembling and doze off. The last floating face I see is Kyle, his tan face and dark eyes and white teeth, smiling at me.

On Wednesday, four days after Rhonda's party, Cynthia took a phone call from a number she didn't recognize. It was Kyle.