This Is What I Want to Tell You (7 page)

We can start and stop this only so many times, you know. You need to tell me what you want. That’s how this goes.

I wanted to disappear. Even my name seeped out of his lips covered in frustration. Maybe even exhaustion.

I don’t know what I want, I’d said.

He shook his head.

You seemed to two minutes ago.

Two minutes ago it had been different. But I couldn’t say any of this out loud to him. I wanted to so badly. I wanted to explain that even his breath on my neck, the calluses on his fingers against my skin, the way he scooped my hair off my shoulder, that all of it was exactly what I wanted, but I was scared. Two minutes ago I was almost ready to go all the way through with it, and then he pressed his fingertips into the undersides of my wrists and I couldn’t move.

Stop, I’d said.

I could feel every muscle in his body like a rubber band. He pushed himself off of me and sat up, his back to me.

Christ, he’d said.

I just want to know what you’re thinking, I whispered.

He was quiet.

To be honest, I’m not thinking much of anything right now.

That was it. That was everything I knew and everything I didn’t want to hear. It was every reason I stopped him even when I didn’t want to.

Think about me, think about me
, a voice inside my head pleaded.

But he was asleep.

Right then I did want to be somewhere else. I sat up slowly. It was dark outside. After dinner maybe. In the light from the streetlamps I reached around me: sweater, jeans, one sock, another sock. As I got dressed, buttoned my coat, picked up my bag, he never moved.

I took the bus home and when it left me in front of the post office, the whole town was quiet. A fat yellow square of light rested on the street in front of the Coyote Café. It had to be instinct that pulled me down the street to peek in the front window.

There she was.

For the past year or two, Keeley would sometimes come down to the Coyote and sit at the counter to do her homework. Sometimes she ate a bowl of chili or had two cups of hot chocolate, or sometimes she just asked for tap water and she read. No one ever minded her being there. Everyone knew who her parents were, and probably knew they were rarely home between night-time lectures and committees and student conferences. All of the things, Keeley used to say, that came before her.

Before she left for Oxford, if she wasn’t at our house and I couldn’t find her at home I could walk into town and find Keeley at the Coyote.

She was sitting there, her head bent over textbook pages that shimmered in the café light. Suddenly I wanted nothing else but to sit down next to her and have a coffee with hot milk and tell her how Parker turned his back and fell asleep. I wanted her to be the only one who knew what I meant when I talked about the inked slope of his back like a graffitied wall and being afraid to pull the sheet over me.

Hey. I slid onto the stool next to her. The café was empty except for a couple leaning in over their dinner in the back corner.

Keeley looked up, her eyes wide.

Hi. She smiled.

I looked down at the margin of her notebook. She was doodling. A sweeping wave down the college-ruled lines. I thought of the pictures above my bed. Keeley and I at ten, eleven, fourteen, gap-toothed and smiling, holding on to each other. For my birthday last year she’d arranged these years of photos on posterboard, painting borders around each in her swirling colored hand, like the photographs themselves were painted on. Almost ten years of us smiling for Keeley’s camera—it was always Keeley’s camera, our parents never took the pictures. And all of the pictures the same: Keeley on the right as she held her arm above us to take the picture, me leaning in to fit in the frame.

Hey, Keeley said again. Then she leaned over and hugged me and my eyes felt hot. I sucked the tears back to the pit of my stomach.

Trig? I nodded at her textbook.

What? Oh yeah. Noelle, what’s going on? Where were you?

She put her hand over mine on the countertop.

Nowhere, just … listen. I’m sorry I left you before.

It’s okay, she lied.

I just had to—I stopped. I didn’t even have the strength for another lie. I sort of met this guy.

Tell me! I knew it was something. She squeezed my hand and then moved hers away. In that moment, though, the space between us felt okay.

I don’t know, Kee. He’s so hot, he’s like—there’s something about him I can’t even tell you. His eyes, they’re like this crazy gray-blue. And he has his own apartment. He’s nineteen and he cooks, but it’s like—cooking isn’t like his job, it’s like his complete passion. Every piece of clothing he owns is like paper thin and beat down and he has this square jaw and, oh my god, these tattoos—

I stopped. Keeley was watching me. She nodded.

His tattoos, they’re like—I don’t know. You know you get that feeling like your life isn’t at all what it’s supposed to be, like it’s just sitting still, and then you see something that makes you realize, like, there’s this whole other world. Kee. All over his skin there are these words and designs and pictures and all of it is like this whole world. And his skin—

Yeah, she whispered.

It’s like—it’s not even just about his skin but it’s like this feeling I have that he knows—he just knows, you know. Like he knows what the world looks like and he knows how to cook things I’ve never even heard of and he knows what I want even before I do, and then I look at these designs, these tattoos, these, like, stories …

Like tattoos of what? Keeley leaned in, her chin on her hand. She looked so familiar, suddenly.

Well, there’s like a serpent and a Celtic—

Don’t tell me Chinese symbols! she squealed.

Well yeah, but he’s not like that. He’s not like the total poser you’re thinking, Keeley. These symbols, every one of them, are like part of him.

A part of him? She looked doubtful.

At first, talking about him to Keeley had made him so real, had felt like what I always thought this should feel like. But now the look on her face felt all wrong. It wasn’t like she didn’t believe me, it was like she didn’t get him. It was like after everything I’d said, she couldn’t understand Parker. That didn’t make any sense—that Keeley wouldn’t understand me, wouldn’t understand what I felt about Parker—it didn’t make sense.

Suddenly, none of it felt right.

I stood up.

Anyway, I said. I was just coming back from his house and I saw you, so …

Are you leaving? She sat up straight.

Yeah, I have a lot of homework.

Noelle, wait. I wanna hear more. I just meant like, is he funny? Does he like the same music as you? Lemme buy you a coffee or something.

My hands felt cold. I felt the heat of the same tears flooding, rushing, I had to get out of there before all of my muscles broke.

I’ll see you soon, Kee. I gotta go.

I practically ran out of the café. My face was still wet when I got home.

The nights were dark earlier now. I had to wear two sweatshirts. But I was still mostly running at night. Pretty much every night now. And when I got out there, when I started going and ran and ran, I finally reached the place where my breath got clear again and the pain in my chest and my knees ran into the ground. At that point I thought I could pretty much run forever.

It cleared me. It was literally like removing a weight.

We were doing our homework in the kitchen after school when Keeley asked if she could run with me. I told her no. Her face right then seemed to freeze and shatter.

I’m sorry, I said. It’s just my thing. It’s my time, you know.

She nodded, her head moving in a curtain of hair, but she wouldn’t look up at me.

I mean, maybe every once in a while we can. But at night I just need—

Nadio, I get it.

She lifted her head. There were tears on her frozen, shattered face.

I feel kinda lonely, that’s all, she said. I feel like an idiot and I feel lonely.

Why? Even though I knew the answer, I asked.

Nadio. Kids don’t really notice this stuff, do they? Whose family has more money? I just never got it. And then when I came home, you were sitting there in the dark and you were so safe. You were so home. I wanted to just be as close to you as possible. But now it’s like everything I’ve done has been to push Noelle away. But I don’t mean to—I never meant to.

I know, I said.

I watched her. She took deep breaths.

So what do I do? This is making me crazy. I’ve never doubted myself this way. I feel like she’s making me this pathetic person, crying all the time. What do I do?

That I didn’t know. I didn’t want any of this at the expense of my sister. But it wasn’t about Noelle and me. I thought that, then. I thought it was about Noelle and Keeley.

You get some ice cream, I said.

She giggled. She brushed the tears off her face with her long sleeves.

Ice cream?

Uh-huh.

We walked into town. I bought her a cone of cherry chocolate chip and she licked it slowly, leaning against the wall of the post office while the sun went down behind us. She smiled at me, licking her ice cream cone, offering me a taste, twisting her sleeve in her free hand.

Jesus, I’m glad I’m not in England anymore, she said.

Isn’t there ice cream in England? I asked. But she just stared behind me.

When she was done, I left her at the Coyote Café to do homework and I came back up to the house to go for a run.

But I knew there was something she still wasn’t saying. When I would fool around with Molly, she was like a maniac. Her hands moved so fast and her breath was so hot and it was like nothing could happen fast enough. Keeley was so different. She was slow and deliberate and she paused and took deep breaths.

Do you want me to stop? I’d still ask, every time she took that breath.

Sometimes she said no. Keep going.

Sometimes she said yes. Sometimes she said yeah, let’s talk about something. She wanted to talk about when we were kids, she wanted me to remind her of stories that made her laugh. Before it all got grown-up and sex-complicated, she said.

But the thing is, we never had sex. She always said not now, not yet, when we got to that point.

* * *

I was near the end of my run, passing along the far ridge of the orchard. You could see the tiny square lights of our house and then, up the hill, the wide white lights of Keeley’s house tossing out across the lawn. My breaths were even now and my head felt light. I loved this feeling near the end, like I was floating. Needles ran up and down my legs and I stamped them out with each stride.

Dear Dario,

Here’s a question from son to father. How long am I supposed to be okay with “not now”? I’m not sex-crazed or anything. Before Molly, even after Molly and before Keeley, I was fine without a girl. I’m not saying I can’t live if I don’t have sex with her. It’s just, Keeley stands in this place where she’s trying to swallow me up, and I want to let her, and then she stops and says never mind and breathes me back out and you know what? Sometimes I say it’s okay, Keeley. Don’t worry. But I feel seriously angry. Did I get that from you? That temper that flares inside me when I don’t get it how I want it. I think it might be from you and so I do everything I can to push it down. What I want to know is how do I know if I love someone or if I’m just lusting after her? What I want to know is, what do I do if that person is my sister’s best friend and I think my sister might be losing it even before she finds out about this. If I had a dad, this is what I’d ask him.

I end the letter in my head as I pull open the screen door. I mentally fold it in thirds and stuff it inside an envelope in the back of my brain, unmailed and undocumented. The light is on in the kitchen but the house is quiet. I kick my sneakers off and pour a glass of water. As I walk up the stairs, I switch off the kitchen light. It’s almost completely black but I could walk this house blind.

There’s no light coming from Noelle’s room, but as I climb the last stair, I hear a sound. I stop. I hold still, the water in my glass sloshes onto my wrist. I know the sound. She’s crying. I know the sound anywhere; it’s almost like I can feel it behind my eyes. Deep sobs, gasps for breath, tears soaking. I freeze, while her breaths slow to deep gasps for air and the tears dry on her cheeks. I freeze while she cries and slows and stops, and then I walk into my room and shut the door so she never hears me.

After the night I left his house and ran into Keeley, Parker and I didn’t speak for almost two weeks. I wanted to call him. And for part of every single minute I wanted him to call.

But I knew I had to see if he would call me.

And my sixteenth birthday was coming up.

Nadio and I had always been the youngest in our class. Lace started us early because she had to work, because our birthdays fell on the cusp, because we could already read. But being younger than everyone else meant that sometimes big birthdays seemed to come and go and by the time we reached them, the excitement had faded. This year felt even more strange. The truth was, I didn’t care about my birthday at all. Keeley and I had always talked about throwing a big party—even though her birthday was in May—we always said we’d have a party for the three of us and we’d all take turns driving somewhere, anywhere. But I hadn’t practiced driving in months and I didn’t much feel like taking the test, and Jessica said listen, I know this bar in the city and the bartender is friends with my brother—let’s go there and have drinks for your birthday.

I knew she was trying to make me feel better that I hadn’t heard from Parker.

I knew at a bar in the city, I might run into him, like we all just happened to be there.

When Lace asked us at dinner what we wanted to do for our birthdays, Nadio was quiet.

I don’t feel like making a big deal, I said. I actually think I’m just going to sleep over at Jessica’s.

Lace looked back and forth between us. My brother and I didn’t look at each other. I know neither of us really wanted to have a family plan. But I also know how strange it felt not to want that. What would he do?

Yeah, Nadio said. I’ve never been much of a birthday person.

That part was true.

Lace shrugged.

Okay, she said. Okay.

But on the morning of our birthday she made us pancakes piled high with raspberries and butter and she gave each of us an iPod she couldn’t afford and she drove us to school, which we almost never let her do anymore, and she watched us walk into the building. We could feel her watching our backs and so, without talking, we walked close together until we pushed through the front doors of the school, and then we turned in opposite directions.

Jessica and I got dressed at her house. I borrowed a black skirt and ankle boots that felt too high to walk in but made my legs look especially long. Jessica piled my hair on top of my head and told me to leave my gray T-shirt on.

So you don’t look like you’re trying too hard, you know, she said.

Jessica managed to never look like she was trying too hard, but in secret, I always felt like I looked all wrong when she dressed me.

Her brother drove us to the bar downtown and introduced us to his friend, Graham, behind the bar. They shook hands and whispered to each other, then Jessica’s brother told us he’d pick us up at 12:30 and don’t be stupid.

Everything about the bar was dim and sort of slimy and we sat on round stools and a few middle-aged guys in flannel shirts played darts behind us.

It’s her birthday, Jessica announced to Graham, leaning forward over the bar.

Well happy birthday, said Graham. Just don’t tell me which birthday it is.

He put two beers in front of us and winked at Jessica as he walked down the bar to another customer. I looked around me. More middle-aged guys, some blonde girls and a few boys in pressed blue shirts.

Nobody looked like Parker.

Don’t worry, Jessica said into my neck. My brother said he hangs out here a lot.

What! I turned to her. I felt sick.

And I got his number from your phone. I sent him a text and told him it was your birthday.

Jessica …

I could feel a round ball swelling inside my stomach, a sickness in my throat. She didn’t understand. It was a secret. It was unspoken. Nobody could talk about me and Parker. It would ruin everything.

Oh cheer up, it’s your birthday. Jessica knocked her plastic cup against mine. Let’s play pool, she said.

Jessica was good at pool. I wasn’t too bad. She had a table in her basement and sometimes we’d play there. I just wanted to be good enough so that none of the sweaty guys with heavy bellies wanted to lean over me and “help” my shot. I didn’t need to worry, really; they were all leaning over Jessica, buying her beers and watching her bend slowly over the table. I hovered near the chalkboard at the wall, sipping my beer, holding my phone against my hip in my pocket. I wanted to be able to have fun without him. I wanted to have so much fun I’d forget about him altogether.

Jessica seemed to have forgotten I was there. She giggled from inside a circle of flannel-shirt guys. She held her pool cue absently and accepted cold beers before her cup was empty. My beer was warm. It made my head hurt and my eyes feel heavy. I felt invisible. I pretended I was watching a game of darts. I pretended I was watching the hockey game on the TV. Graham refilled my beer.

On the house, birthday girl. He smiled. I knew he felt bad for me.

By the time Jessica’s brother came, she was clinging to Graham behind the bar, giggling loudly and her shirt had lost two buttons. Her brother looked embarrassed as he peeled her off Graham.

I told you guys not to be stupid, he said to me.

I felt dizzy. I followed him out of the bar.

At her house, Jessica’s brother carried her to her room and laid her down on the twin bed. I pulled her shoes and jeans off and folded her comforter over her.

It was over.

That was my birthday.

Jessica started to snore as I brushed my teeth and changed. I set up my bed on the floor and pushed her lightly. Her breath caught and then she was quiet. I closed my eyes. I willed myself not to cry. He was busy. He was working. My head spinning, I started to count myself to sleep.