Wake (102 page)

“Beautiful,” he whispers with tender awe, and lies his head on my shoulder. His hand keeps moving slowly while I gasp for breath, giving me a break, but not a rest. He fully intends to make me come again once we both catch our breath—he tells me so in between leaving little love bites on my neck.

He’s still moving against me, thrusting gently for his own pleasure. I cup his ass, smooth and lightly sheened with sweat, and encourage him.

“When we can do this for real…” he whispers in my ear. “God, I can’t wait to make love to you.” I nod in agreement. It’s nice to want the same things and have it feel so right.

We focus on him for a little while. He continues to rock against my hip. I kiss his ears and neck, encouraged by a steady stream of half-coherent compliments. My nails across the back of his shoulders make him shiver.

“Feels so damn good…”

A shout snaps me out of the bubble of bliss. It’s just a momentary cry, and then the rest of it is muffled in the pillow where Jem buries his face. His groan is long and pained. His back curves with tension and I feel his groin twitching against my skin. There’s a feeling of warm wetness as Jem trembles around me.

“Jem?”

He tries to lift his head from the pillow and I can see his face screwed up in pain. His breath comes in short gasps as he tries not to make a sound.

“Lie down.” I put a hand on the back of his head and he readily drops back down to the pillow with a moan.

“Hurts,” he says into the bedding.

“I know, I know. It’ll pass. Just relax.” I curl my wrists around the backs of his thighs and feel the muscles tremble. His lower back carries similar tension, and the muscles in his groin are as tight as untried springs.

“Where’s your heart beating?”

He lets a shaky breath out into the pillow and doesn’t answer. I didn’t expect him to.

“Feel it in your fingertips.”

It takes ten minutes of this, trying to relax Jem with words and massaging hands, before the worst of the pain has abated. He rolls onto his side and looks us both up and down warily. When he sees the mess he made between us, his cheeks turn bright red.

“Oh shit,” he says hopelessly.

“I’ll get a cloth.” I get up and go to the bathroom. I wipe myself off first and then take a wet washcloth back to the bedroom. I find Jem kneeling on the bed, supporting himself with his arms and looking sadly at the wet spot on the sheets.

“Here.” I make a move to clean him and he turns toward me with a pained expression.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It was an accident.”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I know.”

Jem closes eyes and hangs his head. “God, I’m fucked up.”

I kiss the back of his neck. “You’re perfect.” He’s having a moment, and I let him. I kneel behind him with my front pressed to his back and wrap an arm around his middle. My other hand trails the wet cloth between his legs, tenderly wiping away the mess.

“Are you okay?” he asks hoarsely.

“I’m fine.”

“It, um…you may get a rash where I…where my…” He trails off in embarrassment and I squeeze him tighter.

“From your medication?”

Jem nods. “You should wash well.” He tries to sound composed, but it only makes him sound distant.

“Shower with me? We both need to unwind.” Jem nods his assent, and it’s only after we’re standing under the spray together that he starts to come back to himself. He insists on washing me, soaping my skin with quiet devotion.

“Let me take care of you.”

My back is pressed to his front as he washes me. Every few seconds I feel a kiss on my scalp or neck, shy but loving. His hand lingers guiltily between my hips.

“I don’t hold it against you,” I tell him. “You’re still the best I’ve ever had.”

I look over my shoulder and find Jem trying not to smile. “You’re just saying that to make me feel better, aren’t you?”

“No, I mean it. You actually paid attention. You were generous. I loved it.”

Jem rests his cheek on the top of my head. “It shouldn’t have ended like that.”

“There will be other chances. It won’t always be painful.”

“I’m sorry.”

I extend my arms back to give Jem an awkward hug. “Next time we get you off first, okay? We’ll control it, together.”

The sigh he blows across my scalp is shaky. “Thank you.”

*

I ask Jem not to get dressed after our shower. Instead, he opens the front tie of his bathrobe and lies face down on the bed. I open a bottle of lotion and massage it into his skin, trying to help him relax his leg and back muscles. I can still feel the odd spasm under my hands, though Jem insists he isn’t in much pain.

“Do you need your oxygen?” I ask as I press my thumbs along his hamstring.

“No, I’m fine.” He helps me arrange the bathrobe to keep him warm while exposing new skin to be oiled and rubbed. I spend some extra time on his lower back and bum. Just a little. Jem reaches over and turns on the iPod dock on his nightstand. Classical string music is the first thing that comes on.

“Leave it,” I say when he moves to change the song.

“You sure?”

I nod and press the dimples above his hips. Jem hums with pleasure at the gentle pressure and sighs contentedly when I work little circles into his muscles.

“Willa.”

“Mmm?”

Jem turns his head to the side and reaches for my hand. His cool fingers twine with my moist ones and he smiles. “I feel beautiful.”

Forget the lotion. I abandon the job and crawl forward to lie next to him, cradling our twined hands between us. “I’m happy.”

“You’re a good person,” he murmurs. “You made some awful decisions, but that doesn’t make you bad.” I don’t entirely agree him, but I think it’s sweet that he believes in my goodness. I lean in to give him a kiss and make a promise that I think I can actually fulfil , “I’ll be good to you.”

“Likewise.”

*

Jem is playing his cell o again. His hands are getting better and the rubber finger sheaths help. Today the music is light and happy. I listen from the other room while I make lunch. No soup on the menu today;

it’s warm rice with olive oil and pear cooked in honey for lunch.

Jem tells me about his song when we sit down to eat. He was in the middle of composing it when he got sick, and for the past year it’s been on hold; he says he wants to rewrite the melody to sound happier.

“Is that so?”

Jem gives me a charming smile and takes my hand on the tabletop. Lunch is a slow affair because Jem has to chew thoroughly and take small bites in between the coughs, but it’s time spent together.

Eric and Ivy return home just as I clear away our plates. Eric is disappointed that there isn’t any food left.

“Was she okay? Did you guys get her settled?” Jem asks of Elise. He makes it sound like they dropped her off in a war zone.

“Relax, she’s fine,” Eric says. “She’ll be Little Miss Popular by the end of the day.” This closes the issue for him. Eric offers to cheer Jem up with a game or two. Playing with the Wii is usually Elise’s thing, so it’s an understandable sentiment.

“I’m too tired,” Jem says.

“It’s going to be boring around here without Elise.” Eric turns to me and declares, “You’re our de facto Elise until she gets back. Crouch down, you’re too tall .”

I leave the dishes in the sink and give Eric a shove. “Come on, I’ll have a game with you.” He leaves to set up the system in the living room and Jem mouths “Thank you” behind his back.

“Will you play some more?” I ask, and give him a few soft kisses to sweeten the deal. Playing his music takes his mind off missing Elise, at least. It makes him happy in such a fundamental way.

While Eric spazzes and flails in front of the TV, I listen to Jem test notes beside each other, retracing his steps across bars to alter the tempo and talking to himself when it goes right.

I think I’ve finally killed him.

Jem: June 28 to 29

Wednesday

“God damn it, Eric.” I take out my phone and call him. I get a busy signal. He was supposed to wait at the school for me to write my exam. Mrs. Brett cut it down from three hours to one for me, and instead of an essay I had to do an oral interview about the novel with her (I think she knows I only read the Coles Notes). An hour is not that long to sit in the parking lot and wait for me.

I walk across the lot to the picnic tables and sit down to wait for him. It’s interim week—the time between the end of the regular school year and the start of summer courses—so the parking lot is empty apart from employees’ cars. It’s weird to look around and see this place so vacant.

I used to hate it here. School was the worst part of my day, with the stares and the fatigue and knowing that I wasn’t living up to my academic potential because I was just too sick to work. I have a lot of horrible memories of this place, but there are some good ones, too. Some from this very picnic table, actually.

How many times did I stalk Willa out here? We plotted domination of Greenland with an army of seagulls.

We exchanged music and talked about inconsequential junk. I had her all to myself for a little while, away from the people who made me feel like a freak. This bench was our little island of normalcy, because even when Willa was poking fun at me, she treated me like a real person.

God, she was a bitch. I smile stupidly at the memory of how much I loved to hate her at first. If someone had told me then that in a few short months, she would have me stripped to the core and teaching me to love myself again, I’d never have believed it. I wouldn’t have believed her to be a good person, either, or understood that even the best intentions can manifest in horrible, cruel ways. I couldn’t sympathize with a person whose mistakes were too big and too permanent to be fixed before I knew Willa. I still don’t understand her pain, just like she doesn’t completely understand mine, but we try…and sometimes we reach an understanding.

She was wrong about forgiveness, though. I probably won’t ever agree with her decision to help Thomasina die the way she did, but I can forgive her for being that person. She’s learning to love herself again too, and I can’t have her thinking that I’d withdraw my love and esteem based on something she can’t change. It would kill me if she did that, so I won’t do it to her. I’ll come to terms with why Thomasina’s death upsets me, one day at a time.

A car drives by in front of the school, punctuating the silence. I’m alone out here apart from my memories, and it feels liberating in a strange way. I can be here and not be stared at. I’m just me, without context, enjoying the afternoon sunshine on a picnic bench.

The idea makes the hairs on the backs of my arms stand up, like I’m about to do something mischievous. That thrill is half the fun. I look around first, even though I know there’s nobody here, and I pull off my hat. It’s too hot for wool, anyway.

I haven’t felt a real breeze on my scalp for almost a year. I run my hand over my hair, trying to do something about the hat-head. The strands are thickening and fill ing out now. It looks almost like a really amateur buzz cut, since there’s a bald spot above my ear and my hairline is still lopsided.

A seagull trots past on its way to forage the garbage cans and stares at me.

“That’s right,” I tell it. “It’s growing back.”

The stupid bird squawks at me and I tell it to go shit on the principal’s car. An animal that stupid ought to be good for something, at least.

The bird walks away and I’m bored again. I call Eric again but the line is still busy. I want to call Willa, but she’s at work until this afternoon. Maybe I’ll go for a walk. Maybe I’ll ‘forget’ Adolph on the picnic bench. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I’ve been planning for months, thinking about what I’ll do when I’m wel again. I’m nearly there, and I’d much rather be doing than planning.

This is the start of summer. This is the beginning of me. I get to have my life back, to be myself instead of just another patient. Meira didn’t have that chance, and neither did so many other kids I met on the ward. I can’t waste this time.

As long as I’m waiting for Eric, I take out one of my notebooks and a pen. I’m not just planning, I’m
promising.
Every item on this new list of goals is a promise to myself, my family, and to my dead friends that I’m going to do something with the opportunities they’ve given me through sacrifice and encouragement.

This is going to be a long list.

*

Eric shows up half an hour late. There are no food wrappers in his car, so I can’t assume he went to get a bite to eat while I was at school. He doesn’t look bored, so he probably wasn’t just sitting around someplace, either.

“What took you so long?”

Eric shrugs and puts the car in gear. “Nothing.” He’s up to something. His cell phone is on the dashboard. I pick it up and check his call history.

“Put that down.”

“I tried calling you twice and you were too busy to pick up.” The last person Eric called was Celeste.

The time signature on the call says they talked for over an hour.

“What did you have to say to that airhead that took a whole hour?”

“Give that back.” Eric reaches for the phone and I hold it out of his reach.

“Watch the road.” I want to see what prompted an hour-long phone call , so I pry into his text messages.

The last one from Celeste says:
Pink lace.
I don’t understand it until I read Eric’s message before it. She was answering the question:
Which panties do you have on?

“Jesus Christ, man,
Celeste?
Seriously? Of all the girls on this planet, you’re fooling around with that bitch?”

“Hey,” Eric barks at me. “We’re not just fooling around, and don’t call her a bitch.”

“She is a bitch. She used to hold me down at recess and spit in my eye.”

“That was like, twelve years ago, and she apologized. It’s not like she could kick your ass now.”

“That’s not the point. That chick has no soul, bro.”

“Did she not make you a Get well card a week ago?”

“After calling me Make A Wish Boy for months and acting like I got sick on purpose to get attention.”