Love and Learn

Some things are better left alone

The air throbbed with anticipation—another thing they say that I never stopped to think about, but now knew what they meant when they said it. It's when your vision flashes along with the heart beat in your ears, and everything swells and shrinks and changes color in a rhythm right along with your pulse.

So we walked into the Baseball House, and the air throbbed with anticipation, kind of like I throbbed when Ella bit her lip with that naughty look, as if she'd gotten away with something just by thinking about it. I knew she was right- they do look at me. Out on the diamond, it's "Look, it's Jackson Miller..." In the classroom, it's "There goes Jackson, acing another problem, like we didn't expect..."

The girls, though, their faces held a different gleam.

Tonight, it seemed to me, especially.

Ella was all over me, hanging on my arm, all the way here, and now once we got here, with the red plastic cups in our hands, she was in my ear whispering and nibbling. But her eyes they were darting all over the place, like a light house, no, like a laser, a cop's flashlight. That one, with the braids? That one, looking lonely by the wall?

A flash all of a sudden, of that first night, and how Taryn had stood by the wall, watching her friend worried, with a bunch of dumbass horndogs chomping at the bit, at the sight of her, just dancing. Like predators.

"Come on, Action," she said. "It'll be hot. They all want you don't they?"

I excused myself for the bathroom.

I actually had to go, even though Ella looked like the Joker, all evil and pointy eyebrows, when I told her, following me with her eyes and a silent cackle I could feel on the back of my neck.

Saddest thing, as I looked at myself in the mirror in that secret upstairs bathroom, saddest thing was all the whispers and all the nibbles, and even that lonely girl by the wall looking said an furious—a raging hard-on was hiding in my pants, that was the saddest thing. I didn't want to. But maybe, just a little bit, somewhere I did.

The faucet was still dripping when the door slammed open.

It was that girl, still furious, glaring at me like I did it, whatever it was.

Amy was her name, I later found out.

Attacked me in the bathroom at a party. I barely realized what happened, just the thought—Ella sent her?—echoing in my head as her hands were on my face, hot and angry. Rage-fuck Amy, I would call her. Except I didn't fuck her, did I? But not because I wouldn't have. Because she changed her mind. But, fuck, she kissed so fierce, it felt like fucking. I kissed her back. Then I leaned into too, but she pushed me away.

She said, "Ugh, never mind," with real disgust, like I was a disappointment for my effort, and was gone. Slipped out of my arms and left me there, in the dingy bathroom with the moldy sink, taking off like a cyclone, destroying everything in her path. What she was so pissed about, I never knew. I wanted to find out, caught her eye in the cafeteria at dinner the next day, but she pretended she didn't know me. From her, I learned to leave some things alone.

***

The way I found out her name was Amy was, I came downstairs looking around sheepish, looking for Ella, pangs of guilt but also pride, but then guilt about the pride, all confused up in my head, dizzy, like I was drunk--I wasn't. Just water in my cup, as always. 

Like I said. I didn't fuck her. 

But that didn't mean I wouldn't have. 

And that vision of Ella dancing again, surrounded by wolves.

...I came downstairs, and I looked around, and Ella was nowhere. Nowhere at all to be found. All these people and all these bodies, and sweat and dust and smoke in the air making mye eyes itch, but Ella not among them. And suddenly, I was Amy, alone in a crowd, quiet but raging. It was only a second. It must have only been a second that I stood there like that, until I spotted her--Ella, not Amy--in the corner kissing some guy. 

How many kilometers per-hour-per-hour... I had to wonder of that phrase would hit me out of nowhere every time my heart fell with an unpleasant surprise? Fucking Taryn and her physics... but my heart and stomach were on the floor, and I was moving before I could stop myself. 

I pulled that guy off her like a bad movie--big strong protective jealous possessive ridiculous foolish a joke--and she looked at me, just like I was all of those things, looked at me and raised her red cup. Alcohol, Ella, really?  I wanted to say, and for a moment, behind the rage was that discomfort again, like that first night, like Ella had been been pretending to be something she turned out not to be.

"How was it with Amy?" she said, her eyes bright with that same gleam I noticed earlier.

That's how found out that girl's name was Amy. 

***

Silent in the shuttle on the way home, Ella defensive or pissed, I couldn't tell. "What are you so mad about," she kept saying. "What are you so mad about, nothing happened."

"But it would have," I said. "it would have."

***

We did end up fucking that night. It turned out hot, tight, angry, teeth and nails, and hair being pulled. Someone got to rage-fuck after all.

***

Chris was the other guy's name. Lee told me. It was legend, he said, the way I stomped over there. Twice as big as he was. Lee laughed about it, bewildered. "Who would have thunk it?" he said, sarcastic. But not mean. Just... correct.