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“I can,” he elaborates, bumping my knee with his. “I just don’t know if we should.”
“Right,” I say, eyes wandering to the fan above my bed.
“We’ve got a good thing going,” he says. “I don’t want to look back at my first girlfriend and think about fights and a broken heart or things we’ll both regret.”
It’s the nice thing to say, a way to turn me down that’s still slightly romantic and kind of sweet. But underneath that is the boy I actually know, and his pie chart has always been a solid color labeled “success.” There’s not even a sliver of something offbeat in it that could be dug up in his future political career, like a high school girlfriend who had a quiet abortion, or the same girl sharing the tale of losing her virginity to him while her trusting, working-class parents were making dinner downstairs.
No, Heath plays it safe, all the way. And I can’t really blame him, because I used to be the same, until I smelled cigarette smoke on my pillow and was intrigued instead of disgusted. And to be honest, Heath has always been the same thing to me: reassurance, a boy holding a safety net that I can fall into if the wire I walk trembles, even a little. I never considered falling, because I didn’t know it could be fun.
I slip my hand from his, letting go of a lot more than just him.
“Let’s have dinner,” I say, and we go downstairs to spaghetti night and routine, our behavior exactly what is to be expected.
As if there isn’t a door to my bedroom at all.
seven
I must have scared Heath off last week. He hasn’t come over since he bolted at the sight of my bra, but I’m happier with Vivaldi’s company anyway, perfecting his idea of what spring would sound like. I’m considering moving on into summer when my phone goes off. I stop midmeasure, too aware that the impenetrable mantle I usually shroud myself in during practice time seems to be awfully wispy these days. I glance at the screen and know that I’m looking at Isaac’s number, even if I didn’t program it into my phone. My hands are stopped in place, stuck on an endless F sharp that my lungs refuse to give life to because I’ve been holding my breath to see if he leaves a message.
Disgusted, I pop the clarinet from my mouth and try to wipe away the orange-tinged ring on the reed, a diluted mixture of mom’s spaghetti and my spit. It’s chipped anyway, the ragged end like a fingernail that hasn’t been buffed. I’ll probably find bits of reed in my gums again tomorrow, ground deeply in by hours of practice and then emerging toward the light for me to pluck out. I loosen the ligature and pop the reed free, hands going through the motions blind, because my eyes are on the phone.
“You’re an idiot,” I say to myself.
He doesn’t leave a voice mail, but seconds later a text comes in, the vibration of the phone matching the one in my chest.
we need to talk
I’ve got a nasty response already composed, one I’ve used to reject everyone but Heath since eighth grade. But my hands type something else entirely.
OK when?
I study the text a second before sending it, aware of the door it will open. My thumb makes the decision for me, hitting send before I’ve given full thought to what might lie on the other side.
Now. Face-to-face.
I don’t know what world he lives in, but I’m not a citizen of one where Sasha Stone talks face-to-face with Isaac Harver at eleven at night on a Sunday.
I’m outside
“Bull,” I say under my breath, then I hear the purr of a motorcycle in the driveway. I tear my curtains out of the way to see his silhouette give me a little mock salute. How he found out where I live, I have no clue, but I need to get rid of him before Mom and Dad notice.
I pull on some flip-flops and a hoodie, poking my head into my parents’ room as I head down the hall. Mom’s propped in bed scowling at a romance novel and doesn’t notice when I click her door shut the rest of the way. Dad is sprawled on his recliner in the living room with his earplugs so deep they’ll have to be surgically removed.
The only thing standing between me and Isaac Harver having a conversation by the light of a full moon is common sense, and I pause with my hand on the doorknob. That day at the courthouse Isaac had my attention, and he knew it. My mouth was inches from his and not wanting to retreat before his probation officer interrupted. And that was in a public place. After the dream I had I’m not sure if I trust myself alone in the dark with him, but for some reason that feels like more of an incentive than a warning. My feet are cutting through the yard to the driveway before my brain sends them the signal to reconsider.
“Hey.” His voice is low and conspiratorial, yet filled with complete familiarity, as if he has every right in the world to be leaning against his motorcycle in my driveway, eyes going up and down my body. I cross my arms against my chest, half to cover the fact I’m not wearing a bra, half in fear that my furiously pounding heart is about to leap free.
“Hey,” I say, when it was supposed to be, “What do you want?”
He watches me carefully, and I keep my distance.
“Why are you being so weird?” he asks.
“Me? I’m being weird? You show up at my house past bedtime—”
“Bedtime?” He doesn’t actually laugh, but I can hear amusement in his voice.
“You think this is funny? You somehow get my number and text me out of the blue, show up at my house in the middle of the night, and imply to my boyfriend that you know what color my sheets are.”
