Six More Months of June

10. Mina

I am thirteen and it’s too dark to see, or maybe my eyes are shut. I’m on a hotel bed. Who knows how many people have lain here before me. I can’t move, because there’s something heavy on top of me. The air smells sharp.

I am eighteen and I am belonging, for the first time. The air smells sharp again, but I hold myself still inside, breathe through my mouth, and try to take in all the other things. Golden globes bobbing in an indigo sky, tall pink candles in white icing, how love looks, messy and bright. Someone tries to grab my arm and swing me around in a dance, but I need my arms to hold myself together. Then I am covered in the burning smell. I close my eyes and try to go inside of myself, but that’s always the mistake I make.

I am thirteen and it’s too dark to see and I can’t move. There is someone heavy on top of me. Who knows how many people have lain still before me.

Then I’m burning my skin away. Making myself clean. Making myself my own. I’m alone, but I know where I am now, and I know Caplan is nearby.

“How long has it been?”

“Like nothing. Twenty minutes. Can I touch you?”

I shake my head.

He hands me the towel.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“Don’t say sorry.” He takes me up through the house and out the front door. I sit down on the curb feeling shaky, and cold, and a bit stupid.

“I’m—”

“Please don’t say sorry again, Mina.”

“Well, I am.”

“No. I’m sorry. I made you come.”

“Well, that’s stupid. No one bullied me. I didn’t get pig’s blood dropped on me.”

“Yeah, just vodka.”

“It was fun. Everyone was being fun. I ruined it.”

We sit. I can still hear the party.

“That hasn’t happened to me in so long,” I say.

“Was it the smell?”

“Yeah, I guess.” I put my head down between my knees.

“Can I touch you?”

“Yes,” I say to the ground. “I’m fine now.”

He puts his hand on my back, rubbing it in wide circles. “Can I ask something?”

“Sure.”

“Is this why you don’t want to go to Yale? Cause it happened on the trip you guys took with those Yale families?”

“I don’t know. Well. Yeah, he still goes there.”

Caplan’s hand stops moving on my back.

“He’s only a junior. So he’ll be there next year.”

“I thought. You never said.” Caplan’s voice sounds strange and thin. It scares me. I finally look at him. “You never told me you knew him,” he says. “I thought he was a stranger. Just some random person staying at the same hotel.”

“I didn’t know him that well,” I say. “But yeah, one of those kids. That’s why he walked me back to my room. That’s how—yeah. Don’t look at me like that. You’re going to make me cry.”

He doesn’t seem to be able to speak.

“Don’t you dare fucking cry, Caplan.”

He wraps his arms around me. Eventually, I let my head rest on his shoulder. If it weren’t for Caplan, I don’t know how or when I’d have learned to let people touch me again.

“Their fucking Christmas card is on our fridge right now,” I say, and then I start to laugh.

“Oh my god, Mina.”

“It’s funny.”

“How is that funny?”

But he lets me laugh myself out. When I’m done, he says, “Why’d you even apply? If you knew he was there?”

“I didn’t think I’d get in.”

Then he lets me cry myself out.

“I know everyone thought I was delusional when I didn’t apply to more schools. But I told you. Michigan wasn’t a backup.” I’m glad my head’s on his shoulder, so he can’t see my face. “I just want to go where you go.”

“I wish neither of us had to go anywhere.”

I hear the rake of wheels on gravel. Quinn comes soaring toward us, slipping off the board and scooping it up.

“Hey!” he calls out.

Caplan doesn’t reply, so I do, shifting away from him. “Hi, Quinn.”

“You guys okay?” He peers down at us in the dark.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Caplan says.

“Okay,” says Quinn, “because the girls are all standing back there in the driveway, whispering and looking down here like it’s a crime scene.”

“Yeah, I was about to walk Mina home,” Caplan says.

“No,” I say, standing. “The party’s not over. Go be with Hollis.”

“It’s fine. Come on—”

“Don’t be dumb. You can’t leave.”

“Stop it,” he says. “I’m walking you home.”

“I can walk myself home.”

“I know you can, I just—”

“I can walk Mina home?”

We both look at Quinn.

“I mean,” he says, putting one hand into his pocket and kicking a sneaker into the curb. “Yeah, if you’d want?”

His shoulders pinch up and his eyebrows are raised. He looks nervous. I’ve never seen Quinn look nervous. It makes me want to laugh again. I feel bizarre. Funny and light, like I’m floating.

“You just got here, though.”

“Yeah, but just to check if you were still here. Ah, yeah, you and Cap. So if you’re leaving, it’s on my way. Kinda.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Are you sure?” Caplan asks me. He’s also looking nervous. “I’m not gonna sleep here. I’ll come say hey when I get home—”

“No, stay here,” I say, folding the towel up and handing it to him. “And tell Hollis I’m sorry I left. And sorry about—yeah, just wish her a happy birthday again for me.”

“All right,” he says. He stands there holding the towel. Once Quinn and I set off down the street, he turns back up the driveway.

“So,” Quinn says. “Why the fuck are you all wet?”

“Oh. It’s a long, boring story.”

“Same story as why Caplan was looking at you like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re a baby bird?”

“Yeah. I don’t know.”

“Do you, like,” he says, “wanna talk about it?”

“Um.”

“You don’t have to, either—”

“No, that’s okay—”

“It’s not my business—” We talk over each other. I’m still feeling very strange. Not in a bad way, for once.

“It’s really okay. It was not a big deal, I just got anxious,” I say.

“Like, more anxious than usual?”

“Are you making fun of me?”

“A little, yeah,” he says, lips creeping up. “Can’t help it. But also just asking.”

“Someone spilled vodka on me. I freaked out, and then I had to get into the shower because that sometimes calms me down. So that’s why I’m all wet.”

“Totally,” says Quinn. “Makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“Sure.” He shrugs. “Everyone’s got their weird shit.”

“I don’t think other people’s shit makes them lose it and ruin parties.”

“Oh, I doubt you ruined the party.”

“I definitely embarrassed myself.”

“Well, just last week,” he says, “in that very backyard, I’d been drinking all day and tried to hit the bong and then I vomited all over the driveway in front of everyone.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Feel better, though?” he asks. He walks suddenly under the beam of a streetlight.

“Yeah. I do, actually.”

“Remember in fourth grade when Mr. Grant wouldn’t let me fold my pieces of paper while taking a test, and I flipped my desk over and got sent to the principal’s office?”

“I do.”

“See?”

“What’s your point? Everyone will remember this forever?”

“Nope. That everyone’s got shit.”

“Thanks, Quinn.”

“No problem, Mina.”

“And thanks for walking me home.”

“It’s cool.”

“And thanks for asking me to prom. Even if that was also you making fun of me.”

“You keep thanking me for things I wanted to do,” he says.

I look sideways at him. His profile is harsh in the light of a car that comes swinging around the corner. We hop up onto the curb, and he touches the small of my back with his hand quickly before dropping it. A wave rolls in my stomach. I wonder if I’m going to go to pieces again. I will myself not to. I have the feeling that something good is, for the first time in my life, happening to me and that I don’t want to miss it. Not something too big or terrible, not a nightmare, not a tragedy, just a nice, normal something. Immediately after having this thought, I feel ridiculous. A person is just walking me home. Just a boy. Just Quinn.

When we were little, Quinn was the loudest and the messiest. He colored on walls and broke things and spilled every cup he touched. He used to have ears that stuck out and pointy little features. A shock of dark hair. I couldn’t take two steps without him sticking out his foot to trip me. I couldn’t answer a question in class without him snickering. I used to think he looked like an evil little elf. I shake myself.

“Are you shivering?” Quinn asks.

“No, I’m fine.”

“You have goose bumps!”

“I don’t—”

“You do, and your dress is still wet.”

I look down. My dress is wet. It is also see-through.

“Here—” He starts to take off his sweatshirt. His T-shirt comes with it, pulling away from the waist of his jeans, a strip of red plaid boxers. He has abs.

“I’m fine!” I shriek. I pull his arms down.

“Okay, okay!” He’s laughing. “I take it back.”

“Take what back?”

“My middle school flirting.”

“You are not flirting with me,” I say.

“I kind of was.”

We walk in silence. I try desperately to think of something to say. After the next streetlight, I tell myself, I will say something. At the next corner, I will say something.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll never offer you my sweatshirt again.”

“It’s not that. We’re just so close to my house.”

“We’d get there sooner if we skated,” he says, sounding evil again.

“I can’t skate.”

“I bet you’ve never tried.”

“I couldn’t even stand on that thing.”

“You could absolutely stand on it.” He drops the board down between us. “Come on.”

“Quinn.”

“Just stand. On a still board.”

He takes my hands. I step up.

“See. Super easy.” He starts to walk slowly, still holding both my hands.

“Okay, now this is middle school flirting.”

“No,” he says, moving faster, “this is skating.”

I let us go a few feet, clinging to Quinn too hard for it to be cute. My hands feel sweaty. I can’t look at him, so I look down at my legs, all wrong and awkward, knees knocked, and his sneakered feet, sidestepping, one crossing over the other with surprising grace, the street slipping past beneath us.

“Okay, I’m done.” I jump off, stumbling, and he runs after the board.

“You’re a natural,” he says, jogging back to me.

“You’re an idiot.” I cross my arms back over my chest.

We’re almost at my house. I feel disappointed. We fall back into step.

“So how was community service?” I ask. Boring. Boring fucking question.

“It was good. I just teach a class at the rec center.”

“You teach a class?”

“Yeah, I guess it’s not technically community service anymore. Like, I finished my required time.”

“When?”

“Um, ninth grade? Or eighth, I forget. So now it’s just a job, I guess.”

“What do you teach?”

“Ah,” he laughs nervously, swinging his free arm. “Sewing?”

“You can sew?”

“Sure,” he says. “I made this little guy.” He points to the small tree on his baseball cap.

We’re in front of my house now.

“Quinn, that’s like—embroidery.”

“I guess,” he says. “Don’t tell anyone.”

We stand there facing each other.

“You teach an embroidery class at the rec on Friday nights?”

“Yeah,” he says, “mostly to ten-year-old girls. And two really neat old ladies.”

He’s looking at me like he’s balanced on an edge, waiting for the wind to tip him. Something comes loose inside of me. I kiss him. Or I try. I press my mouth against his. His hat falls off. Then I run inside without looking back.