You Between the Lines

Chapter Fifteen

J ERRY IS DANCING TO T AYLOR Swift, and that’s how you know it’s a good party. It’s not even one of her classics, the ones that get constant radio play. Instead, Jerry has his hands in the air, twirling his hips to some pulsing Taylor deep cut, beer in hand. He’s in his Reputation era. Maybe he never left.

We’ve all gotten sloppy. August is six drinks deep; he’s making out with Kacey on the balcony, pressing her so far into the railing it almost feels like she could fall off. Penelope and her gang of second-years keep taking videos using her custom-ordered Snapchat frame: a spooky black-and-white filter with the cursive letters QUOTH THE RAVEN: NEVERMORE . I dance next to Jerry and Christine, who begs DJ Morris to cater his playlist to her own personal tastes.

Funny thing about this cohort. If you ask them sober what music they listen to, it’s all indie bands with long complicated names. When drunk, they want anthemic Top 40 romps about getting drunk in big cars and partying until sunrise—the frat house staples I lived and breathed.

Morris puts on some ska tune no one recognizes and the groans are so palpable, host Penelope forces him to meet in the middle, and we get ABBA.

Aria and Will are very much not dancing. She’s in some spirited debate with Wiebke by the bar cart, hands flailing, and Will looks miserable drinking his beer and talking to Hazel. I meander over to Aria and Wiebke because I deserve to make every bad decision at least once.

“Having fun?” I wrap my arm around Wiebke, who looks just as surprised as I do.

“We were just talking about how different it is in New York from North Carolina,” Wiebke says, and Aria nods.

“Oh, you’re also from New York City?” I ask Aria, who’s slowly nursing her gin soda.

“Yes, and I must say, I do miss it. Only reason I got a driver’s license was because I moved here for school.”

“A bit harder to go to all those gallery openings and natural wine bars when there’s no subway system,” I say.

Aria nods earnestly. “Seriously, it’s a whole different world over here.” Gag me.

They go on and on about Wiebke growing up in West Berlin and Aria in the West Village and I have nothing to contribute. It makes perfect sense why Will would be attracted to a girl like Aria. Worldly and sophisticated, artistic and deep. Style and substance in equal measure.

“I’ve never even been to New York,” I say. “Everything I know about the city comes from Gossip Girl , but I’m sure that’s not a show for you.”

Aria sputters. “Oh my god, no, I love that show!”

“Really?”

She nods, eyes wide, then launches into a passionate diatribe about the final season that eventually bores Wiebke so much that she floats away to another conversation. Aria and I continue talking, and I come to the conclusion that I both like her and hate her. She’s beautiful and interesting and seems to maintain both lowbrow and highbrow interests—something I wasn’t expecting. I wish her and Will nothing but the best and can’t wait to watch their precocious Brown-legacy children grow up and go to New England’s top boarding schools.

I continue to make the rounds, taking advantage of everyone’s tipsiness by indulging in a bit of selfie taking and looser-than-usual dancing. In the hope of not having a horrific hangover tomorrow morning, I’ve been dutifully alternating liquor and water and am hovering the line between tipsy and drunk. It’s a pleasant, respectable place to be. And if you squint, tonight’s got all the makings of a classic Greek life party, albeit with a higher standard of alcohol. Just like back then, I sway and throw my arms in the air, swiveling my hips to a beat. And without writing to compare myself to or poems I’m barely qualified to analyze, it’s starting to feel like home.

Until Will’s tall form crowds into my peripheral vision, a seaside siren that threatens to take all of this away. But my mind, unfiltered with the aid of tequila and wine, ignores the warning. Instead all I feel is want, want, want .

And then “Mr. Brightside” comes on.

“This is my song,” Houston yells, “this is my song !” and he begins dragging people into the middle of the room to dance. Even Morris stands up from the laptop to participate.

Will is pulled into the mob by Houston, and while he hardly resists, he just sways to the music. He never struck me as the dancing type. I only have vague memories of him at high school dances. How respectful he was—never the kind of guy to leech onto a girl and start grinding, a signature high-school-boy move. How handsome he looked in his button-downs, how awkward his hands were, dangling without purpose.

Aria’s dancing near him but not with him, and the difference satisfies me. Somewhere during the pre-chorus he catches my eye, and the way he looks at me is unrelenting. I feel completely exposed. My heart races, and something pools deep in my belly. This time, I break eye contact first.

“More tequila,” I say to Christine, who’s been grinding on me.

“You better come back,” she threatens, and I pat her shoulder. My eyes flit to Will, who is downing his beer, no longer looking at me.

I don’t go to the kitchen, though, for a refill. I don’t go into the bathroom to freshen up my bangs or my lipstick. Instead, I slip into Penelope’s bedroom, the only respite of almost-quiet. I want to think without the too-much stimulation of the drunk MFAers around me. I walk in front of the mirror on her desk to look at my face, sweat-glazed and rosy, as I take in a four-count breath, a six-count exhale.

But then the door opens, sending in a beat of loud music and chatter. And Will.

“Hi.” He stands with his back against the now-closed door.

“Hi.”

He stays by the door, leaning. So casual. We look at each other for about ten seconds before he says, “Do you remember homecoming, my senior year?”

“I know I went.” My body goes taut under his gaze. I’m near Penelope’s desk, about six feet away from him, and I feel every foot of distance.

“Do you remember that ‘Mr. Brightside’ was playing when I bumped into you and spilled your drink on you?”

I shake my head.

“Yes you do,” he says, storm-eyed, every atom of his attention focused on me.

The rapid pulse of my heart tattoos across my chest. “Yes I do.”

“I was thinking of that moment just now, out there.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “You were wearing this pink dress and the soda left this giant mark.” He closes his eyes as if he’s trying to visualize it. “I remember thinking how good you looked wet.”

The way he says the final word is just filthy and its impact shoots directly between my legs.

I cross my arms. “Well, joke’s on you. Gen pushed me into you as an excuse to make you talk to me. I’m surprised it wasn’t obvious.”

His lips settle into a small smile. “Nothing about you is obvious.” He walks a few feet to my left and sits down on Penelope’s bed, a queen with messy blue linen bedding. “Though I like to think I can read you better than most.”

“You can.” My voice is so low I almost can’t hear myself. “I hate it.”

He laughs, loose and breathy, and I know it’s the beer that’s helping. He leans back so his palms are propped up behind his shoulders, totally relaxed. Pressure threatens to build up inside me if I don’t do something. His entire posture is an invitation, and I’m too tipsy to care that this is about to go beyond my original intentions for the night.

So I walk up right in front of him and put my knees on either side of his thighs, straddling him. I put my hands on his shoulders, blocking his view of the room, caging him in so all he can see is me. His jaw hardens, his lips part, and his hands go to my hips, holding them still. We just stare at each other for seconds? Minutes? I couldn’t say.

“You’re just like how I’d thought you’d be,” he says finally, his fingers moving up and down my thighs.

“When have you thought about this?” My stomach does acrobatics, gymnasts somersaulting into some empty space.

He pushes my hips down so I’m sitting on him instead of hovering, making contact with his hard lap. “In high school.” He presses his mouth to my collarbone.

“In college. And after,” he says to my throat, planting an open-mouthed kiss.

“And ever since the barbecue.” He pauses and then goes to my mouth. I let his tongue in immediately. My body arches into his chest on reflex.

If the kiss in the Writing Center was soft and hesitant, this is all urgency. Probably because we’re tipsy. Because the door is unlocked. Because we know that for every time we give in, eventually one time will be the last.

“Can I?” He pulls his mouth away from me and slips his hand about an inch under my dress.

“Please.”

He wraps one hand around my waist, pressing me into his chest as I continue to kiss him; the other, under my velvet dress, skims my thigh upward. My fishnet tights are flimsy, just held together by crisscross strings and a band at my waist. He grabs a handful of my ass over my tights and underwear and I roll my hips. He releases a loud breath.

“This okay?” he says, and I love how he checks in, again and again.

“Yeah, do whatever you want.”

Somehow, that makes him even harder. I’m sure I’m blushing but we’re in a dim room and I care less and less about the unlocked door. His hand goes back to the front of my body and slides a slow finger down the center of me, and I can tell I’m wet by the sudden cool feeling of being exposed to air.

“Fuck, Leigh,” he hisses and I bite his lower lip, causing him to jerk his hips upward.

As if he’s lost any remaining control he’d been attempting to hold on to, he spreads his own knees, causing mine to split wide open to adjust to him. I gasp and he groans and I can barely kiss him at the same time. I pull apart from his mouth and press my chest against his, pushing aside his loose cotton shirt until I can expose a shoulder blade to muffle my mouth on. He somehow snags aside my underwear from under the fishnets, and then it’s just building, building, building. It’s too much and not enough at the same time.

When my hips begin to buckle, he starts murmuring ridiculous things in my ear. How pretty I am like this, how he knows I need it, how crazy I drive him in workshop, how he can’t write a single poem where I don’t exist. In his stanzas, his lines, his words.

When the pressure becomes too much, he tells me to just let go and I do. My eyes roll back and my brain bursts into strings of words like love and yes and Will .

That last word reverberates like the repeating line of a villanelle, over and over in different forms, until the final quatrain blooms across my body. Some wild, quieting thing.