Chapter 20 Jessa
JESSA
With Kayla grounded, I finally get a blessed day of one-on-one time with Dade.
We’re lying on his bed watching a marathon of Tarantino films. We’re starting Four Rooms, which technically Tarantino was a writer/director for only a segment, but the marathon is including all written films as well—so we have a whole night planned too.
I’ve been spending the day trying to find a way to talk to him about what happened with Bird.
Dade’s always known I was gay, but aside from discussing the tryst with Natalie and a couple of make-out sessions with curious people from Six Roots, I’ve never gotten much play to discuss.
He’s always talking about Kayla and how great she is at a lot of gross things, but some haunting of his Catholic boyhood has him waiting to bump uglies.
Still, the descriptions of Kayla giving head were more than enough for me to put a moratorium on sex talk.
Now I want to break it.
We’ve been chewing on Twizzlers and making microwave ramen and eating Doritos.
My fingertips are bright orange, the nails rimmed with powder that won’t wash off.
It’s been relaxing, nice just sitting and existing together without others, quieting our usual sniping.
He’s working on a model sports car—a dorky hidden hobby only I know about.
The tiny jars of enamel paint carefully set on a TV table, him gently holding the tiny brushes, them looking huge in his hands, which have grown into the hands of a man over the past four years.
I think back to the first time we met, the two of us the only people in the janky-ass theater near my place.
Stadium seating and big recliners had become a thing, but it was an inconvenience for my parents to drive me out and I liked the familiarity of the old fabric flip-down chairs and the stained acoustic paneling and the memories of watching old flicks with Mack and Mom and Dad.
So there I was on a Saturday afternoon ready to see Tank Girl, whose soundtrack I’d already ordered at Pterodactyl Records.
Couldn’t be a better lineup, with Veruca Salt, Portishead, and Hole.
I wanted to hear it in all its glory, paired with the visuals of Lori Petty and Naomi Watts in postapocalyptic chaos.
I was in the middle row, the best one for acoustics, and he was two down. Still watching the promos, he twisted around and in a cracking teenage boy voice said, “I’ll trade you a Twizzler for some M&M’s.”
“Sure,” I said, and he crawled over the seats, up to me, and plopped down with a huge bag of Twizzlers and the largest popcorn possible. Following my eyes, he brightened up. “Free refills with this size. Important when you’re watching three in a row.”
“Three?! You’ve got richer blood than me.”
“Nah, just leave before the lights come on, hit the bathroom, and then slink into the next theater after it’s dark…. The staff here could care less.”
“They don’t notice even when it’s empty like this?”
“They’re just glad we aren’t drawing dicks on the bathroom walls.”
I grabbed a handful of popcorn and talked through my munching. “Don’t assume you know my dick-drawing habits in the bathroom.”
He laughed and the lights went dark, and thus he walked me through my first triple feature.
I knew he wasn’t much to worry about when the kiss between Lori Petty and Naomi Watts happened and he murmured, “Whoa, nice.” After that I felt safe enough to make a new friend since Olivia Fucking Rubens had made sure no girl at school would ever befriend me again.
Looking back, I think I worked better with dudes, mainly because there was a lot more cursing, foul topics, physical feats of strength, and general acceptance of nerding out over favorite topics than there was makeup, clothes, crushes, and whatnot.
Or maybe that was just being friends with Dade.
He didn’t have a lot of guy friends, just a bunch of acquaintances who would join him at concerts or parties.
The kind of people who bob their heads as you pass in the hall at school and talk about nothing all the time.
Dade and I have always gotten deeper. We would talk about our hopes for the future, discuss Mack’s downward descent as it happened, go back and forth sharing fears, insecurities, and successes.
We planned a future that would have us starting out in a small flat and ending with watching movies in an old folks’ home together.
Before Kayla I wouldn’t have hesitated to bring things up, but since her, it’s like he’s become an acquaintance.
I can’t talk to him about how frustrating she is, and he’s had zero interest in my life since their first kiss.
I feel like I’m filling time for him today in some way rather than really having “us” time.
The first segment of Four Rooms is filled with witches, including a pleather-clad Madonna acting out a lesbian fantasy that was cut a bit short for me.
Watching the scene, I get a rush of emotion, like a tremble running up my back, and a warm feeling fills…
well, all of me, but specifically I get a rush of the turn-on.
I remember Bird’s lips and fingers on me, how much more I wanted but also how much I enjoyed what we had.
How she fit in my arms as we fell asleep together. How right it seemed in that moment.
How wrong it felt the next morning.
How she kissed me outside, anyway. Pulling me in, against all my better angels. How I kissed back. Sweet lips, a second of paradise, and I’ve been in my own personal hell ever since.
Dade pauses after the segment and murmurs, “I need a smoke.”
I nod and follow as he grabs a bathrobe to cover his T-shirt and boxers.
I get my sweater. The October weather has finally brought a chill to the air.
On his back porch we settle into the lawn furniture, him puffing on a Camel, me sipping on a cherry Pepsi, happy his mom finally stopped buying Crystal Pepsi.
“Dade, what do you think of Bird?” Let’s ease into this.
“I think she fucking hates me.” He laughs and exhales a cloud of smoke.
“I don’t think she hates you, she just doesn’t know you.”
He squints at me. “You know, she said pretty much the same thing to me.”
“Well, majority wins, you should get to know her.”
It’s quiet for a moment, and I look out to his backyard full of old trees, the leaves caught by a slight wind and falling to the ground, bright in color and crackling noise. “Do you think Bird is, you know?” I wobble my hand back and forth.
“Why, you got a thing for her?” He laughs a little, but I don’t think it’s funny. “For real?”
“Um, well, we kinda made out the other night.”
It’s like someone lit a firecracker underneath his ass, he jumps up yelling, “Holeeee shit!”
“Shut the fuck up, Dade, it was just making out, but I dunno, has Kayla told you anything about her?” My breath catches, me hoping for a second she’s somehow secretly queer, hoping I’m right, hoping Dade doesn’t get a chance to shit on this, too. Hoping the old Dade—my Dade—answers this question.
“Okay, I need to hear about how this happened.” He leans back in the chair and for once actually listens to me explaining the other night’s events. He’s made his way through three cigarettes and cracks his own Pepsi to cool his throat. I finish and wait as his Adam’s apple bobs with the swallow.
“That’s pretty hot, but… Honestly, Jessa, she’s probably still straight. Y’all were high. People do dumb shit when they’re high. And plus, Kayla said she had sex with some boyfriend over the summer, and then he dumped her when their camp or whatever ended.”
A flash of jealousy over this ghost boyfriend hits me, sour and angry.
Then what he’s said hits me. We were high.
Shit, it was her first time being high. Weed makes everything feel good, it has definitely made me all kinds of turned-on and desperate and wanting in the past. It probably made her feel that way too.
I could’ve been anyone. I guess the situation was taken advantage of.
Yeah, she kissed me first.
But people do dumb shit when they’re high.
I feel like a dumb shit.