Chapter Nine
The last couple weeks of school fly
by in a blur of lasts. Our last homeroom, our last AP exam, our
last final. Soon, the three hundred plus of us graduating will roll
through what are supposed to be epic events, all in the rush of a
matter of weeks. The minor ones, like tomorrow's Senior Sleep-In
and next week's Senior Monday, may be unique to Port Woodmere, but
they are only variations of occasions celebrated by every other
high school across all fifty states. The more significant
events—prom, the athletics awards dinner, and graduation itself—are
no less generic.
All events that should
hold some significance in the grand scheme of my life. I suspect I
should be looking forward to at least some of them, but my mind is
a world away. I may still sit in class every day, but a part of me
has already moved into my shared apartment with Thea and is living
my imagined future. In spirit, I am no longer an
adolescent.
It didn't happen gradually
like it probably does for most people. It happened from one day to
the next. One ordinary Monday morning during calculus fewer than
four months ago, to today. From your average eighteen year old kid
with family issues, whose biggest concern was looking out for his
depressed kid sister, and greatest interests were sports and
fucking girls I couldn't care less about, to me. I bet there would be quite a few
girls out there who would love the gratification of knowing I got a
bitter taste of my own personal brand of sex with a side of
I don't give a fuck.
Even though I've always
taken care to make sure there were no misconceptions about my
hookups, there have been a few girls who didn't exactly take me at
my word. Who thought maybe I'd change my mind after the fact. I
never did. And until recently my day-to-day concerns generally
entailed some jealous ex-hookup, or managing the expectations of my
next random hookup.
Lately, every day I sit
through classes and social bullshit, I feel like I'm trapped in the
past. Like time is moving more slowly than I am.
But this morning I feel
more like myself. Well, at least more like the person I'm
transitioning into. The man I am becoming.
I dress in gray slacks and
a black, light, spring sweater. I'm nervous. Really
nervous.
I've only spoken to my
father once since that epic failure of a phone conversation a
couple of weeks ago, and only to confirm that we were still on to
meet today at ten. And with all of my pent up frustration with my
current situation with Rory, I'm already on edge, and if I have to
listen to him question her integrity again, accuse her of
fabricating the horrors of her past… well, I'm not sure any of Dr.
Schall's methods for controlling my anger is going to
help.
I haven't spoken to Rory
either. Not since she used me for sex as if we were nothing more
than some kind of casual friends with benefits.
Up until that moment I
hadn't even realized that I was still holding on to some hope for
us. I had convinced myself that I was simply being a good,
supportive friend, looking out for her. But that was
bullshit.
I don't know why I thought
that our hooking up meant something. That it meant
everything. Maybe
because there's never anything casual about Rory and me when we're
together like that. It's fucking epic. Every time. I know Rory's
never partaken in the art of a booty call, or a friends with benefits relationship,
so maybe she just doesn't know, but I'd think it would kind of be
self-explanatory. That it's just about getting off. It's not about
the other person, it usually doesn't even matter who they are. Only
a physical attraction and a mutual agreement is
necessary.
It's definitely not about
needing the other person so badly that I wanted to crawl out of my
own skin and inside hers. It's not about craving her like an
addict, to indulge in my favorite sight, sounds, taste, and touch.
To watch and feel an act I've known with fair consistency since I
was thirteen years old as if it was a new experience, invented by
Rory, never before even heard of. A casual hookup does not include
whispered confessions of my desperation for her, and an
all-consuming need far greater than the usual desire to
fuck.
With Rory, it's like a
completely different act altogether.
It's about
her. Wanting her
and only her. Needing to be deep inside of her. It's about
possessing and claiming her. There's no anxiety when she's like
that. There's only beauty and confidence, if just the slightest bit
of self doubt at times. But it's unwarranted, and I know exactly
how to vanquish it, and I do.
Nothing feels as good as
her. Nothing could ever compete.
I sigh, still completely
unable to comprehend how Rory can go from that, to friend, in a matter of minutes. Part
of me wants to chalk it up to her inexperience.
Because
that motherfucking bastard may have stolen her virginity, but she had never really had
sex. Not willingly—not because she
wanted to. She admitted as much the first night
she kissed me.
I shove my fingers through
my hair and pull a little, letting it sting my scalp a bit before I
let go. It releases only the slightest bit of the overwhelming
tension that I hold fucking everywhere these days, physically and
emotionally exhausted by the goddamn painful weight in my
chest.
I still can't believe that
Rory thought I'd ever experienced something like that before. My
stomach knots up. Maybe she thinks all consensual sex is like that.
And maybe it it would be for her. Maybe it's not
us at all, it's just
Rory. Maybe her kiss with her friend Cam was just as incredible as
it is when she and I kiss. Maybe… fuck.
This is ridiculous. I need
to fucking get my head straight. Because it doesn't even matter
whether she does or doesn't get just how once-in-a-lifetime this
thing with us actually is, and I don't just mean physically either.
She gave it a shot, and decided she couldn't handle it. And if she
can spend the afternoon with me in bed like that and then just
brush it off like it was a casual thing, then clearly she either
doesn't love me anymore, or never really did at all.
I wince at the cold, hard
truth of it all. But I know that I need to accept the situation and
move on. Because this is my fucking fault. I never should have made
any assumptions about that afternoon, and I probably shouldn't have
even kissed her before I understood what her intentions were… or
weren't.
And now I know that if we
can ever really go back to being friends, I need to accept it and
move the fuck on. But that's hard to do when I see her all the
time, when I'm constantly jumping on every chance to spend time
with her. So after that day, I decided to do the exact
opposite.
I realized I need space
from her. Because it's clear that I'm not over her. Over
us. So right now I can
be a better friend to her by giving her that space, and taking my
own, than I can by hanging around her all the time. A good friend
wouldn't be climbing into bed with her. A good friend wouldn't have
kissed her, and certainly wouldn't engage in the activities that
followed.
I shake my head in
self-admonishment. I need to get it the fuck together. Because I
just told myself I'm not a fucking adolescent anymore, and a man
wouldn't be standing around, losing it over girl like a fucking
pussy. And I have very adult issues to deal with today. Because
distance or not, I'm still determined to protect her, and I still
need my fucking father's help to do that.
My mom is already out
going about her day and Bits is with her private tutor, muttering
something in flawless French, and I don't understand a lick of what
she says to me when I pat her on her head in goodbye. I tell her
she's annoying and that I'll see her later in subpar Spanish, of
which I only took two mediocre years before testing out.
I park at the Long Island
Rail Road since we'll all be meeting at a bar tonight and Tuck is
designated driver. I have decided tonight it is time to shed my
sorry, mopey attitude and try to have a good time. Even if I have
to fake it. I know Rory will be there with the girls, but she's
been keeping her distance anyway, and I'm praying that with the
help of some liquid assistance, I can try and forget about my
troubles for a night. Because I can't move on if I don't move
forward.
I pull out my phone and
try to distract myself through the forty-minute train ride into
Penn Station. The car is full of professional men and women in
suits, all headed to their daily monotony. I try so hard to picture
myself like them—as a grown up, perhaps with a family, trekking to
my job hopefully in hospitality—but I can't see it. I fast-forward
my imaginary day, past the part with the unfathomable family and
house in the suburbs, and that's when I can see myself with some
clarity. Getting an entry-level job in hotel management, working my
way up the ladder just like Uncle Kelly, and maybe even owning my
own boutique hotel one day.
I smile to myself. It's
all paying off for him now. He's leaving the W Hotel Group now that
he's secured investors to buy a sick spot in the Meatpacking
District. A few million in renovations later and my Uncle Kelly
will be an hotelier. And as soon as I graduate, I'll be his first
intern.
It's the thing I'm looking
forward to most of all. The one thing that lifts the perpetual
weight in my chest, if only marginally. I realize it's nepotism,
but I don't give half a shit. Because I'll get experience no one my
age would ever have access to otherwise. I'll get to see the place
built from the ground up. From architect drawings and design to
execution and then management. But as vividly as I can see it, as
much as I welcome the eager anticipation of it, it's hard for me to
entertain the idea that it could be enough to make me
happy.
Six months ago, living the
single life of a college student interning at a world-class hotel