5 #2
“Oh. Um. Yeah.” I took the bottle and, after a moment of hesitation, touched it to my lips. I wasn’t brave enough to swallow.
Cookie hadn’t stopped barking, a repetitive, angry tempo, echoing through the walls.
My heart thumped along in time.
I handed the bottle back, and he took another sip. “It’s OK to be shy, you know.”
“I’m not,” I said, a little too quickly. “Shy, I mean.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m just . . . I’m not used to this.”
“That’s good too.” He handed me back the vodka.
I pretended to drink again and felt like a coward.
He watched with a strange, unsettling sort of intensity.
I was sitting with my back against the birdcages, the metal of the bars pressing into the bones of my shoulders.
Kyle sat with the bookcase behind him, large, old, and covered in layers of tacky-looking varnish.
The shelves were packed with books, a collection of globes, and, at the very top, a set of four porcelain dolls.
A cowgirl, a ballerina, a schoolteacher, and a bride.
They were slumped against each other, feet hanging over the edge of the shelf, glass eyes staring.
“I think you’re cute,” Kyle said, smiling the same default smile he’d worn when he was standing on Grandma’s welcome mat.
I stared at him. “What?”
He laughed. “Do you think I’m cute?”
“I . . .”
“Do. You. Think. I’m. Cute?”
Was Kyle cute? I didn’t know. A more important question: Was that what this was? Was a guy interested in me? That had never happened before. The thought made my stomach clump into a knot and rise up my throat.
“You’re blushing,” he said.
I was. I couldn’t help it. My cheeks felt like they were on fire. “I’m sorry.”
“Nah. Don’t be sorry. Just answer the question.”
I tried to think.
Was Kyle cute? He looked fine, I guess. He had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, all in relatively normal positions.
There was a bit of muscle on his arms, which was good, at least according to the intel I’d gathered from romance novels.
He’d also been nice enough to listen to me ramble on the phone. That should’ve earned him a few points.
For no reason at all, I thought of Ginger and her dimples.
Kyle didn’t have dimples. He just had teeth. A whole lot of them, like a shark.
“Do you think I’m cute?” he asked again, and for some reason, this time, it sounded like a warning.
“Yeah,” I answered quickly. “You’re cute.”
For the first time in my life, it occurred to me that I hated the word “cute.” Little kids were cute.
Fainting goats were cute. Kittens in a box, ducks with blue feet, a crab in a plastic hamster ball.
Things that were small, weird, and a little pathetic.
Things that you might randomly get the impulse to crush if you held them in your hands.
I didn’t want to be cute.
Kyle handed me the bottle. I forgot that I was not drinking and swallowed a mouthful like it was water. Just like in the videos, I coughed, and just like I’d imagined, it was embarrassing and awkward and went on way longer than it should’ve.
Kyle didn’t say anything. He just watched me and waited.
There was something disquieting about that.
Something that pulled the heat out of my cheeks and made my stomach rise even higher in my chest.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have let him in here. Perhaps I shouldn’t have talked to him over the phone. Perhaps this, all of it, was one very big, awkward fuckup. I tried to think of how to say that in a way that wouldn’t hurt his feelings, but it was hard to think, racked with coughs.
The neighbors were still fighting.
Cookie was still barking.
I wanted to shout at everyone to shut up.
I wanted to make excuses and show Kyle to the door.
I wanted to roll back the clock to that morning and wear a dress to Ginger’s party.
I wanted my grandma to come home.
“Are you OK?” he finally asked.
“Yeah,” I said, waving a hand weakly. “Just, um, went down the wrong pipe.” That sounded like something an old person would say. “I mean . . . I breathed it . . . I . . . never mind.”
“That’s OK.” Kyle took the bottle out of my hand but didn’t take another drink. Instead, he set it aside. I didn’t like that. It made everything inside me go still and cold.
“Hey. Kyle. I’m sorry. You’ve been really nice and everything, coming over, and talking to me on the phone. But the thing is, I’m really tired and—”
He kissed me.
There was nothing nice about it. I was sitting cross-legged on my grandma’s threadbare carpet, listening to Cookie bark, and the neighbors yell, still barely swallowing the urge to cough.
Kyle tasted like vodka, sweat, and barbecue sauce.
His palms, when he gripped my shoulders, were wet. His stubble was like sandpaper.
I pushed him back.
He blinked. “What?”
“I . . . I’m really sorry I—”
“No. Wait. For real. Are you being serious? What the hell?”
“I’m just . . . I don’t think this is . . . You should go.”
“I’m just being nice.”
“I know. Thank you. I mean, seriously. You bought me vodka. No one has ever done that bef—”
“Why are you shouting?”
I wasn’t shouting. “I . . . Kyle. I . . .”
He tried to kiss me again. I pushed him back, harder.
“What the hell?!”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “Really. I think this has just been a misunderstanding. I really appreciate you coming here but I’m tired and—” I tried to stand.
He grabbed my wrist.
Panic jolted through me, a fevered zigzag of electricity, zapping back all the uncertainty, all the carefulness. I kicked out with a ragged scream, my foot connecting hard with his groin.
He grunted in pain but didn’t let go. His fingers dug in harder, sinking into my skin, squeezing my bones. I tried to yank free, but he dragged me to the ground.
The vodka bottle fell over.
Cookie’s barking reached a fevered pitch, high and manic, like a scream. Except it wasn’t Cookie screaming. It was me.
A hand clamped down over my mouth.
“Shut up shut up shut up shut up,” Kyle snarled.
I didn’t shut up.
I didn’t stop moving either. I kicked and clawed, gouging red marks on his forearms, skin clumping beneath my nails.
The hand over my mouth moved to my neck.