Chapter 9 #2
Soon, she edged out from around me for the bathroom.
When we were both clean, we returned to bed, me spooning her, her back comfortably nestled into my chest. I slid my hand to her waist with a gentle squeeze that pulled her against me and buried my face in her long, wavy hair, close to her ear. “Thank you,” I whispered softly.
“You’re welcome.”
“Can I touch you now?”
She tensed in my arms. “What?”
“Let me touch you, meet your needs.”
“Um, well,” she said, voice weak.
“Do you trust me, Vee?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation.
“Would you like me to try? Are you curious?”
“For educational purposes,” she said, her voice labored with the idea. “Yes.”
I smiled at her ear. “If you want to stop, just tell me.”
“Okay,” she says. “Go ahead. Please.”
She nuzzled against my chest, pressing closer to me. I gently lifted her shirt, my hand slipping to her bare stomach. She gasped, but nodded for me to continue, her breath coming in quick inhales, as my fingers undid her shorts, pushed under the waistband, and into her panties.
“You’re so wet,” I groaned as my hand glided lower.
“Um, that’s a normal physiological reaction—”
“Shhh. Deep breaths. Listen to my voice,” I whispered as I explored her. Her breath hitched when I found her clit—she wasn’t the only one who had studied. Firm, slow circles with my finger brought a soft moan—a deliciously satisfying sound. “Like that?”
“Yes.” Her head leaned back next to mine. “Don’t stop.”
“I won’t. You’re so warm. I like you like this.” I kissed her neck and nibbled her earlobe. “Does that feel good?”
“Yes, Henry.”
“Fuck, I like it when you say my name like that. Say it again, please.”
“Henry,” she groaned. I was rock-hard again, pressing into her ass as she arched against me. Her breath quivered as she whispered my name again.
“That’s it,” I coaxed, loving her pleasure, loving that I could do this for her, that she needed me, wanted me this way. “Come all over my hand like I did to you. Let me feel you.”
She shifted, pushing against me once more, spreading her thighs, and propping her leg over mine. Opening for me. My hand slid over the full range of her, my fingers dipping inside. I wrapped my free hand around her, cupping her breast over her shirt.
“Ah, Henry, this is better than I…”
“Shhh, just let it happen.”
“I…” Her voice shook. She’d never been so freely at my mercy before, never this blissful, never so damn wanton. Her entire body quivered with my touch. I thought her touching me was amazing, but this, this was better.
This was Venus letting me love her. Finally.
“Think about me when you come, Venus,” I whispered. Those words marked her undoing.
“Henry,” she whimpered, convulsing against my hand. When her body relaxed in my arms, I wanted to fucking cheer.
Her body trembled against mine as she came down from her release.
I wondered what she was feeling—did it feel the same as mine?
That build, the release, the exquisite converging of everything at once.
Finally touching her that way made me realize how much I’d always wanted her, even before I understood why.
But then she said the words no one ever wants to hear.
“This… this was a mistake.”
She pulled my hand away and wriggled free of my hold altogether.
“What? Why?” I sat up, watching her shift her clothes into place and tug on her rubber boots. “Venus, what’s wrong?”
She stopped in a huffing breath. Her hands drifted onto her hips as she formulated words. “This was not the outcome I anticipated.”
I let out a nervous chuckle. “That was… the perfect outcome. What outcome did you expect? You know how bodies work.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she said with exasperation. “I. I.”
I pulled myself from the blankets to sit at the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry. Please tell me what I did wrong. I thought you were enjoying it.”
Her body softened, her face falling into a pout. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You never do anything wrong, Henry. You were right. I should’ve taken more time to think this through, considered all the variables.”
“What variables did you fail to account for?”
She sighed. “Feelings, Henry. I would’ve accounted for feelings.”
I gaped. “This is the result of our feelings, Vee. Not the cause. We never would’ve done this if we didn’t care for each other. You wouldn’t climb into my bedroom window night after night if you didn’t feel something for me. Right? What’s wrong with caring for each other?”
“Nothing,” she shook her head, swiping at a tear on her left cheek. “Nothing. And everything.”
“Please, don’t go,” I said, patting the bed beside me. “Stay with me. Talk to me.”
Her brow knitted into a creased triangle, the same face she made anytime she worked through a complicated puzzle. “We can’t be friends like this.”
“You’re not my friend anymore?” I said the words slowly, afraid that at any moment, I’d push her over the edge. That she’d run. “I don’t follow.”
She huffed, nibbling on her fingers.
“Take a few breaths. Help me understand.”
“There’s nothing to explain,” she tried in a scoff. “Only that… the line is crossed, and we can’t go back, and we can’t move forward, either. We’re at an impasse.”
“Why can’t we move forward?” I asked calmly. I needed her not to bolt. To stay. “I mean, slowly. Together. As a couple?”
She sighed. “That’s what I mean, Henry. I’m not the marrying type.”
Before I could utter, “Who’s talking about marriage?” she was out the window, long blond waves wild behind her as she raced for our path.
I’d known Venus for ten years by then, knew her better than anyone. I knew that when it came to feelings, she preferred flight over fight—emotions made her run.
But that was the first time I understood that her flight tendency even applied to me.
The word never reverberated in her wake.
I never do anything wrong. It hurt that she used an absolute on me.
Venus rarely operated in absolutes. She referred to them as verbal traps, intended to declare something that, more than likely, cannot be proven and will, in fact, be disproven in a blink.
Absolutes are abso-don’ts, she’d say when she felt playful.
But this wasn’t playful. I never do anything wrong.
Then, I did something very wrong.
In the weeks that followed, it felt like Venus had abandoned me. School interactions were met with coldness, and each time I visited or asked to hang out, she’d be politely but sternly busy.
So, when I got drunk for the first time at my friend Brock’s place, I did the unthinkable—I told him what happened with Vee.
Then, he told everyone else.
It was a fucking nightmare. I was pissed at myself for betraying her this way, pissed at everyone for repeating it. I imagined her hating me. She should’ve hated me.
I wanted to apologize. I found her in the greenhouse, amid the trickling bogs, on her knees as she yanked dead weeds from an overgrown flower bed—our bed, which made me feel worse.
Her long, dirty blonde hair was tied with a red scarf, one of Mom’s hand-me-downs, into a messy bun on her head with strands dangling down on her bare shoulders.
She wore garden gloves, rubber boots, crossed at her ankles, and denim overalls.
She spotted me out of the corner of her eye when the door thwacked shut behind me.
But she didn’t react, except with her typical greeting of, “Hello, Henry.”
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”
She stood, brushed herself off, and put her hands on her hips. “What is it?”
“I told Brock—from school, the basketball team,” I clarified, “what happened with us… that night… in my bedroom. I was drunk and, I don’t know, still confused about it, I guess.
Anyway, he told other people, though I told him not to, and now, a lot of people know.
I’m so fucking sorry, Vee. I messed up, and I’m desperately sorry. ”
“Your apology is unnecessary,” she said, sounding unbothered.
“I did something wrong, something awful. I’ve ruined your… reputation.”
She let out a boisterous laugh. Her arms folded over her chest, and her head tilted at me.
“Yesterday, one of Ivy’s friends told me that I was Dr. Blake’s trial run before he got it right with her and that it was a shame he couldn’t send me back like a bad meal at a restaurant.
Then, while hiding in the teacher’s lounge closet to finish my lunch in peace, I overheard Mr. Henderson report that the Bad Blake caused his angina—a statement that I’m sure can’t be corroborated by his doctor.
That was before I was sent to the guidance counselor for having the audacity to question the real-world relevance of iambic pentameter, which apparently makes me belligerent.
Do you honestly believe that I care what any of them think of me, Henry? ”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d always known that school was tough for her. But hearing a list of indignities from a single day made me realize how much she didn’t tell me—that every day was a shit day for her.
No wonder she came to me that night. The dread she must have felt over starting a new year and going through the torture all over again must’ve been terrible. And I made it worse.
Some friend I was.
There, in the greenhouse, she held up a finger, like a lightbulb had just blinked in her head.
“Ah, I see it now… that’s why everyone’s calling me Flytrap all of a sudden.
” Her awkward, bleating laugh rumbled out.
“Fly, as in Venus flytrap, and fly as in getting into the fly of your pants—double meaning. I get it.”
“It’s not funny, Venus,” was all I could think of to say.
“I don’t care what they think of me, Henry. I don’t care what they call me. I. Don’t. Care.”
“I care. I care about you. When you’ve done something you regret toward a person you care about, you should apologize, even if they’re not hurt. But I think you are hurt.”
She winced. “I’m not hurt. But as is customary, I accept your apology. Feel better?”
“No.”
“That’s not my fault,” she said in a huff. “All I want is to get through this year, so I can leave this place and never look back.”
“Wait, I thought you loved this place,” I said, faltering at this new vision of Venus no longer here.
An ache arose in my chest, tightening my lungs.
I slipped my hand into my pocket to have my inhaler at the ready.
“Doesn’t it matter to you that this is where we found each other and became friends? All the stories we share?”
“Of course. I’m not a robot. I have a fondness for us and our stories.”
“A fondness, huh? Don’t gush about it.”
She softened, catching my sarcasm. “I like us. But this place has been slow torture for me. You’ll leave, too, Henry. It’s the natural progression of transitioning into adulthood.”
“Maybe. But I won’t leave you. Why have you been avoiding me?”
“That’s the natural progression, too, and a rightful one. It’s just like The Breakfast Club—you’re a popular jock with friends and parties, while I’m the basket case. Everything is looking up for you with me out of the way.”
“I NEVER wanted you out of the way,” I said sternly.
“Well, I am.”
“That’s what you want?” I said after using my inhaler.
She supported her stoicism by folding her arms over her chest, but she didn’t answer.
I stumbled over my words and latched onto the first excuse I could think of. “Okay. If this is goodbye, we should hug. It’s, um, customary.”
She groaned over my obvious manipulation, but opened her arms to me. It was a weak, obligatory embrace.
At first.
The pressure of a tight hold calms her. The first time she said so, we were eight, huddling in our handmade lean-to during a sudden storm. That’s why she liked to sleep with me sometimes.
But then, I tightened my grip on her, burying my face in her neck, hoping that if I held on tight enough, maybe she’d relax into me.
That, maybe she wouldn’t leave. It felt like years passed before her arms finally flexed around my shoulders, holding me there.
Her fingernails dug into my shoulder blades, almost hurting me while offering an assurance—Venus didn’t want to say goodbye.
“I miss you.” Her confession came out in the softest whisper. But that’s all I needed to hear.
My locked arms edged lower until I lifted her.
She laughed as I stared up at her, her hair drifting around her face like a curtain.
Amber light from the stained glass windows flickered across her face as I spun us, sunlight and honey.
“Don’t miss me. Be with me. Let’s pretend it’s always summer for us. ”
“Okay, Henry.”
But I disappointed her again. Disappointed myself.
The ridicule followed her for weeks after, and twice, when my teammates teased me in the hallways over her, I acted like our encounter meant nothing.
Once, I even denied we were friends to spare myself from their teasing.
She never knew, and I never bothered apologizing.
I still hate myself for it.
By Christmas, my crushing shame forced me to stop caring what everyone else thought.
To be more like Venus. To only care about her.
Venus never “claimed” me or acted like a “normal” girlfriend, but I decided she was.
She kept her distance at school, but I didn’t.
I sat with her at lunch again and sought her out in hallways and the library.
She warmed up to the idea of us, slowly.
For fear that she’d run, I didn’t push for sex.
But we held hands and kissed and spent every spare minute together.
And she started coming to my window again.
That was our best time… until that night when everything changed.
Now, lying in bed, my lungs still aching, I remember the last time I saw her before today, in the greenhouse, and her breathy confession that she loved me between kisses. She loved me. Those were words I never thought she’d say to me or anyone. And there they were, like music. Beautiful. Fleeting.
How could it have been true?
Seeing Venus has kicked up the dust of my subconscious. Memories long forgotten hang in the air, and another lands, making me ache—Uncle Jay and I examining arrowheads for his display case when I was fourteen.
“How’s Rapunzel?”
I can’t remember what I said in response, probably something about the garden we’d planted or how she sometimes snuck into my bedroom. Uncle Jay was cool with information like that.
“You love her, don’t you?” I remember him asking.
“We’re Antony and Cleopatra. Marie and Pierre Curie. Fitzgerald and—”
“I get it,” he laughed.
“We love each other, but she doesn’t know it yet.”
“I bet she knows more than you think,” he told me. “Just be there for her. As many times as she needs. The rest will fall into place.”
I was there, but I wasn’t there enough for her.
Is that why she left? Was it my fault?
I lay there for hours, floating between fuzzy conversations and blurred images, hoping to find the answers. Only I can’t—not without Venus.