I don’t tell her the rest. That we decided to start with the cake. He lit seventeen candles and told me to make a wish. I wished that someday soon I would know who my real friends were.
Then he fed me cake. In bed. Meaning we finally had sex again.
“Well that was sweet of him. Was the food your present?”
“I guess.”
A troubled look passes over Mom’s face, but she hides it quickly with a smile. “It was sweet,” she says again, but she doesn’t look that convinced.
This is chilling?
1:45pm
“Doesn’t look like you’re gonna make soccer practice.” Brooklyn grins as he runs his hand down my naked back.
All of a sudden, he’s all into me again. But now that he’s into it, I’m not sure if I am. I feel . . . um, I sorta feel like I shouldn’t be doing it with him. I never wanted it to be just a summer fling.
“It’s my birthday week. I shouldn’t have to go get all sweaty,” I say flatly.
“No, you can stay here and get all sweaty.” He laughs goofily, like he just made up a great joke. Plus, he’s high, so he thinks everything is funny.
“Do you still love me?”
“Sure I do. I’m lucky to have found a girl as cool as you to chill with.”
“This is chilling?”
“You know what I mean—we’re chill, right? We have a good time together. We’re friends.”
All of a sudden, his chillness really pisses me off. “I’d say we’re a little more than friends, B.”
He kisses me. “Calm down. I know we’re more than friends. I just think it’s really cool that we can be both. You know I love you.”
“If you loved me, you’d come to my party.”
“I don’t want to go to a club. Stop making such a big deal out of it.”
“So if I had my party at some dusty dive bar, where someone’s always puking up beer in the bathroom, you’d come?”
“You always have fun when we go to dive bars and you know it.”
“Yeah, I do, but it’s my birthday. Is it so bad to want to get dressed up and maybe feel like the star of the family for just one night?”
“Is that really what you want? The spotlight? The paparazzi? I thought you hated that.”
“I don’t know what I want. I grew up on movie sets, and I’m pretty sure I want to start acting. I think it’d be cool to act. To play a role. I sometimes dream that I’m someone else. That I go to a school where no one knows me, and no one knows who my parents are. I used to dream of going to high school, of becoming popular, and it all happened, but, like I told you last spring, it kinda felt empty. Like I’ll never know if they like me for me. Do you think I’m a good person?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“You called me a bitch when we were in London.”
He sighs and runs his hands through his hair. “You’ve lived a different life than most girls, Keats. You’ve been so many places, but yet you’ve been pretty sheltered. You seem to see your life like a movie: which part should I play today? Should I be the sweet girl? The butt-kicking soccer player? The polished, mature, well-traveled girl? The chill surfer girl? We all play different roles. It’s part of figuring out who we really are.”
I think back to what Grandpa told me. How I need to figure out who I want to be.
“So which one is really me?”
“Where do you feel most comfortable?”
“With you,” I say, but that’s not really true. When I’m with him, I miss dressing up. I miss wearing heels. I miss getting all dolled up.
I kiss his neck. It tastes salty. Brooklyn smells like a combination of an ocean breeze, Calvin Klein Eternity, and weed. It might be my favorite smell ever.
He rolls over to face me and looks at me very seriously. “You’re one of the sweetest girls I know. And I think you feel most comfortable playing the surfer girl because that’s who you really are. You’re cool, chill, breezy, happy, and you like being nice to people. That’s why I hate your friends. When you’re with them, you’re different. But regardless, I’ve always maybe had a little crush on you.”
“You had a crush on me? You mean I had a crush on you?”
“No. That first day we met, you weren’t what I expected. I knew who your mom was, figured you’d be a spoiled little brat, but you were cool. And those legs. Damn.”
“You never noticed my legs!”
“Yeah, I did. How could I not? They’re like a mile long. But what I really noticed was your drive. How determined you were to learn how to surf. You crashed so many times, but you kept paddling back out there and trying it again. There’s a lot of toughness in you. I watched you for two hours until I finally decided to go out in the water and teach you.”
I run my hand down the side of his cheek. “I surfed for the first time that day. My fifteenth birthday.”
“You were so excited that you hugged me. I’ve been in love with you ever since.”
“Bullshit. That was two years ago, and you didn’t kiss me until this summer.”
“You’re younger than me. I had to wait for you to grow up a little. For both of us to grow up a little.”