Both of your parents say good night to you and you hope your mom won’t check on you when she goes to bed. You know your dad won’t.
At nine o’clock, you climb out your bedroom window and although it must be in the eighties, it feels cool for early September. There’s a slow wind and you wonder if maybe there might be one of those last monsoons of the season coming through. You would hate to get caught in a rainstorm on the night you sneak out. Your bedroom is right over the air-conditioning system so it’s an easy jump down on top of it. You’re worried, though, that when you hit it you’ll make too much noise, but since there’s no backing out now, you go for it. When you’re on the ground, you pause for a moment to see if any outside lights come on. When they don’t, you crouch down and head to the street where Ben is standing outside his car waiting for you.
He’s there, waiting.
Ben.
He’s smiling.
What you want to do, what you really want to do is fall into his arms and smell him, all of him, and put your fingers through his hair and touch his cheeks and, of course, kiss his lips and also his eyelashes.
But you’re tentative and nervous because you were so mean to him the last time he was here.
So instead, you wait and watch. The light from the street lamp hits him just right, so there’s a glow about him, and he’s got this look on his face, like the first day when you floated on the river together.
You wish you were floating again.
You take a step forward because you figure if you don’t do something your knees might give out on you.
He puts both hands out and takes yours in his. His are warm, soft. You’ve missed his touch more than you knew, and he pulls you to him and touches his thumbs to your wrist, your palms. He feels the rough scrapes you’ve created there.
He brings you closer, all the while touching your wrists, your fingers and hands, the places you scratched.
He looks into your eyes, and there’s such sadness in his expression.
He knows.
He knows.
“Oh babe,” he says. “What did you do?”
He pulls you closer and you start to cry.
*
He takes you to his house.
He wanted to take you back into your house, to have you tell your parents right away, to show them what you had done, but you begged him, pleaded with him not to. You said your parents wouldn’t understand, that they don’t get you and that you can’t be near them. So he agreed and he took you to his house.
His sisters are asleep and his parents have gone to their bedroom already so the house is dark when you pull up. Inside, his puppy, Earl, lifts his head from his dog bed and whimpers.
“Not much of a guard dog,” Ben jokes.
In the kitchen he turns on the lights.
“Show me,” he says.
You’re embarrassed. But you trust Ben so you place your hands in his and he carefully examines your palms, your fingertips, your cuticles, and your wrists. He moves his finger across the scratches you’ve etched into your skin, featherlike. He looks into your eyes as he lifts your hand up to his lips to kiss your fingers.
“Why?” he finally asks.
You thought you’d feel better being with Ben, but you’re ashamed. Ashamed that the monster made you do this. You have no answer for Ben when he asks you why. You don’t know how to tell him that when you did it you felt relief, and that you only started doing it after he left. You think that would make him feel bad, and you don’t want Ben to feel bad. It’s not his fault you did this.
You shake your head as if to say I don’t know.
It’s enough for him, because he knows you. Already, in your heart, in his heart, you know each other.
“We can talk about it later.”
“Okay,” you say.
“You’re still perfect,” he says.
*
He takes your hand and leads you to his room. The walls are painted dark blue, and the feeling when you walk in is intense, warm, comforting. A few posters feature some bands you wish you knew all the music of because if it’s music he listens to, you’re sure you would love it. You imagine him singing to you while you’re curled up in his bed. His sheets are a tangled mass, and his comforter—navy and brown—is crumpled at the edge of his bed as if it was too hot and he had to kick it aside. His desk is neat, a stack of notebooks and papers in the corner, his laptop, some pens in a cup. T-shirts are folded on the chair and the only light comes from a small desk lamp.
You sit on the bed, reach for his pillow, and place it on your lap. After a few moments, you bring the pillow up to your face and inhale. It’s a real feather pillow, it’s cool, and it smells just like Ben. He sits next to you and tells you he missed you.
“I missed you too. I’m sorry.”
“Quit saying that,” he says.
“But I am.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry for everything. I’m not really very good for you.”
“Don’t say that. But you have to be good for yourself first,” he says.
You swallow. You don’t want to cry, because you don’t want to be sad.
“I wanted to call you, text you, but when you asked me to leave, I figured you didn’t want me around,” Ben says.
“I know.” You swallow again, harder.
“I get that it wasn’t you talking that night.”
“No.”
“Are you on medication?” he asks.
“I was.”
“What happened?”
“I stopped taking my antidepressant about three weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought I was feeling better.” Your voice cracks.
“You think you should still take it?” Ben asks.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Are you afraid of me?” he wants to know.
“No! Why would you ask me something like that?” you whisper.
“It’s just, it seemed like you were pushing me away the other night. I wasn’t sure?”
You tell him about Alex, and the rumors from last year, and the ER and how you started taking medication after all that. You tell him how difficult school is. He needs to understand that there are catalysts that have caused you to behave the way you’ve been acting, and that nothing he’s done has made you do what you’ve done.
“If anything, I’m mostly scared of losing you, that’s all. Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of,” you admit.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
He touches your hair, moves it away from your neck, and brings you close to him. You lean along the length of him, put your head on his shoulder. You both sit there for a moment, quietly. You feel a little less sad. You know he cares about you, because he wouldn’t say those things if he didn’t care, he wouldn’t want you here if he didn’t care.
He lifts your chin and meets your lips and then you’re kissing each other, and you remember how much you love kissing him, and how could you have made him leave your house? Why did you make him go?