He reaches down to take the cushions off.
And that is how we find ourselves on his couch-bed, half-naked, praying his mom doesn’t choose tonight to be responsible and come home early. We reach a point — somewhere after my shirt comes off and his jeans become unbuttoned — where we don’t know whether to go forward or back. Thinking that I could lose him makes me feel desperate and he kisses me back like he’s feeling a little desperate himself, which makes me feel confident and, dare I say, sexy. Everything about being with him is new and yet somehow vaguely familiar. I want every inch of him pressed against every inch of me. I want his rough, tormented hands to never leave my skin. I want, I want, I want …
When it seems like maybe we’ve gone too long without moving one direction or another and it feels like maybe Zenn is going to pull away, I whisper, my heart in my throat, “I would fucking love a cup of tea.”
And he looks at me, searching and sincere.
“If you’re … making tea, I mean,” I add.
His head falls back and he laughs quietly and I feel this embarrassed, awkward weight lift from my shoulders.
He goes up on one elbow, his other hand resting lightly just below my belly button. “I would fucking love to make you a cup of tea,” he says quietly and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard anything so oddly sexy. But then there’s this awful moment of hesitation where I think he’s going to get up and make me a cup of actual tea, but he doesn’t.
Thank God, he doesn’t.
He’s kissing me again and then the last few pieces of our clothes come off and we’re fumbling with a condom and then he’s moving slow and gentle over me and it hurts a little, but then it hurts less as he’s a little less slow and slightly less gentle and everything becomes somehow more. He quietly asks me if I’m okay once or twice and I nod fiercely because I’m not sure what will come out if I open my mouth.
I’m not stupid enough to think sex is supposed to be perfect the first time, but oh, my God, it’s still pretty damn amazing. Maybe it’s not the actual sex that’s amazing … yet, anyway … but the closeness? The touching? The intimacy?
Amazing.
“What would my fractal look like?” His voice is quiet and rough and rouses me from a near sleep.
“Hmmm?”
He wraps his arms more tightly around me and I press my face against the warmth of his chest.
“If I did give you a fractal … what do you think it would be like?”
I open my eyes and inhale his clean, simple smell. I consider everything I know about him: his dad, his mom, his childhood, his struggles. Even his loneliness. And I think about all the things I don’t yet know about him: his past relationships, his insecurities, his doubts.
“I don’t know …” I press my hand against his skin, still amazed that I can. “It would probably be purple. And, like, busy.” I’m not describing this well at all.
“Purple?” he asks, somewhat surprised, like purple is not his color or something.
I nod and try to think of how to explain. “I sense certain colors more with certain … emotions, I guess. Green for jealousy, insecurity. Blue is generally kind of sad, which I guess is obvious. Red is angry. Yellow is … like, bitter? But purple is more … hurt.”
After a moment he asks: “And busy?”
“When people deal with one issue over and over again, the patterns are simpler. Like, concentric squares or maybe spirals. Something structured like that. But when there are a lot of different issues, it’s busy. Like organized scribbling.”
“You think I have a lot of issues?”
“Naaahhh,” I answer sarcastically, and I trace my fingers across the solid flat plane of his stomach.
“Would it have scared you away from me?”
“Your fractal?” I think about this for a minute. “I don’t think anything could have.”
He kisses my forehead and I’m tempted to stay at his apartment all night, just to freak my mom out a little bit. I mean, that’s not the only reason I want to stay with him. I want to stay with him because his warm body wrapped around mine, his breath on my skin, his roughly calloused hand stroking my hair are probably the most amazing things I’ve ever felt. Why would I ever want to leave? But scaring my mom a little bit at this point would be an added bonus. She’s had it pretty easy during my teenage years. I’ve never had boyfriends, I’ve helped her with the quads, I get straight As and have been nothing but obedient. Maybe me spending the night with a boy would be enough to shake her out of her power play.
But when it comes down to it, I’m a good girl to the core. Well, aside from the unexpected premarital sex. And after the tragedies my mom has had to deal with, I don’t like scaring her unnecessarily.
Zenn’s mom doesn’t seem to practice the same courtesy because she’s still not back, even after we allow ourselves to lie tangled together on his couch-bed for an hour. Even after we get dressed and Zenn devours a sandwich and finally drives me home. In my driveway he kisses me long and slow and sweet and I groan when I pull away and force myself to get out of the truck. I brace for the third degree when I open the front door, but the house is quiet. I sneak past my mom, who is dead asleep on the couch.
Well. So much for scaring her unnecessarily.
I get out of the house early in the morning, before my parents or the quads are even up. I’m usually up before them on school days, but sometimes I’ll stick around as long as possible to try to help my mom with the kids. Today I’m up and out the door before anyone else’s feet hit the ground. I’m not sure what I’m trying to do exactly. This teenage rebellion thing is new to me. But maybe I want my mom to think about what she’s asking me to give up. Maybe I want her to realize how easy I’ve tried to make things on her. Being responsible, getting good grades, staying out of trouble. Maybe I just want her to remember what it’s like to be young.
She must have gotten up during the night and checked my room to see if I was home. But who knows. Maybe she doesn’t know I was ever here.
I anticipate fifth period with an unfamiliar glowing feeling low in my stomach. I wonder how I’ll look Zenn in the eye, how I’ll manage to not undress him in the art room. But fifth hour comes and Zenn is not there. I eat my lunch alone and try not to let self-doubt get the best of me when he doesn’t text me back.
Chapter 35
When I get home from school, both my mom and dad are there. When my mom feels out-argued, she likes to bring him in for backup. I’m guessing they’ve laid out a game plan on how to deal with me when it comes to Zenn. My mom treats me civilly and doesn’t say anything about Zenn during dinner, but I know the storm is brewing. My dad has been brought in as chief negotiator, and I suspect we’ll be having some kind of sit-down before bed.
Sure enough, once the quads are asleep they call me into the living room.