Again (23 page)

“Sorry,” I replied. Honestly, I was
starting to put myself to sleep. It was exhausting having the same guilty
thoughts again and again with nothing to drown them out. Well, the thing in my
hand could drown them out, but…
ah shit, here we go again.

“So you think I should take him on a magic
Veronica ride?” she asked, twirling a piece of hair around her finger.

“You won’t go through with it—he’s too
young,” I said, though I’m not sure why. Maybe I wanted her to have some
internal struggles of her own to deal with.

“Are you seriously daring me, right
now?” she asked with a wicked smile.

“No,” I said, but maybe something in the
deepest part of my brain was. I’d forgotten one clear difference between
Veronica and me: a struggle to me was a challenge to her.

“Because if you are…” She paused. “…you
know I’ll do it.”

“You’re thirty. Daring you to do
something shouldn’t make you want to do anything.”

“It doesn’t,” she replied, her mouth
falling into a pout. She ignored my comment about her being thirty because who
the hell wants to admit to that?

“Do what you want,” I said, taking
another sip. It had definitely been longer than a hundred seconds.

“Honey,” Veronica said, with wild, eyes,
“I always do.”

It was true—she did, and until I stopped
drinking and started questioning everything, I had too. When I had alcohol to
hide inside, I’d viewed struggles as challenges too.

“Let the games begin,” Veronica said,
indicating the “lifeguard” and his friends working their way back through the
bodies and noise between us, holding beers high so they didn’t spill.

I took another sip of my own.

“That a girl,” Veronica said, like a
mother spoon-feeding disgusting cough medicine to her child.

The thing was, my medicine was keeping
me sick.

So why couldn’t I stop taking it?

Lifeguard reached us and handed Veronica
her beers. She turned to me and held one out.

I took it.

She clinked glasses with me and drank
her beer down in a quick gulp, her throat tightening with each huge swallow
like a boa constrictor downing a rat. She finished and wiped her mouth.

“Your turn,” she said.

It was so cold in my hand, so familiar.
I could have just given it back to her. I
should
have just given it back
to her, but I didn’t. I brought it to my lips and gulped down the whole glass
in one take, stacked it under the half-empty beer I was still holding.

Veronica smiled and fixed her focus on the
“lifeguard.” “It’s hot down here. Are you ready to go upstairs or something,
Baywatch
?”

I guess she was going to go through with
it, and why not? This guy didn’t mean anything. I was the one who was stupid enough
to be with someone who had fooled me into believing he meant everything.

The “lifeguard” was silent for a moment,
his eyes wide. He was probably in shock.

“Think for too long and I’ll ask one of
your friends instead.”

He grabbed Veronica’s arm and started
pulling her away so quickly that if someone was taking a picture they might
have missed it.

“If I’m not back in thirty minutes,” she
turned to me and mouthed, “send more lifeguards.”

This wasn’t a rare move for Veronica,
but with only me and alcohol for who knew how long, my body flooded with blinding
fear. What would I do? What would I not be able to control?

Clearly, I was already having trouble,
considering I’d just slammed a beer without even a moment’s reluctance.

I stood there, the “lifeguard’s” friends
quickly realizing I wasn’t anywhere near as interesting as Veronica started to
ignore me. I stared at my half-empty beer, wondering if I could make it last until
Veronica got back or if I’d end up refilling it.

I took another sip, hoping it might
bring things into focus, then another, and another. Alcohol, my friend, my
enemy, my nemesis, keeping me company.

I drank the last sip. The little voice
in my head said,
more, just one more.

The keg was a few feet away. I
considered it. My skin flushed, and I blinked at it, my lips pressed together.

Just one more.

You’ve already had two.

You’ve already lost.

Instead of dealing with it I went to
find the bathroom. When someone pounded on the door and yelled
hurry the
hell up
, I would figure out what to do next.

Luckily there wasn’t a line when I
reached it. I let myself in and locked the door, sat down on the rim of the
bathtub, and took out my phone.

My finger hovered over Carter’s contact.

He’d said he would always come and take
care of me.

I stiffened and shoved my phone back in
my pocket.

What was I doing?
He wasn’t my boyfriend. He wasn’t my savior; locked in a bathroom
with only a door between me and a house party raging outside, that was never
clearer.

Only I could be my savior.

My mouth thick with beer breath, I
wondered when I would finally be strong enough.

We headed back to the dorm. Veronica
might have requested the full college experience but, when she was faced with
going further than kissing a guy who would have no idea there used to only be
one
CSI
on television, she took a pass. She did however drink all of the
fifth of rum he had in his back pocket.

 “Flirting is one thing, even making out
a little,” she said, stumbling over the frozen quad, “picturing him sucking on
his momma’s breast while he’s going down on me is another.”

“You’re gross.”

“No,” she said, enunciating her loud,
slurred words in the way only someone who is wasted can, “if I would have slept
with him I would be.”

I’d slept with Carter, but he was a
senior, twenty-two, not much younger than me really, but he was younger. He
still didn’t know I was older.

He still had a secret he couldn’t tell
me.

Even being older, I still couldn’t stop myself
from having a couple of beers.  

I wasn’t as drunk as Veronica, but I had
to lock myself away to ensure that.

Maybe she wasn’t as bad as me. Maybe I
was worse than ever.

“He gave me some nice memories, though,”
she laughed.

She’d had the night she wanted to have,
but I had failed—again.

“I’m glad
you
had fun,” I huffed,
the words I couldn’t say to her making those words empty.

“Who pissed in your beer?”

I didn’t respond, I kept walking against
the cold, whipping wind.

“You should be glad. It was why I came
here. It’s not like you were helping, standing there mumbling to yourself.”

I guess I’d been counting to a hundred
aloud. “I was just trying not to drink too much.”

“You mean like me,” she slurred.

I bit my lip. I was definitely not in
the mood to get into a competition with her.

“You said you weren’t drinking
at all
,”
she said with a look I knew.
You might think you’ve changed, but you’re
still just like me, even with your new life and your new clothes and your new
start, you’re still just like me.

“I wasn’t supposed to.”

“Supposed to,” she replied, fully
morphing into her Mr. Hyde. “If I lived my life on ‘supposed to’, I’d never do
anything.”

I sucked in a breath. She was right. I
wasn’t supposed to be with Carter. If I was smart I would have stayed the hell
away, but I couldn’t picture my life without him. Even with all our lies
between us, his kiss, his touch, were the truest things I’d ever known.

The only lie that mattered was the one I
kept telling myself.

“Even here,” I said, my voice shaking,
gray breath coming out in puffs, “I’m exactly who I am.”

“What does that mean?”

I walked faster.

“Seriously.” She reached out for me. “I’m
the one who is wasted and almost had sex with a minor.”

I shook her off, not because I was angry
at her, but because her words were no consolation. She’d done all that, but
she’d stopped. I was the one who never could.

“Hey,” she said, forcing me to turn, her
eyes black diamonds in the moonlight. “I don’t understand why that’s such a bad
thing. I love who you are, Kate.”

“I don’t,” I admitted, gulping in cold
air to keep myself from crying.

“Jeez. Maybe you should have gone to
rehab,” she replied quickly.

I tensed and clenched my jaw. I guess
talking about my messed up life wasn’t the real college experience she’d come
to visit me for.

“Sorry,” she said, looking down.

“It’s okay,” I said. Veronica wasn’t my
therapist, she wasn’t even Carter. She was my partner in crime. What was your
partner supposed to do when you tried to go straight?

What were you supposed to do when going
straight seemed impossible?

Carter

I was
heading back to my room when I saw Kate in the hallway coming from the bathroom
in the white T-shirt and yoga pants she’d worn the other night. I couldn’t help
picturing her without them. Her beautiful, naked outline surrounded by light—wanting
me, needing me.

It
was less than a week ago, but it seemed like decades.

She
paused when she noticed me at the end of the hall, stepped back like she was
unsure what to do.

I
knew exactly what I was supposed to do. I was not letting her walk out of my
life. I was done letting my past dictate my future.

She
was
my future.

“Kate,”
I said, before she could hurry away from me. I hoped my voice might take her
back to that night in my room, too, might make her remember the guy she had
fallen for before I’d ruined everything.

She didn’t
respond at first. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face was pink and chapped
like she’d been crying. Her lip wobbled like she might start again.

“What’s
wrong?” I asked, forgetting my agenda.

Tears
started falling down her cheeks like my words had flipped a switch.

I
hurried to her and held out my arms. She fell into them and a racking sob came
out—so violent she sounded like she was choking.

“I can’t
escape myself.” She burrowed into me.

I
kissed her forehead, ran my fingers down the back of her head, her soft, shiny
hair. “It’s okay,” I whispered.

“I’m
always the same,” she said, disgust in her voice. “That was what coming here
was about, but I’m still just me. I’m still just
this
.”

“Kate,
stop,” I said, trying not to lose myself in her too much—in her smell, in her
touch. She was letting me hold her again, comfort her. I couldn’t take it for
granted, or do anything to make me undeserving of it. “I think your
this
is pretty damn good.”

She
shook her head, her voice thick with tears. “You see me as so much better than
I really am. You see the person I want to be.” Her eyes darted across my face like
maybe she was trying to figure out how I could.

“I’d
accuse you of the same thing,” I said, “or at least I would have.”

She
stepped back, trying to steady her breathing.

I
wiped the tears away from one eye, then the other. She trembled at my touch.

“I’m
so sorry I didn’t tell you.” I drew her back into me and spoke into the hair on
the top of her head, “but I’ve never been able to escape who I am, either.”

She
looked up, wanted me to see her eyes. To see she was ready, that she’d still be
mine when I was done. “Tell me,” she said.

“Okay,”
I said, “Let’s go into the stairwell.”

We
walked down the hall side by side. After the door closed behind us, we sat next
to each other on the cold cement step.

I
told her. Everything. What a coward I had been, what a coward I still was for
not having been able to admit it to her, even that I’d gone to visit Jeanie the
other day. “I would understand if you never want to talk to me again,” I
finished, my words echoing up and down the fifteen floors of the dorm.

She
turned to me, her gaze contemplative and her lips tight, her arms flat against
her thighs. “Thank you for telling me. I know it wasn’t easy,” she finally
said.

“That’s
it? No questions? No yelling?” I asked, shocked at how well she’d taken it.

Or
maybe she was just done with me, the fear I’d had about her finding out my
secret and what she would think of me completely confirmed. I strained to stop
my limbs from shaking, fight the dizziness filling my head like a fog.

“It
was a really shitty thing you did, but you obviously feel terrible about it.”

“More
than I could ever articulate or make up for,” I said, my voice cracking.

“It was
also a long time ago,” she said after what felt like an endless minute. “You
didn’t do any of that to me, Carter.”

I
guess she wasn’t done with me, but there was something else, a distance. “I
know,” I said, attempting to bring her back, “but I kept it from you. I lied to
you.”

“You
did what you had to,” she exhaled heavily. “Besides, I can’t be mad at you
about that and still be lying, too.”

There it was
.

“Tell
me,” I replied, not missing a beat, ignoring the hole in the pit of my stomach.

She
sat up straight. “You might not want to talk to
me
again after I say
this,” she admitted.  She took another long breath. “I never graduated from
college, so transcript-wise I’m still a freshman,” she squinted, puckering her
whole face like the words she was about to say were poisonous, “but age-wise, I’m
twenty-nine.”

I
stared at her, unable to speak, my lips and tongue seemingly detached from my
mouth. I stacked ten years on the girl I thought she was.

Twenty-nine?
Twenty-fucking-nine?

My
mind spun. I wanted to take care of a twenty-nine year old. I’d told a
twenty-nine year old all my secrets. I’d had incredible, mind-blowing sex with
someone more than five years older than me. I was pretty sure I was ready to be
her boyfriend.

“It
was crazy, it was wrong,” she said. “I believed that I deserved another chance and
pretending was the only way.” She barely stopped to take a breath before she
added, “I also needed a scholarship to stay here past this semester and lying
was the only way that could happen, too. It worked. My doctored transcripts and
a nudge from Professor Parker did the trick.”

Everything
seemed uneven. I wondered if it was how Kate felt when I told her about the
night with Jeanie.

But
she had been willing to move past it for me. Couldn’t I do the same for her?

“I
know,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “You hate me.”

“No,”
I finally said. My spiraling thoughts formed into only one. She might have been
ten years older than she said, but she was still Kate. She might have been
older than me, but she was still someone I wanted to take care of.

Still
someone I wanted to take care of me.

“I’m
not mad.” I pulled her hands from her face, took them into mine and squeezed tightly.
“Surprised, really fucking surprised, but not mad.”

“Surprise,”
she said, “I’m almost thirty.”

“Surprise,”
I replied, “people call me a rapist.”

We
both started laughing. I guess we didn’t know what else to do.

Her
breath caught. “Thank you,” she said, her eyes wet in a new way, tears of
happiness, of relief.

“I will
always want the true you, and for you I will always be the true me.”

“Okay,”
she nodded, “for you, I’ll try.”

“So,
is there anything else?”

“How
much are you ready to hear?” She laughed nervously.

“Everything
you are ready to say,” I replied, tightening my grip on her hands.

She
sighed. “My last relationship was with a married man,” she admitted, “he was my
boss. Most of the reason I’m here is because he fired me and dumped me on the
same night.”

“Wow,
that’s cold. Are you still upset about it?”

“With
myself, yes; with him, not really.”

“Not
really?”

“Our
relationship was a two way street. The end of it was, too.”

I
nodded.

“What
about you?” she asked. “All aboard the truth train—
woo-woo
.”

I
laughed again. “I’m a lot younger than you,” I said with a smile. “That’s all I’ve
got so far. I’m hoping if we stay together, it’s all I’ll ever have.” I put two
fingers to her chin, tipped her lips toward mine and kissed her gently. A kiss
I hoped could be the mark of our new start.

“Out
of everyone on this campus, how did the two biggest liars find each other?” she
asked.

I
brushed a stray hair away from her forehead, “Maybe because we’re finally ready
to start telling the truth.”

Kate

Carter
was kissing me with so much force he slammed me against the wall of his room—as
solid at my back as he was throbbing against me. His lips were ravenous,
practically swallowing mine. He lifted me up and a squeal escaped. We were
still entwined as he carried me to his bed with arms so strong they were like a
truth all their own.

“I
guess this means you don’t think I took advantage of you,” I said.

His
eyes slowly lapped me up and down, up and down, like the sweetest drink. “You
mean because you’re older,” he laughed. “I didn’t, but that’s a fun idea.” He
lay down on the bed. “Your move.”

I
stood next to him, a sly, sexy smile permeating my lips. I took him in,
focusing on his strong steady shoulders and panty-melting eyes.

“Okay.”
I straddled him, pushed his thick arms behind his head and clasped his hands together.
“No touching, and you can only say
yes
.”

“Yes,”
he breathed, licking his lips.

The
heat of our skin radiated through the fabric of our clothes. I kissed his top
lip, his bottom lip, both sides of his neck—an appetizer.

“Yes,”
he whispered.

“Keep
saying it.” I slid his shirt off, forced his hands back behind his head, and
teased my fingers down his taut chest and stomach. I traced small circles
around his nipples first with my fingers, then with my tongue.

“Yes,”
he moaned. “Si, oui.”

I
looked up sternly.

“I
want to keep saying yes,” he explained, “but I’m trying to keep it
interesting.”

“Oh,”
I said, my lips sliding back down to his torso and trailing kisses down to his
waist, “It’s about to get interesting.”

I
undid his fly, pulled off his pants, and put my lips around him, his dick so
hard it bucked against the back of my throat. He sighed, his body falling
completely under my spell. My lips slicked over him from the base to the head.
He closed his eyes in pleasure. I licked the tip, my tongue looping around it. “Say
the word.”

“Yes,”
he said. “Yes,” he cried.

I
slipped off my shirt, my pants. His body quaked as I took him inside me. His
hands grasped at my hips.

“No
touching,” I scolded, forcing them back behind his head. “I’m in charge.”

I
reveled in the power. Controlling the moans and sighs coming from him, a
building pleasure that would grow and fill and burn and pound, finally
releasing like a gentle rush—the same rush beginning to rip through me. I eased
against him slowly like my movement was a breath, a whisper, plunged harder and
faster and rougher until it became a chant and then a squeal. We were entwined
like vines, like roots, like the two of us were both halves of a wishbone that
would never be broken, the wish already granted.

“Can
I say something else?” His breath was rough as his body continued to rock with
mine.

I nodded.

“I
think I love you, Kate. Yes,” his velvety voice proclaimed, “I know I do.”

“Me
too,” I said. “I’ve never been surer of anything than the way I feel about
you.”

He
rushed his hands to my hips, gripped me tightly, and flipped me onto my back so
quickly I barely had time to breathe.

“I
love you,” he said again, “and now…” His lips traced along my neck, down to my
breasts, his tongue slid along the curve of my stomach, teased at my hips and
slipped lower. “It’s time to show you exactly how much.”