Cut Both Ways (14 page)

“I miss you,” she says. “It feels like we barely see each other now that school's started.”

“I know,” I say. I know I should say I miss you back, but I can't.

“I should quit yearbook. Or the newspaper. All I'm doing is taking photos. No time to develop half of them, either.”

“No, don't,” I tell her. “I'm going to be at my dad's full time now.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I talked to him today. He's got lots of stuff for me to do. And all the driving back and forth sucks.”

I should say it sucks because I want to see her and can't. I don't know why I can't say the things that I know would make
her happy. But to say it back just sounds like copying her. Like it wasn't really my idea. Or true.

“Your mom won't care?” She sounds like she wants to be really happy but is nervous about it. She's never met my mom but I've told her a little bit about her. How my mom's suspicious of my dad. I don't have to say she doesn't like my dad; they're divorced, it's obvious.

I tell her it's going to be fine. I'm lying; I don't know.

Then I tell her that I can't stop thinking about her.

That I wish she was here. In bed with me.

She doesn't say anything. She's just breathing. So am I.

This isn't anything I know how to do. She seems like she's waiting for something.

“You still there?” I say.

“Yeah. Just . . . sleepy.”

“Me, too.”

And then I turn off the light. I'm cold but everything feels sweaty and I want to jerk off. My hand's in my boxers. I am turning into Jack-Off Telios. Since Jack himself is no longer Jack-Off; he's got girls around him all the time lately. Like they are lining up for service now that he's all manly.

I'm thinking I'll tell her good-bye, but then Brandy says she wishes she were older.

The TV downstairs turns off, and some music comes on. My dad has a turntable he found in the trash behind the Laundromat and he took it home and fixed something and now he's
got all these records. Scratchy-sounding shit. It's some lady wailing. Blues.

I pull my hand out of my boxers. I ask Brandy why she wishes she were older.

“Because I already know what I want in life,” she says. “I'm sick of just waiting to be old enough to have it.”

I don't know why but this scares me. I don't say anything. I want to keep her on the phone; I'm imagining her naked in her bed, I can see it perfectly, as if the phone is some kind of magic device that transmits her through it. But I can't jerk off now.

I don't know what I want in life.

Correction: I don't know what
one thing
I want.

I tell her that she is beautiful. I tell her I wish I was under the covers with her. I tell her that I wish I could go over there now and get in bed with her.

“My aunt's home tonight, though,” she says.

“I don't care,” I tell her.

“I want you so much sometimes,” she whispers. “All the time, I want you.”

Yes,
I think.
So do I,
I think.

“You want to hang out tomorrow?” I ask. “After school.”

She has a yearbook meeting, but after that? I tell her yes. I want to make her happy. I want to want only her.

Just as she clicks off, I realize I'm the worst person ever. She thinks about me:
all the time, I want you.
Why can't I figure out how to say it back? It's like I'm being stubborn.

And Brandy? She doesn't deserve this shit. But I can't change it, the truth that I want both of them. Both Brandy and Angus.

When I jerk off, I think about both of them. Together. Apart. With me or alone. I can't help it, though it makes me feel like I'm cheating. I never want them together in real life; I can't stand thinking about us all in one place, like that day after we went swimming at Roy's.

I wish I could figure it out. Choose. Know for sure: Which one is the one?

But neither of them is the one. I want all of it. Both. Together. Apart. I don't want to choose.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

IT'S AFTER FIVE
in the afternoon in early October when Taylor and Kinney's birthday party packs up all ten insane hollering girls into Jay's car and my mom's SUV. They've been flailing around the house like they have rubber bands instead of skeletons under their skin, so naturally now they're all going to Drop Zone, which is some kind of horror-show place that's nothing but trampolines and dodgeball. After they're all gone and the doors slam and it's quiet, Brandy and me are staring at each other like
holy shit.

“Whoa,” Brandy says.

“Yeah,” I agree.

She starts to clean up the paper plates of cake and ice cream, but I grab her.

“Come on,” I say.

“Where are we going?” she asks. But she's smiling.

“To my room,” I say. “This'll just take a couple minutes.”

“Wow, so smooth,” she says. I laugh. We are like this about sex now, even though we've only done it exactly six times. I wish it were more, but six (about to be seven!) is good. So good.

We do it in my bedroom, even though I suppose we could do it in any room here, really. Afterward, I flush the condom in the bathroom while she gets dressed. She seems dazed. Out of it. I feel completely opposite: I could go out and run around the block. I feel like doing everything. Like, once I've cleared that main thing out of the way—sex—then my body's, like, rubbing its hands together, going, “All right! Time to get shit
done
!”

I get my clothes on, though only because she's getting her clothes back on. I could roll around with her naked all day; I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to do that. But my mom and Jay are only going to be at Drop Zone for an hour and after that the girls come back here for a slumber party, and Brandy and I definitely have had enough of preteen girls today.

She has me zip up the back of her dress and I do it, and then she gets a text and sits down on the bed again. Her face looks upset.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She keeps reading.

I don't want to look over her shoulder—I hate it when people do that—so I just grab her hand and kind of doodle around with it. I feel so goddamn
good
. I want to go get something to eat. Go to the movies. Go anywhere, really.

“We should go to Target,” I say. “Saturday night at Target! We've never done that!”

But she pulls her hand away from me to text back so I go into
the kitchen. Eat some of the leftover cake, no plate, just my hands. Get some lemonade out of the fridge; see my tacked-up paychecks still on the magnet clip, next to a drawing Taylor made of Santa Claus as a ninja with this giant sword. Taylor is my favorite, for sure, but sometimes I think she's kind of fucked up. I shove the check in my pocket—I need to cash it—Angus found out I was having my mom deposit my checks and give me cash and he gave me shit about it. You have to establish credit, you idiot, Angus said. This isn't your grandma sending you ten bucks for your birthday anymore.

When Brandy finally comes out of my bedroom, she puts her phone in her bag and says she's got to get home. Something's off.

“Your aunt say so?”

“Yeah.”

We get in my car and I start it; along with the weird noise when I go too fast, there's a burned smell whenever I start my car lately. I don't want to tell my mom, because I don't want to answer a million questions about what I've done to it; I don't want to tell my dad because it's another thing he can't afford.

The whole drive, Brandy is barely talking. Not that she's super chatty normally, and I appreciate that, being a little shy, myself. Some girls seem hell-bent on filling up every available silence, though, and, I mean, if all you have to say is idiotic shit that no one can think of a response to, that's not any better. Conversations aren't hard for Brandy and me. We don't hang out quietly like we're in a library or anything, but we can talk pretty easily.

When I pull up to her house, she doesn't invite me in.

“What's the deal?” I ask. I'd turned the car off, expecting we'd go in and hang out.

She glances at her house. There are lights on, but I can't see anything beyond that.

“My mom's here,” she says. “It's not . . . I don't want you to meet her. Seriously.”

“Okay.”

“It's not because of you,” she says. “There's nothing wrong with you.”

“Okay,” I repeat, though that's not strictly true. There's plenty wrong with me, but I'm disappointed. After we'd hung out with my mom and Jay, and my mom seemed like she thought Brandy was nice, and my sisters were all show-offy to her, and then we had sex, I felt like the whole night was ahead of us.

“It's because everything's wrong with
her
,” she says. “If I don't call you tonight, don't get worried. Usually I get really depressed after I see her. It's not a big deal.”

“All right,” I say. Though nothing's all right. I feel this little zinging panic running from my ass to my throat.

“Seriously, don't worry,” she says. Swipes a tear from her face.

“Will you at least text me? I have to work tomorrow, but I'll be around later.”

She nods. She doesn't even kiss me, just opens the door and rushes up inside the house.

Then I don't know what to do. DeKalb's not answering his phone. I'd call Angus, but I was just out in Oak Prairie and don't feel like wasting all the gas to get out there again. Since I'm
nearby, I decide to just go to my dad's. The burned smell in my car is getting worse; no amount of turning up the radio helps me ignore it.

When I get there, Garrett's truck is out front and he's standing beside it. The sun's almost down but I can see he's giving my car the hairy eyeball.

“What in the hell?” he asks when I get out. “You know that there's something wrong with your car?”

I shrug. “It's been making a weird noise just now.”

He tells me to open the hood and when he does, he steps back from a big gush of smoke.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Will,” he says. “You've blown a coolant line and you're dumping it all over the road.”

“Is that a big deal?”

“You see everyone else driving around with this kind of smoke pouring out of the engine?”

I feel like an idiot now, and it sucks, because I kind of liked the idea that Garrett thinks I'm this kid who's on top of shit.

He looks under the hood a little more, waving away smoke, muttering things. I stand there, all useless. The zinging feeling is now ten times stronger.

“Know where your dad is?” he asks.

“Been out at my mom's all day.”

“He's not answering my calls or texts,” Garrett says. “We were supposed to meet up today at that self-storage place. Says there's some kitchen equipment I might want.”

“What kind?”

Garrett shrugs. Like he thinks the whole idea is bullshit, anyway. “Let's go inside,” he says. “Want to see how things are going.”

I would tell him that things aren't going anywhere. That my dad seems to have shot his load on the remodel with the demolition of the walls. Now all he's doing is acquiring junk. All the people who owed him favors are square with him; there's no asking for more. Roy's at college. It's just me, and I have school and work myself. It gets dark earlier and earlier now, too.

But I just follow him inside and help snap on utility lights because I know where they are and he doesn't. The whole place smells bad. Like garbage and beer and dust. And I stand there, watching him look at the walls and the piles of things. The new record player. The box of vinyl records. The Skil Drill on the card table next to a pile of brown bananas. A bunch of empty cans of Nordeast.

Garrett says nothing. He's still wearing his Time to Eat shirt; he looks tired, but his eyes don't stop scanning around. Then he heads to the basement. I follow him, even though I don't want to.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says after he fumbles for a utility light. I think the same thing. I haven't been down in the basement in a while. But holy fuck; it's unbelievable.

Nothing but shit. Boxes and bags. Piles. You can see tools; you can see building materials, but most of it's just junk. A double sink full of clothing I've never seen before. A stack of flowerpots with little scruffs of dirt around the rims. A bunch of bright-blue shutters stacked against the wall. A cable TV satellite dish. Bookshelves, sagging, lined with boxes and books
and lots of other randomness. And buckets. Buckets everywhere. Ice-cream buckets, paint pails, industrial buckets. All of them full of crap. One's full of
Home Handyman
magazines; one's full of beer-can tabs; one is full of, amazingly, quarters. There must be a thousand dollars in quarters in this bucket. I bend over to lift it and can't.

Garrett is quiet. The zinging feeling is now burning in me. I feel like we're going to get caught here. Garrett goes over to a corner and rustles around; it's hard to see from where I'm standing. And I can't move, either. I'm listening for someone coming in. I'm panicking, but I'm immobile. Freeze-framed panicked.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Garrett says again.

I want to ask. But I don't want to know. I notice there's a shopping cart down here. A fucking shopping cart. It's full of firewood. Or what was something wooden but what is now firewood.

“Come on, Will,” Garrett says. Tapping my shoulder. I am unfrozen. But the zinging feeling's still there.

I follow him upstairs. “You have any stuff you need here, you should go grab it,” he says.

I want to ask him what stuff? All of it? But he gets out his phone and says a few things into it. The main floor smells awful again. I wonder if I should take the garbage out.

I go up to my room. I realize how different it is up in the attic. Not just cold. It's empty. It smells like soap. There's nothing in my room. There's nothing in the hallway. I grab my backpack, make sure all my homework's in it. My laptop. Some clothes. The condoms I bought for Brandy and me. There's not a lot left.

In the bathroom, I stare at the dog sleeping on the bed. It looks so calm. The opposite of my zinging feeling. I think my mom is fucked up for not wanting this picture; I almost want to take it with me, but I don't know where I'm going, really. Probably to Garrett's, but that doesn't mean I'm moving in.

I grab a couple things from the medicine cabinet, but there's nothing to take in the shower. I hadn't asked my dad to re-up anything. I've got an electric toothbrush at my mom's, anyway.

I stare at the sleeping dog once more. Like I'm saying good-bye to it.

Then I go downstairs and Garrett says, “Ready?” And we go.

Kristin is waiting outside when we pull up in Garrett's truck. Folding a man's jacket over herself, like she grabbed the first thing and threw it on.

“You hungry, Will?” she asks. I say yes, but I'm not.

Kristin puts her arm around me and shuffles me to the kitchen. Puts a plate of chicken in front of me, with mashed potatoes and some green beans. A corn-bread muffin. It's the kind of meal you'd get in a movie; it looks American and wholesome. I start eating it like a robot; it's warm and it smells good and they are in the other room, talking about me. About my dad. About the basement full of crap.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. Text my dad, ask where he is. Reply to Angus, who's just texted about some place he and DeKalb are going to play next week. Text Brandy, tell her I'm
thinking about her. I sound like a really fucking sappy boyfriend. And I only
wish
I was thinking about her. Because I don't want to think about me.

Kristin comes back in the kitchen, asks if I want more food. I shake my head. She takes my plate. Kristin is nice, and she's got really good hands. That sounds weird but they are beautiful, in a way. The nails are short and there's no polish, just like Brandy keeps hers, but Kristin's look like they are used to working. She has calluses, too, like Angus; his are from guitar, though, not work.

She does something at the kitchen counter, asks me some vague questions and I answer her, put a fake smile on my face. She then turns around and hands me a bowl of ice cream that she's put caramel and fudge sauce on.

“This is Garrett's favorite dessert,” she says. “You want to watch TV or anything, go right through that hall, okay? I'm going to make up your bed.”

Then she leaves again and I'm glad. I feel like crying.

Instead of crying, though, I eat the bowl of ice cream with caramel and fudge. It's very good. Even the swirls in the bowl are beautiful. Like Kristin's hands. Things that shouldn't be beautiful—caramel sauce, a woman's hands—these aren't normal things you think about that way, but they are. Strange kind of beautiful. Weird. I eat until it's all gone. I don't understand why I'm eating. It doesn't feel any better, but it doesn't feel any worse, either.

Kristin comes back and then takes the bowl to the sink. Then
Garrett comes in. He's in his T-shirt, his blue Time to Eat shirt over his wrist. He looks sweaty and he smells like he just had a fresh smoke.

“Will,” he says. “I don't mean to upset you.”

I stand up.

“But I don't think you can stay with your dad,” he says. “Not for a while.”

I nod. Because I can't talk or the crying feeling I have will fall out. I put my hands in my pockets to keep myself steady.

“He's got some things he needs to deal with, and I don't think they're things a boy needs to see,” he says. “Not close up, anyway.”

I keep nodding; my face feels like it might break from holding everything in.

“You can stay here, long as you like,” he says. “But I think you need to stick with your mother for a while. Maybe for the rest of the school year.”