If I Was Your Girl (14 page)

“You ready to go?” he said as he placed the last of the plates in the drying rack.

“Yeah,” I said, and Grant gave me a quick grin.

He kissed his mom on the cheek and headed outside.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said as I picked up my purse. Her eyes fluttered like she was just waking up and she pulled me into a hug. I stiffened at first but quickly hugged her back. She smelled like cigarettes and mint and lemons.

“Thank you,” she said.

“What for?”

“For making my boy smile.”

 

16

I held Grant's hand as we pulled out onto the main road. He squeezed mine in return, though his grip seemed weaker than usual. He didn't say anything, and I didn't want to press him, but eventually the rattling of the engine started to get to me.

“Grant.” I put a hand over his and leaned over, lightly kissing his cheek. “We're near the lake. Pull over.”

I used the light on my phone to find a small path and, taking his hand, led him into the woods toward the tree house where we had gone after that first party. I remembered every step of the path; I had thought of that night so many times that I could have made my way to the lake in my sleep. Grant was distracted, or nervous, or both, so he followed my lead. We reached the old tree house and climbed up wordlessly. The lake was as beautiful as last time, though a cold wind whipped across its surface, sending my hair swirling. Grant touched the back of my arm, and suddenly I felt very warm.

“You're the first person I ever brought home,” he said, pulling me closer. I breathed in sharply and felt a pressure building near the bottom of my stomach. I realized I was shaking. “I've been too embarrassed to bring anybody over since we moved into the trailer.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” I said. The silence swelled between us. “When I was fifteen,” I began, feeling like I should tell him about my suicide attempt, like I should trade one of my secrets for his, but he kissed me before I could go any further. Our kiss started innocently enough, just lips pressed together like a dozen times in the past, but then his lips parted and mine parted, and our lips moved like we were whispering silent secrets into each other's mouths. I felt the tip of his tongue brush my teeth, and then our tongues were touching, and I heard myself whimper without meaning to do it. My knees failed and we lowered ourselves to a kneel, our fingers laced and our mouths never parting.

His fingers brushed the bottom of my stomach. I wanted them there, but years of terror made me brush his hand away. After a moment, I gently took his wrist and put his fingers back where they had been. His hand moved up farther, and then he had the hem of my shirt in both hands, and he was lifting it. I broke our kiss and scuttled backward, breathing heavily and trying to pick just one out of the swirl of feelings fighting to break the surface. I closed my eyes and tossed my shirt aside with trembling hands. We came together again and his hands were everywhere, on my back and sides and stomach and tracing my ribs. He reached behind me and, without breaking the kiss, started to unclasp my bra. Instinctively I backed away again, leaving my bra clasped.

“Can we slow down?” I said, wrapping my arms around myself.

“Of course,” Grant said, quickly handing me my shirt. I pulled it over my head and saw him smiling gently once I had it on. “Of course we can.”

“Can we … is it okay if we cuddle?” I said, brushing my hair back. “I didn't get touched much before I met you.” I didn't finish the rest of the thought:
and I didn't think I ever would.
“I kind of need to—to ease into the idea of it.”

“I think we can manage that,” Grant said, wrapping his arm around me and pulling me in so I was lying on my side using his arm as a pillow. I kissed his cheek and we both turned to look at the stars. They were even more visible in the crisp fall air than they had been in the summer. I could even see the Milky Way, a band of white smeared across the night sky.

“I saw you're reading
Sandman
,” I said. “I would have loaned you my copies.”

“I actually got it before we started dating,” he said. “I thought if I read the books you liked it might impress you.”

“That's sweet,” I said, closing my eyes and nuzzling deeper into his arms. “You know I was already into you, right?”

“I didn't at the time,” he said, pulling me in tighter. “You acted like I was a serial killer at first.”

“Things were hard at my old school,” I said, bringing my face closer to his again.

“I figured, from some things you'd said.” Grant nodded. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I think so, but maybe not right now.”

“That's okay,” Grant told me, and we were quiet until he started talking again. “I don't know where Dad told Mama he was workin'. I don't know if she even remembers anymore, but I remember it was a real job, and I remember the day we found out he didn't have it. The police showed up at our house, back when we had a house in town, and they had papers from the judge. It turned out he'd been going out in the woods to an RV with some buddies and cookin' meth for years.

“Avery wasn't even a year old when this happened. Mama had three kids and no income. We moved in with my grandma for a little bit, but then Mama had what the doctors called a psychotic break from all the stress, and apparently she said some things grandma still ain't forgiven. Mom's medicine made her better, but she can't really work on it, so—”

“So you're the only thing keeping your family afloat,” I said.

He nodded. “All I ever wanted was to keep Mama outta the loony bin and my sisters outta foster care, and that kept me so busy I couldn't give much thought to anything else. But being around you makes me feel … different. Like anything's possible. It's almost scary, you know? It feels selfish to say it but I've been wanting more and more to leave my family behind and just go wherever I want, be whatever I want.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I've spent my whole life thinking about how I'm going to get away. Head up north, disappear in some big city like New York or Boston. Maybe if I'm lucky, live in Paris.”

“Oh,” Grant said, rolling onto his back again. “I didn't know that.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm going to apply to NYU. I think I'll get in. It's weird though. It's what I've wanted for so long, but it's scary too. It's scary to think of leaving here, of being so far from my parents and everything I know. But then it's the only way I can be really free, that I can finally live somewhere that people understand me.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he said, frowning and sitting up. I cocked my head and looked up at him, feeling a sudden lurch in my stomach.

“Just that there are things about me that not everyone can understand,” I said, realizing my mistake even as the words were coming out.

“What am I to you?” he said, turning to look at the lake, his nostrils flaring.

“You're my boyfriend,” I said, rising to a kneel and wrapping my arms around him from behind.

“For now,” he said, stiffening at my touch. “Until you find somebody at your fancy college who doesn't have trouble understanding movies and gets the weird books you like.”

“Grant,” I said, kissing the back of his neck. “I like you, all right?”

“But you don't think I can understand you,” he said.

“It's complicated,” I said, turning his head to face me. His eyes darted away but I kissed him, holding him still. “I like you more than anyone I've ever met. It's just—there are things that are really hard to say.” Grant stared at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I felt naked right then, like he could see everything, the things I wanted him to know and the ones I didn't too.

“You can tell me anything, Amanda, you know that. Haven't I shown you that?”

I buried my face in his neck and breathed him in again. I thought about what he had said, that I could tell him anything, and I knew that he was right—or at least that he thought he was. But until the moment he learned the truth, I couldn't know how he would feel, and that was a risk I wasn't ready to take. “I'll try, okay? You deserve that. I promise I'll try.”

 

17

I pressed my forehead against the window as Layla's car pulled north onto I-75. I could just make out Chloe to my right, her reflection ghostly against the mountains on the horizon. She sat with her shoulders slumped and a hollow look in her eyes. She didn't seem interested in talking.

“Where are we going again?” I said, my breath fogging the glass. I glanced at the phone in my lap and saw a new text from Grant:
Sorry about last night.
I had wanted to see him today, to try to smooth things over from last night, but the girls showed up around lunchtime laying on the horn, claiming they were staging an intervention: I was addicted to my boyfriend, and it had to stop.

“Maze of the Damned!” Anna and Layla both yelled in their spookiest voices.

“So, what, like a haunted house?” I said, as I typed out a response to Grant:
Don't apologize! I'm glad we talked. I miss you.

“No,” Anna said, “a haunted corn maze just south of Knoxville. So it's a maze but it's also ‘maize,' get it?”

I rolled my eyes but I was smiling.

“You'll really like it,” Layla said, flourishing her free hand dramatically like a claw and deepening her voice. “It's a macabre feast for every sense!”

“Also,” Anna said, bouncing, “there's funnel cake!”

Anna and Layla spent the hour-long trip giggling with each other over snippets of gossip, bickering over something sacrilegious Layla said, and singing along loudly to Taylor Swift. I didn't know the words so I made up my own, which sent the girls into hysterics—except Chloe, whose silence was as loud as an air horn. It took Grant most of the ride to respond, but eventually I got another text:
I miss you too.

*   *   *

We headed to the Maze of the Damned just as the sun finished creeping out of sight. We walked past a looming grain silo, a red-roofed barn with
SEE ROCK CITY
painted on it in white text just visible in the light from a nearby bonfire, and a dark-windowed farmhouse that looked at least a hundred years old. On the other side lay rolling fields dotted with patches of orange firelight, and in the center, rising like the walls of a fortress, was the corn maze itself.

Nothing happened for a few hundred feet once we were inside, but then the cackling began. Anna screamed and pointed above our heads, where figures in cloaks leaped across the walls, looking down at us with glowing eyes before disappearing again. We turned into a shrouded clearing, where pale figures dressed like Civil War doctors loomed over a soldier who screamed over the imminent loss of his limbs. Layla and Anna screamed and ran ahead. I grabbed Chloe's hand and pulled her through a break in the cornstalks running wildly through a network of side paths left over from the farm's normal comings and goings.

“Uh-oh,” I said. “We're lost.”

“On purpose,” Chloe said, picking a long blade of grass and chewing on it.

“What?” I said, tilting my voice up and stretching the word out for way too long. “I wouldn't do that.”

“Right,” Chloe said, looking at me stonily.

“Really though,” I said after a moment of silence. “I actually have no idea where we are. Can you get us back to the path?”

“Just 'cause my parents own a farm,” she said, crossing her arms, “you think I have, what, magic corn-vision?”

“Um … yes?” I said, biting my lip and shrugging. She laughed once, softly, which made me feel a small sense of accomplishment.

She let out a long breath and looked up at the stars as we came to a branch in the path. “Just ask what you wanna ask.”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said, picking up a thin, bendy stick and swishing it hard across the leaves on the path. Chloe gave me a curious look. “In case we have to come back this way, we'll know where we've been before.”

“Clever,” Chloe said, nodding slowly.

“Thanks,” I said, swishing the stick absentmindedly. “So what's new in your world, Chloe?”

“Gotta turn around,” she said, brushing past me as she doubled back. “Track curves away from where we need to be.” We walked a few more yards before she stopped and sighed, her shoulders slumping. “You really aren't gonna ask?” I shrugged and tried to appear as innocent as possible. “She dumped me.”

“Oh,” I said, long and soft. I took a few steps forward and wrapped her in a hug. “That sucks.”

“I guess?” Chloe said, kneeling and ripping up a long, bendy stick of her own. We continued walking, me watching her as she swiped and slashed at the corn stalks. We only needed a few marks to find our way, but, I knew, sometimes people just needed to break things. “Yeah. It sucks.”

“What happened?” We reached a fork that neither of us had an immediate hunch about, so I flipped a coin and we went right. “You don't have to answer.”

“No,” Chloe said. “It's fine. Guess I'm not used to talking about it.” She kicked a clump of dirt ahead of us and stared up at the stars. She was using more than five words at a time, which usually meant she was about to say something important. “You're only the second person who knows … about me.”

“Bee was the first?” I said. She nodded. “That must have been lonely.”

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “We didn't have Internet or anything on the farm when I was little. It was just me, my parents, my brothers, the animals, and the farmhands. There was no place I could've learned about people like me. I thought I was the only one in the whole world when I was little.”

“Jesus,” I said, touching her shoulder.