Losing It: A Collection of VCards (5 page)

I wait ten minutes for him to reply. It feels like ten hours. Maybe he doesn't want me. Maybe I'm just too damaged to move to this next step? My face dumps in my hands.

I hear the pulse go off and peek between my fingers. I
so
want to see his answer... and totally not.

I smile when I'm brave enough to read his reply.

The green characters glow in the sea of black.

Yes.

Just the one word. It's so much, and nothing. A thrill whips through my body and I bound up off my lumpy mattress.

I undress from my beautiful slim skirt that Soph crammed me into, the emerald green sheer top with black lacy cami gets tossed on the back of my snowboard leaning in the corner of my room. I let the skirt fall to the floor and step out of it.

I grab fresh jeans, a black T and my screaming tie dye hoodie.

I hesitate at the underwear. I step in front of my cheap, ten dollar mirror. It distorts my image like a clown in front of a funhouse looking glass. But I can still see my reflection.

A girl with more makeup than she's ever worn stares back. Large eyes, more brown than green take up most of the real estate of her face. They're luminous, sad. Hair so dark a blonde it hovers at light brown is almost mousey but just misses it. At some point I sprouted boobs and no matter how hard I try to cram them into a bra, they pop out. Sophie had given me a black bra in a demi-cup style. The lace bisects my boobs and they mound up like honeydew melons without the green tint. The girl in the reflection smirks.

I'm so badass.

Matching black panties hug hips that have rounded. I'm still not some kind of hourglass type like Jade, but I don't have the stick figure anymore.

My palms tingle with what I'm going to do. My decision.

I lace my fingers together, the tension in my body is huge and I glance again at my pulse. Maybe I should call it off.

I move to the pulse, my hand hovering then snatch it away.

No.

It's for John.

I turn back to the mirror. My eyes aren't as heavy with sadness as they once were.

Before John.

Nah... maybe it's for me too.

John

My fingers don't shake as I blank my pulse screen to hibernate but it's a near thing. Instead, I stride around my huge bedroom to pace off some of my tension.

Nerves.

Fuck me
, as Jonesy would say, I'm—I'm going to lose my virginity.

Not that I've not thought about it around one thousand times. I mean, Tiff's been my girlfriend since that breakdown in the hall. But in my heart, she'd been my girlfriend a long time before that.

Why she chose tonight? After we're all done with our graduation and school to suddenly be The Night? I scrub my face.

Thinking.

Carson Hamilton.

Again, he's the catalyst. Always him. It's not good enough that he almost raped her, assaulting her while she lay unconscious and vulnerable. No. He has to try something when we're all there.

The old familiar rage and impotence rear's its ugly head and I feel my hands fist.

I told Tiff the truth. I could easily kill Hamilton. Easily.

I hear my parents talk about »back in the day¼. Dudes like Hamilton would have been gang-beaten for what they did to Tiff. Now, in our climate of ultra political correctness, actions were constrained. The normal cause and effect of misconduct wasn't tempered. Assholes like Hamilton got out of stuff. Especially the rich.

And Tiff was poor. Her family was poor. And though my parents were professionals who were affluent, they weren't on that level. Mom liked to sniff, calling Hamilton's family nouveau riche.

New rich.

Basically, without class. It didn't matter to me. Their opinion. Hamilton's.

Tiff's did. And right now, she has come to me and belted me between the eyes with her revelation via pulse.

I almost said no. It'd probably be the right thing to do. Wait until I thought Tiff had healed to take this next step.

But what she'd said is maybe she'd never heal.

Without my help.

That Hamilton was still robbing her of who she is. And she wasn't going to let him thieve anymore from her.

She wanted something for us.

And I couldn't lie to myself. How long could a man wait for a woman he loved as much as I loved Tiff without consummation?

I'd wait as long as it took is the answer. But it wasn't without challenge. I'm eighteen. Male. Hornier-than-hell and she's...beautiful.

And not hot like, I just want to have sex to do someone, hot.

No, she's a thing of beauty to me. Precious. I feel like being with Tiff would be a gift.

And I want it.

She pulsed me and told me her secrets, so much easier than she could have had we been face to face.

And God help me, I only deliberated a few minutes and decided we were adult enough to do it.

I knew Caleb and Jade had, or maybe would.

But for once, my thoughts and decisions would not be weighed against those of my friends. It's what really made me see that I was actually an adult.

Being an adult isn't about the right to vote, go to war, drive... drink. It's about doing the right thing when the wrong thing sounds so much better. Or making tricky decisions based on wisdom instead of want.

And I had a lot of want for Tiff.

I stood, having discarded by graduation noose (tie), slacks and the rest by hanging it all neatly in my closet. I stared at my man suit inside my closet and smiled, thinking of Tiff's room with crap strewn everywhere. The space was barely bigger than my parent's walk-in closet. But like she said, it was hers. And for Tiff, that was enough. She didn't aspire for the material. Another attractive trait.

I slipped on jeans and a T that said,
Not enough Nulls
scrolled on the front and my lips pulled. It was threadbare. All of us had got Ts that pronounced our paranormal talent except Caleb. He'd said his talent wasn't really popular.

I thought it was sick as shit.

I ran my hand through my hair and decided my teeth needed the once-over.

In the bathroom I brushed, staring at my reflection. A wave of self-consciousness overtook me. Red hair was cropped close to my head and had finally lost the shitty carrot color. That'd sucked. It was edging toward auburn now and I was relieved. Pale blue eyes flared inside a face lightly sprinkled with freckles. I was skinny as hell just six months ago—even though I consumed everything not nailed down—but had begun a little regime Caleb had worked out for me. He'd promised I wouldn't be a pansy forever.

Seemed to be working. Caleb swore that push ups both on the floor and from a chair would sculpt me. I remembered his words.

Terran, you're so effing lean, every striation of muscle will stand out like a rubber band. And maybe, if you keep at shit, you'll get a little bulk too.

He'd been right. I gave myself Sundays off but worked hard on the pushups otherwise. Now instead of the caved in chest and narrow shoulder crap, I was filling out a T shirt that had been loose just half year ago. I hadn't had Tiff in mind when I did the self-improvement course.

Not in the front of my mind, anyway.

But when I showed up one day at Caleb's dojo, he didn't kick my ass out. He included me.

Neither one of us spoke about the
why
of me showing up.

He knew.

I
knew.

Tiff wouldn't be unprotected again. I'd visited a parallel world to ours. There was more out there than just us. And other worlds weren't streamlined and civil like ours. Some places it could come down to surviving with what you carried, or your bare hands. I wasn't ever going to be in a situation again were I couldn't defend myself.

I spit toothpaste into the drain and gripped the rolled porcelain of the pristine white sink, my gaze boring twin orbs of blue determination.

Or defend Tiff.

Never again.

I shoved off from the sink and walked quietly through the house. No need to alert my parents that I was going to run off and have illicit sex.

I stopped in my tracks.

Not illicit.

Perfect, deliberate... hot sex.

I grinned, swiping my pulse and pocketing it inside my denims.

I slipped out of my house in stealth. Leaving boyhood behind with a grateful sigh. I hadn't been that boy in a long time.

Some things grow you up.

Tiff

This would have been one of those times owning a car would have kicked ass. But I wasn't going to alert the media of my departure from the hood.

My parents would have a cow if they knew I was meeting John.

They loved John.
Loved.
Because he was so good that it was the first thing people noticed about John. His goodness.

But he was still an eighteen year old male. My brothers were always sniffing around, hoping to get a reason to kick his ass if he did anything to me.

I smiled. John was incapable of hurting me. Deep down, they knew that. But my two older brothers didn't know what to do with their anger from the thing that happened with Hamilton. They'd had to unnaturally stuff their urge to beat his ass. Hell, after Nightingale had counseled me in the right direction again and shame wasn't hanging on me like a monkey, I wanted to light into him too. At least I could look myself in the mirror again without cringing from shame and fear. I no longer had panic attacks.

Life was good, though unfinished.

There were some loose ends I wanted tied.

John Terran was one. More than a loose end. So much more.

I hit the kickstand on my bike and leaned it against the Kent Refuse gate. The old cyclone fence still stood proud and hard to climb. I sighed.

I could climb it.

I smiled. I was really growing up. That girl part of me vying for dominance more all the time. Even a year ago, I would have scaled this.

Now I wait for John instead. He'll figure out the lock and... I look at the hideaway. Actually, it’s really dim because night is almost here, but I know where it's at. I can vaguely make out the pink fridge sitting sentinel with its shouty pastel color like a spoiled Easter egg. I smirk.

Good times. About to be better.

I hear tires crunching on gravel and automatically meld into the shadows.

It's John.

I step out and his headlights cut a swath of LED light across me that bisects my torso. I lift my hand for a wave but he's already pulsed off his engine.