Nine Years Ago
I lifted one book after another, loose papers flying everywhere as I searched for my Lolita packet at the bottom of my locker. Old math papers, tattered and crinkled, blanketed the floor, and I held out book after book, fanning each one for any sign of my missing homework.
Shit.
That packet was over a week late. Where the hell did it go?
Tears stung my eyes. I couldn’t believe I was about to cry over this. I should’ve just done it when it was due instead of dragging my feet. This is what I get.
I knew I lost shit when that asshole Anderson knocked my books out of my hands yet again the day before yesterday. Everything scattered over the floor of the crowded hallway, passing students kicking my crap as they went.
I’d lost it. Townsend wasn’t going to give me another one.
Sifting through the mess, I quickly gathered up the old papers that had spilled onto the floor and stuffed them back into my locker, rising off my knees and pulling out the books on the shelf. I searched those pages as well, one last-ditch effort for hope that it was still somewhere.
“You okay?”
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing Elle walking toward me with a backpack on one arm and a trumpet case in another.
“Fine,” I said, turning my attention back to my search.
“Well, everyone is about gone,” she said. “It’s getting dark.”
She kept walking, but spun around to watch me as she spoke.
“Need a ride?” she asked.
“No, thanks.”
“’K, see you tomorrow.”
“’Night,” I told her but didn’t bother to look.
What was I going to do? School had ended two hours ago. The teachers were gone, and band was gone, practice having ended over twenty minutes ago. It was too late to find my bandmate Joseph Carville who shared that class with me to see if I could make a copy of his on the printer in the library.
But of course, he’d probably turned his in last week anyway.
I slammed my locker shut. The silence of the empty hallways only made the thoughts in my head louder.
This was my fault, and I wouldn’t even be able to blame Martin for getting upset when he saw the missing assignment on my records. It was almost as if I enjoyed provoking him.
I was stubborn to the point of being self-destructive. I was asking for it.
Diving down, I swiped my bag off the floor, but instead of heading out the doors toward home, I went back the way I came—down the stairs, down the hallway, and toward the locker room.
“Come on,” I heard someone suddenly say. “You can do better than that.”
It sounded like Damon Torrance. I passed the wrestling room and peered inside, seeing him pin another kid to the mats as the basketball team worked on the weights nearby and his friends stood around, watching with amusement.
I kept going.
But then I heard another voice. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
I slowed and then…stopped, tingles spreading up my arms at hearing his voice. I hesitated a moment and then retreated, hearing thuds on the mat as I peeked around the corner.
Will grunted, plastered to Damon’s back and pinning him to the ground as the poor kid from before stood by, smiling that the jerk was getting a dose of his own medicine.
Damon jerked, freeing his arms, but Will grappled for them, quickly securing them again between their bodies and using his weight to keep them there.
“I’m letting this happen,” Damon gritted out.
“Sure, you are.” Will’s body shook with a laugh behind his friend, and his grin just looked so happy and easy. I started to smile, too, but stopped, remembering myself.
He must’ve sensed me, because he looked up and met my eyes.
The pulse in my neck throbbed, but I didn’t run.
It was weird. He’d left me alone since the lock-in. Days and not a single word in lit class or a single look in the halls.
I was glad for it. I didn’t want his attention.
Turning around, I continued on my way to the locker room and pushed through the doors, turning on the lights.
I slipped into my black swimsuit bottoms and matching, long-sleeved rash guard and then pulled my hair into a low ponytail. Grabbing a fresh towel off the cart, I headed to the indoor pool, leaving the lights off because the emergency track lighting was always on and that was enough for me. I didn’t want to alert anyone on the outside that I was in here when it was supposed to be empty.
Setting my towel down on a bench, I kicked off my shower shoes and walked up to the edge of the pool, stretching my arms and shoulders as I hopped up and down to warm up my muscles.
The chlorine in the air tickled my nostrils, and my blood coursed hot down my legs in anticipation.
I’d missed this. I loved the water.
Climbing up on the riser, I pulled down my goggles and bent over, gripping the end of the platform and blowing out a few quick breaths.
Drawing in one large gulp of air, I pushed off, diving into the pool and fishtailing as I cut through the water.
The icy cold was like a needle in every pore of my skin, but I exhaled out of my nose and then shot out, one arm after the other, freestyling at a nice, steady pace to the other end.
I wasn’t here to race, but I wanted to sweat, too. Keeping my eyes down, I tilted my head to take in air every three strokes before putting it back in the water.
Spotting the black marker on the tile below, I took one more stroke and flipped over, pushing off the wall and heading back the way I came.
I could say band and swim were an excuse to be out of the house. That my project in the park was something else I used to avoid going home. That all these activities were things I could do relatively alone without too many others, especially peers, interfering in my role.
The truth was, I liked showing people what I could do. To the town with the gazebo. To the few students and parents who had showed up to cheer us on at swim meets when I was on the team. To the whole school when I walked the football field and played the flute.
Every little thing you could do made you feel stronger. I have this, so I don’t need you. I have that, so I don’t need you.
Sometimes I was able to kid myself into believing that having this or being able to do that made me too busy and too important to possibly care about everything that I didn’t have and everything I’d never be.
Like a smiler.
Like friends.
Like having someone who loved to tickle me and kiss me all over my face, not just on my lips.
Nah. Being able to swim the hundred-meter freestyle in forty-eight seconds was really what life was all about. That made me happy. I didn’t need that other shit.
Charging toward the other end, I flipped, pushed, and headed back the other direction, deep in my rhythm now and the worries and stress burning away like fog in the sun.
I tilted my head, took a breath, and stuck my face back in the water, but just then there was another face looking straight up at me from the bottom.
I screamed, bubbles pouring out of my mouth like a goddamn geyser. What the hell?
I halted and scrambled to get my head above water.
But before I could get to the surface, something wrapped around my ankle and yanked me back down.
I screamed louder, my submerged cries muffled as I flailed.
Then, I inhaled. A gulp of water lodged in my throat, and I shot out my foot, kicking the prick so hard pain fired through my toe and straight up my leg.
Gasping and sputtering, I broke through the surface, coughing as I tried to escape.
But then…someone else took hold of me. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said, pulling me to him and holding me with one hand around my waist, and the other under my thigh. “Calm down.”
I coughed, only managing short, shallow breaths as my lungs cleared, and I wiped my eyes.
“Piss…” I choked out, blinking and seeing Will Grayson holding me. “Off.”
But I was coughing too hard to sound stern, and he just snorted, laughing.
I pushed away. “Get off me.”
“They’re just fucking around, Emmy.”
He let me go, and I looked over, seeing Michael and Kai waist deep in the pool and talking to Diana Forester, while Damon slammed his fist in the water and shot daggers at me with his eyes. Blood poured out of his left nostril as he reached onto the deck for a towel.
Asshole. I could’ve drowned.
A blonde came up behind Will, watching us before taking his hand. “I have to be home by ten,” she said. “Come spend time with me.”
His eyes stayed fixed on me. “You okay?”
I shot him a snarl as I walked for the edge.
“Then go home,” he ordered me, turning away.
I whipped around, still trying to catch my breath. “I was here first.”
He looked from the girl back to me, a smile playing in his eyes. “Suit yourself.”
Leaving her, he stalked toward me again, and I backed up until I hit the edge of the pool. He stopped and fiddled with something under the water.
In a moment, he leaned over and pulled the black mesh shorts he was wearing in the wrestling room out of the water and threw them over my head, onto the pool deck.
I stopped breathing.
Whistles and hoots echoed in the room, and I stared up into his eyes, the moments stretching to an eternity as he waited for me to do something, and I almost thought he wanted me to.
Instead, I turned around and grabbed the ladder.
But he took my arm and pulled me back, my body slamming into his chest.
I whipped around and shoved hard against his chest, but he barely moved.
Anger boiled in my gut. His hand was still wrapped around my arm, and for a moment, I almost let my eyes drop down to the water to see if he really was naked.
Raising my hand, I slammed it across his face again and shoved him in the chest, pushing him away. The girl was gone. I had no idea where.
“You grab me again, and I won’t care about the consequences,” I growled low.
Turning around, I started to climb the ladder.
But then he said behind me, “Stay.”
“No.” I climbed out of the pool, water dripping down my body as their patronizing whistles went off around the room.
“Why not?” he called out.
“Because you’re disrespectful.” I looked at him over my shoulder. “I was working out here. Your mansions all have pools. Get out and go home, why don’t you?”
He stared at me, and I was just about to turn away and leave, but then he yelled, “Guys!” His eyes stayed on me. “Do me a favor? Get out and go home.”
“Huh?” someone said.
“What?” came another voice.
“I mean it,” he told them. “Go home. Now.”
I narrowed my eyes. Aw, what a gesture. Flexing his muscles to prove he had the strength of a playground bully and the moral compass of a tube sock.
I rolled my eyes and walked over to the bench, picking up my towel.
Water sloshed behind me, and grumbles continued, slowly fading away as the locker room doors opened and closed.
When I turned around only Will remained, staring at me from where I left him in the pool.
“Why don’t you like me?” he asked.
I ignored him, wringing out my ponytail.
“And what happened to your legs?” he questioned next.
I tensed, but I didn’t look down to see what he was talking about. Minor bruises dotted my legs, but my arms, torso, and back were worse. I’d made sure to cover those with the rash guard.
I slipped on my flip-flops, but I heard movement in the water and looked back to see him leaning over the edge and gazing up at me.
“Why were you coming out of the cathedral last Saturday night?”
I cocked an eyebrow. Stalker.
Throwing the towel over my shoulder, I took the goggles off my head and started for the locker room.
“Stay,” he said again.
And something about how he said it made my insides shake a little. Slowly, I stopped.
Stay.
I had no doubt I’d love everything about staying with him for an hour. If he went slow, then maybe two hours.
I’d let him mess with my head and take me away, because every day more and more of me needed my head messed with. I needed away.
But…
“What are we going to do?” I asked quietly.
When he didn’t answer, I turned around.
“Will we play?” I inquired. “Will you make me smile?”
He didn’t reply, just watched me, his chest rising and falling harder.
“What did you want to happen?” I pressed. “How would it go if I stayed with you here?”
I dropped my towel and goggles, and I approached him, crouching at the edge of the pool and staring down at him.
“Maybe I’ll joke around with your friends, and we’ll all laugh,” I told him, imagining things that would never happen and he knew it. “You’ll touch me and whisper things in my ear. They’ll take the hint and leave us alone, and I won’t be able to resist you. I won’t want to, right?”
His eyes sharpened on me, but he listened.
“You’ll press me against that wall,” I jerked my chin to the one near the girls’ locker room door, “and I’ll let you have me, because your attention feels so good.”
I had no doubt that part would be true.
“And tomorrow, we’ll walk down the hallway, hand in hand, and everyone will know we’re in love, right?”
He cocked his head and hooded his eyes, knowing what I was up to now.
I breathed out a laugh. “Come on, Will,” I said. “I have nothing you want. I’m not a happy person. Ever. We don’t mesh. Your life is trite to me, far removed from reality, and I thought your views on Lolita were repugnant, and worse, dangerous.”
His jaw flexed, his green gaze turning defiant.
“I hate your friends,” I continued. “I don’t want to be around any of them. Except Kai, maybe. One of three Asian kids in a school full of WASPs, he, at least, has some clue what it’s like to be me.”
Pretty sure the only other Jewish kid graduated last year.
“And you have nothing I want,” I went on. “You coast through everything, so where does your character come from? I don’t want to have fun with you, because there’s nothing and no one you don’t use. I don’t respect you.”
He tipped his chin down, looking angry now as he glared.
“In twenty years, you’ll all be your fathers—powerful, wealthy, and with a string of mistresses your wives will be drugging themselves in order to forget that you have.” I stood up, looking down on him. “But even as Masters of the Universe, Will Grayson III will never forget that I was one notch on his belt that he could never get. I’m not going to let you win this one. At least, I’ll have that.”
I started to walk away, but before I knew what was happening, he’d jumped up, grabbed my arm, and yanked me down into the pool.
I screamed and splashed, but he didn’t let me go under, pulling me into his body and wrapping his arms around me instead. I looked up at him, breathing hard, and he looked down at me, our lips inches from each other.
Drops of water glistened in his hair and wet his eyelashes, and for a moment, I had no will. I lowered my eyes to his mouth. Supple and strong and most amazing when he used it to smile.
Tears pooled in my eyes. I couldn’t stop him.
Don’t. Please.
I wasn’t a happy person. Not ever. I won’t be able to stop you.
He pulled me in, and I opened my mouth to protest, but instead of a kiss, he just pulled me into his arms, pressed my head to his shoulder, and wrapped his arms around me so tight, it felt like he was the one about to break, not me.
I stilled, not sure what to do, but I could feel every muscle in his body flex as he held me and took deep breaths.
And slowly, I closed my eyes, every ounce of fight draining out of me, feeling his embrace.
It had been so long since I felt this. My grandmother was hardly lucid enough to hug me much anymore.
My arms itched, wanting to touch him. God, I wanted to hold him.
But before I could work up the courage to pull away or hug him back, he whispered, “I’m not like that.” And he pulled up, staring down at me almost nose to nose. “And I’ll see you on the bus tomorrow night, Emory Scott.”
He released me and swam for the edge, leaving me cold in the pool.
What?
The air chilled, and I watched as he pulled himself up the ladder, and I spun around just in time, giving him my back as his naked body exited the pool.
Shit.
Unable to help myself, I surrendered to the pull and glanced over my shoulder.
But it was too late. He was fastening a towel around his waist, the cords and muscles in his back intimidating and everything about him was perfect. Without sparing me another glance, he opened the men’s locker room door and disappeared inside.
Ugh. What was he doing? Why wouldn’t he just stop? I swam for the edge of the pool, picked up my shit without bothering to dry off, and stormed into the girls’ locker room.
Why couldn’t he just leave me alone? Didn’t guys like him want…something else? Or someone else?
He was getting to me. Making me think I was wrong about him or something. For years, he’d had this whole “what you see is what you get” vibe, and now he wanted to convince the world that we were wrong.
I didn’t need the trouble. I had much bigger problems than him, and I didn’t need this.
I dressed, stopped at my locker to grab my bag, and before I knew it, I was halfway home already, lost in my thoughts and replaying every frame with him in my head.
My throat swelled with a golf ball-size lump, and I couldn’t stop feeling his arms around me.
It was nice.
I didn’t want to want more. Everything I said about him was true. He was shallow, and he was using me. Bottom line. I couldn’t forget that.
There was a moment, though, when he held me, where he was me, and I was him, and we weren’t alone. It felt like I was supposed to be there.
I closed my eyes as I walked, tears wetting my lashes.
I was looking for meaning where there wasn’t any because I had nothing else. It wasn’t real, and he didn’t feel it, too. Remember that, Em. Don’t forget it. For a few seconds, I saw what I wanted to see.
Heading into the town square and up the small incline into the park, I gazed at my gazebo that I was building, the beams still wet from rain, but the smell intoxicating. I loved the smell of wood.
Circling the structure, I saw it was still in pristine condition, my foundation holding up and no vandalism so far.
Tires screeched on the street, and I looked over to see Sticks crowded with people and four black vehicles racing up to parking spots on the curb, Will’s truckbed loaded with people.
Tires peeled, smoke billowing into the air, and people shouted as car stereos blared.
“How’s it going?”
I looked over my shoulder, seeing Trevor Crist holding a football. He tossed it back to his buddy down on the sidewalk.
“Hey,” I muttered, looking back at Sticks.
Will climbed out of the driver’s side, grabbing the black T-shirt out of the back of his jeans and pulling it on as Damon came up behind him and appeared to be whispering something in his ear. I couldn’t see their faces.
People cleared the sidewalk as they crossed it, walking into Sticks.
“Look at it this way,” I heard Trevor say. “Once they graduate, Devil’s Night is dead. Thank-fucking-God, right?”
I turned to him. “Not going to carry on the family tradition?”
Trevor was three years behind his brother Michael. Plenty of time left in high school.
But he just scoffed. “You mean the once-a-year beef fest where my brother and his friends get the whole town to suck their cocks because they’re too stupid to remember how to be men the other three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year?” He shook his head. “No.”
I snorted. I may have misjudged him. The silver spoon in his mouth was salty.
“When everyone grows up and realizes they’re nothing,” he continued. “I’ll laugh and celebrate then. Or when they finally get arrested for all the dumb shit they pull.”
“Some brother you are.”
He shrugged, but I smiled a little. He might not be so bad, after all.
And I understood where he was coming from. I wouldn’t cry if my brother got into a little trouble.
In the distance, Will took out a cell phone as he stepped into the hangout, looking like he was filming a couple of the guys rough housing.
“That is true, though, isn’t it?” I thought out loud. “About the risk of getting arrested, I mean. They film everything with that phone. It’s pretty careless.”
Trevor followed my gaze, everyone knowing that the Horsemen recorded their escapades. There was proof of all the petty crimes and pranks they’d pulled.
“If anyone had half a mind to,” I went on, “there would be no way to ignore their behavior if someone shared those videos in the right place, you know? Can you imagine the embarrassment?”
The places they’d robbed? Vandalized? The underage girls—maybe guys, too—or hey, maybe there were even married women on that phone. The town would go crazy.
He was silent for a moment, and when I looked back at him, his gaze was still on the crowd in Sticks, but his expression was serious as the wheels in his head turned.
“They’re too comfortable in their surroundings, that’s for sure,” he added.
I nodded. “False sense of safety and all that.”
They took video—probably pictures, too—because they knew they were invincible. Even if anyone found it, would it amount to any more than a slap on the wrist and some very embarrassed parents?
Money solved all problems.
Trevor still stood there, gazing after them in the billiards hall.
“Learn a lesson from this,” I told him. “Don’t document your shit. The Internet lives forever. Got it.”
But I didn’t think he heard me as he absently nodded.
“See ya,” he said, finally turning away and heading back to his friend.
I gazed across the street, hearing the music from here and knowing I’d made the right decision. I wouldn’t belong in there with them. Could you imagine? Me? Like, having fun?
I’d be wondering what the point was the whole time. I couldn’t not be serious, and he was never serious.
Turning, I picked up my bag, but the flap flew open, and I spotted a packet of papers inside.
Pulling them out, I turned it over and saw “Lolita Study Guide” written on the front.
“Huh?” I mumbled. I’d looked everywhere for this! Including this bag, both of my lockers, my house, the garbage…
What the hell?
But as I looked over the packet, my name written at the top, I saw the questions already completed. All of them. Neat, block lettering in pencil.
I flipped through, inspecting every page and reading every answer, seeing that it was all completed, the answers impressive, even for me, although a couple of the responses kind of pissed me off.
I dropped my hands, staring off. I thought for sure Godzilla and the granola bar was Will, but this was snuck into my locker, as well. And it was done tonight. This wasn’t in my bag before I went swimming.
There was no way he’d done this. Unless he buttered up a girl to do it for him.
It did look like a guy’s penmanship, though.
I raised my eyes, making out his black T-shirt and chocolate-colored hair as he stood near a pool table inside Sticks.
He wouldn’t have to look for me, because I had a question that needed answering.
See you on the bus tomorrow night, Will Grayson.
