Couldn’t this have waited until after Mike won the scholarship?
Anyway, Mike isn’t like those guys in the movies—they’re all bad guys. Their abuse escalates until it’s actually dangerous, until those women get seriously hurt: rushed to the ER, emergency surgery, that sort of thing. Mike is a good guy. He didn’t mean anything by it. Everyone knows he was the perfect boyfriend.
Everyone would tell you that.
Eight
The Girlfriend
Okay, so yes, Mike asked me out to begin with, but I was the one who made things between us official.
I don’t think anyone else knows that, because I was so embarrassed afterward that I begged him not to tell anyone, and he promised. Then again, now that we’re broken up, I guess all bets are off in the promise department.
Although, we never technically broke up. I’m just assuming we’re broken up. Under different circumstances that might even be funny because I was so unwilling to assume we were boyfriend/girlfriend in the beginning. Under different circumstances, it would make Mike laugh. (He always thought I was funny.)
We’d gone on three dates. Which isn’t really that many. Two dates the two of us alone and one date that wasn’t really a date since it was a party that I would’ve gone to anyway. But I would’ve gone with my best friend, and instead, I went with Mike (he has his own car, he drove) and we walked in holding hands. At that point, I was still keeping track of how many times we’d held hands.
One: The end of our first date. Dinner at an Italian restaurant. He held my hand from the restaurant to the parking lot, and then from my driveway to my front door. I kind of wished he hadn’t been holding my hand that second time because I knew my mom would be watching and she’d be so excited that at least one of us had a boyfriend, and I would’ve had to explain that Mike wasn’t my boyfriend, someone doesn’t become your boyfriend after just one date no matter how well it went or how much you already loved him.
Two: The beginning, middle, and end of our second date. From his car to the concession line at the movie theater; and then he took my hand halfway through the movie; and then after the movie we walked back to his car holding hands. That was the night of our first kiss, but kissing Mike for the first time didn’t feel as important as getting to hold his hand. I’d seen him kiss girls in dark corners at house parties and even at school once or twice, but I’d never seen him holding those girls’ hands. Then again, as of our second date, no one had seen us holding hands, unless you count my mother, which I didn’t.
Three: This was actually between dates. He held my hand for about ten seconds during lunch one day. But it was under the table, so I’m not sure anyone saw it.
Four: The party. Our third date. It was a belated Halloween party. Costumes were optional, and Mike and I had both opted out, though we hadn’t discussed it ahead of time. We were hand in hand practically the whole night. When Mike wasn’t looking, our friends—most of whom had come in costume, unlike us—would shoot kissy faces or thumbs-up or pretend to swoon. They were happy for me. They were jealous. Until then, I didn’t realize people could be both at the same time.
Mike and I left the party early. Anil and Kyle shouted that he was whipped, even though leaving hadn’t been my idea. Mike shrugged off his friends’ shouts. He never laughed when Anil and Kyle made jokes about the girls they’d hooked up with (or wanted to hook up with), about how Mike was pussy-whipped, about which celebrity had the best ass, about the latest free porn they found online. At least, he never laughed at that stuff in front of me. We held hands on the way to his car. (You okay to drive? I asked, and Mike said, Of course. I don’t know why I asked. It’s not like I would’ve suggested that I be the one to drive instead. I never drove Mike’s car.) Mike drove toward my house but he parked down the block. He said he thought my mother might be watching, and I said, Thank you so much. I was touched that he’d picked up on how uncomfortable my mother’s prying eyes made me.
We kissed for a long time. That was all, just kissing—I don’t want to give the impression that Mike was aggressive that way. We never did anything I didn’t want to do too.
After a while, he pulled away. “You’ll miss curfew if you don’t leave.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, leaning in. “My mother doesn’t actually enforce curfew. It’s more like she saw it in a TV show and thought it was something I should have without actually understanding what it was.”
Mike laughed. I hadn’t realized I’d been making a joke.
“So…” I began. “What happens on Monday?”
“On Monday?”
“At school.”
“At school?”
“Stop repeating everything I say!” I gave him a shove. He pretended I was so strong that my touch left him leaning up against the driver’s-side door. “I mean…” Ugh, I thought, is he really going to make me say it? I wasn’t even sure whether I should say it at all. Part of me thought I should just keep my mouth shut and take what I got and be grateful because it was already more than Mike gave most other girls.
But I didn’t want to be like my mother, who at fifty years old still didn’t understand the difference between a declaration of love and a booty call. (She’d recently had some misadventures with online dating.)
So I screwed up my courage and asked point-blank: “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”
Now, I look back at that moment with wonder. Not because I was so brave to just ask the question. Almost exactly the opposite: I think of the way I worded it—like what we were was entirely up to him and not me. Was that when he realized that he was the one in charge?
Then again, perhaps it never occurred to him that he hadn’t been in charge all along. Not until I showed up in Principal Scott’s office yesterday morning.
Mike laughed. Again, I hadn’t meant to be funny, but like I said, he always thought I was funny. I was too embarrassed to even pretend-shove him again. But not embarrassed enough to open the door and walk away. I wanted to hear his answer. Even while he laughed at me, I was hoping he’d say yes.
And even if he said No, I still would’ve gone on kissing him if he let me.
But he said yes. Actually, he said of course, like it was something he’d already decided. Now, I wonder whether it was my idea or his that we make things official.
After that, we held hands all the time. In front of everyone. I was never so proud as when we were walking down the halls at school hand in hand.
Nine
The Bulimic
Okay, so I throw up after dinner. It’s no big deal.
I tried skipping every other meal first, but I could never keep it up for very long. I always got too hungry. Or too bored. Or too fed up with trying to starve myself, which is an ironic choice of words, I know, but what can you do? So eventually I stopped skipping meals and started throwing them up instead.