“Quick, go go go,” I laugh, pushing Gene up the stairs. I’m breathless and thrilled.
“I want you,” he whispers as he pulls me through the kitchen, toward his bedroom. My head is spinning and time is speeding up.
“I want you too.”
When we close ourselves in his room, he takes his shirt off with one tug over his head. I take a breath and touch the golden cross that hangs on a chain and falls in the center of his chest. I want him. More than the other times. I want to explore that wanting without having to keep stopping. Too far. Not now. I want no boundaries. The muscles in his stomach fluctuate as he breathes, and I trace the dark hair that trails down his belly button and disappears beneath the band of his boxers. He tilts my chin up to kiss me. I want to know what it’ll feel like. I want to know if we’ll say anything while it’s happening. I want to know if I’ll be different after. I push him toward the bed, and he plays with the strap of my underwear. I lie on top of him, and his hand explores the cheek no one’s explored. His hand slips down the front of my underwear and I let him this time. This time is the time. I want to close every space between us until it’s nothing but youmeyoume.
“Gene,” his mom calls, knocking on the door. I jump off him, and the bed creaks almost as loud as my heart is beating.
“Yeah,” he says, rushed, fixing his belt and grabbing his shirt off the floor.
“What are you doing up here? It’s so late.” She yawns. “Tell everyone it’s time to wind down. And keep this door open. No closed-door sleepovers.”
“Sorry, coming.” He throws me my shirt.
My stomach somersaults. “I don’t feel good,” I say, burping a little. When I look down, there’s a 76 percent chance I’m vomiting into a shoe. “This isn’t exactly how I pictured the night going,” I say, and wipe my mouth.
“That’s okay,” he says, handing me his trash can. “Next time.” He pats my back as I produce more orange vomit, and the red condom wilts in my pocket.
“Definitely next time,” I add, then retch again so he knows I mean business.
5
Days ’til prom: 89
FACT: EVERY TEACHER AT THE GILL SCHOOL WHO ISN’T EVELYN understands this one very important thing about the second half of senior year: It is a wad of watermelon gum that we are chewing to blow into a glorious pink bubble that will pop on our faces and christen us on the day we graduate. Among other delicious freedoms, we will finally be free to chew gum anywhere we please. Until then, school is a freaking breeze. In science we make ice cream and try to call it chemistry. In Spanish we start a soap opera with English subtitles, with enough seasons to last us well into our twenties. In math we play a computer game we literally played in middle school that involves tiny blue creatures called Zoombinis. When we do get an assignment, it’s pretty much an I-based answer you can’t get wrong.
Then there are the assemblies where they pause normal classes and pile the senior class into the auditorium with its layers of dust and torn maroon seats that expose bits of cushion. Abigail, Hilary, and I scrunch down in our seats and look at possible prom hairstyles while the guidance counselors tell us that the Gill School has a “special schedule for seniors” so that its graduates will do “special things in the world.” The point of all the PowerPoints and guest speakers from previous years who’ve already done special things in the world is to remind us that we’re let out of school almost two months before the other schools because we have service work to do. Instead of a weeklong spring break, we get a kind of monthlong “spring break” after graduation that goes from early May to mid-June. Though it’s not mandatory, it’s kind of a well-known fact that every senior has to pack a suitcase full of ugly hiking socks and partake in Gill’s six-week volunteer project abroad. This year we’re going to Nicaragua, which I hear has waterfalls. Forty-two days without parents or cell phones or electricity, all while having a “truly formative experience” with my best friends and boyfriend? Yes, please.
“I don’t even really get what we’re going to be doing,” Hilary says to Abigail during lunch on one of those January days that threaten to sacrifice your soul to winter. It’s Taco Tuesday, where we’re all united after lunch by the orange halo on our mouths.
“Doing some work at the landfill so the kids can go to school? And volunteering in the classrooms, I think,” Hilary says.
I sip my lemonade. “Probably just pretending to help out in the classrooms while actually volunteering to take our bikinied asses to the beach.”
“Cham!” Hilary says. “It’s a serious issue! Because kids have to work at the landfill to support their family, they can’t go to school and—”
“I know, I know. I’m just kidding.” My eyes drift over to Gene, who sits a few tables away from us with Doug and some other guys on the track team. “Whenever we’re in the cafeteria, I half expect a flash mob to appear and sing about how Gene wants to take me to prom. Not that I’m obsessed,” I add, poking the stringy green-tinted lettuce that’s fallen out of my tortilla shell. (Even tacos have a hard time keeping it together.) “Just healthily fixated.”
Hilary laugh-chokes as Abigail dons a frown worthy of a large, depressed fish. “Poor Cham,” she says, rubbing her tearless eyes theatrically. When she takes a bite of her taco, a glob of ketchup falls to its death on the floor.
“Nice,” Hilary says, laughing.
“Karma’s a bitch,” I say, then look up at Gene just as he happens to be looking up at me. We share a smile no one else can see in a world no one else is part of.
“Heeeeeeeey,” someone behind us says, pushing empty chairs into tables to get to our corner. “Gooood afternoon, ladiesss!” The tables closest to us have turned around, and a few people are rolling their eyes. “Sorry to interrupt,” Brendan sings, hitting the back of someone’s head with his bright red tutu. “Jeez,” the girl says, glaring at him like he did it on purpose. “I know it’s Taco Tuesday and you’re very busy, but Student Council is finalizing plans for Senior Volunteer Day.”
Hilary and Abigail look at each other, so I have no choice but to look at Brendan. I don’t know how he doesn’t mind people staring at him like he’s an annoyance from another planet. I guess humans are adaptable creatures. We can get used to almost anything.
“What are they finalizing?” I ask. His face is two inches from the Student Council iPad, and there’s a 100 percent chance his fingers are smudging taco prints all over it.
“Well,” he says, leaning over us and ignoring our lack of interest, either for the love of Student Council or because of basic male obliviousness. His hair brushes my face. It’s a soft perfect curl that’s fallen from his bun and smells like peppermint. “We’re deciding between the Breast Cancer Polar Plunge and the Brain Degeneration Walk.” My eyes widen, and a pogo stick of doom has a field day in my stomach. “Do you guys have a preference?”
“Not the brain thing!” I say quickly, then open my bag of tortilla chips to drown out the sounds of my anxious thinking. His eyebrows shoot up to the lights on the ceiling that somehow get sprayed with condiments sometimes.