My Stupid Girl (25 page)

"What was that?" I asked in what
I thought was a normal, even, voice but Lucy jumped in the air and squealed in
surprise.

"David! What's wrong with you?"
She was holding the hollow of her neck, her eyes wide.

"What did you just take?" I
asked, suspiciously.

"Nothing. It’s nothing.” She stammered
looking guilty, like she’d been caught doing bad.

"Lucy." I walked toward her.
"You’re acting weird." Her face held a mixture of embarrassment and
irritation.

“I am not acting weird. Let’s go.” She
tried to move around me with a business-like step, but I stopped her with my
arm and spun her around to face me.

“Lucy.”

"Gah!" She exhaled and spun
around. She threw open the cabinet door, reached in, and chucked the little
bottle over her shoulder at me. I caught it and turned it so I could read the
label. I started to laugh. It wasn't the right reaction, but it just came out.

"You take Ritalin?" She scrunched
her nose at my question and started straightening up papers on the counter that
were already straight. "Lucy, you take Ritalin?" I asked again,
waiting for her to answer me.   

"Obviously!" She answered
savagely. “What are you doing in here, you were supposed to go back to the
car.” She looked up at me and glared.

“So what, are you hyperactive or something,
problems controlling your super active mind?” I asked, still giggling. Her face
was priceless. She was so angry. I put the bottle down on the counter and
reached out to hug her, but she wasn’t coming near me. A big puzzle piece was
suddenly coming together in my mind. 

“So, let's say,” I ignored her huffing and
puffing, “You forget to take this Ritalin. Would you, perhaps, see nothing odd
in driving a broken-down car with a stick shift, in the rain, an hour away to
deliver it to someone you hardly knew?” She looked thunderous. 

“Would you knock on said person’s window,
late at night, during a huge storm, and expect them to help you climb up a wall
to get in the room, all the while refusing to move because a little dog was
blocking your way to the front door?” 

I waited for her answer, but it didn’t
come. “Then might you go through that boy’s closet, appropriating his clothing
and then drag him to a lighthouse were you would come dangerously close to
kissing him?”

She let me put my arms around her this time
and pull her close to me. She was stiff as a board in my arms. I looked down at
her face and could see myself in her wide, teary, striking blue eyes. Then she
did something I had never seen her do before. She looked down at the ground,
letting her hair fall in front of her eyes. Ashamed.

“Whoa, Lucy. What’s wrong?” I put my hand
under her chin and lifted her head up, something that she had done so many
times to me, and made her look in my eyes. She sighed and gave me a weak smile.

“Look, David, I don’t want to talk about
it?” It was like she was begging me to pretend I’d never been here. That wasn’t
going to happen, but she looked so embarrassed that I felt bad for making fun
of her.

“Have you always taken it?” I asked without
a trace of humor, hoping my seriousness would re-assure her. I didn’t care at
all, but she really seemed bothered by the whole situation.

“No. I mean… kind of.” She looked up at me
again and killed me with her amazing face, her lightly speckled nose, and big
red lips. Her hair was getting so long, it brushed my hands that were wrapped
around her waist. 

“How do you kind of always take Ritalin?” I
asked, still trying to avoid any humor.

“I have always had it, and took it when I
remembered but...” She trailed off. I shook her a little to get her to keep
talking.

“Since I started dating you, I make a point
to take it like I’m supposed to.” She bit her bottom lip and looked up
apologetically. I felt a rush of cold go over me, like someone had poured a
bucket of water on my insides. I loosened my hands from her waist and put them
down at my sides. 

“Why?”

“Because I like you, David.”

“You take Ritalin because you like me?” I
spat the words out in a disgusted tone that made her eyebrows furrow together. 

“Yes.” She allowed me to let her go, but I
think she felt just as sad about it as I did. “Listen, I saw how it made you
feel when you thought I was flirting with those other guys. If I am regular
with my meds, it’s much easier for me to avoid being super flirty with people.”

“So drugs are why you have been so calm and
appropriate around everyone lately?” My voice was a monotone. I was bummed. I’d
honestly believed that her feelings for me were the reason she was so much
better around boys now.

“I guess that’s the reason. It just helps
me think through thoughts and decision.” She looked apologetic again, like she
was admitting a great fault of hers. 

“Is that the reason you haven’t kissed me
yet?” I asked quietly.

“No.” She answered, just as quietly. I felt
so depressed all of a sudden, like a huge weight had just parked on my chest.
Was my jealousy the reason she felt like she had to take this drug? To calm her
down so much that she wasn’t her peppy self? The peppy Lucy I had fallen in
love with? 

Did I push her into this?

“What are you thinking?” She reached out
for me but I moved back quickly. I drummed my fingers on the tabletop, phrasing
my words in my mind before I said them out loud.

“Did you take them when you dated Mike?” I
didn’t look up. I didn’t want to see her face.

I already knew the answer before she told
me.

“Not like I should have.”

Mike had said once that I had to get used
to her flirting if I was going to date Lucy. I had thought that by some miracle
I had dodged that bullet and that she just didn’t flirt because she liked me
that much. Now I knew better. 

It hurt.

“Why?” I was still drumming my fingers on
the countertop, not looking at her. She walked to me and pulled me over so I
was facing her. 

“Because I feel differently about you than
I have with anyone else. I forgot all the time when I was dating him.” She
smiled at me hopefully, as if that explained everything. Stupid girl.

“So, okay. You forgot to take your
prescribed medication because you didn’t like Mike as much as you do me?”

“Oh, don’t make me say it, David!” She
stamped her foot on the ground and looked embarrassed again.

“Say what?” I was really confused. I don’t
think it was because I was missing anything. She was being random, and I really
didn’t understand what was going on.

“That I like you more, that I like you
differently. I make a point to remember to take these stinking pills so I don’t
do something that I know I shouldn’t.” 

My head snapped up. I was shocked again,
but instead of cold water, this time I felt lava pouring through me. Did I dare
ask her to clarify?   

“You sound like you’re saying that you take
those pills because you want to, er, be, well, you want to, ummm, be intimate
with me and you think you shouldn’t.” 

Yeah, I jumped out on a limb, but I had to
make it clear. I was going to be thinking about until I knew. She punched my
arm in response. 

“Please don’t make a big deal out of this.”
She pleaded with me. I started to laugh again.

“So, is that why you haven’t kissed me?” I
reached out and pulled her back into my arms. She nodded her head and nuzzled
her nose into my neck.

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t trust myself, David.” She didn’t
lift her head to look into my eyes when she said that. I couldn’t tell if she
was being honest or not. This girl was driving me crazy, in every way
possible.  

“So, do you not want me to try to kiss you,
then?” I really needed to know before my brain started bleeding. 

“No. I mean, yes.” She flung her head up to
stare into my eyes. Her lips were twitching, like they were begging me to try.
This was driving me crazy. I wasn’t going to try asking again, but I was dying
to kiss her.

Literally, I could feel the oxygen leaving
my body.

Once I started was she just going to make
me stop? I decided that even if she did, I had to try. As I contemplated, she
held my gaze. Her face turned pink and glowed. It was so beautiful. I couldn’t
believe she was in my arms in this moment, asking me to take this moment and
run with it. Maybe.

“Did you take your medicine? Can you handle
this?” My laugh was deeper than usual, rumbling inside my throat. I pulled her
tighter to me. She nodded her head and quietly laughed. Her eyes were intense
and were drilling into me.

I put my hand on the back of her head.

I ran my fingers thru her silky hair.

I bent down pressed my lips against her
mouth. 

It was gentle and G-rated at first, like
every other kiss we had shared. But then she put her hand on my cheek and
kissed me with more passion. It was so natural it was like breathing. She
tucked her body against mine without breaking contact. Now I knew all oxygen
had left me, but I didn’t care. I was going to die so happy.

Finally, I drew my face back and saw her
eyes closed, her long lashes touching all the little smile lines she had under
her eyes.  

“I’m going to have to figure out a way to
put sugar pills in that bottle,” I whispered in her ear. 

She pulled away, her eyes filled with
teasing maliciousness. I smiled back, dodging punches. 

I grabbed her left hand and raised it to my
lips, kissing that little ring.

15. KIDNAPPED

When I thought back on my life, the way I lived as a
young child and into my teenage years, I thought in slow motion. I was
seventeen before I experienced a healthy home, boundaries, and even being
kissed. Although I didn’t like to talk about my first kiss, I did like talking
about my girlfriend. 

The few friends I had at my new high school
teased me about Lucy, not because I had a beautiful girlfriend who was a good
little church girl, but because they didn’t believe that she was real. 

I talked about her and showed them
pictures, but they were sure she was a model cut out from a magazine. I went as
far as making my grandma take a picture of the two of us together so I could
show them. “Amazing what people can do with Photoshop these days,” they said. 

When it came to Lucy, I thought of my life
in fast forward. The moment I met her, my life changed constantly from one
thing to the next. My life went from empty to exciting to terrifying and out of
control in a moment. All the time.   

It was a cold day in May, the twenty-third.
My eighteenth birthday. I sat in English class, looking at the clock tick by
slowly and the pattering of the rain drizzle down the windows. I was not a fan
of English; give me math or science but English was horrible. I did like
reading but I didn’t like formulating sentences or paragraphs. There were too many
rules and too many different ways things could turn out. 

Math had one possible answer; there was
comfort and steadiness in it. 

Lucy loved English, she would often help me
with my English papers and I would help her with her math homework. The girl knew
four plus four; that was about it. Anything else she just looked at me like I
was speaking a different language. Sitting at the dinner table in her house,
next to her, trying to explain something to her was my idea of purgatory. 

It was frustrating when she didn’t get what
I was saying, but not just because of her. Every time we sat down to do
homework, it was painfully obvious that I wasn’t a patient person. On top of
that, I was sitting right next to this amazing girl that held every single part
of me wrapped around her little fingers and toes. Her long hair always smelled
amazing. Her eyes would always squint together when she was frustrated. It was
so cute.

By the time her math homework was done,
Lucy’s hair was up in a messy bun on the top of her head, making her cheekbones
stand out and her big blue eyes look bigger than usual. She looked like a lost
puppy, big sappy eyes looking up at me for help. I always felt bad for being so
impatient.

The great part about the homework thing,
though, was I hadn’t read a single word in a school book since I started dating
Lucy. Unlike me, she was patient, happy, and understanding when I didn’t get
the things that she understood. Whenever I had something I needed to read, she
would read it out loud to me. Once I had to read Beowulf over a weekend and
give a verbal report on Monday. I had tried to read it but that poem bored me
senseless. 

I’d mentioned it to Lucy as we reached the
end of our weekend. I’d said that I was going to pretend to be sick that next
day so that I wouldn’t have to stand in front of a bunch of my classmates and
talk about something I didn’t understand. She told me that I was forbidden to
skip class and avoid talking about such an amazing story. Crazy girl.

It was so much more interesting when she
read to me. The way she told the story was fascinating. She understood the
characters and spoke so eloquently that she made even Beowulf sound
interesting. When she finished, she explained it all, like how the two monsters
were a byproduct of their fathers’ sin. She tied it into “lessons learned” by
outlining how Grendel's mother seduced the kings into giving her a son by
promising them power. That was a play on how humans interact with the world at
large – we often choose power over our better judgment. 

I said word for word what Lucy had told me
the next day in class. It was a pretty awesome feeling when I stood up and
surprised everyone.

Unfortunately I didn’t have Lucy here with
me now, in the most boring English class ever. We were reading some
Shakespeare, Macbeth, the part with the Weird sisters. That bell couldn’t ring
soon enough. The teacher was calling on people at random, but he had already
called on me three times. I was a good reader, but I really didn’t like reading
out loud in class. It still made me feel awkward even though it was a vast
improvement from a few months ago, when I would have rather crawled into a hole
and died before I read out loud in a classroom setting.