Perfectly Good White Boy (5 page)

This was a lot of information at once, so I guess I couldn't help it, then. Because
March
? The barn party was in April. Was she still with Dan the hockey player in March? According to Hallie, they'd gone out for a million years. She even had a framed picture of him and her together on her nightstand, which she got rid of the first time I went over to her house. Because Hallie and Dan had been a
couple
. They went to
dances.
They
ate lunch
together. They posed for pictures that were then
framed
.

But now she was saying she hadn't fucked him. And now she was saying she wanted to fuck me. Except Hallie would never say “fuck” like that.

“All right.” My voice was a whisper. “Where are they?”

She reached around, her boobs swinging in the air, and grabbed her bag, handed me a condom.

The little packet crinkled in my hand. How do I know she's really on the pill? What if she's lying? Does she know I've never done it either? What if she did it with Dan? And other guys too?

What if I come the second I put the condom on me?

Finally, she was looking at me funny and so I just ripped open the packaging. The second I did that, she laid back, her wrist over her eyes, like she couldn't bear to watch what came next or she was getting herself all mentally prepared or something dramatic. This hiding her eyes from me and my dirty condom business might have made me feel bad, but instead I was relieved to go through the whole thing on my own. Chucking the wrapper on the floor. Slipping the little circle-blob from the packet. Unrolling it, all slippery, with its weird Band-Aid smell, down my dick. I mean, it was pretty gross, if you really thought about it for a minute. I was glad she wasn't watching.

“Did you get it on okay?” she asked from behind her wrist.

“Yeah,” I said, laying myself over her. Though I actually didn't know. It wasn't like she handed me the little instruction booklet that came in the box. Or that I would have read it. Had
she
read it?

“You ready and everything?” I asked. Which came out sounding so weak-ass! But she nodded. Put her hands on my shoulders. She still wasn't really looking at me, but at least her wrist wasn't over her eyes.

So I kind of nudged her legs apart with my knee. She was a little resistant, like she couldn't really believe that was required. Like it was my shitty idea. My fault for biology, for being a guy, that I had to press her open all gross like that.

Since just sort of pushing around my dick right there seemed very, well,
icky
, I reached down again to figure out what was where, kissing her at the same time so she wouldn't notice I was being all clinical about finding the exact spot. But I guess she had the same idea, because then her hand knocked against mine and for a minute both our hands were down there, pushing and moving around, getting everything set up in the right place. Once it was clear things were all set up, my dick nudged her right in the exact spot and her entire body went still again. Like I was a Tyrannosaurus with bad eyesight and she was the prey trying to hide.

“Hallie?”

“Yes?” she asked. Her voice was high and soft.

“Hey,” I said. Then she was looking at me. Weirdly. Like this was the part where I did the sex version of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Like suddenly my dick should do something really brilliant, like produce a laser light show full of fireworks or something. Which, strangely, it didn't feel like doing. I was basically completely panicked.

Stalling, I asked if she was ready again. And again, she nodded.

There was nowhere else to go. Nothing else for it. So I just pushed in. Slow.

And then, not slow.

Holy shit.

“Holy shit,” I said.

That day, like most days, I wasn't any better at not blurting stuff out.

“It's okay?” she asked. Now she sounded panicked.

“Yeah,” I said, closing my eyes. Completely unpanicked. It was like I'd transferred my panic to her because this felt better than okay. “Okay” was not the word.
It felt better than I could believe
. For a minute it felt so good that I was pretty sure it would now have to be over. That that initial good feeling would be all I'd deserve to get and she'd change her mind or something.

But then I moved in her, back and forth. And there was more.

More more more. Jesus.
Fuck.

It took a little while to get in sync, but it happened eventually. My hands in push-up mode, hers around my lower back. Her head tipped back, her boobs bouncing.

So. Fucking. Awesome.

Then Hallie's nails dug in my back and she made a sound like, “Ow!”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “It only hurt at first. Keep going.”

It hurt at first?
She seemed fine to me. At least from my side of things. But what the fuck did I know about hurting? God.

“You've really never done it before?” I asked.

“No,” she said. And looked a little peeved.

“Okay,” I said, really quick. The last thing I needed to do was piss her off! But goddammit. Both of us damn virgins! Though she didn't know that about me. She'd never asked! I mean, maybe she guessed it, but right now it felt like it was my job to know everything. She'd done the birth control part; now I had to step up and do my side. I kissed her, just for reassurance—hers or mine, I didn't know.

Then I just kept, well,
doing it
.

She was all breathless, too, which was funny to me, since I was the one doing most of the work. Not that I cared. I didn't. It was great.

It was so fucking great.

But I was getting increasingly brainless. I hadn't counted on the old “think about baseball scores” myth actually being useful, but I didn't want it to end. I mean, I wanted it to end, sure. But I also wanted it to go on feeling this way forever.

what is not sexy what is not sexy think about what is not sexy . . .

And the first dumb thing that came to mind? My Grandpa Chuck's new shotgun. The one I'd killed the buck with in the deer stand I'd sat in with Hallie at the barn party. So, then I just closed my eyes and ran through the list of all the other guns that I had ever used.

The 12-gauge. Oily as fuck the first time I touched it.

The .50-cal flintlock. The one my grandpa didn't like me to use.

The .410. Had to use that when I was a kid. Brad gave me so much shit.

Then I opened my eyes and looked down at her and we kissed a whole bunch but I just couldn't do it any longer, even though it hadn't probably been more than thirty seconds. I couldn't think. About guns or anything besides everything “good” and “wet” and “awesome” and “fuck.”

I choked out, “Hallie?” Like I was asking permission.

She said in my ear, “Just do it, Sean.” Four magic words like a switch, and so I just did it, I came, everything came, and for a minute everything was black but so excellent and I collapsed on her, feeling her arms around me and like I might sleep for ten years.

I lifted my head up. A minute later. A thousand minutes later. I looked down at her, her hair everywhere on the sheet. There were no pillows—what had happened to them? Did she move them? I barely knew where I was.

“Hallie?” I said. Looking down at her. She had sweat between her boobs. I thought I should pull out of her, but it felt so good, still, to be in there. I never wanted to be anywhere else on earth.

“Yes?” she said. Looking straight up at me.

It kind of hit me, then. Crazy. Like something that would happen to someone else, not me. Like Brad asking Krista to marry him on the beach in Florida on their vacation, under a full moon and bonfire on the sand and everything all beautiful, at least the way Krista always told it. Or a TV-show thing, where the music kicks in and the hero looks at the girl and everything becomes so meaningful. Totally cheesy. But that's exactly how it was. Except all in my head.

“You all right?” I asked. My throat was instantly scratchy. Like I'd drank sand.

“Yeah,” she said. Lifted up to kiss me, and everything lurched down there in a way that seemed dangerously impregnating but she didn't let me move. We kissed a little more, and the whole time that same dramatic television feeling was in me. The urge to say it. I'd never said it to her, never meant to say it to her. Had never said it to anyone else, besides my mom. Though I hadn't said it to her, even, since I was probably ten years old.

I think I love her. Hallie. I think I love her. I do.

“I think I love you,” I said.

She stared at me. Quiet.

I looked away. It was raining now, lightning and heavy clouds over the lake. The water all chop and whitecaps.

Several more centuries of silence. She cleared her throat and I could feel it all rumble down there again, so I got up, turning so she didn't see everything hanging off me, and went to the bathroom.

I chucked the condom in the toilet. Then I pissed on it, trying to push it under the water, like all this was its fault.

She's leaving in a month. Stop being such a pussy. Go in there and deal. At least get your clothes back on.

In the bed, Hallie was sitting up, wrapped in a sheet—again, another TV-style detail. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to touch her again. I wanted to leave. I wanted to scream at her.

I scanned the floor for my clothes.

“Sean?”

“Yeah?”

“What are you standing there for? Get back in bed.”

Christ. I didn't know if I was in trouble. Or if it was okay now.

I got in bed with her and she curled next to me, and the second I felt her all naked and she laid her head on my chest I was thinking it would be okay. Maybe.

Then she covered us both up with the sheet, like the cameras were rolling, and I could feel her foot next to my foot, her legs sliding beside mine, her breathing on my chest in that caved-in spot that seemed to defy any sort of fitness attempt to fix it, and everything snapped back to good. Or not exactly good. But better. Feeling like I could sleep a thousand years again, I shut my eyes.

Maybe she didn't hear me.

She stretched up. Put her mouth just beneath my ear. My eyes whipped open.

“I think I am, too,” she said.

And I knew instantly what she meant. We stared at each other and then we kissed some more and then she laughed and I laughed and I rolled her on top of me. The words caught between us.

Words that I kept hearing for the rest of the night. Even after everyone came back to the cabin, drunker and smelling like pizza, and we rushed back into our clothes, we were still watching each other, across the deck and the fire pit, both of us knowing what had happened but acting normal, not saying anything, and the ride back into town, both of us holding hands across the long bench seat of my car, not talking, just listening to music and knowing the secret of everything.

Chapter Three

Hallie pulled up her skirt but left her bra and shirt on the seat between us. My car was the kind that was big with senior citizens back in the eighties, all plush and padded, with that weird velvety fabric for seats, which made it hot as hell in the summer, even with the windows open. I was sweating so much my hair dripped.

She was leaving for college. Tomorrow.

Which was why we'd just done it, for the last time probably, at one of our favorite spots, down below the old railroad trestle by the dried-up riverbed six miles out of Oak Prairie, between the RV dealership and about twenty miles of cornfields. The railroad trestle hadn't supported a train since I'd been coming here, back in junior high. Now it was just a place for kids to act like shitheads because it was out of the way, through a bunch of dirt roads that had originally been a KOA campground, but now nobody who hadn't taken them before would be able to figure them out. The first time I'd come here was with Eddie and his older cousin, when we'd smoked pot for the first time. Back then, the river was deep and kids sometimes jumped off the trestle into the water. I'd jumped it a dozen times myself. When the river dried up, like it had this summer, it was just a stripe of mud and beer cans and trash. Lots of used condoms too. I pulled on my boxers and got out to add another one to the collection.

Getting back into the car, my foot caught on a plastic to-go cup on the floor mat. Hallie's soda cup. I hated trash in my car. I chucked it out the window.

“Litterer,” Hallie said. “God, Sean.” She sounded like a mom. I ignored her when she talked like that, generally.

“What time you guys . . . get on the road?” I couldn't say “leave.” Or look at her.

“Five a.m.,” she said. “My dad wants to leave earlier, though. He's saying four. My mom refused. Thank god.” She kind of laughed.

“What's the rush?” I asked. “Don't you have all day to move in?”

Just talking about her moving in made me feel like shit. It took so much energy to act natural, I thought my heart might stop.

“There's this orientation for parents at noon,” she said. She went on to explain the details of the day, but I could barely listen. None of them mattered; I wouldn't be there for any of them.

“Sean, we should talk about this,” she said.

No, we shouldn't.

“I'm so glad everything happened that happened,” she said, wrapping her arms around me. Her boobs jiggled against my ribs.

I couldn't speak. Or move.

“Sean?”

“What.” My voice was all crackly, like my nuts hadn't dropped.

“We can't help it that this all turned out this way. But it'll be fine. It'll all work out.”

“Hallie, you're going to college five hours away,” I said.

“I don't mean that.”

“Well, what the hell are you even talking about?”

“Us. Being together. For this summer. I'm glad we were able to do it.”

Were?