Places No One Knows (14 page)

The dark is populated by undefined shapes. It pitches around me. I can't tell if it's tiny or huge or something in between. I stand in the middle of it, unfixed in space.

The smell is familiar, the carpet is rough, and there's a low, constant sound that's going to drive me crazy if it doesn't stop. Then the full magnitude of the situation washes over me.

My voice comes out in a harsh, high-pitched whisper, almost a shriek. “Oh my God, tell me you are
not
doing that!”

Marshall sits up fast, slamming back against the wall. He yanks the blankets up to his chest in silhouette and for a second, there's just the sound of his breath, rasping in and out.

Then he swallows audibly in the dark. When he speaks, his voice cracks.
“Waverly?”

I'm not a weak person.

I'm not fragile or tender—not easily embarrassed—but I can feel the mortification anyway, right there on my face.

I know, unequivocally, that I am not supposed to be here. And maybe all those other times, I could just ignore it. I could get up in the morning and intellectualize about plastic lighters and blue T-shirts and leaves on my feet, tell myself it didn't matter or that the universe is vast. That it wasn't really real.

But this is horrible, undeniable—it's happening—and for a second, I just stand in the middle of the room, holding on to my own shoulders and feeling very small.

Marshall sits with his back against the wall and his knees up. We don't move. After a while, my eyes start to adjust to the dark.

“You can't be here,” he whispers, and it's hard to tell if he actually means I
shouldn't
be here, or that I'm
not.

I move toward the bed, shuffling my feet along the carpet, kicking scattered books and stray socks out of the way until I reach the corner of the mattress.

When I sit down, the blankets are warm and soft. They smell like Old Spice deodorant and his hair—a fragrant, smoky smell that makes my skin feel tight.

“How are you doing this?” he whispers, pressing his back against the wall, flinching away from me.

I slide closer, feeling for the headboard. When my hand brushes the top of his shoulder, he sucks in his breath. He's not wearing a shirt.

“What do you
want,
Waverly?”

And I stop moving. His voice is unsteady, unexpectedly sad.

We sit quietly in the dark, not moving, not touching. The mattress is squishy, sagging in the middle, and I've never felt this untethered before, never been on a boy's bed with him, never sat close together in the dark, in the middle of the night, in my pajamas, my hand still tingling hotly because I touched his bare shoulder.

“I want you to kiss me,” I say, and it comes out all wrong—shy and faraway. I sound like I don't really mean it, but how something sounds doesn't always tell you a lot. It takes saying the words out loud to realize that I have never meant anything more in my whole life.

“I can't,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Is that supposed to be a
joke
?” His voice cracks again, like he can't catch his breath. “Guys like me don't kiss girls like you.”

For a second, I don't say anything. Then I lean in. Whisper it close to his ear. “But at night, we're not like us. We can do whatever we want.”

He turns his face to the wall. “Yeah? Well, that's pathetic, then. It's cheap—some cheap, stupid fantasy.” His arms are crossed like he can protect himself. His tone is bitter.

I, on the other hand, am perfectly content to take the fantasy.

I put my arms around his neck and kiss him.

The warmth of our colliding bodies is shocking, and for a second, the pressure of my mouth on his feels like too much, like at any second, my structural integrity will fail and I'll just implode.

Yes, I've been kissed—at formal dance after-parties and other social functions—long, uninteresting kisses with nothing fueling them, nothing attached. But this is the first time in my life that I've ever done the kissing.

Marshall sits and lets me do it. His mouth is soft and unresponsive, making it clear that I'm acting upon him, taking the initiative and the risk. Being rejected.

I pull away, dizzy and out of breath. And all those times I thought the way he looked at me might mean something…I was wrong.

Then he puts his hand on my arm and kisses me back.

It isn't like the kisses in movies or books. He doesn't grab me and slam me down on the bed, overcome with lust and frustration. Instead, he pulls me closer, moving slowly. His hands are big and warm, sliding up inside my pajama top. He tastes like toothpaste.

His chest is smooth and I shove him back against the wall, holding him there, kneeling over him. Then he moves so that the top of his thigh is pinned between my knees and I can't tell who is ravishing whom.

I have never in my life felt so electrified by anything as I am by the way his lips fit against mine, and when I can't take it anymore, I slide my mouth against his neck, then his chest, working my way down.

Right away, he catches me by the shoulders and pushes me back. “We shouldn't be doing this.”

“Why not? Isn't this what you dream about?”

When he answers, his voice is harsh and plaintive.
“No.”

He's lying, but he's also telling the truth. It doesn't matter if he likes me or doesn't like me, or if he's watched me in the hall once on some endless day and thought about touching me. None of that matters.

What matters is the realness, my hands on his bare arms, my body taking up space in a place that is supposed to be impossible. The fantasy is not supposed to turn into the reality.

There's hair on his stomach, but just a little, running down toward his boxers, getting denser. I follow it, letting my fingertips find the edge of his waistband. The muscles across his abdomen flutter and jerk as I touch his hipbones.

I've thought about this. In a hypothetical way, I've thought about it. Future Waverly takes her gear off for hypothetical future boy—in a mature, pseudo-adult world, maybe at college, because current Waverly has no time to go around perfecting her heavy-petting skills or wondering if she's ready. Current Waverly had only ever debated whether or not to allow CJ Borsen a chaste goodnight kiss.

Under my hands, Marshall's body feels rigid, like he's holding his breath.

I sit up, but don't take my hand away. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No,” he says, lying flat on his back with his hands resting on my thighs. His voice sounds so guilty it's almost funny.
We shouldn't be doing this, but don't stop.

I've never really touched a boy before—not like that. Never thought about it much, even when talk turned gleeful and dirty at sleepovers. The self-conscious erections of ninth-grade gym class, miserable in their basketball shorts, never had any bearing on
me.

He's squeezing the tops of my thighs, gasping like he can't catch his breath. Then he rolls away and sits up, grabbing me and pulling me hard against his chest.

His mouth on my neck is warm and sends a surge of electricity through my blood. And here comes the ravishing now, frantic, reverent. He's fumbling with my pajama bottoms, yanking them down off my hips, touching me, and I'm holding his face between my hands, wanting the warm toothpaste flavor of his mouth, wanting to kiss him, and not because I just want to kiss somebody.

Because I want to kiss
him.

I have a problem.

Not astral projection. Not even the fact that I've implicitly agreed to a monogamous relationship with CJ Borsen, when the only person I can think about is Marshall Holt.

Never mind that Autumn Pickerel is turning out to be an engine of destruction, like I wound her up and set her loose, and now I kind of want to stand by while she wrecks the known world. Never mind that I have a regional meet and a trig test and last night was the first full night's sleep I've gotten in months.

I have a giant, colossal hickey on the side of my neck.

It's plum-red and shaped vaguely like Spain. It is large enough to have its own congressman. When the carotid artery throbs in my neck, it seems to be breathing.

I stare into the mirror above my dresser. There's no full-coverage makeup heavy enough for this. It's a battlefield of broken capillaries. It is a disaster.

I've always been more conceptual than not. It's completely normal for my nights to seem realer than my days.

I close my eyes, trying to find the thread. One night, just over a week ago, I lit a candle, lay back. Woke covered in dead leaves. Since that night, there have been moments—usually when I'm heavily caffeinated, or starting to feel trapped in my own body—when I pull away from the whole situation. Ask myself,
How is this possible? How is this sane?

The hickey's real, though, tender to the touch. Not some bizarrely vivid dream. Not a plastic lighter handed to me by a stranger. No, I unabashedly made out with Marshall Holt like my life depended on it. And it was exceptional.

I stand at my dresser, staring down my reflection like with the very force of my gaze, I could make her neat and orderly again. Or at least make the hickey go away.

No luck. The skin stays vividly contused.

At the bottom of my jewelry box, there's a glittery choker my grandma bought me for eighth-grade graduation. It didn't suit my sharp corners or my general aesthetic, but now, the rhinestones twinkle up from the box as if to say,
Take us out and put us on. This is what we're here for.

The choker is relentlessly ornate, covered in neo-Victorian filigree. When I fasten it around my throat, the girl looking back at me is suddenly earnest. She's fragile and innocent—subtle, like Autumn said. I look less like I'm hiding something than I ever have in my life.

The parade of passing periods is interminable.

I spend every ten-minute block dawdling at my locker, waiting for some kind of sign, but Marshall keeps his back to me.

If I could see his face, I'm almost sure I'd be able to tell what he's thinking. I'd have a sense of whether he was avoiding my eyes because he knows exactly what happened between us, or if the reason he's looking away is that he's a total stranger and there is no
us.

But even at my most pragmatic, I know that's not the truth. Under the choker, the mark on my neck is dark like a brand.

And so I stare across the locker bay, waiting for the bell. And the whole time, Marshall keeps his face turned away, deep in conversation with Ollie Poe, ignoring me on a level that is close to extravagant.

Maribeth has, by all outward appearances, forgiven me for last night. She's graciously put aside the Autumn debacle, or at least decided to bottle up her displeasure and let it age for a later date. At my locker before trig, she gives me a quick once-over but doesn't mention the choker.

Instead, she hands me half of her Luna bar and spends the next five minutes regaling me with the hilarity of Palmer's insistence on finding the perfect pair of platform heels, coupled with her conviction that such a thing exists. We discuss the joys of colored tinsel, and even when my voice sounds shrill, I know that from a distance, I look remarkably carefree.

For lunch, we walk over to Little Szechuan, home of the seven-dollar combo meal. The board on the back wall boasts thirty-seven choices, all of which come in Styrofoam clamshells and outrageous portions.

Maribeth would normally veto Chinese, but when I suggested it, she just nodded gravely, like she was concerned about me. The day seems very bright, and I'm ravenous for something greasy and full of sodium. She doesn't say anything disparaging, even when her order arrives looking like it's been bathed in WD-40.

We're on our way back to school, clutching our coats against the wind, when she says, “Hey, you're still coming to the mall when you're done with your meet, right?” She slows down, then stops completely. “I was thinking Autumn could come too.”

The sentence hangs in the air for one fleeting second before slipping away, getting lost. I don't know how to respond.

Maribeth's shrug is diffident and she looks away. “If she wants, I mean.”

I nod, trying to look thoughtful, but privately, I'm impressed. When Autumn said Maribeth wouldn't take a victory by forfeit, she knew what she was talking about.

We're halfway across the east lawn now. The wind picks up, sending a flurry of cigarette butts and candy wrappers tumbling across the parking lot. The sky is a hard, uniform gray.

I step over a soggy french-fry sleeve and pain zings along the bottom of my foot. If the way my arches seem to be peeling themselves off the bone doesn't get better, I'll have to see one of the school trainers—but only as a last resort. Ever since she started collecting articles about how overexertion is ruining high school athletes, Molly Bruin, Sports Medicine Specialist, loves to bench people for
recuperation purposes.
There's no way it would end well.

Maribeth leans closer and gives me a conspiratorial smile. “So, how are things with
CJ
?”

“Good,” I say, trying to sound bright and giddy. To sound like I think of him at all. “Really good.”

I only mean to satisfy her curiosity, but as soon as I say it aloud, the exhilaration is real. The warm splash of adrenaline that hits my face is real. And I am back in the dark with Marshall Holt.

Twenty-four hours ago, I was a different girl. I didn't think about sex or boys or naked bodies, but now the proposition is inviting—a topic worthy of inquiry. I keep revisiting the way I kissed him, how reckless it felt. How I would do it again in a heartbeat. How I want to rip off his clothes with my teeth.

Maribeth's gaze is fixed intently on my face. “Oh my God, Waverly! You have a
see
-cret.” She sings it like a jump-rope rhyme, eyes open wide, and even though I'm still wearing the choker, I cover my neck with my hand.

Out on the football field, the majorettes are practicing for regionals. They chant in unison and Maribeth chants with them to the tune of rampant school spirit. “Waverly's got a
see
-cret, yes-yes she
does
!”

“No, I don't.”

She reaches over and slips her hand into mine. “Okay, you don't have to tell me right this second, but come on, did you think I wouldn't notice?”

The way she always wants to hold on makes me feel breathless, like we've fallen overboard and she's got me in a death grip, pulling me down to the ocean floor. I feel bad about lying, though, so I link my fingers with hers and squeeze back.

She leans into me, tipping her head to the cloudy sky. “Oh, my God! Are you completely freaking out right now?”

For a second, I can think of absolutely nothing to say. On the field, the majorettes are marching in their warm-ups and their mismatched winter hats. They look like windup toys.

“Waverly—Waverly, what is
wrong
with you? I mean, are you? Are you so excited you could die? Why don't you seem excited?”

The majorettes twirl in grim formation and I shake my head.

Can you please repeat the question?

We're out of seventh period early for the meet. In the locker room, Autumn ambles over like sharing my immediate space is the most natural thing in the world. Her sweater is possibly the pinkest thing I've ever witnessed, and I'm minorly relieved to see she hasn't gone back to wild hair and Cleopatra eye makeup. She's still dressing the part of the helpful committee member. I can't tell if her outfit is supposed to be ironic, or if this is really just what she thinks of Maribeth. What she thinks of me.

“You're high-class today,” I tell her, nodding to her wide houndstooth headband.

She throws down her bag and her sketchbook, prying off her wedges and dropping them on the floor. “Same, times ninety-nine. You should wear more jewelry. It looks good.”

Around us, everyone is hectic, racing back and forth with athletic tape and hairbrushes. Over in the corner, Palmer is doing yoga stretches with her eyes closed, reaching for the ceiling.

I run my fingers over the choker, picturing the bitten skin underneath. We aren't allowed to wear jewelry when we compete. The hickey is going to show eventually, ready or not.

When I take off the necklace, I don't make a production of it. Autumn doesn't say a word, but I can almost sense her working out how to approach the subject of my contused neck. I smile because smiling makes me look harmless and any second now, she's going to ask.

“Waverly.”

The way she says it makes something prickle down my back. I press my fingers to the place above my collarbone. Take them away again.

“Waverly.”

“What?” I sound tentative—confused—almost like I've been sleeping.

And Autumn hugs me hard, shaking me back and forth, then letting go to laugh and spin away from me.

“Waverly,” she says. “You look
happy.
God help me, I think you're thawing out.”

On the bus out to the Dove Creek course, we sit together, sharing her headphones while everyone around us shrieks and laughs.

The songs are unfamiliar but catchy, and we lean into each other, bobbing our heads in time to the music. It's the kind of thing I used to do with Maribeth when we were younger, but for some reason, the experience stopped being satisfying. This is satisfying.

Autumn gazes out at the passing cars. She's not pumping me for details or gossip, not demanding to know how I wound up with a continent-sized hickey.

It's not until halfway across town that I understand why. She isn't avoiding the subject to be nice or polite. She comes from a remote region of the social world where making out like a wildebeest in heat is considered normal.