The Boy Next Door (2 page)

My hand traveled up his leg to his knee. “How about here?”

“No,” he said again. He held his hand up to his mid-chest. “Nothing below here.”

My eyes widened and I said the first thing that popped into my eight-year-old head: “So how do you know when you need to go to the bathroom?”

Jason’s face turned bright red. “I . . .” he stammered. “I just . . .” His voice trailed off, never answering my question. Actually, I think I really didn’t want to know the answer to my own question. And I was kind of relieved when he covered his legs back up with his Star Wars blanket.

***

Jason managed to make some friends of his own over the next several years, more gender-appropriate ones, but we remained best friends. After all, he still had the best toys. And he was located very conveniently next door.

When I was eleven and in middle school, I grew breasts. It happened pretty quickly, practically overnight it felt like. One day I had these tiny little mosquito bites on my chest and the next, bam: breasts. I’m not going to lie: I was attractive to guys. I had blond hair and a cute face and now, breasts, all of which contributed to a significant popularity with boys. “This one’s going to be trouble,” Nana used to say practically every day. On my second week of middle school, I was asked out by an older boy at school, a really cute guy named Steve who was universally thought of as being “cool.” I accepted, of course.

I told Jason about my impending date with Steve. My relationship with Jason was 100% nonsexual. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if he could have sex, what with being paralyzed and all, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to ask him. I had at least a little bit of tact by now. In any case, he had never shown the slightest bit of interest in me in that way. I hadn’t entirely eliminated the possibility that he was gay, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t, because any time I brought up how sexy Tom Cruise was, he made a face and barfing noises.

Jason was the only person in whom I felt comfortable confiding how nervous I was about the date. “He’s so mature,” I said, while we were talking within the confines of his bedroom. “What if we go out and he thinks I’m just a baby?”

“I’m sure that won’t happen, Tasha,” Jason assured me.

“I’ve never even kissed a boy,” I confessed, even though Jason undoubtedly knew it must be true. “What if I suck at it?”

He laughed. “You won’t suck at it.”

“How do you know?”

“Why would you?”

I wiped my palms on my jeans. They were perpetually sweaty lately. I had never been so nervous about anything in my life. Math tests suddenly seemed entirely insignificant.

“Maybe I should practice?” I suggested.

Jason frowned. “Like on your pillow?”

“No, like, for real,” I said. “We could practice together.”

Jason’s eyes widened and I wondered again if maybe he was gay. “I don’t think . . .”

“Come on, it would really help me,” I begged him.

I hadn’t really thought this out, but Jason and I were best friends, so it seemed like an obvious thing for best friends to help each other out with. Way better experience than kissing a pillow or my hand. Anyway, it wouldn’t be that bad having to kiss Jason. He wasn’t gross or anything, like some guys. Not as cute as Steve, obviously, but not bad looking.

“Well, um . . .” Jason scratched his head, making his hair stand up a bit. “I guess if it would really help you . . .”

“Awesome!” I clasped my hands together excitedly.

I couldn’t help but notice that Jason’s cheeks were a little pink. “So, um, what do you want me to do?”

“Well . . .” I thought about it a minute. “I guess just you sit there and I’ll sit on your bed and we’ll just . . . do it.”

I put my hands on Jason’s shoulders. His green eyes were still wide and I was pretty sure you were supposed to close your eyes to kiss, but then again, I was the one with the date coming up and needed to practice, not him. I leaned in toward him and pressed my lips against his. He barely moved, so I had to do most of the work. His lips were soft and I slipped my tongue inside his mouth. We kissed for, I don’t know, thirty seconds or so.

“How was that?” I asked him when I pulled away.

“Um,” he said. “That was . . . fine.”

“Just fine?” I asked, disappointed.

Jason shrugged, but when he pulled at his collar, I noticed his hands were shaking.

“Can we try again?”

Jason and I spent the better part of thirty minutes kissing. I think I got better at it, and moreover, it seemed like he got better at it too. He didn’t just sit there motionless, he actually moved his tongue in my mouth and put his hands on my shoulders and back. I actually think he was doing a pretty good job towards the end.

Unfortunately, when we were mid lip lock, his mother did her usual knock-and-immediately-enter routine. I could see her mouth fall open when she saw us and Jason’s face turned red like a beet. “Mom,” he gasped. “Tasha has a date coming up and we were just practicing, so . . .”

Even though it was entirely innocent, needless to say, we weren’t allowed to have any more sleepovers after that.

In high school, Jason and my paths diverged even further, though we were finally at the same school. I really embraced the whole grunge look, dating guys with long messy hair and ripped jeans. I actually cried when Kurt Cobain died and I tried my damnedest to look as much like Courtney Love as I could manage. I wore ripped fishnet stockings and way, way too much eye makeup. I mean, at the time, it seemed like the right amount of eye makeup, but in retrospect I’m majorly embarrassed.

Jason, on the other hand, descended into geekdom. He had a computer before anyone else I knew and he spent an unhealthy amount of time on that thing. His friends were the biggest pimple-faced losers in the school. He committed further social suicide by joining math team and then even something called the Computer Club. If he was anyone else, I wouldn’t have been caught dead with him. As it was, we barely talked while we were at school.

When we were about fifteen-years-old, I came by Jason’s room to hang out and he was wearing glasses. I gasped in horror. “Take those off!” I cried. “Come on, you look like a total nerd! You don’t really need those, do you?”

Jason raised his eyebrows at me. “Um, yeah, I do.”

“That’s because you spend too much time on the computer,” I said.

“You’re probably right,” he said, and pulled off the lenses. He didn’t look that bad with them, I guess, but it was really hard to keep Jason from turning into a complete nerd. He just didn’t seem to get it. Or care. But that didn’t stop me from making an effort.

“That’s better,” I said. “After all, how are you going to get a girlfriend wearing those?”

Jason just laughed. As far as I knew, he’d never had a date. I was pretty sure he was straight because I once found some issues of Playboy stuffed into his pillowcase, but he seemed totally unconcerned with his dateless status. I guess he figured that being a geek in a wheelchair wasn’t likely to land him a date.

I sat cross-legged on Jason’s bed and rolled a joint. He went through his drawer and pulled out a lighter and tossed it to me. I took a deep drag and handed the joint to Jason, who took an impressive drag of his own. He blinked and I could almost see his eyes turning bloodshot. “Ah, Tasha,” he muttered. “You get the best weed.”

“As if any of your loser friends could score you weed,” I retorted, slugging him gently in the shoulder.

“You’re right, Tash,” he said. “What would I do without you?”

I have to admit, there were few people I had as much fun getting high with as Jason. He was one of the few people I felt I could really be myself around, maybe the only person. Plus, his parents didn’t get home from work till totally late and gave us more than enough time to clear out the smell of the pot.

Despite being a picture of teen angst, I still wanted to go to our senior prom. The hottest guy in our class asked me to be his date (under the assumption that he’d get a little post-prom action . . . I was not exactly chaste). I even picked out a black dress at the local department store that flattered my figure and made my (now quite large) breasts look amazing.

I didn’t even have to ask Jason if he intended to go to prom. I was 99.9% sure he hadn’t asked a girl out during all of high school, so I doubted he had managed to get himself a prom date. I guessed he was going to spend prom night on the computer, chatting online with his other nerdy buddies. It bothered me to think about that. Jason was cute and he was a great guy—he deserved to get a date. So what if he was a bit of a geek and he was disabled? Those were qualities that could be overlooked, at least for one night.

“Forget it, Tasha,” Jason said to me when I brought it up to him. “The only way I’m going to have a date for prom is if I go with my mom.”

“Oh, stop it,” I said. “There are tons of girls who would go out with you.”

Jason snorted. “No,” he said, “there aren’t.”

“You’re selling yourself short.”

“I’m realistic. I mean, look at me.”

I gave Jason a quick once over, trying to see him from the eyes of a girl who hadn’t been best friends with him for the past ten years. He had good qualities, speaking objectively. His short hair was always adorably mussed and he had really vivid green eyes, even though he unfortunately hid them behind glasses all the time these days. From the neck up, he was cute, even very cute. He had this sort of half-smile he gave that was very endearing. And from the times I’d seen him in a T-shirt, I could testify that he had some impressive muscles in his arms. Unfortunately, if the T-shirt didn’t fit quite right, I could also see the paunch in his abdomen from muscles that obviously didn’t exist anymore.

And when he shifted in his chair, which he did a lot, it was kind of weird the way his legs didn’t move on their own. It was a little strange, if you’re not used to it. I was used to it. But other girls weren’t. And it was probably true that the presence of the chair itself made people uncomfortable.

“What about that girl Sofia?” I suggested. “From the math team?”

“You mean the one who speaks like five words of English?”

“Um, I guess. . . .”

“She’s got a date.”

“Oh.” I bit my lip, thinking through the less-desirable members of our class. “What about that girl Chelsea?”

“The one who’s autistic?”

“She’s not autistic,” I protested. “Just . . . keeps to herself.”

“Please, Tasha,” he said. “This is getting insulting.” He looked at my face and flashed me that half-smile. “It’s okay, really. Prom’s not a big deal to me. I don’t even want to go, to be honest.”

“Well, is there any girl that you like?” I asked him. “I mean, you’re not gay, right?”

“Christ, Tasha,” Jason said, shaking his head.

“Are you?”

“No!”

“Then there must be someone you like,” I deduced. I caught Jason’s hesitation. “There is! I knew it!”

He bit his lip. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t really matter.”

“Come on,” I said. “You really think a girl would turn you down just because you’re in a wheelchair?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” he said. “I just know for a fact that she would.”

He seemed so sure of himself that I didn’t even argue with him. “Well, if that’s the case,” I said, “she’s not worth it.”

“That,” he said, “is definitely debatable.”

Prom was basically my life for the next couple of months. I always thought I was the kind of girl who was too cool to be excited about the prom, but there it was. On the night of the dance, Nana volunteered to help me get into my dress. She had gotten older, but still had as much energy as ever. “I’d tell you not to have sex tonight,” she said, “but I know it’s a lost cause.”

I didn’t say anything, just smiled at my reflection in the full length mirror. I looked hot.

“So who’s the lucky guy?” Nana asked me. “You going with that Fox boy from next door? The crippled one? You certainly spend enough time with him.”

“Jason?” I turned to look at Nana in surprise. Usually she was pretty perceptive about stuff. “You know he and I are just friends.”

“Sure,” Nana said.

“We are!” I insisted.

“Uh huh,” Nana said. “And I’d bet your inheritance that the boy thinks about you and only you when he pleasures himself.”

“Nana!” I blushed under my makeup. “He does not! We don’t feel that way about each other. We’ve known each other too long.”

Nana shrugged. “Believe what you want, Natasha.”

I felt a moment of hesitation. But really, I was pretty sure Jason wasn’t in love with me. I would have known if he felt that way about me. I’d have sensed it. Anyway, even if he did, there was nothing I could do about it now.

I had a great time at prom. My date made me the envy of pretty much every girl in the room, then afterwards I gave him what I promised in the men’s room. He even drove me home, and told me he’d call me, even though I wasn’t dumb enough to think he would.

I didn’t go straight home, though. I had an hour left on my prom night curfew, so instead I went next door and knocked on Jason’s first-floor window. I peered inside and saw he was in bed. With the lights out. He sat up in bed as I shimmied the window open. “Are you burglarizing me?” he asked.