Veneer (40 page)

She looked hurt by his interruption, but withdrew nonetheless.

Deron explained about his first day, about the markings that caught his attention and ultimately led him to the border of Easton and beyond.

“You left the city?” she asked. “Why would you do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I was hoping there’d be other people like me. I thought maybe they could help me get my power back. That was before I knew about the chips.”

“You could have gone to the hospital, maybe they—”

“I did, remember? Don’t you think they would have checked for that?”

Rosalia looked away.

“Besides, it’s only a problem if I live here in Easton.”

That got her attention.

Before she could question him, he said, “There’s a town full of people just like me. They don’t have veneers at all there. It’s... wonderful.”

“No,” said Rosalia, shaking her head. “That’s horrible. You can’t stay out there, Deron. You have to stay with
me
.”

Deron dropped his head, looked at his hands in his lap. “I don’t know if I can. You’re right about school. I wouldn’t even...” He sighed, looked up. “Dos Presas is the only place I can go.”

“But when will I see you?”

“That’s just it,” he replied, then paused. “I want you to come with me.”

Her mouth opened to reply, but whatever she wanted to say was lost to shock. She simply sat there staring at him.

Deron had never considered the possibility that Rosalia might not want to join him. Hadn’t he convinced her that veneers were a lie? Hadn’t he proved his love by risking his life to come back and get her?

“I thought,” he began, but Rosalia interrupted him.

“Reconciliation is the only thing that makes me special,” she said.

“Not to me.”

“It’s important to me. Maybe the most important—”

The world went mute.

Deron stared at her moving lips, but there was nothing to hear. His brain had shut off, unable to deal with the idea that reconciliation could be more important to Rosalia than his love. Who was this girl sitting in front of him? Did he know her at all? Dejected, he turned away, gazed into the darkened bedroom.

After a while, he heard her voice again. “It’s okay to cry,” she whispered. “I cried too when I thought I lost you.”

He was surprised to find tears on his cheeks.

“I thought you were dead.”

Deron tried to apologize, but his voice broke.

A minute of silence went by while they listened to the thunder.

“Did I ever tell you about my mom?” Rosalia didn’t look up; she wasn’t interested in Deron’s response. “My dad says she got sick when I was nine, but I never knew anything was wrong until a year later when she went into the hospital. Me and dad stayed with her the whole time.”

Deron shivered at the pain in her voice.

“She was brave, you know that? She never let on how much it hurt. My dad used to say she had an unbreakable veneer, that nothing in the world could bring it down. But that was how she wanted him to see her. With me... it was different. She was all smiles until he left. It didn’t matter how long he was gone, just to the bathroom or to get some food. When it was just her and me, she...”

He put his hand on her knee.

Rosalia looked up, her eyes devoid of the redness that usually accompanied tears. “She cried. Just... cried and didn’t stop until he came back. All I could do was sit there and not understand why my mom was so sad, why she kept breaking down when we were alone. And that’s how she went. She died crying.” Sniffling, she added, “She died sad.”

Death would be a welcome alternative to living without you, thought Deron. If he couldn’t take her with him, what good was it to go back?

“But, there was one time when she woke up and said she was sorry. And I asked her why.” She placed her hand on his. “She said she was sorry for leaving me.” Rosalia tugged his hand and when he didn’t respond, she reached for his chin and pulled his face towards hers. “Deron, I’m—”

“No,” he said, putting his fingers awkwardly to her lips. “Let’s just... talk about it tomorrow.”

She shook her head, “I can’t—”

“Please,” he implored her. “In the morning.”

Reluctantly, she took his hand in hers and said, “Okay, in the morning.”

“Thank you,” he said, drawing her into an embrace. Her wet hair felt cold against his face, but the rest of her was warm and welcoming. Then it slipped out, the words he had often imagined saying but never had the guts. “I love you,” he rasped, his lungs barely able to power the words.

“I love
you
,” she repeated.

And then her lips were against his and every ache and pain that had plagued his body melted away. It wasn’t the way he had imagined it, not with tears drying on his cheeks, not with the world one short night away from destruction. But those worries were in the impossible distance, chased there by the urgency of Rosalia’s kisses.

She pushed against him, made him lean back against the arm of the sofa until she was on top of him, her pelvis pressing painfully against his erection. He grabbed at her waist, tried to move her into a better position.

“Let’s go to the bedroom,” she suggested.

“It’s dirty,” he replied.

“I don’t care.” Rosalia slipped off the couch, took Deron’s hand, and pulled him to his feet.

52 - Rosalia

There was a hidden surface in her mind, one full of veneers, reconciliations of possible ways and places to lose her virginity. Most of them involved Deron, some starred just shadows, but common to them all was a beautiful setting, soft light, and a scent on the air that reminded her of home. Rosalia had been collecting the veneers since the moment she first understood the concept of sex and had rarely considered the possibility that from her list of potentials, she would ultimately select none and instead forge a new option, one that was less than preferable, one that smelled faintly of cigarettes.

Just inside the bedroom door, she stopped to reconcile a new scene on her wall of possibilities, a new veneer that didn’t have the grandeur of its predecessors. There wasn’t much to it: a dresser, a folded-up treadmill, an opaque window that barely held out the flashes of lightning, and finally, the bed. Rosalia felt one of Ilya’s points of no return slip past her like a warm breeze. Whether or not she really wanted it, whether or not she really owed him, it was going to happen right there on the worn sheets.

Deron busied himself with removing the covers from the mattress. He found a comforter in the closet and spread it out on the bed. All of this unfolded with a dreamy quality that made Rosalia question whether any of it was happening at all.

Was this the right place?

Rosalia looked around at the dresser that hadn’t been dusted in forever, that only needed a hasty veneer to be presentable. There were clothes scattered on the floor: shirts, pants, and a smattering of black socks. A preview of Deron in the future, she thought. It wasn’t difficult to imagine him following in his father’s footsteps. If they made it past high school and college to marriage, what then? He’d grow tired of her one day and run off with the first woman at work who would give him a blowjob in the supply closet. She tried to overlay that image on the young boy who was smoothing out the edges of the brown comforter. He
seemed
young, anyway. Maybe it was in his actions, the way he moved with purpose, the way his preparations dripped more with lust than with love.

Above the bed was the sole decoration on the wall, a woman in a meditative yoga pose. Completely naked, her tan skin was vibrant against the black backdrop. Her face looked completely content; her eyes were closed, unaware or uncaring of the artist who had reconciled her. Rosalia paused to take in what Deron’s dad obviously considered the ideal female and wondered if Deron held the same beliefs.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring up at her in anticipation. Deron wasn’t going to get up and lift her in his powerful arms and throw her on the bed. Nor would he whisper sweet words to entice her closer. It was unfair, she realized, to hold him to such high standards, to put him on the level of poets—tried and true authors who knew romance like Rosalia knew reconciliation.

It wasn’t how it should have been, but what was?

Perfection, Rosalia thought, as she crossed the room to stand in front of Deron’s slightly parted legs. Perfection was something that could be reconciled, given enough time and effort. But perfection was just another illusion, a mirage that sat on top of the truth, promising everything and delivering nothing.

His hands grabbed her hips roughly and pulled her close. Off balance, Rosalia put a hand on the wall, reaching over the nightstand with its humidor and lighter. She took the opportunity to dim the automatic lights down to the level she had often seen in her dreams, where Deron was still visible but the discrete curves of her body were not. Without breaking eye contact, she reconciled the nude woman away, banished her to the land of forgotten veneers. There was no need for competition at a time like this.

Rosalia shivered as Deron’s fingers slipped under the lip of her shirt and scraped against her stomach. His hands climbed her stomach, encountered her bra, and then drifted to the sides where his fingernails tickled. With a quick motion, she pulled her shirt off over her head. A definite flash of delight sparkled in his eyes and before it could fade, Rosalia reached behind her back and unhooked her bra. With her hands clasped to her chest, she waited, teasing. And just when it looked like he would reach out and force her, she relented, dropping the bra to the floor by her feet.

The reaction on his face made her smile. Deron had seen his share of topless women, even beyond those he had plastered on his walls. But those were all virtual. The difference between reconciliations and reality was miniscule, maybe as small as a single integer, but even Rosalia could see how much space that left. Infinite space. An infinite difference between boobs on a wall and her chest inches from his face.

“What?” she asked, as his hands slipped behind her back. He pulled her to his face, turning his head to the side. Pressing his ear against her stomach, Deron squeezed tightly.

“Nothing,” he whispered.

Rosalia wrapped her arms around his head, smoothed out the damp hair that had turned wavy from the humidity. Then he withdrew and she felt his lips on the side of her ribcage, moving forward with restraint and determination. The side of her chest. The left side of her breast. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the sensation.

He was a multi-tasker, that Deron. Even as his mouth covered her chest with kisses, his fingers pulled at the waistband on the back of her jeans. She could feel his fingers venturing downward, his thumbs diving beneath her underwear. Then his hands came forward, rested with clear intent on the buttons of her jeans.

“Are you waiting for permission?” she asked.

“Yes, please,” he said, lifting his eyes to her.

Rosalia bent slightly to kiss him. “You have it.” Another kiss on his forehead.

Her body lurched as he tugged at her pants, popping the metal clasps in a string of dull staccato notes. He struggled for a moment before Rosalia helped him push her jeans past her hips. Using his shoulders for balance, she wiggled one leg and then the other. Finally, she kicked them to the side.

Deron wasted no time drawing his fingertips up the sides of her legs, over the sudden goose bumps. Then he grabbed her, pulled her down onto the bed. They shared a long kiss, then another, until he retreated and stood up at the edge of the bed looking down at her like a hunter at his prey. She could see his thoughts as they happened, watched each one play out in his eyes.

Rosalia giggled at the way Deron undressed. He was sucking in his nonexistent gut and flexing undeveloped abdominal muscles, trying to impress her. He tossed his shirt away with flair, almost broke into a little striptease. Rosalia watched from the bed, lying back on her elbows with her eyes wide in encouragement. He paused after undoing his zipper as if she weren’t already aware of his erection. She made her eyebrows dance, urging him on, to which he responded by shedding his pants and underwear at the same time. He kicked one leg off and then used the other to fling them across the room. Time stopped for a moment as Rosalia took in the boy in front of her.

It would be something to reconcile, the first true image of Deron that she had ever collected. He was revealed, a lanky boy with pale skin and wavy hair hanging over his ears. One day, he would grow into his body, fill out in all the right places, and be the protector that she would need.

“Come here,” she commanded, suddenly feeling the need to have him next to her.

He obliged without hesitation, flopping down on his stomach beside her and wrapping his arm around her waist. She rolled onto her side and in the resulting embrace, they kissed.

Rosalia concentrated on his lips, only rejoining reality when he abandoned her mouth for her cheek or neck. It was then that she became aware of his hands, the one that was under her body and caressing her back, the other that was tracing lines on her hip, occasionally tugging at her underwear.

A crash of thunder drew their eyes to the window where a bright blue light was fading behind it. Rosalia took the opportunity to slide out of his arms and off the bed. She walked to the window and put her hand to it, reconciling the frosted veneer away so that she could see the world clearly. With her other hand, she dimmed the walls to nothing, so that the only light in the room came from the glow of the surrounding buildings and the electricity jumping from cloud to cloud.

Turning around, she stood between the window and the bed, aware he could only see her in silhouette. Shifting her hips back and forth a few times, she slid her underwear down her legs. Another flash of lightning illuminated Deron’s eyes.

Rosalia began to feel nervous as she climbed back into bed. She had never been completely exposed with Deron before and though she tried to fight it, she couldn’t help but feel subconscious about her body.