Wake (72 page)

“As long as Eric doesn’t react the same way.”

My brother already likes Willa—he’s tasted her food—and doesn’t say much when he finds out that she and I are a couple. He just tells us not to violate any of the downstairs furniture and asks if Willa is staying for dinner.

“Sure. I’ll make chicken pot pie.”

Eric turns to me. “Marry her.”

*

You’d think our parents don’t feed Eric, the way he eats. The chicken potpie (made with Elise’s gleeful assistance and Mom’s thank-God-I-don’t-have-to-cook support) gets devoured quickly. There are no leftovers and Dad jokes that we should have rationed such good food. I can see Eric eyeing the sweet potato soup made just for me and I shift my bowl away from him.

After dinner I take Willa upstairs, away from the hubbub of family life. I know she enjoys being in such an active home, but for the moment I want her all to myself.

Willa makes herself comfortable against the headboard with her knees pulled up. If I lay down so soon after a good meal I’ll fall asleep, so I sit in the desk chair instead and prop my feet up on the edge of the bed. I try to play footsies with her and she calls me a romantic dork.

“You’re not changing your mind about us already, are you?” I say it teasingly, but I do worry about that.

Willa could decide that she doesn’t want to be with Cancer Boy, and I wouldn’t be able to find fault with that reasoning. I know what a pain in the ass I am to deal with.

“Are you?” she chal enges.

“No. But if you decide you can’t put up with me…”

Willa rolls her eyes. “You still think you’re special for having baggage?”

“Whatever.” I hate admitting that she’s right. “So we’re really doing this?”

“So it would appear.”

“How are we going to tell your brother?” Frank probably won’t like it. He may even come down hard on Willa because of it. But she and I owe him that little bit of honesty, and there’s always the remote chance that Frank will be okay with it.

Somewhere in hell, a snowbal is laughing at me.

“We don’t have to tell him.”

“We should be honest. You live with him, after all.”

Willa shrugs it off. “If he’s not going to introduce me to his boyfriend, I don’t owe him the same.”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

We’ll come back to that issue later. Right now I want to do right by Willa’s guardian.

“It’ll be no different than introducing me to your parents.”

“I haven’t introduced
friends
to my parents in years, never mind boyfriends.”

“You’ve had several?” It’s a complicated sort of question. I can’t hold it against her—I’ve probably had as many girlfriends since the beginning of high school as she’s had boyfriends. But there’s the fact that she might have expectations of what a relationship is like, or leftover baggage from some jerk that didn’t do right by her, and that can complicate the present.

“Just three,” she answers quietly. “Maybe only two, if you want to get technical.”

“Who was the sort-of-boyfriend?”

Willa looks at me with a sarcastic tilt of her eyebrows. “What, you want his name?” I give her the you-

know-what-I-mean look and she relents. “He ran the Group I used to go to in St. John’s.”

“Like, he led it?”

“Yeah.”

Old enough to be a counselor, but not-quite-dating Willa. It doesn’t take much to figure out what was probably going on: some jackass counselor taking advantage of the people who came to him for help.

She can’t call him a boyfriend, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t do things.

“Did you sleep with him?” Immediately after the words are out I feel like a complete ass for saying them. I try to take them back, to apologize, but Willa doesn’t seem so offended by the question.

“Yes. I slept with the others, too, in case you’re wondering.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Sure.”

Willa smirks. “What about your girlfriends?”

“What about them?”

“Which one took your cherry?”

I consider how to answer that, but my red ears beat me to it.

“still a virgin, huh?” Willa snickers at my embarrassment and I hurry to correct her.

“Technical y.”

“What’s technically?”

“We played put-the-tip-in a few times, but it hurt her so we didn’t…”

Willa nods. She’s got her sense of amusement under control now. “Was she an everything-but kind of girl?”

Yes.

“Neither of us was ready to be doing…that. We just got carried away a few times.”

“You never know where you might end up,” she says philosophical y. I get up from my chair and sit next to her on the bed. Willa unbends her knees and rests her feet in my lap.

“Can I ask about your first time?”

“My first time what?”

“Sex.”

“Define sex.” I stare at her for a few seconds before I realize that it’s a serious question. She sees my delayed thought process and makes a suggestive hand motion.

“Yeah.”

“That was with one of the other people from Group. He was an anger management case.” I worry that he hurt her. “He was hearing impaired. People had bul ied him and he was a really angry guy as a result.

Picked a lot of fights.”

“And he was one of your boyfriends?”

Willa nods. “Ray. It was interesting. He could only hear loud noises so the whole thing was very…

tactile.”

I hate to picture Willa with another guy. But even worse than that mental image is the idea that she goes for guys with physical problems. One boyfriend with a hearing problem, another recovering from cancer…

“And your other boyfriend?”

Willa shrugs. “Just a guy I worked with at the music store. He was older than me. We were on-again off-again for awhile.” She rolls her eyes at some memory. “He liked to col ect things. His place was full of useless shit. He had a whole shelf of shrunken heads and he was really into the idea of a zombie apocalypse.” I can’t help but picture the stereotypical pierced, tattooed freak that would be into crap like that. Surely Willa could have done better than
that
guy.

She can do better than you too, idiot.

“Willa?”

“Yeah?”

“Did you report your counselor?”

She shakes her head. “No one would have believed me.”

“Of course they would have.” I reach out to touch her face, fixed into immobility because of this personal subject. Willa doesn’t react to the thumb I brush across her cheekbone.

“He got into counseling because he was a heavy drinker in college. Got behind the wheel wasted one night and ended up in a bad accident. His shtick was motivating kids not to end up like him. He had a whole speech laid out, about how being a paraplegic was the best thing that ever happened to him because it led him to help screwed up kids.”

Willa throws her hands up. “He was a good guy. Active in the community, went to church. People thought the sun shone out his ass. If I told people about him they’d think, ‘What? Steve?’ and he could refute my claim easily. He’s paralyzed—people look at guys in wheelchairs and think ‘oh, he’s harmless.’

Like he couldn’t possibly want sex, let alone have it, so what could he do to me?”

I see her point. I know firsthand how people look through those with physical problems, like we’re ghosts or witless children. But that means I also disagree with her, because I know just how much someone in that position can do to take advantage, and it’s no more or less than an able-bodied guy.

“He touched you.”

“I never said no.”

“Did you say yes?”

“Sometimes,” she admits. “It felt good. Distracting.” The corner of her mouth turns up in a sarcastic smirk. “Are you sure you still want me?”

“It’s not you that bothers me.”

“It’s them?”

I nod.

“None of them raped me, Jem. What happened was my responsibility, too.”

“Do you want me to hold it against you?”

“People generally do.”

“Does your mom know?”

“That her daughter is a slut? She doesn’t know the details, but she’s neither blind nor an idiot, so I’m sure she does.” Willa shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. She resents me anyway.”

I sigh. “You know, most people, when they realize they’ve dug themselves into a hole—they let go of the damn shovel.”

“But I’m almost to China,” she says with a fake pout.

“You think your parents
want
to resent you?”

Willa sits up and smiles without humor. “I moved here for a clean break—and to get away from my mom. Do you know how awful it feels to sit across the dinner table from someone who is clearly thinking
You killed my daughter
?” I don’t know how to answer that, so I don’t, and she continues. “You’re a bit of a dreamer, I know, thinking you can forgive me, but she won’t.”

“I don’t think you’d know what to do with yourself if you were forgiven.” The words hang there for a beat, and then Willa smirks.

“That’s the difference between me and you: I don’t dream of impossible things.”

Monday I wake up to find Elise tickling my ear. I swat her hand away and roll over, hoping that she’ll leave me alone to sleep some more. My alarm goes off and I smack it so hard the clock falls off the nightstand.

“Oh, good, you’re awake.”

“No I’m not.”

“Can you bring Willa home for dinner tonight?” she asks.

“She was just here last night.”

“So?”

“So she has a life, Lise. She might have to work tonight.”

Elise pouts. “I like having her around. You’re less of a grump when she’s here.” Elise kisses my forehead and hops off my bed. “At least invite her, okay?” she says as she leaves my room.

I force myself out of bed and into the shower. The warm water on my skin is the only consolation I get for climbing out of bed so freaking early. As I lather up, my penis begins its usual morning tease. It’s been happening for a few weeks now, on and off: the beginnings of an erection, which, if encouraged, completely vanishes. My dick is like a damned gopher, poking its head up and withdrawing at the first sign of attention. Not that the attention feels that good. The touches that used to excite me barely do anything anymore.

I lather up my thighs and crotch first, knowing that even the casual brushing against a washcloth is enough to kill my boner. But today it doesn’t. It twitches and hardens further until I’ve got a promising semi.

I don’t know what I’m expecting, but I take a few casual strokes anyway. My usual grip feels too gentle to be pleasurable, but anything tighter almost hurts. I lean against the shower wall and experiment a little, varying strokes and grip. Al of it feels foreign and mediocre compared to my pre-cancer activities. The only good thing I get out of it is the pride of knowing that I can still get it up—under the right circumstances. I don’t even come close to a climax, but I decide that’s probably for the best. My last one hurt like hell.

By the time I step out of the shower, my erection has wilted completely. As I towel off I still feel little tremors in my thighs and stomach, the last evidence of arousal. It doesn’t seem right that my knees should shake like that when I didn’t even get off, and I resent the way I have to sit down to put my feet through my underwear without falling over. Inconveniences like this should come with a screaming orgasm, damn it.

I stand up to get the rest of my clothes, and a sudden pain between my hips brings me to my knees. It’s like being kicked in the ball s, the way the pain radiates up my abdomen and makes me want to gag. My thighs tremor under my weight, and when I roll onto my side, holding my sore middle, I notice an unpleasant feeling of wetness.

My last shred of dignity is killed by the possibility that I might have pissed myself too. I worry that something might be wrong with my kidneys. The pain, this sudden accident…

I crawl to the bathroom to inspect the damage, not daring to try to stand on shaky legs. My boxers aren’t as wet as I first thought they were, and the wetness isn’t pee. It’s semen, smeared all over my crotch and thigh. I ejaculated—without a hard-on, without stimulation, without pleasure. God damn, it hurt.

I can’t decide which is worse: pissing my pants at eighteen, or jizzing in my shorts like a twelve-year-old.

I use the bathroom counter to pull myself to my feet and grab a washcloth to clean myself. That skinny weirdo stares back at me in the mirror.

You are such a freak.

I know.

Willa: May 29 to 31

Monday Three days of avoiding Paige’s prying questions and my streak goes bust. She corners me in Math during a work period with demands to know
everything
about Jem and me
.
When it started, how it started, what if he gets sick again? Is it weird that he is still pretty il ? Is he a good kisser? Have we done anything romantic? We discussed exes and my parental issues—oh so romantic. Paige even asks how we’re going to celebrate our one-week anniversary.

“Uh, I don’t do milestones.” And our one-week anniversary would fall on a therapy day. We’d spend it with Arthur and the other screwbal s. I try to joke about that with Jem when I see him at lunch, and to my horror he takes it seriously.

“We could do something after.”

“Did you miss the point of that story? Who the hell celebrates a one-week anniversary?”

Jem does that really annoying thing where he blatantly ignores me. “We could go to The Circle again.”

“But—”

“I bet they have a good lunch menu too.”

“Jem.”

“Or it might be nice enough that we could do some kind of picnic at the beach.”

“Jem—”

“Or would you rather have dinner together?”

I take a calming breath. “If I agree to any of the above will you stop listing stuff and get off this idea?”

Jem grins impishly. “Sure.”

“I vote lunch at The Circle.”

“Excel ent choice.” He cups my chin and plants a soft kiss on my forehead. I might have underestimated the breadth of his romantic streak.

When I get to the cafeteria I take one look at the table, at Paige’s eager look and the way she fidgets in her seat, and I know she’s thought of more questions to ask—in the presence of all our other friends who really should mind their own damn business. I buy my food and take it out of the cafeteria, begging an excess of homework that I need to finish. I end up on the picnic table, sitting on the top and resting my feet on the bench, watching the seagulls. Jem eventually ends up with me. He’s a little sore that I didn’t tell him about eating outdoors.