Page 17 of That's Not a Thing

“Uppity?” He laughed. “Real people use that word?”

“Says the man who used the wordwooyesterday,” I countered.

“Okay, smarty-pants, what is Columbia’s grand message, anyway?” He leaned away from the poster, resting back on his heels, paintbrush in midair.

“Isn’t it your responsibility as an RA at this fine institution to be aware of that information on your own?” I jumped off the bed and took the brush from his hand. “Honestly, I’m saving you from yourself here. I mean, you’d be better off doing something juvenile like Smurfs. Still the school colors, right? Or one of those cartoon ducks, Donald or Daffy—people might at least enjoy seeing those vestiges of their youth.”

“If you’re so in touch with the vibe of the student body, then why don’t you come up with a slogan instead, a catchy tagline that makes the hall more welcoming all semester long, just like Karen the SRA wants? Maybe we can work from there.”

“I don’t know,” I retorted defensively, as I looked down at his half-painted ship. Nasty thoughts about my father’s philandering lurked just beneath my composed exterior, pushing my internal temperature closer to boiling with every second that I considered the image beneath me. “But I do know it shouldn’t be some god-awful quote from theLove Boattheme song.” I flung the paint-brush upward for emphasis and accidentally sent several white droplets splattering onto Wesley’s face. “Oh, shit. Sorry!” I turned around to look for paper towels or a rag. If he was such a crafts whiz, he should have cleanup supplies, too, right? I started toward the box of tissues on the nightstand, but then, suddenly, I felt a powder or something landing on me, particles falling everywhere.

“Oh, no, you didn’t!” I spun around, crazed. “You dumped glitter on me? Are you kidding me? That shit’s going to stay with me for weeks. Are you insane? You’re dead meat.” I turned back toward the extra bed, where several large salt-shaker containers of silver glitter sat, and I raced toward them.

“No, no, no!” Wesley lunged toward me in some type of ninja wrestling move. He wrapped his arms around my hips as the top third of my body flopped down on the bare mattress and the rest of me landed on the floor. “No, you don’t!” he declared, holding me in place.

I was no match for his strength, but he was clearly trying to avoid hurting me, and I used his gentleness to my advantage. I wriggled upward in his hold until my fingers stretched just far enough to reach one container of glitter. I started twisting off the top as he let go of my legs and tried to wrench the bottle away from me. I held fast to my bounty, though, shielding the bottle underneath me and flipping off the cap before he could stop me. I twisted around to where he was crouched over me, pulled out the collar of his sweatshirt, and dumped the entire container’s worth of glitter inside.

“What?” He actually yelped. “You really just did that? Oh, you’re in for it now.” I was kind of still pinned under him against the bed, and he started reaching behind me for more supplies. I wiggled as best as I could, but he was so much bigger than me that my efforts were useless. He restrained me with his body while he fiddled to open something. I couldn’t imagine what crafty torture it might be, and I kept trying to squirm out from under him before he took his revenge. Suddenly, I felt him pushing something against my forehead.

“What? What did you do?” I was laughing and wriggling and clueless.

Wesley was laughing too, as he pulled back his hand and shouted, “Boo-yah! You’ve been marked.” He held out his hand and showed me what he was holding: a small, square stamper that he had pushed against my forehead.

“You marked me? With what? It better not be a raunchy picture!”

He looked at my forehead with a bit of surprise, appearing almost stricken for a second, and then erupted in a fit of laughter again. “No!” He climbed off me as he surrendered to his guffaws, loudly and with glee. I held my hand against my forehead, but I felt only glitter and a bit of residual wetness from the ink. “No!” He wheezed out the word through his laughs as he said it again, doubling over to rest his hands on his thighs like he couldn’t catch his breath.

I shot off the bed and ran to the little rectangular mirror in the corner of the room. I looked at my refection: glitter all over my face, my hair, my ears, and a big blue letter in the middle of my forehead.

“M?” I whirled around to face Wesley. “Like, forMeredith? Why is that so funny?” I demanded, as I wiped some sparkling flakes away from my eye.

“Um,Mfor ...mishap, ormistake? Ormy bad? I did it so wrong.” He laughed at himself. “Total fail. I meant to mark you with aWforWesley. Ha.Mformangled manhandling;missed maneuver.” He was still laughing as I rubbed at the ink, trying to determine how difficult it would be to remove from my face.

“It’s not so funny, you know,” I griped at him. “I have a friggin’ letter in the middle of my face. How aboutMas inmad? Or, if you still prefer the letterW, I can stand on my head and saywhat, as inwhat the fuck?”

Wesley just laughed harder at my outrage, and I felt my lips twitching despite myself.

“This ink better be washable. I can’t walk around with a letter on my forehead, whatever it’s for. Can you just ... can we just find something to get it off, please?”

“Sure,” he answered, clamping his lips together, clearly trying to stifle remaining laughter. “Just let me deal with this for a sec.” He pulled off his sweatshirt, revealing a fitted white T-shirt underneath. He pulled at the T-shirt a few times, shaking it out, and a shower of glitter fell out from the bottom. Seeing the fruits of my resistance did make me feel a little better. He was definitely going to be finding glitter in all his nooks and crannies for days to follow.

He tossed the sweatshirt onto the bare mattress and then went to the cabinet at the back of the room, where he pulled out a gray washcloth and a large pump full of hand sanitizer.

I became momentarily distracted by the Purell. “That’s an awfully large bottle of hand sanitizer. Are you a germophobe?”

“Not even a little,” he answered, as he pumped some sanitizer onto the washcloth. “With all the cooking, I’ve gotten a little compulsive about keeping my hands clean. Plenty dirty everywhere else, though.” His cheeks were still flushed from all the laughing. He walked over to me and raised the washcloth to wipe at the letter.

“I can do it,” I said, reaching for the cloth.

“I’ve got it,” he answered, pulling his hand back and looking down at me. “But I’m reluctant to get rid of that cute little letter, now that I’ve thought it through. TheMkind of works for me.” He paused as he stepped a little closer. “Mas inmine.” He looked down at me, and suddenly it was as if all the oxygen had vanished from the room and left only a charged energy in its place. “There’s only one problem,” he said as he moved a strand of my hair off my cheek and pushed it behind my ear.

“What’s that?” I looked up at him as the room beyond him began to blur.

“How can I call you mine before I’ve even kissed you?”

And then his lips were on mine. His face had kind of crashed into me before easing up, like it had come in for a landing where it belonged. I could feel the heat of his full lips against my own, pushing. Then I was opening my mouth, and his tongue was gliding over my bottom lip, into my mouth. As I closed my eyes and breathed him in, I was vaguely aware of glitter falling all around us, as if we were figurines inside our very own snow globe. Wesley overwhelmed my senses as he cupped the back of my head with one hand and used his body to push me backward until I was up against the wall. I could feel the length of him against me, could smell his soap or shampoo, something clean and spicy. As his tongue darted into my mouth over and over, I was glad of the wall behind me to help support me, since my legs didn’t seem to be working properly.

He moaned into my mouth, and the gravelly noise thrummed through my entire body. Suddenly, I was too hot; it was too much. I pushed against his chest, and he pulled away from me, surprised.